Description of Problem:

In a kernel spec file, to represent the "pre?" version component of one 
of Linus's test kernels, I defined the symbol:

%define pre 3

which I then used like:

%if "%{pre}" == ""
%define ver 2.4.%{sublevel}
%else
%define ver 2.4.%{sublevel}pre%{pre}
%endif

So, an rpm build dies because I have:

%clean
rm -f $RPM_BUILD_ROOT

%pre
# pre-install actions

which rpm-build dutifully translates to"

3
# pre-install actions

Either don't allow defining that variable, or recognize that %pre is a 
directive and handle it differently.