why do source rpms have "prep" dependencies?

[Sam Varshavchik]

Robert P. J. Day writes:

>   i wanted to poke around the mkinird source rpm so i downloaded it
> and installed it, and then went to "prep" it via its .spec file:
> 
> $ rpmbuild -bp mkinitrd.spec
> error: Failed build dependencies:
>         parted-devel >= 1.8.5 is needed by mkinitrd-6.0.15-1.fc8.i386
>         libdhcp4client-devel is needed by mkinitrd-6.0.15-1.fc8.i386
>         libdhcp6client-devel is needed by mkinitrd-6.0.15-1.fc8.i386
>         libdhcp-devel >= 1.9 is needed by mkinitrd-6.0.15-1.fc8.i386
>         device-mapper-devel is needed by mkinitrd-6.0.15-1.fc8.i386
> $
> 
>   i'm confused -- why would a source rpm have dependencies for doing a
> simple prep?  for actual building perhaps, but doesn't prepping
> involve simply unloading the tarball and applying the patches?

BuildRequires: specifies the requirements for the entire build cycle: prep, 
build, and install. The requirements are not broken down by the individual 
stage.

%prep, %build, and %install are ordinary shell scripts. So, when asked to 
run through a portion of the build cycle, the only thing that's known are 
the dependencies for the entire build cycle, so rpm enforces that.


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