Here are the definitions for some common specfile macros as they are defined on Fedora 13 (rpm-4.8.0-14.fc13). For definitions of more macros, examine the output of “

rpm --showrc

”. To see the expanded definition of a macro use the command

rpm --eval "%{macro}"

. Note that neither command will take into account macros defined inside specfiles, but both will take into account macros defined in your

~/.rpmmacros

file and macros defined on the command line.

Keep in mind that some of these macros may evaluate differently on older Fedora or EPEL releases.

%{_sysconfdir}        /etc
%{_prefix}            /usr
%{_exec_prefix}       %{_prefix}
%{_bindir}            %{_exec_prefix}/bin
%{_libdir}            %{_exec_prefix}/%{_lib}
%{_libexecdir}        %{_exec_prefix}/libexec
%{_sbindir}           %{_exec_prefix}/sbin
%{_sharedstatedir}    /var/lib
%{_datarootdir}       %{_prefix}/share
%{_datadir}           %{_datarootdir}
%{_includedir}        %{_prefix}/include
%{_infodir}           /usr/share/info
%{_mandir}            /usr/share/man
%{_localstatedir}     /var
%{_initddir}          %{_sysconfdir}/rc.d/init.d

These macros should be used for paths that are not covered by the macros mimicking autoconf variables. The

%{buildroot}

macro or the

$RPM_BUILD_ROOT

variable is the directory that should be assumed to be the root file system when installing files. Is is used as the value for the

DESTDIR

variable.

%{_var}               /var
%{_tmppath}           %{_var}/tmp
%{_usr}               /usr
%{_usrsrc}            %{_usr}/src
%{_lib}               lib (lib64 on 64bit multilib systems)
%{_docdir}            %{_datadir}/doc
%{buildroot}          %{_buildrootdir}/%{name}-%{version}-%{release}.%{_arch}
$RPM_BUILD_ROOT       %{buildroot}

These macros should be used as flags for the compiler or linker. Note that the values for the macros below reflect the settings on Fedora 13 (i686) with redhat-rpm-config installed.

%{__global_cflags}   -O2 -g -pipe -Wall -Wp,-D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=2 -fexceptions -fstack-protector --param=ssp-buffer-size=4
%{optflags}          %{__global_cflags} -m32 -march=i686 -mtune=atom -fasynchronous-unwind-tables
$RPM_OPT_FLAGS       %{optflags}

The macros are usually used with

rpmbuild --define

to specify which directories rpmbuild should use, it is unusual to use them within SPEC files.

%{_topdir}            %{getenv:HOME}/rpmbuild
%{_builddir}          %{_topdir}/BUILD
%{_rpmdir}            %{_topdir}/RPMS
%{_sourcedir}         %{_topdir}/SOURCES
%{_specdir}           %{_topdir}/SPECS
%{_srcrpmdir}         %{_topdir}/SRPMS
%{_buildrootdir}      %{_topdir}/BUILDROOT