propozition of specs cleanups

[Mike A. Harris]

Tomasz Kłoczko wrote:
> IMO it will be good perform some spec files cleanups. Patch with this
> cleanups is relative large and it touches many spec files (it will be
> hard submiting this using bugzilla) but all can be changed using single
> sed line:
> 
> [devel]$ sed -i '/^%doc$/d; /^%doc $/d; \
> 	s/^%doc %{_mandir}/%{_mandir}/; \
> 	s/\(^%{_mandir}\/.*\)\(\.gz$\)/\1\*/' \
> 	*/*spec
> 
> Above:
> - removes empty %doc lines,

While that cleans up a line that might be currently unused, it
doesn't have any real functional change, and some packages might
include that as a reminder to fill in the documentation in a future
package update.  For example, when I'm creating new rpms, sometimes
I am in a hurry to get a useable package out the door and into
rawhide ASAP, but there's no reason to make the package 100% perfect,
so I generate a spec from a template I use, and fill in the missing
pieces over time.

This is one thing I find useful when editing a package, that says
to me "Mike, you put an empty %doc, which means you have not yet
investigated the package closely to see if there is something that
should be in %doc.  Please do that at some point."  That's fairly
useful. ;o)

For the record, I believe many of the modular X packages fit this
category.

> - removes %doc from %{_mandir}/* %files entries (all %{_mandir} entries
>   are marked by default as %doc),

That's sensible.

> - replace .gz suffix by * from %{_mandir}/* entries
>   This allow choose on build stage generate binary packages with or
>   without gzipped man pages.

Yep, that is general good RPM housekeeping.  I think the best thing
to do, is to have some global rpmlint-like tests run in our buildsystem
that look for these types of uglyisms, and force them to be fixed in
order for the package to build.  (pre-tests)

While it would have some value, and could be enhanced over time with
other tests, it'd also likely be low priority overall compared to
other work that needs doing..

Best thing for people to do, is to generate patches and submit them
to bugzilla for now.


-- 
Mike A. Harris  *  Open Source Advocate  *  http://mharris.ca
                       Proud Canadian.