%{?dist}, recommended or optional?

[Michael Schwendt]

On Sat, 07 Jan 2006 19:33:45 -0800, Michael A. Peters wrote:

> When I package development snapshots - I like to do
> 
> 0%{?dist}.n.%{cvs_release}
> 
> where n is an integer number.
> 
> I increment the n with every spec file (in case I need to change to an
> older checkout) - and when a final release is made, everything after
> %{?dist} is dropped - and the 0 I bump to a 1.
> 
> See http://mpeters.us/silgraphite/silgraphite.spec
> 
> I don't know that that is the best way to do it - but it works well for
> me.

Move the dist tag to the very right, where it doesn't compete with
ordinary release numbers.  You are mixing different concepts here.
The "0." prefix shall be enough for any pre-release version to be
seen as older than the final release '1'. A user, who would rebuild
your package from source would/might end up without the dist tag
near the front. The rebuilt package would be seen as newer than
all your snapshots.