[Mimedefang] Drifting OT Re: configure in wrong part of RPM spec file

[Kris Deugau]

Kelson Vibber wrote:
> Admittedly the RPM HOWTO's description of what's *supposed* to go
> there is contradictory.  Prep is decscribed as "anything necessary to
> get the sources patched and setup like they need to be setup to do a
> make," but Build is described as "any commands... that you would need
> to use to build the software once you had untarred the source,
> patched it, and cd'ed into the directory."

So are some of the .rpm's I've built myself;  I only found two that did
anything with autconf-ed programs anyway.  One is MIMEDefang-
./configure is in the %prep section.  The other is teapop, and
./configure is in %build.  Most of the rest of the .rpm's I've built (or
rebuilt with updated versions) have been "pure" Perl bits that use
Perl's Makefile.PL system.

Scanning through the spec files accumulated through trying to figure out
how someone else packaged something reveal a similar lack of
consistency.  <g>

Personally, I think having ./configure in the %prep section is slightly
more correct;  the documentation I've read leans toward using %build as
"the section in which you put commands to compile the software";  %prep
is "all commands required before you compile the software".  %prep can
be automated by rpm's own internal sort-of scripting/macro "language";
whereas %build is generally either very simple ("make") or complex.

-kgd
-- 
<erno> hm. I've lost a machine.. literally _lost_. it responds to
ping, it works completely, I just can't figure out where in my
apartment it is.