title: Where do these RPM timestamp macros come from?
body: <p>I am charged with porting a system from WebLogic to JBoss.  The components of this system are typically packaged as RPMs and deployed on servers running Linux via rpm.</p>
  
  <p>One of the spec files defines the following.</p>
  
  <pre><code>MM=%m ; DD=%d ; YY=%y ; HH24=%H ; MI=%M ; SS=%S ; DATETIME=${MM}${DD}${YY}.${HH24}${MI}${SS}
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>which is clearly some sort of timestamp formatting mechanism, the output of which (DATETIME) gets written when log entries are written.</p>
  
  <p>As part of this process is being ported to python (the rpm script will run python), I am trying to understand the source of these macros ( %m, %d, %y ), etc.  It seems that they might be predefined by the rpm program itself.  I can find no explicit documentation of this in the rpm man-pages or through multiple Google attempts, although I do find some hints that this may be the case.</p>
  
  <p>Can someone confirm that these macros are or aren't defined whenever rpm is invoked and provide documentation of same?</p>
  
  <p><strong>Update: Wumpus Q. Wumbley points out that these look suspiciously like strftime format symbols.  I agree, so then the question becomes, is recognition of strftime format symbols as macros a feature, perhaps undocumented, of rpm?</strong></p>