Way to define symlink in rpm and define its target in %files section for Image Mode

[pemensik]

During Image Mode fixes in bind package, I have realized I have to duplicate the same information both in RPM spec and in tmpfiles config snippet. But I failed to find a good way to either generate rpm %files section during the build from tmpfiles.d. Or other way around, generate tmpfiles config snippet from rpm specified information.

I think there should be only one place, which should define what permissions, owner and group should have. There is also a special case for symlinks. It would be great to have ability to define symlink target. My idea was this:

I have already defined what is inside /var for my package. I should be able to recreate any missing empty directories from the information already present in rpm. That is doable, although I have seen only tmpfiles config files used for it. But that needs a different format in extra file. It seems to me both need to be kept in sync, but one cannot be derived from the other one. I think that is unfortunate.

I there a way to generate list of files, but including also %ghost, %doc and %attr macros parsed? I tried to find additional info about supported format of %files -f , but that does not seem to be documented at places I tried.

I think the only thing missing in current rpm is ability to define symlink target. Then I could generate bind.tmpfiles.d in linked MR 69.

Is there a known alternative approach, how to keep list of files and permissions only in one place. Without a need to keep two definitions of the same files in two formats and places?

Is there more detailed documentation of %files section abilties, than at https://rpm.org/docs/latest/manual/spec.html#files-section?