Chapter 13. Inside the Spec File

In this chapter, we're going to cover the spec file in detail. There are a number of different types of entries that comprise a spec file, and every one will be documented here. The different types of entries are:

Let's start by looking at comments.

Comments: Notes Ignored by RPM

Comments are a way to make RPM ignore a line in the spec file. The contents of a comment line are entirely up to the person writing the spec file.

To create a comment, enter an octothorp (#) at the start of the line. Any text following the comment character will be ignored by RPM. Here's an example comment:

# This is the spec file for playmidi 2.3...
        
Comments can be placed in any section of the spec file. Note that macros are expanded everywhere, so with multiline macros which would only have the first line commented also escape the percent (%) character:
# %%configure