finally avoid having to remember to update multiple parts by removinng redundancy through more macro hacking

ncurses/ncurses.spec

@@ -35,7 +35,7 @@
 %define       V_patch9  20021221
 %define       V_patch10 20021228
 %define       V_patch11 20021231
-%define       V_patchL  %{V_patch11}
+%define       V_patches 11
 
 #   package information
 Name:         ncurses
@@ -46,8 +46,8 @@ Packager:     The OpenPKG Project
 Distribution: OpenPKG [BASE]
 Group:        Terminal
 License:      GPL
-Version:      %{V_base}.%{V_patchL}
-Release:      20021231
+Version:      %{V_base}.%{expand:%%{V_patch%{V_patches}}}
+Release:      20030103
 
 #   list of sources
 Source0:      ftp://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ncurses-%{V_base}.tar.gz
@@ -79,8 +79,9 @@ AutoReqProv:  no
 
 %prep
     %setup -q -n ncurses-%{V_base}
-    for patch in %{PATCH1} %{PATCH2} %{PATCH3} %{PATCH4} %{PATCH5} \
-                 %{PATCH6} %{PATCH7} %{PATCH8} %{PATCH9} %{PATCH10}; do
+    for patch in \
+        %{expand:%(i=1; while [ $i -le %{V_patches} ]; do shtool echo -n " %%{PATCH$i}"; i=`expr $i + 1`; done)}
+    do
         %{l_gzip} -d -c $patch | %{l_patch} -p1 || true
     done