When a package is removed from a repository and there are no other changes to it and createrepo is run with -C on it, createrepo fails to notice the removal and does nothing. I suppose dir timestamp tracking is needed to fix this. Haven't thought about it much at all but on first thought this might not be entirely trivial as write operations to the repodata (and .repodata, see also bug 581628) dirs should not trigger a re-run. If not fixable, the limitation should be documented.
createrepo --update should pick up removed pkgs.
This bug appears to have been reported against 'rawhide' during the Fedora 14 development cycle. Changing version to '14'. More information and reason for this action is here: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/BugZappers/HouseKeeping
Agreed it should be documented and now has been upstream. thanks
createrepo-0.9.9-4.fc15 has been submitted as an update for Fedora 15. https://admin.fedoraproject.org/updates/createrepo-0.9.9-4.fc15
createrepo-0.9.9-4.fc15 has been pushed to the Fedora 15 stable repository. If problems still persist, please make note of it in this bug report.