Introduction

Table of Contents
RPM Repository Layout
RPM Workflow

Git-buildpackage is a Debian toolset for maintaining and building packages in/from git repositories. The still experimental RPM variants of the tool, extend the support from Debian-only to building and maintaining RPM packages, too. The documentation of git-buildpackage-rpm here reflects the the Debian git-buildpackage documentation

The RPM versions of the tools can in their current state do basically all the same tasks as the Debian versions, except for changelog generation. However, the philosophy is somewhat different in some parts. The RPM tools read the .spec file instead of changelog in determining packaging information (version number, name etc). Another clear difference is that gbp buildpackage-rpm will always build in a separate build directory whereas gbp buildpackage (the Debian) tool builds in the git working dir, by default. Third, conceptual, difference (for non-native packages) is that you may have packaging files in an orphan branch, without development sources: i.e. you develop code in 'patch-queue' branch that doesn't contain any packaging files, and, do 'pq-rpm export' to 'packaging' branch that only contains packaging files (.spec file, patches etc.) but no sources. The Debian/RPM tool equivalence is:

gbp buildpackage -> RPM: gbp buildpackage-rpm
gbp import-dsc -> RPM: gbp import-srpm
gbp import-orig -> RPM: gbp import-orig-rpm
gbp pq -> RPM: gbp pq-rpm
gbp clone -> RPM: gbp clone (the same tool)
gbp pull -> RPM: gbp pull (the same tool)
gbp dch -> RPM: not available
gbp import-dscs -> RPM: not available

RPM Repository Layout

The required repository layout is similar to Debian: basically the only requirement is that non-native packages must have clean upstream sources in a separate branch. Other branches are:

packaging-branch contains packaging files (spec and source files, e.g. patches, needed by rpmbuild, except for the orig tarball). This branch may contain the development sources as well (always true for native packages).
upstream-branch contains upstream sources. This can either be a branch you import to or a branch of an upstream repository you pull from.
pristine-tar-branch contains pristine-tar data to recreate the original upstream tarball from the upstream-branch.
patch-queue-branch(es) are related to packaging-branch(es). These are also called the development branhces in the RPM tools. The development/patch-queue branch is the upstream plus the patches from packaging branch applied. In RPM tools the default branch name of the development/patch-queue branch is development/<packaging-branch-name>.

RPM Workflow

The basic workflow is very similar to Debian:

Import a package via gbp import-srpm OR clone from the distro git with gbp clone if the package is already maintained with gbp buildpackage-rpm.
Develop, test, commit changes.
Once satisfied you can build the final package with gbp buildpackage-rpm (optionally with --git-tag to create a tag in git) and push it to git server.