HELP (RPM - what package a file is from)

[Patrick O'Callaghan]

On Fri, 2008-11-28 at 15:53 +0000, Anne Wilson wrote:
> On Friday 28 November 2008 14:20:57 Patrick O'Callaghan wrote:
> > On Thu, 2008-11-27 at 20:49 +0000, Anne Wilson wrote:
> > > On Thursday 27 November 2008 19:51:57 Todd Zullinger wrote:
> > > > The options work, but they must be specified correctly.  For example,
> > > > the --provides and --whatprovides options are "select-options" which
> > > > should be specified after the -q or --query option.  The man page does
> > > > show this IMO.
> > > >
> > > > SYNOPSIS
> > > >    QUERYING AND VERIFYING PACKAGES:
> > > >        rpm {-q|--query} [select-options] [query-options]
> > > > [...]
> > > >    select-options
> > > >         [PACKAGE_NAME] [-a,--all] [-f,--file FILE]
> > > >         [-g,--group GROUP] {-p,--package PACKAGE_FILE]
> > > >         [--fileid MD5] [--hdrid SHA1] [--pkgid MD5] [--tid TID]
> > > >         [--querybynumber HDRNUM] [--triggeredby PACKAGE_NAME]
> > > >         [--whatprovides CAPABILITY] [--whatrequires CAPABILITY]
> > >
> > > Hold on - I think the missing key is there.  Are you saying that
> > > parameters with { } are obligatory?  No-one has ever mentioned that
> > > before in anything I've read.  That would explain a lot.
> >
> > IIRC this is pretty standard syntax for man pages.
> >
> But one that I had obviously missed.  Maybe that's why I find some man pages 
> absolutely fine, but can't make any sense of others.
> 
> IMO this comes under the heading of 'some people have "always" known that and 
> some people will never find out' :-)

Indeed. In fact I don't know if it's even documented anywhere.
man-pages(7) describes the format of man pages, but doesn't say anything
about "{}" that I can see (look under SYNPOSIS).

poc