Re: [Pan-devel] Making RPM's

[Duncan]

On Wednesday 09 October 2002 14:32, John LeMay wrote:
> On 9 Oct 2002, Christophe Lambin wrote:
> > Actually, building through 'rmp' is outdated (at least on RH). You
> > should use 'rpmbuild' instead, which comes with the rpm-build package
> > (again, at least on RH).
>
> I have rpmbuild on Mandrake 8.2, so it's there. Haven't used it, but from
> a quick glance at the man page the syntax looks about the same.

AFAIK, the main rpm functions (query, install, upgrade, erase, build, verify, 
db-maint) are each handled by a separate binary, but can be accessed thru the 
rpm main binary, with the use of the appropriate primary mode switch.  Thus, 
rpm -i accesses rpmi, rpm -e accesses rpme, rpm -b (or rpm -t, or rpm 
--rebulld, which I met thru the nVidia proprietary driver build process, and 
the only build mode method I have used) accesses rpmbuild, etc.  Additional 
switches are simply passed on to whichever individual mode binary is called 
by the primary mode switch.

IOW, at least on Mdk, the rpm binary itself simply parses for the mode switch, 
and selects the appropriate mode binary, nothing else.  However, all switches 
and methods valid thru the mode binary, remain valid thru the main rpm binary 
itself, provided the correct mode switch is used.

That's how I made sense of it all, anyway.  I still use the trusty Arabian 
(O'Reilly's Linux in a Nutshell) when I need to figure out which specific 
switches to use for what I want to accomplish.

-- 
Duncan
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little
temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." --
Benjamin Franklin