errors building with dist-git where old "patchN" format is used in spec file

[loise-nolden]

When building a package that still uses the prior format "%patchN" instead of "%patch N", copr refuses to build the package with the following error message for each affected package.

Reproduce:

1. create a copr with centos-steam-10 buildroot
2. use the following build options for a new build:

Source

Package:
-
Version:
-
Source Type:
Build from DistGit
Committish:
c10s
Clone_Url:
https://gitlab.com/redhat/centos-stream/rpms/e2fsprogs.git

and start the build, then the error appears:

cmd: ['dist-git-client', 'srpm', '--outputdir', '/var/lib/copr-rpmbuild/results']
cwd: /var/lib/copr-rpmbuild/workspace/workdir-y800q6c8/e2fsprogs
rc: 1
stdout: 
stderr: INFO: Checked call: rpmbuild -bs /var/lib/copr-rpmbuild/workspace/workdir-y800q6c8/e2fsprogs/./e2fsprogs.spec --define 'dist %nil' --define '_sourcedir /var/lib/copr-rpmbuild/workspace/workdir-y800q6c8/e2fsprogs/.' --define '_srcrpmdir /var/lib/copr-rpmbuild/results' --define '_disable_source_fetch 1'
error: %patchN is obsolete, use %patch N (or %patch -P N): %patch0 -p1

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/bin/dist-git-client", line 10, in <module>
    main()
    ~~~~^^
  File "/usr/lib/python3.13/site-packages/dist_git_client.py", line 494, in main
    srpm(args, config)
    ~~~~^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
  File "/usr/lib/python3.13/site-packages/dist_git_client.py", line 348, in srpm
    check_call(command)
    ~~~~~~~~~~^^^^^^^^^
  File "/usr/lib/python3.13/site-packages/dist_git_client.py", line 50, in check_call
    subprocess.check_call(cmd)
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~^^^^^
  File "/usr/lib64/python3.13/subprocess.py", line 419, in check_call
    raise CalledProcessError(retcode, cmd)
subprocess.CalledProcessError: Command '['rpmbuild', '-bs', '/var/lib/copr-rpmbuild/workspace/workdir-y800q6c8/e2fsprogs/./e2fsprogs.spec', '--define', 'dist %nil', '--define', '_sourcedir /var/lib/copr-rpmbuild/workspace/workdir-y800q6c8/e2fsprogs/.', '--define', '_srcrpmdir /var/lib/copr-rpmbuild/results', '--define', '_disable_source_fetch 1']' returned non-zero exit status 1.

[praiskup]

Yeah, the thing is ... we need to run this "generate srpm" tasks on F41+, otherwise we fail to build newer RPMs. But we now fail to build older RPMs. This is very unfortunate. My hope was that we could avoid building SRPMs at all, and stop parsing the specfile at this stage -> though then we doen't support %autochangelog and %autorelease, more info in release-engineering/dist-git#72 and fedora-infra/rpmautospec#211

[xsuchy]

This depends on #1315 and effectively duplicates this RFE (therefore, I am closing this one).
In the meantime, you either have to use the new format in SPEC file or choose different package method (i.e. upload SRPM directly)

[praiskup]

... or choose different package method (i.e. upload SRPM directly)

I'm not actually sure this would help, somebody would have to check.