This page is intended to be a repository of "gotchas", and other little quick fixes, that aren't rare but are just uncommon enough that you forget how you did it last time:) This page is NOT part of the official packaging guidelines.
Module version dependencies too much specific
Rounding approach
When writing (Build)Requires, you can find the package requires or uses module
Foo in very specific version (e.g. use Foo 0.2001;). If you just
copy the version to spec file (Requires: perl(Foo) >= 0.2001) you
can get unresolved depencecies because packaged perl-Foo's provide shorter
version numbers (e.g. perl(Foo) = 0.16, perl(Foo)
= 0.20, perl(Foo) = 0.30).
This is caused by the fact that Perl processes version strings as fractional numbers, but RPM as integers (e.g. RPM compares 0 to 0, and 2001 to 30).
There is no right solution. Current practice is to round dependency version up
onto the the same number of digits as package version. (e.g. Requires:
perl(Foo) >= 0.2001 becomes Requires: perl(Foo) >= 0.21).
Of course this approach is meaningful only if current perl-Foo package has at
least version 0.21.
If required package does not exist in requested version, the dependency
package must be upgraded before (if upstream provides newer (e.g. version
0.30)). If highest upstream provides 0.2001 only, dependency package can be
upgraded to provide perl(Foo) = 0.2001, however its maintainer must keep using
augmented precision in future versions (e.g. instead of Provides:
perl(Foo) = 0.30 she must write Provides: perl(Foo)
= 0.3000) not to break RPM version comparison (each newer packager must
have EVR string greater than previous one).
Dot approach
In the feature, one could consider different less error-prone approach: Instead of version rounding, one could transform each fraction version digit to next level version integer.
E.g. CPAN 12.34 became RPM 12.3.4. This method preserves ordering of fraction numbers, allows extending to more specific numbers and does not request package maintainer to remember number of augmented digits he needs to support in his SPEC file.
One must note that transition to this method can happen only at major version number change (the part before decimal dot) or at cost of new RPM epocha number.
See perl-Geo-IPfree.spec for live example.
Version contains underscore
Sometimes it is needed update to development release marked with something like _01. To be 100% sure, you should use in spec file:
%real_version 1.32_01 Version: 1.32.1
Beware underscores in code if not evaluated can produce warnings and program aborts in strict mode (examplary bug):
$VERSION = "1.32_01";
This must be solved by adding eval and reported to upstream as a bug (see Version Numbering in perlmodstyle(1)):
$VERSION = "1.32_01"; $VERSION = eval $VERSION;
Makefile.PL vs Build.PL
Perl modules typically utilize one of two different buildsystems:
- Ext
Utils::MakeMaker - Ext
Utils::Build
The two different styles are easily recognizable: ExtUtils::MakeMaker employs the Makefile.PL file, and it's the 'classical' approach; ExtUtils::Build is the (relatively) new kid on the block, with support for things MakeMaker cannot do. While the ultimate choice of which system to employ is clearly in the hands of upstream, if Build.PL is present in a distribution, the packager should employ that build framework, unless there is an awfully good reason otherwise.
Tests
Tests / build steps requiring network access
This happens from time to time. Some package's tests (or other steps, e.g. signature validation) require network access to return success, but their actual execution isn't essential to the proper building of the package. In these cases, it's often nice to have a simple, transparent, clean way of enabling these steps on your local system (for, e.g., maximum testing), but to have them disabled when actually run through the buildsys/mock.
One easy way to do this is with the "--with" system of conditionals rpmbuild can handle. Running, e.g., "rpmbuild --with network_tests foo.src.rpm" is analagous to including a "--define '_with_network_tests 1'" on the command line. We can test for the existance of that conditional, and take (or not take!) certain actions based on it.
See, e.g., the perl-POE-Component-Client-HTTP spec file for an example.
One way to indicate this inside your spec is to prepend a notice along the lines of:
# some text # about the change
Then, at the point of the operation, e.g. "make test", that needs to be disabled silently under mock to enable the package build to succeed:
%check
%{?!_with_network_tests:rm t/01* t/02* t/09* t/11* t/50* t/54*}
make test
Now to execute local builds with the network bits enabled, either call rpmbuild with "--with network_tests" or add the line "%_with_network_tests 1" to your ~/.rpmmacros file. Remember to test with _with_network_tests undefined before submitting to the buildsys, to check for syntax errors!
Tests require X11 server
Some Perl bindings to graphical toolkits deliver tests that require access to X11 server. rpmbuild was changing his opinion on DISPLAY environment variable. Currently the variable is unset when running locally or in Koji. If you want to run X11 tests, and you want it, you can do it using Xvfb X11 server implementation:
%global use_x11_tests 1
%if %{use_x11_tests}
# X11 tests:
BuildRequires: xorg-x11-server-Xvfb
BuildRequires: xorg-x11-xinit
BuildRequires: font(:lang=en)
%endif
%check
%if %{use_x11_tests}
xinit /bin/sh -c 'rm -f ok; make test && touch ok' -- /usr/bin/Xvfb :666
test -e ok
%else
make test
%endif
Here the X11 tests are conditionalized by use_x11_tests boolean macro. Real example can be found in perl-Padre or perl-Tk-Pod spec files.
Alternatively you can use xvfb-run script provided with xorg-x11-server-Xvfb package which propagates client exit code properly:
%check
%if %{use_x11_tests}
xvfb-run -a make test
%else
make test
%endif
Autogenerated dependencies
Filtering autogenerated dependencies does not work
Unfortunately rpm offers (and removes) filtering mechanism on each new release and not all supported mechanisms are compatible.
If you package for Fedora 16 and higher, use %__*_exclude macros. If you package for F15 and older, use %filter_* macros.
If you want to have unified spec file for all Fedoras, you can use both of them, but remember %__*_exclude style inhibits %filter_* style and %__*_exclude style is supported since rpm 4.9. If you use %perl_default_filter, you need to put it in between the two styles to take effect properly (see some early Fedora 16 packages for examples).
Since Fedora 16, %perl_default_filter uses %__*_exclude style, so if you use %perl_default_filter, you need to define filtering in the %__*_exclude style too.
Some CPAN packages contain native code and the native code can provide Perl module. E.g. XS file contains:
MODULE=Wx PACKAGE=Wx::Process
and it's compiled into /usr/lib64/perl5/vendor_perl/auto/Wx/Wx.so. When including the main package Wx, the Wx::Process becomes accessible and other module can use it:
perl -MWx -e 'use base qw(Wx::Process);'
Problem is rpmbuild discovers Requires for perl(Wx::Process), but does not discover the Provides. This leads to unresolvable dependencies in RPM repository.
Until rpmbuild will be fixed, you need to provide modules declared only in shared objects manually:
%package Wx Provides: perl(Wx::Process)
You can use a script to do it for you:
cd Wx-* for i in `grep -r "PACKAGE=" * | cut -d " " -f 2 | sed 's|PACKAGE=|perl(|g' | grep "Wx::" | sort -n |uniq`; do printf "Provides: $i)\\n"; done
This problem is described in bug #675992.
Autoprovides are missing version specifier
Not all submodules define their version. This is not good for current RPM.
Then rpmbuild generates following Provides:
$ rpm -q --provides -p perl-Statistics-Basic-1.6602-1.fc14.noarch.rpm perl(Statistics::Basic) = 1.6602 perl(Statistics::Basic::ComputedVector) perl(Statistics::Basic::Correlation) […] perl-Statistics-Basic = 1.6602-1.fc14
According Paul Howarth, unversioned Provides satisfies versioned requires. E.g. if perl-Foo requires perl(Statistics::Basic::ComputedVector) >= 2.000 it will be satisfied by perl-Statistics-Basic-1.6602 because it provides perl(Statistics::Basic::ComputedVector).
IMHO, it sounds like a bug in RPM, you can patch it by following Provides filtering:
%filter_from_provides s/^\(perl(Statistics::Basic\>[^=]*\)$/\1 = %{version}/
It will add the version specifier equaled to package version to each sub-module missing any version specifier.
Bugs in RPM dependency generator
If you find a bug or shot-coming in dependency generator, report it into Bugzilla for rpm component, make proper subject (e.g. write prefix Perl dependency generator:), and make the bug blocking bug 694496 ((requirements, rpm) rpm requirements - provides/requires (tracker)).
rpmlint errors
file-not-utf8
Problem
W: perl-Class-MakeMethods file-not-utf8 /usr/share/man/man3/Class::MakeMethods::Docs::ReadMe.3pm.gz W: perl-Class-MakeMethods file-not-utf8 /usr/share/man/man3/Class::MakeMethods::Attribute.3pm.gz
Solution
Convert the errant file to UTF-8. Assuming the codepage the file is currently under is ISO-8859-1, this will do the trick (often by reviewers wanted in %prep section, in %build for generated man pages):
cd blib/man3 for i in Docs::ReadMe.3pm Attribute.3pm ; do iconv --from=ISO-8859-1 --to=UTF-8 Class::MakeMethods::$i > new mv new Class::MakeMethods::$i done
If you are using iconv, you should be BR'ing it, but it's in glibc-common, which is installed anyway...
Problem
W: private-shared-object-provides /usr/lib64/perl5/vendor_perl/auto/File/Map/Map.so Map.so()(64bit)
The Map.so is a private shared library dynamically loaded by XS loader when a Perl binding to a C library is called. These files are not intended for public use and they must be filtered from Provides. In addition, the files have name similar to original C libraries which can clashes while resolving RPM dependencies while installing packages.
Solution
Filter the unneeded Provides by %{?perl_default_filter} macro.
script-without-shellbang
Problem
Rpmlint returns something to the effect of:
E: perl-WWW-Myspace script-without-shellbang /usr/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/5.8.8/WWW/Myspace/Comment.pm E: perl-WWW-Myspace script-without-shellbang /usr/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/5.8.8/WWW/Myspace/MyBase.pm E: perl-WWW-Myspace script-without-shellbang /usr/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/5.8.8/WWW/Myspace/FriendAdder.pm
Solution
This error is caused by the exec bit being set on one or more .pm files. The solution is to strip the exec bit, for example, in the %install section:
find %{buildroot} -type f -name '*.pm' -exec chmod -x {} 2>/dev/null ';'
wrong-script-interpreter
Problem
E: wrong-script-interpreter /usr/share/perl5/vendor_perl/ExtUtils/xsubpp perl
Solution
Replace incorrect shebang at the end of %install section:
sed -i 's|#!perl|#!/usr/bin/perl|' %{buildroot}%{perl_vendorlib}/ExtUtils/xsubpp
Compatibility issues after upgrading Perl
ExtUtils::MakeMaker overrides CCFLAGS with Perl 5.14
Problem
When compiling package driven by ExtUtils::MakeMaker that utilizes CCFLAGS argument, you get message:
Not a CODE reference at /usr/lib/perl5/DynaLoader.pm
Solution
This is bug in ExtUtils::MakeMaker probably. It replaces CCFLAGS instead of adding them to Perl default ccflags. See message perl 5.14 ExtUtils::MakeMaker overriding CCFLAGS in perl-devel mailing list and Debian bug report.
New Perl specific spec file macros
If you find out that some code snippets repeat in your spec files, you could say: Hey, there should be a macro for that! Then propose the macro for inclusion into /etc/rpm/macros.perl. The file is owned by perl package and is automatically included by rpmbuild tool. Ask perl package maintainer for adding the macro.