empty - A package with no files

Supported Uses in FPM

fpm supports using empty only as an input type.

Arguments when used as input type

Extra arguments are ignored for this type. As an example, where with fpm -s dir ... the arguments are file paths, fpm -s empty takes no input arguments because there’s no file contents to use.

Sample Usage

The empty package type is great for creating “meta” packages which are used to group dependencies together.

For example, if you want to make it easier to install a collection of developer tools, you could create a single package that depends on all of your desired developer tools.

Let’s create a Debian package named ‘devtools’ which installs the following:

git
curl
nodejs

Here’s the fpm command to do this:

% fpm -s empty -t rpm -n devtools -a all -d git -d curl -d nodejs
Created package {:path=>"devtools-1.0-1.noarch.rpm"}

We can check the dependencies on this package:

% rpm -qp devtools-1.0-1.noarch.rpm --requires
curl
git
nodejs
rpmlib(CompressedFileNames) <= 3.0.4-1
rpmlib(PayloadFilesHavePrefix) <= 4.0-1

And see that there are no files:

% rpm -ql devtools-1.0-1.noarch.rpm
(contains no files)

Fun Examples

Hi! The fpm project would love to have any fun examples you have for using this package type. Please consider contributing your ideas by submitting them on the fpm issue tracker: https://github.com/jordansissel/fpm/issues/new