docs/packages/empty.rst
fpm supports using empty only as an 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.
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:
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)
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