This page contains best practices for packages that make use of or depend on C or C++ in Fedora, from development, debugging, and maintenance to packaging.
Packaging C and C++ applications
There are two basic categories of C and C++ packages: applications and libraries. Some of these guidelines will also apply to packages that use cpp to process C or C++ headers.
BuildRequires and Requires
If your application is a C or C++ application you must list a BuildRequires against gcc, gcc-c++ or clang. Those packages will include everything that is required to build a standards conforming C or C++ application.
If your library includes standard C or C++ headers, you must list BuildRequires against gcc, gcc-c++, or clang to install the needed standards conforming headers.
If at runtime you use cpp to process C or C++ language headers then you have no choice but to use Requires for gcc, gcc-c++, or clang to install the required headers for a standard conforming C or C++ application. In the future this might change if a set of standard C or C++ language headers are provided by a special-purpose provides e.g. c-headers or c++-headers.
You need not include a BuildRequires or Requires on glibc-headers, or any other core C or C++ implementation package unless you have a specific and special need e.g. static compilation requires the .*-static library packages. The default use case of a dynamically compiled C or C++ application is taken care of by the gcc, gcc-c++, and clang packages.
Please refer to Packaging:Guidelines Compiler for the list of supported compilers for C and C++ compilers.
Question and Answer
Q: Do I need a Requires: glibc to ensure I have the C runtime installed for my application?
A: No. RPM will automatically determine what ELF libraries you need based on the binaries in your package. This is sufficient to cause glibc to be installed.
Q: Do I need to include a Requires: libgcc?
A: If you are using an API from libgcc directly, then yes, you must have a Requires: libgcc. In general though glibc requires libgcc, so it is always installed.