RPM building section of RHL's developer guide

[Jos Vos]

Hi,

> - Summary: I'd like to see an official suggestion as to whether a trailing
>   dot should be added or omitted. If would be prettier when all go by at
>   install time :-)

Agreed.  I propose: summary without a trailing dot, description contains
one or more complete sentences (or even paragraphs), thus with dots.

> - Requires vs. PreReq: AFAIK, both are now handled identically and using
>   PreReq shouldn't be needed anymore. Jeff can correct me if I'm wrong.
>   For explicit requirements of the %pre/%post scriplets, should the
>   "Requires(pre):" way be suggested from now on or not?

I didn't know it was handled the same, as the semantics are different.
But I can't find the Ultimate Reference Guide for RPM right now ;-) ;-),
so I don't know yet.

> - The $1, 0 and 1 from the scriplets should either be all or none quoted
>   to keep consistent. AFAIK, $1 is always present and is an integer, so
>   quoting is not required.

True, and there is more: "=" *and* "-ge" are used, the first is an operator
for string comparison, the second is an operator for number comparison.
I assume it's always a number, you should use "-eq" i.s.o. "=".

> - The %defattr could show the default directory mode too, by using
>   %defattr(-, root, root, 0755) instead (or replace 0755 with - maybe)
>   as directories might get mode 775 depending on the user's umask.

Umask is set by rpm, but I might be wrong.

> 5) "The package may obsolete itself"... I really don't get that one!

Older version, maybe?

> 6) "If a file from the package conflicts with a file from another package
>     in the Red Hat Linux project, the package must use Conflicts: to
>     specify it in the spec file."
>     Should this be "Conflicts:" with the file or the package name?

Package name, I guess, as it would otherwise conflict with itself.


For the rest I agree with most comments.  It's nice to see that
others also think in so much detail about spec files, including a
discussion about a dot at the end of the summary line ;-).

-- 
--    Jos Vos <jos at xos.nl>
--    X/OS Experts in Open Systems BV   |   Phone: +31 20 6938364
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