meaning of 'Provides: X' '>' or '>=' %evr ?

[James Antill]

On Thu, 2014-08-28 at 16:26 +0100, Jason Vas Dias wrote:
> Greetings list - this is my first post.
> Please could anyone enlighten me as to the precise meaning of :
>    'Provides:  X > %evr'
> or
>    'Provides:   X >= %evr'
> in a .spec file , where %evr is some [epoch:]version[-release] version
> specification of X ?
> I know what
>   'Provides: X = %evr'
> means, but I can't understand what the use of '>=' or '>' is for a Provide -
> does it mean that no other package may ever provide a version of X greater
> than %evr if the package providing the 'Provides: X >= %evr' is installed ?
> I've searched the documentation in Maximum RPM and at the Fedora RPM Guide,
> but there doesn't seem to be any on this issue .

 It's easiest to just think of it as two range operation, and not to map
it to a real thing.

So on one side you have:

FOO Provide: X > 4

...and then on the other side you have:

W Require: X = 2
X Require: X = 8
Y Require: X > 2
Z Require: X < 10

...here W is the only package whos require wouldn't be satisfied by FOO.