make tag and %{?dist}

[Matthew Miller]

On Tue, May 03, 2005 at 10:13:56PM -0500, Josh Boyer wrote:
> > So that way, when you accidentally build the package from the wrong branch,
> > it gets tagged with with the wrong tag for the build, and if you don't
> > notice, your final file gets copied to the wrong place?
> What final file?  The RPM?

Yeah.

[...]

> But my spec files are _not_ different except for the fact that the CVS
> and build systems require them to have a different Release field for
> each distro.  Which is what %{dist} theoretically could be used for if
> it was actually defined.

Agreed....

> Have you actually tried to use the same spec file in both the devel and
> FC-3 branches and get a package built?  It doesn't work because you have
> to run 'make tag' first which creates a CVS tag based on the Name,
> Version, and Release fields in the spec file.  When you use the same
> spec file for both branches, 'make tag' fails in the second branch
> because the same CVS tag can't be in multiple branches.

I haven't yet, but I do use a similar system for our different releases at
BU.

> With what I'm proposing, 'make tag' would expand %{dist} based on the
> CVS branch it was run in, and the CVS tags would be different.  Now you
> can use the exact same spec file for both branches (assuming there are
> no functional differences), and builds can still occur.  Problem
> solved.  

Okay, maybe I'm confused now. I don't understand why you would tie this to
the (somewhat arbitrary and external) CVS branch rather than to the direct
connection -- what release the system you build the package on is running.


> Exactly.  So if I am in the devel branch of Extras CVS, I better damn
> well realize that any package built from there would have .fc4 in the
> Release section of the RPM.

Ideally, if it's a spec file that can be built on multiple releases, you
shouldn't have to realize anything.... it'd just always do the right thing,
no matter where you got the spec file from.

> I think we are missing one another's points.

Maybe. :)

-- 
Matthew Miller           mattdm at mattdm.org        <http://www.mattdm.org/>
Boston University Linux      ------>                <http://linux.bu.edu/>
Current office temperature: 78 degrees Fahrenheit.