Valid RPM Macros

Note: this is based on official Fedora Wiki page and could be outdated!

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.

Macros mimicking autoconf variables

%{_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

Other macros and variables for paths

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. It 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}

Build flags macros and variables

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}

RPM directory macros

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