Bug 3233 – rpm-3.0.1 macro name restriction is ridiculous

This service will be undergoing maintenance at 00:00 UTC, 2017-10-23 It is expected to last about 30 minutes

Bug 3233 - rpm-3.0.1 macro name restriction is ridiculous

Summary:	rpm-3.0.1 macro name restriction is ridiculous

Status:	CLOSED WONTFIX

Aliases:	None

Product:	Red Hat Linux
Classification:	Retired
Component:	rpm (Show other bugs)
Sub Component:
Version:	6.0
Hardware:	All Linux

Priority	medium Severity medium
Target Milestone:	---
Target Release:	---
Assigned To:	Jay Turner
QA Contact:
Docs Contact:

URL:
Whiteboard:
Keywords:

Depends On:
Blocks:
	Show dependency tree / graph

Reported:	1999-06-03 05:34 EDT by benedict
Modified:	2015-01-07 18:37 EST (History)
CC List:	1 user (show)

See Also:
Fixed In Version:
Doc Type:	Bug Fix
Doc Text:
Story Points:	---
Clone Of:
Environment:
Last Closed:	1999-06-03 06:20:07 EDT
Type:	---
Regression:	---
Mount Type:	---
Documentation:	---
CRM:
Verified Versions:
Category:	---
oVirt Team:	---
RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
Cloudforms Team:	---

Attachments	(Terms of Use)
Add an attachment (proposed patch, testcase, etc.)

Groups: None (edit)

Description benedict 1999-06-03 05:34:45 EDT

In lib/macro.c:450 I read:

	/* Names must start with alphabetic or _ and be at least 3
chars */

Now, this is ridiculous - I used to do

%define CC gcc
[...snip...]
%define EXTRA_BUILD     CC='%{CC} -g' CFLAGS='blabla'

which is no longer legal ...  And the error message doesn't
give any hint as to why.

Comment 1 Jeff Johnson 1999-06-03 06:20:59 EDT

One and two character macro names are reserved for the macro
implementation itself. Performing the check on length rather
than on a reserved keyword table permits a robust implementation
for both forward and backward compatibility with different versions
of rpm.

Do you have specific suggestions and/or patches for improved error
messages? Please reopen this bug if so.

Note You need to log in before you can comment on or make changes to this bug.