[Rpm-maint] [rpm-software-management/rpm] %setup -T -a 0 -a 1 doesn't extract %{S:0} (#462)

[Jeff Johnson]

First of all, there is nothing forcing anyone to use %autosetp, nor anything preventing anyone from redefining %autosetp to whatever is wished, including adding better diagnostics.

Meanwhile the flaw is in %setup through over-thinking, a design flaw that goes back to at least 1997.

If you read the appendix that fully documents the %setup options, there is an invocation of %setup that handles (by writing some shell commands) all known usage cases: 20+ years of useful packaging shows that even if you consider the implementation clunky and obscure and poorly documented (as I do).

There are several design flaws in %setup, the one exposed here is that parameterized macro functions, implemented using getopt(3), cannot handle multiple identical position sensitive option values.

Reimplementing parameterized macros using POPT, which can handle multiple option values unlike getopt(3), and adding a means to handle named macro tuples, to write some perfectly obvious and utterly trivial shell commands can be attempted.

Meanwhile: why bother? The rpm macro implementation is receiving an increasing number of bug reports, and useful extensions to automating checkouts with multiple VCS systems are hardly used.

Rewrite the whole mess if %autosetup's inability to handle multiple option values is deemed a show stopper sine qua non.

Or don't use %autosetup because it's known to be broken.

Or document the deficiency (though it's not at all clear where the %autosetup deficiency should be documented).

Or live with the flaw and complain mightily that "RPM sucks because ..." every other year or so, maintaining the status quo of open source development.

*shrug*



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