[OE-core] questions about WORKDIR and S usage and files/ stuff

[Richard Purdie]

On Sun, 2015-02-22 at 03:35 -0500, Robert P. J. Day wrote:
> On Sat, 21 Feb 2015, Richard Purdie wrote:
> 
> > On Sat, 2015-02-21 at 05:09 -0500, Robert P. J. Day wrote:
> 
> ... snip ...
> 
> > >   sticking with those non-patch files, it makes sense that all of
> > > them should be processed relative to their location in ${WORKDIR}
> > > (which is where they've all been copied), but occasionally, i'll
> > > see a recipe that sets:
> > >
> > >   S = ${WORKDIR}
> > >
> > > then refers to all those files relative to ${S}. sure, that'll
> > > work, but it always struck me as dangerous in case you ever need
> > > to use a separate S directory down the road, then you'd have to
> > > change the entire recipe.
> > >
> > >   as an example, consider base-files again, which sets:
> > >
> > >   S = "${WORKDIR}"
> > >
> > > but not for any reason that i can see since that recipe consists
> > > of nothing but explicit files, and all of their processing is done
> > > with respect to ${WORKDIR}, anyway, which strikes me as the right
> > > way to do it. so, a question -- what is the point of the
> > > base-files recipe setting S to that value? doesn't seem to have
> > > any purpose that i can see.
> >
> > See the recent patches which actually added that.
> 
>   sorry, i don't know what recent patches you're talking about ...
> that variable setting above has, according to git blame, been part of
> the base-files recipe since back in 2005.
> 
>   what am i misunderstanding?

http://git.yoctoproject.org/cgit.cgi/poky/commit/?id=4eb3db9a2ca8eaff64b64b8f56dac25d4734571c

http://git.yoctoproject.org/cgit.cgi/poky/commit/?id=cf72ede74d35746a10d0708942287548f9c72f30

and some of the surrounding patches. I'd assumed base-files was part of
that series, clearly it wasn't but there were many other recipes changed
at that time.

Cheers,

Richard