Re: %files section of spec files

["Nathanael D. Noblet" <nathanael gnat ca>]

On Mon, 2006-05-29 at 23:08 -0700, azam zare wrote:
> Hi every one
> I want to build rpm from source (tar.gz) .I dont know really what
> files i shoud put  in the %files section  and how i should get them
> exactly?
> In the --prefix of configure i should put  /usr  (configure
> -prefix=/usr) . I cant extract files that  is related to that
> package . 
> If  , prefix of the configure are things like /usr/foldr i can
> put /folder in the %files and package software. If this work is true?
> If all the thins that should be put in the %files is the output of the
> make install? And if this true , what do i in the situation like
> --prefix=/usr
> Any ideas?


http://fedora.redhat.com/docs/drafts/rpm-guide-en/

Contains a manual on building rpms. The basic idea is this. You use
configure and make as per usual. However when rpm is finished building
the package it installs it in a temporary directory. So for example,
suppose I have a program call myProgram after building the package,
normally from source you'd type as root 'make install'. When building,
rpm calls 'DESTDIR=/var/tmp/myProgram-tmp make install' or something
similar to it depending on the makefile, it could be
'INSTALLDIR=/var/tmp/myProgram-tmp make install'. In any case, make will
then install all the files to that directory, from which rpm pulls the
files referenced in %files. So if you had files in --prefix=/usr you'd
have /var/tmp/myProgram-tmp/usr/...

That's the basics, the manual above will likely have examples. 


Good Luck!