make tag and %{?dist}

[Josh Boyer]

Hi,

I'm trying to figure out how the %{dist} macro is supposed to work with
the 'make tag' command in CVS.

According to http://www.fedoraproject.org/wiki/DistTag one can append
%{?dist} to the Release field in the spec file and it will be expanded
to the correct value when the package is built by the build system.

However, unless the spec file contains something like:

%define dist .fc4

the 'make tag' command will not pick up the dist tag part of the Release
field because it is not defined.

Where that becomes a problem is if a package is essentially the same for
both FC3 and FC4.  Since the dist tag isn't expanded, a 'make tag' will
result in the same tag for both branches, and that isn't allowed.

So, is it valid to "hardcode" %{dist} as above?  If so, what's the point
of even using %{?dist}, since you could just hard code the .fc4 into the
Release field?

Hopefully I'm just confused.  Any pointers would be appreciated.

thx,
josh