Frequent need for dependency filtering has shown there is a legitimate need to filter dependencies in specfiles. In particular, so long as RPM autogenerates dependencies, there needs to be a way to filter them, such as: NoRequire: perl(Win32::wibble) and NoProvides: perl(OS2::wobble) Other files that have autogenerated dependencies may benefit from this as well, as would pieces of software with optional components that do not inhibit main functionality but would require a hard dependency otherwise.
Heh. Adding features to grammar-less spec files causes major disruptions for all, not just Red Hat, rpm users. In addition, new, and incompatible, syntax creates an instant need for a version of rpm that understands that syntax. While it is quite possible to introduce an incompatible feature in a new version of rpm, at the moment there is no release framework in place for rpm at all, nor are there any plans for a new version of rpm. Next the real need is to analyze (and fix) the automagic perl dependency extraction tools which are creating the (false imho) need for filtering in the first place. That effort must be approached for all perl modules, not by adding another band-aid to conceal the real problem. Finally, it plain and simply is not that hard to write a couple of line script to filter dependencies, that mechanism has been working adequately since RHL 7.2, and is known good. WONTFIX if you ask me. Shop your answer elsewhere, please, if you want, either internal to Red Hat, or on <rpm-devel>, perhaps you can convince someone other than me of your need.
> Finally, it plain and simply is not that hard to write > a couple of line script to filter dependencies, It is very hard with recent rpm versions. Using things like | %global _use_internal_dependency_generator 0 and corresponding %__find_requires/%__find_provides (which would be needed for dep-filters) is heavily discouraged by you (jbj) because the internal dep-generator is more powerful and generates e.g. per-file dependencies.