Setting up pre-releases with Packit

There are two ways how to support pre-releases in a spec file.

The simpler way relies on the %version_no_tilde macro from rust-srpm-macros (not present on EL < 9) that converts a pre-release version with ~ back to upstream version. An optional argument defines upstream delimiter that defaults to -. Here is an example of a spec file using this macro:

Version:        3.28.0~rc3

...

Source0:        https://example.com/files/v%{version_no_tilde}/%{name}-%{version_no_tilde}.tar.gz

...

%prep
%autosetup -p1 -n %{name}-%{version_no_tilde}

If upstream version doesn't have a delimiter, for example 3.28.0b5, you can use %{version_no_tilde %{quote:%nil}}.

The second, more complex way requires you to define a macro, typically called prerelease or prerel, and package version (value of the Version tag) and upstream version are constructed depending on whether it is defined or commented out. Here is an example of such a spec file:

%global base_version 3.28.0
%global prerelease rc3

%global package_version %{base_version}%{?prerelease:~%{prerelease}}
%global upstream_version %{base_version}%{?prerelease:-%{prerelease}}

...

Version:        %{package_version}

...

Source0:        https://example.com/files/v%{upstream_version}/%{name}-%{upstream_version}.tar.gz

...

%prep
%autosetup -p1 -n %{name}-%{upstream_version}

And a bit more complex example that achieves the same (but this time there is no delimiter in upstream version and tarball URL is slightly different):

%global majorver 3
%global minorver 28
%global patchver 0
%global prerel rc3

%if 0%{?prerel:1}
%global package_version %{majorver}.%{minorver}.%{patchver}~%{prerel}
%global upstream_version %{majorver}.%{minorver}.%{patchver}%{prerel}
%else
%global package_version %{majorver}.%{minorver}.%{patchver}
%global upstream_version %{majorver}.%{minorver}.%{patchver}
%endif

...

Version:        %{package_version}

...

Source0:        https://example.com/files/v%{majorver}.%{minorver}/%{name}-%{upstream_version}.tar.gz

...

%prep
%autosetup -p1 -n %{name}-%{upstream_version}

Packit supports both ways. There is a config option prerelease_suffix_pattern that defines a regex that is used to determine if a version is a pre-release or not. It defaults to ([.\-_~^]?)(alpha|beta|rc|pre(view)?)([.\-_]?\d+)? and you can adjust it if your project uses a different versioning scheme or undefine it to opt-out from pre-release processing. The first capturing group of the regex should capture the delimiter and can be empty if there is none. If a pre-release is detected, the delimiter is replaced with ~ to ensure proper sorting by RPM. You can also configure the prerelease_suffix_macro option to correspond to a pre-release macro in your spec file and this macro will be commented out or uncommented accordingly.