Scripting is the art of writing a set of commands into text files to speed up your work. Programming is the art of writing a set of commands into text files, compiling the text files, and getting paid more. Choosing when to program and when to script isn’t always a clear-cut decision, but generally programs are move involved and complex, while scripts are shorter tools that automate your work. This chapter provides just a glimpse of all you can do with scripts and the RPM system.

Scripts work very well for capturing obscure syntax options for the rpm command, especially the query formats. You can figure out a command once and then save the command as a script to save time in the future.

Scripts aren’t the best choice for all tasks, though. In many cases, you need to write a program to accomplish your goals. The next chapter delves into the RPM C programming API, rpmlib.