RPM/SPEC issues in Fedora

The %{fedora} string comparison issue

# BAD example. See below for correct usage
%if "%{?fedora}" > "7"
<something which should work in F-8, F-9, F-10, F-11, etc.>
%endif

In rawhide/devel (which will become F-10 eventually), %{fedora} is 10, so above comparison will be "10" > "7" and evaluate to FALSE. So the something will only work for F-8 and F-9, and ignored from F-10 on.

So your package will end up suddenly having problems again in F-10 which were fixed years ago by inserting that conditional, or develop new problems suddenly. Please avoid that by fixing your comparisons to look like this:

%if 0%{?fedora} > 7
<something which does work in F-8, F-9, F-10, F-11, etc.>
%endif

Latest detailed branch reports (as of 2008-07-07)

Reports generated by string-comparison-check.sh.

Summary for 2008-07-07
----------------------
devel:   2 string comparisons in  1 spec files
F-9:    25 string comparisons in 18 spec files
F-8:    52 string comparisons in 31 spec files
F-7:    95 string comparisons in 58 spec files

Development over time

Note the two sudden drops: 2008-07-06 the script was changed to ignore a few false positives, and 2008-07-07 Tom Callaway did a mass-fix.

total bad comparisons bad spec files

List of spec files still broken in devel/rawhide (as of 2008-07-07)

package pkgdb link spec files in CVS owner/maintainers
ikvmdevelF-9F-8F-7pfj

Package list ordered by (co-)maintainer

pfj: ikvm