[Rpm-maint] RPM Managment system.

[Stanislav Brabec]

Nesreen wrote:

>             I am making a research in my company to star using RPM
> software, I have several questions that will brainstorm my view about
> RPM and that will truly help us deciding using RPM software.
>
> 1- I wander that upon making a package using RPM software, can I
> assign version/build numbers for each file included in my package ,

No, you cannot. Version/release are assigned only for packages. But you
can have one file per package and then assign version numbers to
particular packages.

>  can I query this version number after installation?(and I assume that
> my package contains set of binaries and database files).?

Only packages have version/release.

> 2- Does RPM detect dependencies between files when installing the
> package?

No. All dependencies must be defined in compilation time. And all these
dependencies has to be provided in installation time by any package.

> Can it ask to user to leave or override existing file upon
> installation?

No, rpm is not interactive software.

And it's against the idea of the software package, as RPM implements it:
Packages are atomic and not splittable set of files. You can only
install the whole package (all files are installed) or skip it (no
files are installed).

- File owned by previous version or release of the same package will be
overwritten without asking.

- Without marking the other package as obsolete, file owned by a
different package cannot be overwritten by a different file provided by
another package. Attempt to do this causes an error.

- With marking the other package as obsolete, the whole package
providing conflicting file will be removed without asking during the
update.

> 3- Does RPM have restrictions on the software file types that will be
> packaged? My software contains of binary files, JSF, Oracle Forms, C/C
> ++ and Oracle DB files

There are no restriction on the files in the package except this above
mentioned exclusivity.

-- 
Best Regards / S pozdravem,

Stanislav Brabec
software developer
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