Help me get this conceptually- customized install locations

[Tlaloc Raingod]

Hello,
I'm a long time windows user, short time linux user.  I have a work project to build some RPMs and I'm trying to make sure I have the concepts down for how to use fpm.

My specific project involves making an rpm for a version of python which will live in it's own directory under /opt/ (CentOS so we don't want to muck up the system version of python).  

As far as I can see I can only specify the output directory if I use something like this:

fpm -s dir -t deb -n example something.conf=/etc/example/ bin/=/usr/bin

but that means my source is a directory so I'd have to point at all the directories where the python install put any files (/usr/bin/, /usr/lib/ probably others).  It'd be much easier if I could point it at the python tar file but then I can't control the ultimate install directory, right?  Similarly with the various libraries we want to have (as separate RPMs) I can easily point fpm at the python module ala pip but then I can't specify the install location so I need to figure out all the directories a given module installs to and then have fpm grab those directories.

Problem with that is that in many cases the directories are going to include a lot of stuff I don't want in the rpm (usr/bin is not exactly empty even on a new linux install).

Am I missing something key here?  I know it may be possible to handle the different install dir on the rpm side (rpm --prefix=/home/chroot/ bind-chroot*.rpm) but that only works with some rpms (relocatable ones) and relies on the end user to get it right, instead of building the rpm right in the first place.

Thank you


[Tlaloc Raingod]

After some experimentation (and many times cursing 'sudo') I think I've found that the --prefix (path) option does what I want so I don't need to use a dir source.