Description of problem: Under certain circumstances (see "Steps to Reproduce"), rpm will ignore the summary and description given in a RPM file and display another one instead. It does display the correct description if LC_ALL=C. This is WRONG. rpm should always give priority to what's actually stored in the RPM file and should under no circumstances try to second-guess the packager. NOTE: The examples use the output from a mutt RPM that will later be published on http://www.ribbrock.org/muttix as part of the Mutt RPM Team effort. Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): rpm-4.2.1-0.30 How reproducible: Every time Steps to Reproduce: 1. Build an RPM that has the same name as a RPM supplied by Fedora Core (e.g. mutt) 2. Use an LC_ALL setting that is not "C" (I've tried en_GB.UTF-8, en_GB and en_US) 3. run "rpm -qip NEWPACKAGE.rpm" 4. rpm will now display the description that is stored in /usr/share/locale/SOMEWHERE/LC_MESSAGES/redhat-dist.mo and NOT the description that is stored in the RPM file. 5. To get the correct result, run "env LC_ALL=C rpm -qip ....." instead. Actual results: esme:1.4.2.1 597> rpm -qip mutt-1.4.2.1i-1.cfp.fc1.i386.rpm Name : mutt Relocations: (not relocateable) Version : 1.4.2.1i Vendor: "Mutt RPM Team" <mutt-rpm.org> Release : 1.cfp.fc1 Build Date: Sun 15 Feb 2004 23:45:11 CET Install Date: (not installed) Build Host: esme.ribbrock.org Group : Applications/Internet Source RPM: mutt-1.4.2.1i-1.cfp.fc1.src.rpm Size : 3826624 License: GPL Signature : (none) Packager : Thomas Ribbrock <emgaron> URL : http://www.mutt.org/ Summary : A text mode mail user agent. Description : Mutt is a text-mode mail user agent. Mutt supports color, threading, arbitrary key remapping, and a lot of customization. You should install mutt if you have used it in the past and you prefer it, or if you are new to mail programs and have not decided which one you are going to use. e Expected results: esme:1.4.2.1 598> env LC_ALL=C rpm -qip mutt-1.4.2.1i-1.cfp.fc1.i386.rpm Name : mutt Relocations: (not relocateable) Version : 1.4.2.1i Vendor: "Mutt RPM Team" <mutt-rpm.org> Release : 1.cfp.fc1 Build Date: Sun Feb 15 23:45:11 2004 Install Date: (not installed) Build Host: esme.ribbrock.org Group : Applications/Internet Source RPM: mutt-1.4.2.1i-1.cfp.fc1.src.rpm Size : 3826624 License: GPL Signature : (none) Packager : Thomas Ribbrock <emgaron> URL : http://www.mutt.org/ Summary : The Mutt Mail User Agent Description : Mutt is a small but very powerful full-screen Unix mail client. Features include MIME, POP3, multiple mailbox formats, colour, message threading, scoring, GPG/PGP support and bindable keys. Mutt was compiled against ncurses and the following options were enabled: --enable-pop POP3 support --enable-imap IMAP support --with-sgid Set group ID - that way mutt should work with the default permissions on /var/spool/mail --enable-compressed compressed folder support - gzip and bzip2 --with-ssl secure transport support full NLS support - all message catalogs are installed. The following patches/additions were applied: - compressed folder patch from Roland Rosenfeld <roland> - patch to add compressed folder settings to /etc/Muttrc - A sample muttrc with colors enabled is supplied in /usr/share/doc/mutt-1.4.2.1i/samples. - Two scripts were added: * cmutt - starts mutt with TERM set so that colours are displayed * xmutt - runs mutt in an xterm or rxvt Additional info:
No. rpm should use what is in specspo for Description/Summary/Group. That has been the behavior of rpm since RHL 6.2, and is not going to change. Uninstall the specspo package if you want rpm to use the information in packages.
I have not noticed this behaviour on older RHL's (though I never went beyond RHL 7.3). Quite the contrary, on those RHL's, rpm *did* produce the correct output. I do not oncur with the statement that this is the correct behaviour - when the packager adds some description to a package, this is what should be displayed, as the packages knows best what's in a package. I regard this as a bug. At the very least, rpm should displaya message that this is not the correct description of the package but second-guessed due to policies of the distro and give an option to display the correct description.