Archive:PackagingDrafts/RPMMacros sharedstatedir optflags and admonitions

I propose the following changes:

• Use an admon/important template to highlight the differences in EPEL 4 & 5
• change %{_optflag} to %{optflag}, which seems to be right according to rpm --eval and was mentioned in the discussion page of the original site
• Do not mention Fedora 10 or older, since it is EOL
• Do not call Fedora 11 "Fedora Core 11", Core and Extras merged
• Explain use case for rpm directory macros
• reorder macros: first macros to be used in specs, then the macros to be used in rpmbuild
• Add introductions to some sections
• add %buildroot
• add $RPM_OPT_FLAGS, $RPM_BUILD_ROOT - they are variables and not macros, but serve the same use case
• fix alignment in build flag macros

Uncovered issues:

• %{opflags} are out of sync for F12 (and probably F11, because there -march is set to i586 afaik):
  • x86_64: -O2 -g -pipe -Wall -Wp,-D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=2 -fexceptions -fstack-protector --param=ssp-buffer-size=4 -m64 -mtune=generic
  • i386: -O2 -g -pipe -Wall -Wp,-D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=2 -fexceptions -fstack-protector --param=ssp-buffer-size=4 -m32 -march=i686 -mtune=atom -fasynchronous-unwind-tables
• having two macros for the same path is imho bad: %{_var} vs %{_localstatedir} and %{_usr} vs %{_prefix}

Valid RPM Macros

Here are the definitions for some common specfile macros as they are defined on Fedora 11 (rpm-4.7.0-1.fc11). For definitions of more macros, examine the output of "rpm --showrc". To see the expanded definition of a macro use the command rpm --eval "%{macro}". Note that neither command will take into account macros defined inside specfiles, but both will take into account macros defined in your ~/.rpmmacros file and macros defined on the command line.

Keep in mind that some of these macros may evaluate differently on older Fedora or EPEL releases.

Macros mimicking autoconf variables

%{_sysconfdir}        /etc
%{_prefix}            /usr
%{_exec_prefix}       %{_prefix}
%{_bindir}            %{_exec_prefix}/bin
%{_lib}               lib (lib64 on 64bit systems)
%{_libdir}            %{_exec_prefix}/%{_lib}
%{_libexecdir}        %{_exec_prefix}/libexec
%{_sbindir}           %{_exec_prefix}/sbin
%{_sharedstatedir}    /var/lib
%{_datadir}           %{_prefix}/share
%{_includedir}        %{_prefix}/include
%{_oldincludedir}     /usr/include
%{_infodir}           /usr/share/info
%{_mandir}            /usr/share/man
%{_localstatedir}     /var
%{_initddir}          %{_sysconfdir}/rc.d/init.d

Differences in EPEL 4 & 5

• %{_initddir} does not exist in EPEL 4 & 5, use the deprecated %{_initrddir} macro instead
• %{_sharedstatedir} expands to %{_prefix}/com in EPEL 4 & 5

Other macros and variables for paths

These macros should be used for paths that are not covered by the macros mimicking autoconf variables. The %{_buildroot} macro or the $RPM_BUILD_ROOT variable is the directory that should be assumed to be the root file system when installing files. Is is used as the value for the DESTDIR variable.

%{_var}               /var
%{_tmppath}           %{_var}/tmp
%{_usr}               /usr
%{_usrsrc}            %{_usr}/src
%{_docdir}            %{_datadir}/doc
%{_buildroot}         %{_buildrootdir}/%{name}-%{version}-%{release}
$RPM_BUILD_ROOT       %{_buildroot}

Build flags macros and variables

These macros should be used as flags for the compiler or linker.

%{_global_cflags}    -O2 -g -pipe
%{optflags}          %{__global_cflags} -m32 -march=i386 -mtune=pentium4 # if redhat-rpm-config is installed
$RPM_OPT_FLAGS       %{optflags}

RPM directory macros

The macros are usually used with rpmbuild --define to specify which directories rpmbuild should use, it is unusual to use them within SPEC files.

%{_topdir}            %{getenv:HOME}/rpmbuild
%{_builddir}          %{_topdir}/BUILD
%{_rpmdir}            %{_topdir}/RPMS
%{_sourcedir}         %{_topdir}/SOURCES
%{_specdir}           %{_topdir}/SPECS
%{_srcrpmdir}         %{_topdir}/SRPMS
%{_buildrootdir}      %{_topdir}/BUILDROOT

Differences in EPEL 4 & 5

• %{_buildrootdir} does not exist in EPEL 4 & 5

Reference

Here are macros from other distributions to aid you in package conversion:

• PLD RPM Macros
• Mandrake RPM Macros