RPM and files installed xdg-utils

[Daniel Yek]

Thank you all for responding.

More questions below...

At 12:40 PM 1/17/2007, Michael Schwendt wrote:
>On Wed, 17 Jan 2007 12:26:32 -0800, Daniel Yek wrote:
>
> > How do I make sure that files created during rpm installation are being
> > recorded as belonging to the package? I'm not sure, but I think if rpm
> > %post install script created some symbolic links, they might not be
> > recorded as installed by the rpm package. (Or are they?)
> >
> > How RPM keeps track of files created by scripts? Does it trap system calls
> > to record all created files and symbolic links? If not, what one needs to
> > do to make sure that all files and symbolic links created are being
> > accounted for properly?
>
>You "touch" them in the %install section of your spec file and
>%ghost them in the %files section. That way they belong into the
>package. And upon package removal RPM will remove the files. Just
>make sure you don't %ghost any files which are filled with important
>contents at run-time. It might be unexpected by the user if such
>files (e.g. databases) are removed automatically when the package
>is uninstalled.

Thanks for the "%ghost", but is it documented? I didn't find it in the 
following URL after a quick search:
http://www.rpm.org/max-rpm/ch-rpm-inside.html

Is %ghost supposed to be just like %file, but won't show up in "rpm -qpl" ?

Regarding "touch"...Can one create redundant list of file in %file without 
actually doing anything with it in %install? What would happen to "rpm 
-qpl" in this case?

Lets say a software package is utilizing utilities to install icon 
resources, etc. Lets says xdg-utils is bundled and used during RPM 
installation.

http://portland.freedesktop.org/xdg-utils-1.0/

xdg-utils scripts installed a bunch of files at unknown locations. What can 
I do to have those files remain tracked? If I can't read the scripts and 
create a list of all possible installation locations, is there something 
else I can do?

Then, assume that a future Fedora release preinstalled a (system-wide) 
xdg-utils package. Now, as designed, this system-wide xdg-utils installs 
icons to, then, finalized/spec-ed standard locations (a assumption; and the 
finalized locations are, of course, different from the current locations, 
which isn't ideal). Also, as designed, it is the system-wide copy of 
xdg-utils is invoked during the installation of a package released some 
times ago. So, there is no way the developer can predict where the future 
system-wide xdg-utils will install the files to.

Is there a solution for this scenario? If not, what is the best course of 
action?

Thanks.


-- 
Daniel Yek