Chapter 23. Software management

Fast macro-based dependency generators

It is now possible to define dependency generators as regular RPM macros. This is especially useful in combination with the embedded Lua interpreter (%{lua:…​}) because it enables writing sophisticated yet fast generators and avoiding redundant forking and executing a shell script.

Example:

%__foo_provides()    %{basename:%{1}}

%__foo_provides()    %{basename:%{1}}

The %generate_buildrequires section that enables generating dynamic build dependencies

Additional build dependencies can now be generated programmatically at RPM build time, using the newly available %generate_buildrequires section. This is useful when packaging software written in a language in which a specialized utility is commonly used to determine run-time or build-time dependencies, such as Rust, Golang, Node.js, Ruby, Python or Haskell.

Meta (unordered) dependencies

A new dependency qualifier called meta enables expressing dependencies that are not specifically install-time or run-time dependencies. This is useful for avoiding unnecessary dependency loops that could otherwise arise from the normal dependency ordering, such as when specifying the dependencies of a meta package.

Example:

Requires(meta): <pkgname>

Requires(meta): <pkgname>

Native version comparison in expressions

It is now possible to compare arbitrary version strings in expressions by using the newly supported v"…​" format.

Example:

%if v"%{python_version}" < v"3.9"

%if v"%{python_version}" < v"3.9"

Caret version operator, opposite of tilde

The new caret (^) operator can be used to express a version that is higher than the base version. It is a complement to the existing tilde (~) operator which has the opposite semantics.

Optional automatic patch and source numbering

Patch: and Source: tags without a number are now automatically numbered based on the order in which they are listed.

%autopatch now accepts patch ranges

The %autopatch macro now accepts the -m and -M parameters to limit the minimum and maximum patch number to apply, respectively.

%patchlist and %sourcelist sections

It is now possible to list patch and source files without preceding each item with the respective Patch: and Source: tags by using the newly added %patchlist and %sourcelist sections.

A more intuitive way to declare build conditionals

Starting from RHEL 9.2, you can use the new %bcond macro to build conditionals. The %bcond macro takes a build conditional name and the default value as arguments. Compared to the old %bcond_with and %bcond_without macros, %bcond is easier to understand and allows you to calculate the default value at build time. The default value can be any numeric expression.

Example:

%patch N no longer applies a patch number 0

Previously, when you used the %patch N syntax, where N is the number of a patch, the syntax also applied the patch number 0 (Patch0) in addition to the patch specified by N.

In RHEL 9.6, the %patch N syntax has been fixed to only apply the patch number N.