Bug 143874

Summary: Commented %define still %defines
Product: [Fedora] Fedora Reporter: Matthew Saltzman <mjs>
Component: rpmAssignee: Jeff Johnson <jbj>
Status: CLOSED NOTABUG QA Contact: Mike McLean <mikem>
Severity: medium Docs Contact:
Priority: medium    
Version: 3CC: nobody+pnasrat
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Hardware: i386   
OS: Linux   
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Fixed In Version: Doc Type: Bug Fix
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: 1065463 (view as bug list) Environment:
Last Closed: 2004-12-30 16:29:32 UTC Type: ---
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oVirt Team: --- RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
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Description Flags
RPM spec file exhibiting how commented %defines are still live. none

Description Matthew Saltzman 2004-12-30 16:23:11 UTC
From Bugzilla Helper:
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Gecko/20041111 Firefox/1.0

Description of problem:
A %define directive on a comment line still %defines the symbol.  If
the commented line appears after a live %define directive, the
commented definition replaces the live one.

Commented lines should have no effect.

Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):
rpm-4.3.2-21

How reproducible:
Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Install the attached foo.spec file in SOURCES.
2. rpmbuild -bp foo.spec
3.
    

Actual Results:  Output echoes "bazz" on screen.

Expected Results:  Output echoes "bar" on screen.

Additional info:

foo.spec file attached below.

Note the lines:

%define foo bar
# %define foo bazz

The latter %define overrides the former, even though it is commented out.

Comment 1 Matthew Saltzman 2004-12-30 16:26:38 UTC
Created attachment 109189 [details]
RPM spec file exhibiting how commented %defines are still live.

Build this package (foo-0.0) with "rpmbuild -bp foo.spec".  The output echoes
"bazz" when it should echo "bar".

Comment 2 Paul Nasrat 2004-12-30 16:29:32 UTC
This is a known limitation of the spec parser, macros are expanded everywhere -
comments, changelog etc. Common packager approaches are to either add a % to
escape or replace the % with the #
eg:

#%%define foo bazz 

or 
#define foo bazz

Comment 3 Matthew Saltzman 2004-12-30 16:55:51 UTC
OK fine, but this needs to be documented in big red letters in places that
specfile authors are likely to see it (appropriate sections of the HOWTO and 
Maximum RPM, at least).  For anyone used to most common programming languages,
shell languages, makefile syntax, etc., this is totally unexpected behavior.

In the Maximum RPM snapshot
(http://www.rpm.org/max-rpm-snapshot/ch-rpm-inside.html#S1-RPM-INSIDE-COMMENTS)
the following appears:

Comments are a way to make RPM ignore a line in the spec file. The contents of a
comment line are entirely up to the person writing the spec file.

To create a comment, enter an octothorp (#) at the start of the line. Any text
following the comment character will be ignored by RPM. 

The same appears in Appendix E
(http://www.rpm.org/max-rpm-snapshot/ch-rpm-specref.html#S1-RPM-SPECREF-COMMENTS)

I have not encountered any reference to expansion of macros in comments anywhere
I've looked.

Comment 4 Paul Nasrat 2004-12-30 17:01:45 UTC
For speedy update patches against maximum rpm happily taken and the snapshot
will be updated. CVS details here, feel free to attach here or post to rpm-list:

http://rpm.org/cvs_help/



Comment 5 Matthew Saltzman 2004-12-30 19:08:28 UTC
OK Will post here or there when I have a chance to write the patches.