My former primary boot disk had some bad spots appear awhile back. Damage, per rpm --verify, seems to be predominately in loss of reference files in /usr/share/doc and such as that.
Being the type that wastes my own time before wasting that of others, I did a semi-careful perusal of the rpm man pages. Thought the --files or some such might offer a way ought. IIUC, nope! Seems that I can't select specific files. It looks like I could do a new install in a new root (chrooted) and then copy the files out, but I was already aware of an apparently easier way I had used years ago, rpm2cpio (easier because I can use the verify output list, slightly edited and reduced, to select the desired files.
Thought "Well, it probably can do what I want, I just missed it. Maybe tutorials, HOWTOs, etc. will give the answer". So, using the TOC of each of these, I probed in vain (in that vein, it was fruitless but not painless :-).
http://fedora.redhat.com/docs/drafts/rpm-guide-en/ http://www.rpm.org/max-rpm-snapshot/ http://www.redhat.com/magazine/001nov04/features/betterliving/ http://www.redhat.com/magazine/002dec04/features/betterliving-part2/
I've settled on rpm2cpio unless someone can point me in a better direction.
TIA