Re: spec files?

[jgotts linuxsavvy com]

In message <025836EFF856D411A6660090272811E61D0860 EMAIL>, Gregory Leblanc writ
es:

>Are there any established standards for creating spec files (the
>"instructions" for RPM packaging, if you will) in gnome CVS?  I notice that
>there's a great disparity in how the spec files are maintained, and some of
>the design decisions therein.  If there aren't any standards, should I
>propose some here?

What do you mean?  The spec files are fairly consistent.  At least one package
has fancy scripts that try to automatically determine file lists (e.g.
gnome-core), but most packages have spec files that list all of the installed
directories and new directories are added as needed.  I don't think the fancy
script idea is very good unless the package's directory tree is *very* stable.

Sometimes the spec files get a little bit tricky, like the recent problems with
the gnome-print spec file not properly installing the fontmap file.

Most of the spec files work fine on Red Hat 6.2 systems.  I have a batch of
Group: fixes I'm planning on committing, but they're cosmetic.  Recently I've
upgraded one of my systems to 7.0 and most of the spec files continue to work.
The biggest problem is Red Hat 7.0's compiler/glibc situation.  Some of the
spec files effectively list bare directories, which is bad style but still
produces working RPM's.  There are a couple of cases where spec files list
commented out files with notes to the effect that these commented out files
shouldn't be installed, but this doesn't help tar installs!  As far as style is
concerned, the spec files Eazel hackers have worked on are probably the best.
Whenever I check in spec file changes, I usually submit cosmetic updates
roughly following their style.

I guess the main overall inconsistency is the use of %defattr, but again,
%defattr is usually cosmetic.

I'm not sure whether the spec files work properly on Mandrake systems without
minor modifications.

John

--
John GOTTS <jgotts linuxsavvy com>  http://www.linuxsavvy.com/staff/jgotts