On Dec 31, 2007, at 7:25 AM, Ralf S. Engelschall wrote:

> Just to make sure I do not overlook some existing hidden backward
> compatibility: Is it correct and intentional that RPM 4 cannot read  
> RPM
> 5 source packages at all? Or in other words: to upgrade an  
> installed RPM
> 4 one cannot just "rpm --rebuild" the SRPM of the RPM 5:
>
> | $ openpkg rpm --rebuild openpkg-4.0a0-20071229.src.rpm
> | Installing prj/openpkg-2008/src/framework/SRC/ 
> openpkg-4.0a0-20071229.src.rpm
> | error: source package expected, binary found
>

Eeek! No a bug. There are no incompatible changes I'm aware of.

You should be able to do
	rpm -ivh openpkg-4.0a0-20071229.src.rpm
to confirm that, indeed, there are no incompatible src.rpm format  
changes.

Its likelier --rebuild (or your configuration) that has broken.

(aside) I personally hardly ever do --rebuild,
which is why the code sometimes rots.

> If all this is intentional (and I personally do not have any problem
> with this), I currently know two upgrade possibilities: to provide a
> SRPM of RPM 5 which was still rolled with RPM 4 or to use rpm2cpio  
> from
> RPM 4 to unpack the RPM 5 SRPM (which still works as I figured out)  
> and
> then do a plain "rpm -bb *.spec" to build and install the new RPM 5
> (both assuming that the RPM 5 *.spec itself does not use any  
> features of
> RPM 5 and is still fully compatible with RPM 4).
>
> Can this be confirmed?
>

Hmmm, checking by rebuilding the Fedora popt-1.13 src rpm:

	# rpmbuild --rebuild popt-1.13-1.fc9.src.rpm
	Installing popt-1.13-1.fc9.src.rpm
	warning: user mockbuild does not exist - using root
	warning: group mockbuild does not exist - using root
	warning: user mockbuild does not exist - using root
	warning: group mockbuild does not exist - using root
	warning: user mockbuild does not exist - using root
	warning: group mockbuild does not exist - using root
	warning: user mockbuild does not exist - using root
	warning: group mockbuild does not exist - using root
	Executing(%prep): /bin/sh -e /var/tmp/rpm-tmp.95072
	+ umask 022
	+ cd /usr/src/rpm/BUILD
	+ cd /usr/src/rpm/BUILD
	+ rm -rf popt-1.13
	...

WORKSFORME

> I don't want to go into the wrong direction
> regarding my distribution upgrade plans...
>
>                                        Ralf S. Engelschall
>                                        rse@engelschall.com
>                                        www.engelschall.com
>
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