[Fedora-packaging] disttag

[Dag Wieers]

On Fri, 25 Feb 2005, Carwyn Edwards wrote:

> Dag Wieers wrote:
> 
> > On the other hand the Distribution-header does not make up for unique
> > filenames, which I think is in favor of mandatory disttags. (Although
> > filenames could be renamed to reflect the disttag, without 'polluting' the
> > release-tag).
> 
> Do you mean something like this:
> 
> %{name}-%{version}-%{release}.%{disttag}.%{arch}.rpm
> 
> .. where %{disttag} is _not_ an overloaded part of the "Release:" but rather a
> distinct entity derived from build environment - a bit like %{arch} perhaps
> with a tag to hard wire it in the spec if required, say "DistTag: any" for
> agnostic (I'm creating a new RPM tag in this example rather than changing the
> semantics of "Distribution:").
> 
> This would relate well  to my previous suggestion where %{disttag} would not
> be evaluated as part of the release on version comparisons but rather prior to
> the epoch: %{disttag}:%{epoch}:%{version}-%{release} (hmm, maybe after the
> epoch would be better?).

The problem with such a scheme of course is that it requires a change to 
RPM (and all RPM related tools), and for that reason alone is not backward 
compatible.

If you want packages from a certain distribution (or repo) to have a 
higher priority than other packages disregarding the EVR (or VR). I think 
that functionality is best put into Yum, Apt, Smart or up2date. Because 
they understand the notion of repositories.

--   dag wieers,  dag at wieers.com,  http://dag.wieers.com/   --
[all I want is a warm bed and a kind word and unlimited power]