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rpm-3.0.2-6.0 Although rpm is a very powerful tool, it can be a major PITA when it comes to doing some simple things quickly, like dumping the contents of an rpm into ./ for a quick look. rpm 3.x no longer takes the rcfile syntax (e.g. ~/.rpmrc), complaining about ":" etc. Neither man page nor --help reflect these changes. The --rcfile option is currently no good, as it will always complain about the syntax in the file, regardless of whether the old or new syntax is used (though the error is different). I was trying to set topdir (I wish there was a command line option for that). The only file correctly scanned is ~/.rpmmacros with new syntax. I have reasons why I want to 1) ignore this file and use a different one instead and 2) not delete/change it temporarily.
The syntax for --rcfile has changed to not read /usr/lib/rpm/rpmrc by default. Here are equivalent commands Old: rpm --rcfile=~/.myrcfile New: rpm --rcfile=/usr/lib/rpm/rpmrc:~/.myrcfile All but the arch/os tables and the following 2 tokens have been replace by macro equivalents: optflags: provides: There are two new tokens in rc files: include: filename # insert another file macrofiles: /usr/lib/rpm/macros:/etc/rpm/macros:~/.rpmmacros In order to read from something other than standard macro file locations, you need to do in /some/rcfile: include: /usr/lib/rpm/rpmrc macrofiles: /path/to/macro1:/path/to/macro2:~/.mymacros in ~/.mymacros whatever Then invoke rpm as rpm --rcfile /some/rcfile You can now set the macro _topdir from the command line as rpm --define '_topdir /wherever' Use $HOME expansion on the invoking command line if you wish to install in your home directory.