diff --git a/bldpkg b/bldpkg
index 792f136..7dafce3 100755
--- a/bldpkg
+++ b/bldpkg
@@ -120,18 +120,26 @@ validatebldfile() {
 
   if [[ ! -f $buildfile ]] ; then
     err "No build file to validate from!"
+  else 
+    source $buildfile
   fi
-  
+
+  for reqvars in app version build homepage desc requires ; do
+    if [[ ! ${!reqvars} ]] ; then
+      err "Required variable '$reqvars' is not set in $buildfile!"
+    fi
+  done
+
   # Validate $app
-  if ! grep -E -q '^app=[a-z0-9-]' "$buildfile" ; then
+  if ! echo "$app" | grep -E -q '\w[a-z0-9-]+\w'; then
     err "Only lower case, numeric characters and dash allowed in the 'app' variable in the build file."
 
   # Validate $version 
-  elif ! grep -E -q '^version=[a-z0-9.]' "$buildfile" ; then
+  elif ! echo "$version" | grep -E -q '\w[a-z0-9.]+\w'; then
     err "Only lower case, numeric characters and a period allowed in the 'version' variable in the build file."
   
   # Validate $homepage
-  elif ! grep -E -q '^homepage="\(https|http||ftp)://' "$buildfile" ; then
+  elif ! echo "$homepage" | grep -E -q '(https|http|ftp)://[^"]+' ; then
     err "Invalid URL in the 'homepage' variable in the build file."
 
   # Validate $desc using bash shell's ability to count variable length
@@ -148,8 +156,8 @@ validatebldfile() {
   fi
 
   # Validate the download variable separately because it's optional
-  if grep -q '^download=' "$buildfile" ; then
-    if ! grep -q '^download=[*p*://]*' "$buildfile" ; then
+  if [[ -n $download ]] ; then
+    if ! echo "$download" | grep -E -q '(https|http|ftp)://[^"]+' ; then
       err "Invalid URL in the 'download' variable in the build file."
     fi
   fi
@@ -575,7 +583,7 @@ EOF
   fi
 
   # Discard install directory if it's empty but don't error out
-  rmdir --ignore-fail-on-non-empty install
+  rmdir lib &> /dev/null || true
   
   # Discard charset.alias
   if [[ -f lib/charset.alias ]] ; then
@@ -584,7 +592,7 @@ EOF
   fi
 
   # Also discard the lib directory if it's empty but don't error out
-  rmdir --ignore-fail-on-non-empty lib
+  rmdir lib &> /dev/null || true
 
   tar cvf - . --format gnu \
     --xform 'sx^\./\(.\)x\1x' \