[OE-core] what exactly is the proper way to use FILESEXTRAPATHS?

[Richard Purdie]

On Thu, 2012-12-06 at 18:20 -0500, Robert P. J. Day wrote:
> On Thu, 6 Dec 2012, Richard Purdie wrote:
> 
> > On Thu, 2012-12-06 at 15:27 -0500, Robert P. J. Day wrote:
> > > continuing my trek through coding pedantry and was wondering about
> > > the exact purpose of the common line in .bbappend files:
> > >
> > > FILESEXTRAPATHS_prepend := "${THISDIR}/${PN}:"
> > >
> > > or some slight variation thereof.
> > >
> > >   i *thought* i knew what it did, so i did a small experiment with the
> > > meta-ti layer and netbase (since i was already messing around with
> > > it), and i replaced the contents of the netbase .bbappend file with
> > > the single line:
> > >
> > > FILESEXTRAPATHS_prepend := "rday"
> > >
> > > and checked the environment for the value of FILESPATH for the netbase
> > > recipe and, after formatting to read it clearly, what i saw was:
> > >
> > > FILESPATH="rday/linux-gnueabi
> > > rday/arm
> > > rday/build-linux
> > > rday/pn-netbase
> > > rday/beagleboard
> > > rday/omap3
> > > rday/armv7a
> > > rday/
> > > rday/class-target
> > > rday/forcevariable
> > > rday/libc-glibc
> > > rday/
> > > /home/rpjday/OE/dist/layers/oe-core/meta/recipes-core/netbase/netbase-5.0/linux-gnueabi
> > > /home/rpjday/OE/dist/layers/oe-core/meta/recipes-core/netbase/netbase-5.0/arm
> > > /home/rpjday/OE/dist/layers/oe-core/meta/recipes-core/netbase/netbase-5.0/build-linux
> > > /home/rpjday/OE/dist/layers/oe-core/meta/recipes-core/netbase/netbase-5.0/pn-netbase
> > > /home/rpjday/OE/dist/layers/oe-core/meta/recipes-core/netbase/netbase-5.0/beagleboard
> > > /home/rpjday/OE/dist/layers/oe-core/meta/recipes-core/netbase/netbase-5.0/omap3
> > > ... snip ...
> > >
> > >   what the heck?  if that's what FILESEXTRAPATHS is supposed to do,
> > > that is definitely *not* how it's being used in many, many bbappend
> > > files.
> > >
> > >   is there an explanation somewhere as to what the above is supposed
> > > to represent?
> >
> > What is puzzling about the above? Its doing what it was designed to do.
> >
> > The idea is to add the directory listed to the set of directories that
> > get "autogenerated" from OVERRIDES as search locations. What did you
> > expect it to do?
> 
>   i am, right this minute, looking at the explanation of
> FILESEXTRAPATHS in the poky reference manual glossary.  i see
> absolutely no mention of the word "OVERRIDES".
>
>   signing off for the evening as i'm starting to get annoyed ...

It sounds like the docs are missing some details about how this works
and what its designed to do. We should add the information and there are
several of us who will happily work with Scott on fixing that.

Getting annoyed isn't going to help.

I'd also add that we're about to change the way this works a little so
we'd perhaps better hold off fixing the manual until we've made that
change (which will simplify the lists of search paths you've been seeing
further).

Scott: Looks like we need to tweak the manual in this location. Could
you open a bug or otherwise track this please?

Cheers,

Richard