[Fedora-packaging] Phase out buildroot?

[Toshio Kuratomi]

On 05/20/2009 11:39 PM, Chuck Anderson wrote:
> On Wed, May 20, 2009 at 11:05:57PM -0700, Toshio Kuratomi wrote:
>> On 05/20/2009 08:47 PM, Chuck Anderson wrote:
>>> On Wed, May 20, 2009 at 05:46:18PM -0700, Toshio Kuratomi wrote:
>>>> Since the rpm version shipped in Fedora 10 and beyond defines a default
>>>> buildroot, I think we can start phasing out the current buildroot
>>>> Guideline.  How about adding this to the start of the buildroot tag
>>>> section?
>>> I'd be concerned about accidentally blowing away people's systems if
>>> they take a src.rpm from Fedora and try to build it on an older Fedora
>>> or non-Fedora system.
>>>
>>> %install
>>> rm -rf $RPM_BUILD_ROOT
>>> ...
>>>
>>> %clean
>>> rm -rf $RPM_BUILD_ROOT
>>>
>> What will this evaluate to on older systems?  Won't it be "rm -rf\n"?
>> Which actually won't remove anything?
>
> Last I knew, it will evaluate to / and all hilarity will ensue.  Once
> upon a time, the recommendation was to use something like this to
> prevent such disasters:
>
> [ "$RPM_BUILD_ROOT" != "/" ]&&  rm -rf $RPM_BUILD_ROOT
>
> That fell out of favor when the BuildRoot: tag was mandated in Fedora
> packages.  If we remove the BuildRoot: requirement and instead rely
> upon the new rpmbuild default, we risk obliterating unsuspecting
> users' systems.
>
> I have a better idea.  How about we get rpmbuild to automatically do
> the moral equivalent of "[ "$RPM_BUILD_ROOT" != "/" ]&&  rm -rf
> $RPM_BUILD_ROOT" internally before starting %install and %clean, and
> remove all such boilerplate from all Fedora specs.  Then we can remove
> the BuildRoot: requirement as well, and older/non-Fedora systems will
> just break/pollute/fail to cleanup the build instead of blowing away
> the users system, a much lesser evil IMO.
>
I thought that Panu posted something about this actually being the case 
but I can't find it in a quick look at the code in git.  Perhaps that 
was an idea rather than actually coded or perhaps my memory is wrong.

Panu care to weigh in on this ?

-Toshio