Bug 3233 - rpm-3.0.1 macro name restriction is ridiculous
Summary: rpm-3.0.1 macro name restriction is ridiculous
Keywords:
Status: CLOSED WONTFIX
Alias: None
Product: Red Hat Linux
Classification: Retired
Component: rpm
Version: 6.0
Hardware: All
OS: Linux
medium
medium
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: Jay Turner
QA Contact:
URL:
Whiteboard:
Depends On:
Blocks:
TreeView+ depends on / blocked
 
Reported: 1999-06-03 09:34 UTC by benedict
Modified: 2015-01-07 23:37 UTC (History)
1 user (show)

Fixed In Version:
Doc Type: Bug Fix
Doc Text:
Clone Of:
Environment:
Last Closed: 1999-06-03 10:20:07 UTC

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Description benedict 1999-06-03 09:34:45 UTC 
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 10:20:59 UTC 
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.
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