[GuidelinesChange] Prepping BuildRoot For %install

Tom "spot" Callaway tcallawa at redhat.com
Tue Apr 10 14:19:37 UTC 2007


On Mon, 2007-04-09 at 23:44 -0400, Tom Lane wrote:
> "Tom \"spot\" Callaway" <tcallawa at redhat.com> writes:
> > It is important to properly prepare the BuildRoot in the %install
> > section of your package before it is used. Every Fedora package MUST
> > have an %install section that begins with either: 
> > %install
> > rm -rf %{buildroot}
> > or 
> > %install
> > rm -rf $RPM_BUILD_ROOT
> 
> Just outta curiosity, why is it not considered an RPM bug that every
> specfile has to take care of this detail?  Seems like it'd be trivial
> to fix it once instead of memorializing this oversight in every package
> till the end of time.

This is absolutely an RPM bug. However, since RPM is riddled with bugs,
we can either hope they get fixed, or work around them with guidelines
until they get fixed.

Historically, filing bugs against items like this have been futile since
it would "change RPM's behavior", as broken as it may be.

I've personally had my fun with trying to submit RPM patches, and I'm
not interested in that sort of pain again. If you're motivated to get
this fixed in Fedora's RPM, please, feel free. We'll be happy to remove
any guidelines made obsolete by bugfixes.

~spot




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