Program to produce spec files

[Paul Smith]

On 6/12/06, Paul Howarth <paul at city-fan.org> wrote:
> >> > I am trying to learn how to build a rpm from the tarball without
> >> > checkinstall, and I am wondering whether there is already a program to
> >> > produce a tentative spec file to be afterwards changed and corrected
> >> > by the packager. Maybe a program like the one that I describe here
> >> > would increase the productivity of packager. Is there such a program?
> >>
> >> Many times I just use the template at http://www.rpm.org/howto/thefight/
> >> and go from there.  It has worked for pretty much every RPM I've ever
> >> had to build.
> >>
> >> To find out what the list of files is, I usually do the standard dance
> >> of:
> >>
> >> ./configure --prefix=/usr
> >> make
> >> make install DESTDIR /var/tmp/foo
> >>
> >> then I do
> >>
> >> cd /var/tmp/foo
> >> find . -type f | sed "s/^\.//" >> /path/to/specfile
> >>
> >> Go back and move the files into the right section of the spec file you
> >> are creating and then go to town.
> >
> > Thanks to all. I have just done the following:
> >
> > ./configure --prefix=/usr
> > make
> > su
> > make install DESTDIR=/var/tmp/videotrans
> > cd /var/tmp/videotrans
> >
> > but the directory /var/tmp/videotrans is empty!
> >
> > Strange, is not it?
>
> Not really. Perhaps the package you're building does not support DESTDIR
> in the Makefile. You shouldn't do "su" before the "make install" by the
> way. One of the points of installing the files into a buildroot such as
> /var/tmp/videotrans is that you don't need to be root to do it, and in
> the event of there being an issue with the install process, such as it
> not supporting DESTDIR properly, running it as non-root means you won't
> clobber any existing root-owned files when you try the install. It is
> unfortunately too late in this case.
>
> You shouldn't need to bother using find etc. to create the files list.
> Just leave it empty and try the rpm build. By default, rpmbuild will
> complain about installed files not included in the files list, and will
> tell you the path to each one of them, which saves you the trouble of
> having to do it yourself. You shouldn't just append this list of files
> as the files list either, as you'll end up with "unowned directories" -
> the files list should include any directory that is not part of the
> filesystem package or is not included in any of the packages that your
> package requires. Otherwise you'll get directories left behind if the
> package is erased.

Thanks, Paul. Tried the following:

./configure --prefix=/usr
make
make install DESTDIR=/var/tmp/videotrans

but got errors:

mkdir -p /usr/bin
/usr/bin/install -c zoomcalc /usr/bin/movie-zoomcalc
/usr/bin/install: cannot remove `/usr/bin/movie-zoomcalc': Permission denied
make[1]: *** [install] Error 1

Any ideas?

Paul