On Wed, 13 Oct 2004 00:51:47 -1000, Warren Togami wrote:
In addition to the above, a %{pyver} (primarily for python-abi) and a couple of incdir (arch dependent/ arch independent) macros would be welcome.
Keep in mind that normally stuff like %{pyver} is a horrible sin in RPM packaging because you cannot depend on stuff being in the buildroot during RPM spec parsing. However in the case of perl and python we do it anyway because they are within the minimum package set.
Querying perl and python: OK Querying mozilla or qt : BAD
If you buildrequire Mozilla or Qt, you can query them without problems, of course. Because when they're not installed in the build environment, rpmbuild fails. And when they're installed, querying them works.
Well, yes, but that's not querying them, thats a standard rpm feature which is perfectly valid.
Whats bad is doing something like this (just an example, no real life package should have such nonsense):
%build if [ -d /usr/lib/mozilla-1.7.3 ] then; echo "Yeah, let's fiddle with mozilla-1.7.3." else echo "Dang, no mozilla-1.7.3 found, i'm going to break badly now." fi
That's bound to cause problems in the long run, although this is still a fairly harmless example. One could do much worse stuff with things like that.
So the basic rule: Use the mechanisms that rpm offers you to the fullest extent. And if something is missing, try to not rely on any setup you think might be there. I just remember one package which checks if /etc/mnttab is there and relys on that check to enable some disk specific modules etc...
Read ya, Phil
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