[Fedora-packaging] %doc killing files installed below %_defaultdocdir

Mamoru Tasaka mtasaka at ioa.s.u-tokyo.ac.jp
Sat Feb 28 10:47:24 UTC 2009


Michael Schwendt wrote, at 02/28/2009 06:43 PM +9:00:
> The scenario:
> 
>   - tarball "make install" installs lots of documentation files in
>     %_defaultdocdir/%name-%version/
> 
>   - package %files list uses %doc attributes to place its own
>     selection of files in our default docdir
> 
>   => all doc files from "make install" are lost, because
>      %doc fills %_defaultdocdir/%name-%version/ from scratch
> 
> 
> In all earlier cases where applicable, I could convince the packager
> to not use %doc and instead create proper %files entries to include
> the files found in %_defaultdocdir/%name-%version/ -- as a bonus,
> rpmbuild would fail for any file not included in %files.
> 
> For the first time, a packager insists on overwriting/killing the
> installed files with his own conflicting %doc attributes.
> 
> 
> Conclusion: It works but bears risks. It would silently kill any
> additional documentation files built and installed by an upgrade, but not
> added by the packager manually via %doc. It could also be that the %doc
> statements create different subdirs (e.g. ./html/ versus placing the
> html files directory in the pkg's docdir root) which might conflict
> with paths compiled into an application.
> 
> What do other people think about this?
> 

I have already seen that many packagers (including myself) once
remove all installed document files and add them again
using %doc, and I have seen no problem for this method.

Mamoru




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