Fedora Linux

Tag	Description
Name	Name of the package.
Version	Version of the software in the package (software version).
Release	Release number of the package (package version).
Group	The application group to which the software belongs. See /usr/share/doc/rpm-4.4.2/GROUPS for a list of possible values.
URL	The software's home page on the Web.
License	The license used for the software (such as GPL or Mozilla).
Summary	A one-line summary of the package description.
Requires	Capabilities needed by the software in order to be successfully installed. Many requirements are automatically determined, so this line is often not needed. Also include in this tag any special capabilities required by install and uninstall scripts (or triggers). If a package name is given as an argument, a version number can be provided, and a comparison can be given (such as gcc >= 4.0 or sendmail = 8.13.4).
BuildRequires	Capabilities needed by the software in order to be successfully built, but not needed simply to install the RPM. For example, the gcc C compiler may be required to build the RPM package, but not to install it once it has been built.
Provides	Capabilities provided by the package. Like Requires, most of the Provides will be determined automatically.
BuildRoot	Specifies where the package should be installed during the package-building process. Many packages use %{_tmppath}/%{name}-root, which will create a package-specific directory within ~/rpm/tmp. It is strongly recommended that you do not use /.

This is the initial information for the Critical Mass spec file:

Name: CriticalMass
Version: 1.0.0
Release: 1
Group: Amusements/Games
Summary: An arcade-style shoot-em-up game.
License: GPL
Source0: CriticalMass-1.0.0.tar.bz2
URL: http://sourceforge.net/projects/criticalmass
BuildRoot: %{_tmppath}/%{name}-root

One more tag must be defined %description but this tag does not take the name:value form. Instead, a description of the package follows on the lines after the tag:

%description
CriticalMass is an old-style arcade-style shoot-em-up game with modern graphics and sound.

The description text will be automatically wrapped and formatted to fit available space when it is displayed. To include preformatted text, leave a space at the start of each preformatted line.

After this initial information are seven sections, each identified by a section name:

%prep

Commands used to prepare the package for building.

%build

Commands used to build the package from the source (such as make ).

%install

Commands to install the software (such as make install ).

%check

Commands to test whether the software built correctly ( make test ). Optional; many packages do not include this section.