[Rpm-maint] Problems with %Requires(preun):

[Ville Skyttä]

On Tuesday 11 December 2007, Scott Bambrough wrote:
> Pixel wrote:
> > afaik rpm does not order package removal :-(
>
> Interesting.   The section on context marked dependencies in the
> snapshot version of Maximum RPM suggests it should.
[...]
> Is their a disconnect between the documentation and the code,

Very much possible.  At the time I wrote the "Context marked dependencies" 
chapter, I knew that erase ordering is not supported in rpm but had the 
impression that it was a known bug which would be fixed soon so I didn't feel 
like cluttering the docs with it.  Also, I'm not a rpm developer and haven't 
really even looked at the code, the doc is based on personal experience as a 
user.  (IIRC Paul Nasrat committed the doc changes for me though at the time, 
so it's possible it did get some kind of a review :))

> or how are 
> context marked dependencies supposed to work (if at all).

Apart from the "erase ordering not supported" issue (which AFAICT can bite 
only if your dependency is being erased in the same transaction as the 
package requiring it), and a bug in some rpm(build?) versions where some 
context marked dependencies that are in specfiles using the 
syntax "Requires(post,postun)" get dropped, and that dependency loops may 
make things hairy, I'm not aware of any issues.