automatic source fetching in spec?

Tim Mooney Tim.Mooney at ndsu.edu
Thu Jul 19 17:18:15 UTC 2012


In regard to: automatic source fetching in spec?, Isaac Hailperin said (at...:

> in various tutorials I read that the source line in a spec file can contain a 
> URL. First I thought that this would mean that rpm would then fetch the 
> archive automatically ... but upon more careful reading I get the impression 
> that the URL is for documentation purposes only. Is that correct?

The answer is "it depends", mainly on what distribution & version you're
using.

RPM has the ability to automatically fetch the source if it's not present
in wherever your macros say our sources should be.  This requires certain
things be present when RPM is compiled.

I wouldn't be surprised if a few distributions disable automatic fetching
of sources, but at least in general, RPM can fetch sources.

Even if your particular incarnation of RPM can't, it's a good policy to
use URIs when possible.  It is useful documentation, and it might even
be useful to external scripts.

Tim
-- 
Tim Mooney                                             Tim.Mooney at ndsu.edu
Enterprise Computing & Infrastructure                  701-231-1076 (Voice)
Room 242-J6, IACC Building                             701-231-8541 (Fax)
North Dakota State University, Fargo, ND 58105-5164


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