why do source rpms have "prep" dependencies?

[Michael Schwendt]

On 11/09/2007, Peter Gordon wrote:
> On Sun, 2007-09-09 at 10:04 -0400, Sam Varshavchik wrote:
> > %prep, %build, and %install are ordinary shell scripts. So, when asked to
> > run through a portion of the build cycle, the only thing that's known are
> > the dependencies for the entire build cycle, so rpm enforces that.
>
> Well, we can already include seperate %preun, %postun, %pre, and %post
> dependencies using Requires(preun):, Requires(postun), et al.; can we do
> something similar for %prep, %build, and %install?

For what benefit?

Even if to be used in conjunction with --short-circuit rpmbuilds,
%install comes after %build, which comes after %prep. So, all build
requirements must be met. And remember, there's also --nodeps for
rpmbuild.

The scriptlet Requires can be useful for sorting the order in which
packages are installed/updated/erased.