Hey,

I was bored one night and didn't really want to do homework, so I threw this together: a man page specifically for PKGBUILD, and in section 5 as I believe system file manpages should be. It incorporates variables at the top that makes setting distribution-specific wording much easier. Take it or leave it, but I thought I would at least put it out there.

Dan

." the string declarations are a start to try and make distro independent .ds DS Arch Linux .ds PB PKGBUILD .ds VR 3.0.0 .TH PKGBUILD 5 "Oct 25, 2006" "PKGBUILD version *(VR" "*(DS Files" .SH NAME PKGBUILD - *(DS package build description file .SH DESCRIPTION This manual page is meant to describe general rules about PKGBUILDs. Once a PKGBUILD is written, the actual package is built using \fBmakepkg\fR and installed with \fBpacman\fR.

\fBNOTE:\fR If you have a local copy of the Arch Build System (ABS) tree on your computer, you can copy the PKGBUILD.proto file to your new package build directory and edit it from there. To acquire/sync the ABS tree, use the \fBabs\fR script included with pacman/makepkg.

.SS Quick PKGBUILD Explanation For an example of a PKGBUILD, see the \fBEXAMPLE\fR section.

\fIpkgname\fR defines the package name. It should not contain any uppercase letters. \fIpkgversion\fR defines the actual package version as given by the developers of the package. No dashes are allowed. \fIpkgrel\fR allows for *(DS-specific changes to the package or corrections to a PKGBUILD without an upstream version change. The value should be an integer. \fIpkgdesc\fR is a short one-line description for the package, usually taken from the project's homepage or manpage. It is preferable to keep the length to one line for displaying during searches. These four variables are required in every PKGBUILD. \fIurl\fR is also highly recommended so users can find more information on the package if needed.

\fIdepends\fR and \fImakedepends\fR are bash arrays which define the dependencies of the package. Packages listed in \fImakedepends\fR are required only for building the package, and not for runtime. \fIdepends\fR is used to list runtime depends. To build the package using \fBmakepkg\fR, ALL dependencies must be satisfied. For \fBpacman\fR to install the package, all runtime depends must be satisfied.

The \fIbackup\fR array specifies files that should be treated specially when removing or upgrading packages. See \fBHANDLING CONFIG FILES\fR in the \fIpacman\fR manpage for more information on this.

The \fIsource()\fR array tells makepkg which files to download or extract before compiling begins. The \fImd5sums()\fR array provides md5sums for each of these files. These are used to validate the integrity of the source files.

The \fIbuild\fR function is what actually does the work of putting the package together. Sometimes this is as simple as a configure, make, make install (to $startdir/pkg). However, some customizations are often needed during the build process.

Once your PKGBUILD is created, you can run \fBmakepkg\fR from the build directory. \fBmakepkg\fR will check dependencies and look for the source files required to build. If some are missing it will attempt to download them, provided there is a fully-qualified URL in the \fIsource()\fR array.

.SS Install/Upgrade/Remove Scripting Pacman has the ability to store and execute a package-specific script when it installs, removes, or upgrades a package. This allows a package to "configure itself" after installation and do the opposite right before it is removed.

The exact time the script is run varies with each operation:

.TP .B pre_install script is run right before files are extracted.

.TP .B post_install script is run right after files are extracted.

.TP .B pre_upgrade script is run right before files are extracted.

.TP .B post_upgrade script is run after files are extracted.

.TP .B pre_remove script is run right before files are removed.

.TP .B post_remove script is run right after files are removed.

.P To use this feature, just create a file (eg, pkgname.install) and put it in the same directory as the PKGBUILD script. Then use the \fIinstall\fR directive:

install=pkgname.install

The install script does not need to be specified in the \fIsource\fR array. A template install file is available in your ABS tree (/var/abs/install.proto).

.SH OPTIONS AND DIRECTIVES .TP .B pkgname The name of the package. This has be a unix-friendly name as it will be used in the package filename.

.TP .B pkgver This is the version of the software as released from the author (eg, 2.7.1).

.TP .B pkgrel This is the release number specific to *(DS's release. This allows package maintainers to make updates to the package's configure flags, for example.

.TP .B pkgdesc This should be a brief description of the package and its functionality.

." Is this applicable below? .TP .B pkgdesc_localized \fI(array)\fR Array of the localized package descriptions. The format is the following: pkgdesc_localized=('xx_YY foo' 'xx_YY bar')

.TP .B url This field contains an optional URL that is associated with the piece of software being packaged. This is typically the project's website.

.TP .B license \fI(array)\fR This field specifies the license(s) that apply to the package. Commonly-used licenses are typically found in \fI/usr/share/licenses/common\fR. If you see the package's license there, simply reference it in the license field (eg, \fBlicense="GPL"\fR). If the package provides a license not found in \fI/usr/share/licenses/common\fR, then you should include the license in the package itself and set \fBlicense="custom"\fR or \fBlicense="custom:LicenseName"\fR. The license itself should be placed in a directory called \fI$startdir/pkg/usr/share/licenses/$pkgname\fR. If multiple licenses are applied, use the array form: \fBlicenses=('GPL' 'FDL')\fR

.TP .B install Specifies a special install script that is to be included in the package. This file should reside in the same directory as the PKGBUILD, and will be copied into the package by makepkg. It does not need to be included in the \fIsource\fR array. (eg, install=pkgname.install)

." Is this applicable below? .TP .B up2date This directive should contain a command that prints the current upstream stable version of the project.

.TP .B source \fI(array)\fR The \fIsource\fR line is an array of source files required to build the package. Source files must reside in the same directory as the PKGBUILD file, unless they have a fully-qualified URL.

.TP .B md5sums \fI(array)\fR If this field is present, it should contain an MD5 hash for every source file specified in the \fIsource\fR array (in the same order). \fImakepkg\fR will use this to verify source file integrity during subsequent builds. To easily generate md5sums, first build using the PKGBUILD then run \fBmakepkg -g >>PKGBUILD\fR. Then you can edit the PKGBUILD and move the \fImd5sums\fR line from the bottom to an appropriate location.

." Is this applicable below? .TP .B signatures \fI(array)\fR If this field is present, it should contain an array of gpg signatures required to validate the source files. Where there is no signature available just leave it empty, like:

signatures=(${source[0]}.asc '')

.TP .B groups \fI(array)\fR This is an array of symbolic names that represent groups of packages, allowing you to install multiple packages by requesting a single target. For example, one could install all KDE packages by installing the 'kde' group.

.TP .B archs \fI(array)\fR This array defines on which architectures the given package is available.

.TP .B backup \fI(array)\fR A space-delimited array of filenames (without a preceding slash). The \fIbackup\fR line will be propagated to the package meta-info file for pacman. This will designate all files listed there to be backed up if this package is ever removed from a system. See \fBHANDLING CONFIG FILES\fR in the \fIpacman\fR manpage for more information.

.TP .B depends \fI(array)\fR An array of packages that this package depends on to build and run. Packages in this list should be surrounded with single quotes and contain at least the package name. They can also include a version requirement of the form \fBname<>version\fR, where <> is one of these three comparisons: \fB>=\fR (greater than equal to), \fB<=\fR (less than or equal to), or \fB=\fR (equal to).

.TP .B makedepends \fI(array)\fR An array of packages that this package depends on to build, but not at runtime. Packages in this list should follow the same format as \fIdepends\fR.

.TP .B conflicts \fI(array)\fR An array of packages that will conflict with this package (ie, they cannot both be installed at the same time). This directive follows the same format as \fIdepends\fR except you cannot specify versions.

.TP .B provides \fI(array)\fR An array of "virtual provisions" that this package provides. This allows a package to provide dependencies other than its own package name. For example, the kernel26beyond package can each provide 'kernel26' which allows packages to simply depend on 'kernel26' rather than "kernel26 OR kernel26beyond".

.TP .B replaces \fI(array)\fR This is an array of packages that this package should replace, and can be used to handle renamed/combined packages. For example, if the j2re package gets renamed to jre, then subsequent 'pacman -Syu' calls will not pick up the upgrade, due to the differing package names. \fIreplaces\fR handles this.

.TP .B options \fI(array)\fR This array allows you to override some of makepkg's default behaviour when building packages. To set an option, just include the option name in the \fBoptions\fR array. .RS .TP .B nostrip don't strip binaries/libraries. .TP .B keepdocs keep /usr/share/doc and /usr/share/info directories. .TP .B force force the package to be upgraded by --sysupgrade, even if it's an older version. .RE

.SH EXAMPLE The following is an example PKGBUILD for the 'modutils' package. For more examples, look through the ABS tree.

.nf # Maintainer: John Doe johndoe@archlinux.org pkgname=modutils pkgver=2.4.25 pkgrel=1 pkgdesc="Utilities for inserting modules in the linux kernel" url="http://www.kernel.org" makedepends=('bash' 'mawk') depends=('glibc' 'zlib') backup=(etc/modules.conf) source=(ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/kernel/$pkgname/v2.4/$pkgname-$pkgver.tar.bz2 \ modules.conf) md5sums=('2c0cca3ef6330a187c6ef4fe41ecaa4d' \ '35175bee593a7cc7d6205584a94d8625')

build() { cd $startdir/src/$pkgname-$pkgver ./configure --prefix=/usr --enable-insmod-static make || return 1 make prefix=$startdir/pkg/usr install mv $startdir/pkg/usr/sbin $startdir/pkg mkdir -p $startdir/pkg/etc cp ../modules.conf $startdir/pkg/etc } .fi

.SH SEE ALSO .BR makepkg (8), .BR pacman (8)

See the Arch Linux website at http://www.archlinux.org for more current information on the distribution, and http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Arch_Packaging_Standards for recommendations on packaging standards. .SH AUTHORS Judd Vinet jvinet@zeroflux.org and the Frugalware developers frugalware-devel@frugalware.org