rpmbuild --rebuild --noclean "doesn't work"

[rwmjones]

I'm trying to keep the build directory after a successful rpmbuild, but the obvious option of using --noclean doesn't work, it still deletes the directory:

$ rpmbuild --rebuild --noclean /home/nbdkit-1.8.0-1.el7.src.rpm
....
Executing(--clean): /bin/sh -e /var/tmp/rpm-tmp.ksxsLr
+ umask 022
+ cd /home/mm/rpmbuild/BUILD
+ rm -rf nbdkit-1.8.0
+ exit 0

Now reading the manual very closely I can see that this behaviour is documented. --noclean skips the %clean step, but if your RPM spec file doesn't have a %clean step then it does nothing, so that's correct but also totally counter-intuitive and wrong.

There was a proposal to add --skip-clean (#7) but that seems to have gone nowhere.

So I'm going to argue that --noclean is broken.

[rwmjones]

This also affects recent RPM, I checked it with RPM version 4.14.2.1

[pmatilai]

This seems to be in line with the manual, --rebuild is special and unlike -bb etc is not supposed to take any build-arguments:

       rpmbuild {-ba|-bb|-bp|-bc|-bi|-bl|-bs} [rpmbuild-options] SPECFILE ...

vs

       rpmbuild {--rebuild|--recompile} SOURCEPKG ...

Also later:

       There are two other ways to invoke building with rpm:

       rpmbuild --rebuild|--recompile SOURCEPKG ...

       When invoked this way, rpmbuild installs the named source package, and
       does a prep, compile and install. In addition, --rebuild builds a  new
       binary  package.  When the build has completed, the build directory is
       removed (as in --clean) and the the sources  and  spec  file  for  the
       package are removed.

So basically the bug is that --rebuild doesn't enforce the "no other options" policy.

[rwmjones]

Well no, the bug is we'd like rpmbuild to be able to save the build tree in certain circumstances even when the build is successful. --noclean looks like it should do that, but doesn't, and it would be good if it DTRT.

[pmatilai]

The thing is, --rebuild is the way it is on purpose. It's supposed to be the one operation you can't meddle with, and cleans up after it's done. Which it does.

rpm >= 4.13 has rpmbuild -r which allows controlling the stages for src.rpm rebuild just like -b/-t do. So if you want to save the build tree, use rpmbuild -ra --noclean instead of --rebuild.