package aliases or an alternative package name for a Ruby gem

[Vít Ondruch]

Dne 28.3.2013 22:11, Dan Allen napsal(a):
> Is it possible to have an alias to a rubygem rpm or are there 
> exceptions to the rule that it must have the rubygem- prefix.
>
> I ask in relation to two packages.
>
> The first is rubygem-asciidoctor.
>
> This package provides both a Ruby library and a system executable. 
> It's a drop-in replacement for the asciidoc package (in most common 
> cases). People are expecting to be able to install an RPM named 
> "asciidoctor", just a few characters extra from "asciidoc" and get the 
> RPM. Instead, they have to be aware it's a rubygem and type 
> "rubygem-asciidoctor". Is it possible to have an alias package in this 
> case like in Debian where it will install rubygem-asciidoctor when you 
> request asciidoctor?

You you already found out, you can use Provides: for that.

However there are other options as well. If there is possible to split 
the application and the library part (i.e. the rubygem), there would be 
possible to provide either the application or the rubygem as as subpackage.

Note, that you can always do "yum install /usr/bin/asciidoctor" and you 
don't care what package it provides. At the end, you probably know what 
executable you want to use.

>
> The second case is a new package I'm submitting named Awestruct. This 
> is not a Ruby library at all, but strictly a system executable. Do I 
> have to name it "rubygem-awestruct" or can I name it simply "awestruct".

Well, if that is not Ruby library, then it is application, therefore you 
can apply the application guidelines [1]. Note that there is also 
following note in the ruby naming guidelines: "Application packages that 
mainly provide user-level tools that happen to be written in Ruby must 
follow the general NamingGuidelines instead."


Vít



[1] https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging:Ruby#Applications