Latest revision as of 17:21, 19 May 2010

This draft updates the existing Packaging/RPMMacros page in the following ways:

Use an admon/important template to highlight the differences in EPEL 4 & 5
change %{_optflags} to %{optflags}, 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 use old "Fedora Core" terminology.
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
Remove old and outdated links to Mandriva/PLD macro conversions

Valid RPM Macros

Here are the definitions for some common specfile macros as they are defined on Fedora 13 (rpm-4.8.0-14.fc13). 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
%{_libdir}            %{_exec_prefix}/%{_lib}
%{_libexecdir}        %{_exec_prefix}/libexec
%{_sbindir}           %{_exec_prefix}/sbin
%{_sharedstatedir}    /var/lib
%{_datarootdir}       %{_prefix}/share
%{_datadir}           %{_datarootdir}
%{_includedir}        %{_prefix}/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
%{_lib}               lib (lib64 on 64bit multilib systems)
%{_docdir}            %{_datadir}/doc
%{buildroot}          %{_buildrootdir}/%{name}-%{version}-%{release}.%{_arch}
$RPM_BUILD_ROOT       %{buildroot}

Build flags macros and variables

These macros should be used as flags for the compiler or linker. Note that the values for the macros below reflect the settings on Fedora 13 (i686) with redhat-rpm-config installed.

%{__global_cflags}   -O2 -g -pipe -Wall -Wp,-D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=2 -fexceptions -fstack-protector --param=ssp-buffer-size=4
%{optflags}          %{__global_cflags} -m32 -march=i686 -mtune=atom -fasynchronous-unwind-tables
$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