bdist_rpm should use rpmbuild, not rpm

[purpleidea]

BPO	11122
Nosy	@ericvsmith, @tarekziade, @ned-deily, @merwok, @petere, @stratakis, @csabella, @bhyde, @miss-islington
PRs	bpo-11122: always use rpmbuild in bdist_rpm #10594 [3.8] bpo-11122: fix hardcoded path checking for rpmbuild in bdist_rpm.py (GH-10594) #13922
Files	fix-rpm-use-2.7.diff

^{Note: these values reflect the state of the issue at the time it was migrated and might not reflect the current state.}

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GitHub fields:

assignee = 'https://github.com/merwok'
closed_at = <Date 2019-06-08.21:06:22.873>
created_at = <Date 2011-02-04.21:19:22.059>
labels = ['easy', '3.8', '3.7', 'library']
title = 'bdist_rpm should use rpmbuild, not rpm'
updated_at = <Date 2019-06-08.21:25:24.644>
user = 'https://bugs.python.org/purpleidea'

bugs.python.org fields:

activity = <Date 2019-06-08.21:25:24.644>
actor = 'miss-islington'
assignee = 'eric.araujo'
closed = True
closed_date = <Date 2019-06-08.21:06:22.873>
closer = 'cheryl.sabella'
components = ['Distutils']
creation = <Date 2011-02-04.21:19:22.059>
creator = 'purpleidea'
dependencies = []
files = ['34407']
hgrepos = []
issue_num = 11122
keywords = ['patch', 'easy']
message_count = 25.0
messages = ['127942', '127943', '127944', '127945', '127948', '127958', '127959', '128005', '128052', '128053', '153098', '155120', '175042', '177241', '193105', '213484', '213588', '315180', '315188', '315197', '315198', '315200', '330061', '345063', '345067']
nosy_count = 13.0
nosy_names = ['eric.smith', 'tarek', 'ned.deily', 'eric.araujo', 'purpleidea', 'petere', 'westley.martinez', 'James.Bennet', 'cstratak', 'cheryl.sabella', 'bhyde', 'miss-islington', 'stanp']
pr_nums = ['10594', '13922']
priority = 'normal'
resolution = 'fixed'
stage = 'resolved'
status = 'closed'
superseder = None
type = None
url = 'https://bugs.python.org/issue11122'
versions = ['Python 3.7', 'Python 3.8']

[purpleidea]

Hi distutils,

When I run:

./setup.py bdist --formats=rpm

on my source directory, I get the error:

rpm -ba --define _topdir /home/james/code/scantran/build/bdist.linux-x86_64/rpm --clean build/bdist.linux-x86_64/rpm/SPECS/scantran.spec
-ba: unknown option
error: command 'rpm' failed with exit status 1

It seems the problem can be fixed by installing the rpm-build package (on fedora 14 anyways) and so perhaps something should be done so that this is more obvious...

HTH,
James

[merwok]

Does this mean that there is one rpm command that does not have all options, and that rpm-build overwrites that command with another one that does the right thing?

[purpleidea]

In the source for distutils it seems to attempt to use 'rpmbuild' if it exists, but otherwise falls back on regular 'rpm', however in my rpm:

$ rpm --version
RPM version 4.8.1

this fails as there is no -ba option.

James

[merwok]

What is your OS name and version? Is that rpm version considered obsolete or not?

[ericvsmith]

"rpm -ba" is very old. I think it's been at least since 2002 that "-ba" was supported by rpm.

I believe bdist_rpm is calling "rpmbuild -ba", and if that doesn't exist, then "rpm -ba" is a transition strategy until all systems supported "rpmbuild". This transition period should be over. Unfortunately today it's far more likely that "rpm -ba" will not be what you want to call, but "rpm" will almost always be found, giving this error.

Most systems (certain RedHat based) ship rpmbuild as a separate command. RedHat installs it via the rpm-build package.

I'd suggest just switching bdist_rpm to always use rpmbuild. Then at least the error would be that rpmbuild isn't found.

[merwok]

This is a gray area between bugfix and bahavior change forbidden by the feature freeze. Would it be okay for you to add a note in the docs and close this report?

[merwok]

Would it be okay for you to add a note in the docs and close this report?

I meant to ask whether you would agree with that outcome, not that you should do the work (you’re welcome to provide a patch if you want to, but that’s not required).

[purpleidea]

I'll write a docs and script patch for this next week...

I'm happy to do the work,

Thanks for the comments.

James

[merwok]

Thanks for volunteering. I will review and apply when the py3k branch is unfrozen.

I'll write a docs and script patch for this next week...
Note that I proposed to patch the docs only.

[merwok]

BTW, it may be useful to point people to http://pypi.python.org/pypi/pypi2rpm, which contains an updated command, bdist_rpm2.

[merwok]

Given that we’ve made changes to distutils for Debian multiarch or Mac OS X compiler breakage, I now think that switching distutils to only use rpmbuild would be reasonable.