5. PTXdist Reference

5.1. Variables Reference

The following variables are provided by PTXdist to simplify creating rule files. Every developer should use these variables in every single line in the rule file to avoid any further adaption when external paths are changed.

To get their content related to the current project, we can simply run a:

$ ptxdist print PTXDIST_TOPDIR
/usr/local/lib/ptxdist-2020.02.0

Replace the PTXDIST_TOPDIR with one of the other generic variables PTXdist provides.

Global Variables

PTXDIST_TOPDIR

Points always to the installation directory of PTXdist.

PTXDIST_WORKSPACE

Everything that references PTXDIST_WORKSPACE will use the active projects’s folder.

PTXDIST_SYSROOT_CROSS

PTXDIST_SYSROOT_CROSS points to a directory tree all cross relevant executables, libraries and header files are installed to in the current project. All of the project’s packages built for the host to create data for the target are searching in this directory tree for their dependencies (executables, header and library files). Use $(PTXDIST_SYSROOT_CROSS)/bin to install executables, $(PTXDIST_SYSROOT_CROSS)/include for header files and $(PTXDIST_SYSROOT_CROSS)/lib for libraries.

PTXDIST_SYSROOT_HOST

PTXDIST_SYSROOT_HOST points to a directory tree all host relevant executables, libraries and header files are installed to. All project’s packages built for the host are searching in this directory tree for their dependencies (executables, header and library files). Use $(PTXDIST_SYSROOT_HOST)/bin to install executables, $(PTXDIST_SYSROOT_HOST)/include for header files and $(PTXDIST_SYSROOT_HOST)/lib for libraries.

PTXDIST_SYSROOT_TARGET

PTXDIST_SYSROOT_TARGET points to a directory tree all target relevant libraries and header files are installed to. All project’s packages built for the target are searching in this directory tree for their dependencies (header and library files). These files are for compile time only (for example to link a target executable against a target library), not for run-time! Use $(PTXDIST_SYSROOT_TARGET)/include for header files and $(PTXDIST_SYSROOT_TARGET)/lib for libraries.

Other useful variables:

CROSS_PATH

Use to find cross tools. This path must be used to create anything that depends on the target’s architecture, but needs something running on the host to do the job. Examples:

Creating a UBI image from the target’s root filesystem

This will need a tool running on the host, but it will create data or code that runs on or is used on the target

Building a library for the target

If this library needs other resources to be built (other libraries) its configure finds the right information in this path.

HOST_PATH

Used to find host tools. This path must be used to create anything that doesn’t depend on the architecture.

ROOTDIR

ROOTDIR points to the root of the target’s root filesystem in the current project. Used in very rare cases (to create strange packages based on data in target’s root filesystem for example).

PTXCONF_PLATFORM

PTXCONF_PLATFORM expands to the name of the currently selected platform. This name is used in various file names and paths.

PTXDIST_PLATFORMSUFFIX

PTXDIST_PLATFORMSUFFIX expands to the name of the currently selected platform, but with a leading dot. This is used in various files PTXdist should search for.

PTXDIST_PLATFORMCONFIGDIR

PTXDIST_PLATFORMCONFIGDIR points to the directory tree of the currently selected platform. This path is used in various search functions.

PTXDIST_PLATFORMDIR

PTXDIST_PLATFORMDIR points to the directory build tree of the currently selected platform.

PACKAGES, PACKAGES-y, PACKAGES-m

PACKAGES is a list of space-separated lowercase package names that are built and installed during the PTXdist build run, and installed into the target root filesystem when building images.

The -y variant contains only those packages that are selected with PTXCONF_<PKG>=y, while the -m variant contains only those which are selected with PTXCONF_<PKG>=m (used for collections). A target package rule usually adds its name to one of those variables if it has been selected. The union of those two sets then ends up in PACKAGES.

EXTRA_PACKAGES, EXTRA_PACKAGES-y, EXTRA_PACKAGES-m

In analogy to PACKAGES, target packages that are added to these lists will be built normally during the build run. In contrast however, they are not installed into a root filesystem by default when building images, and image rules must request them explicitely. This is useful for specialized packages that are only needed for specific images, see Creating Individual Root-Filesystems for each Variant.

HOST_PACKAGES, CROSS_PACKAGES

Similar to PACKAGES, these variables contain the host and cross packages that are built and installed during the PTXdist build run. There are analogous -y and -m variants of those variables too.

Package Specific Variables

For the following variables <PKG> is a placeholder for the package name. It is also the Kconfig symbol name (without the PTXCONF_ prefix).

Package Definition

<PKG>

This is the name of the package including version. For most packages, this is the name of the source archive (without suffix) and the source directory. PTXdist will search for patches in a directory with this name. This is usually defined as <name>-$(<PKG>_VERSION). This variable is required for most packages. The only exception are packages that only install some files in the targetinstall stage (e.g. from projectroot/).

<PKG>_VERSION

The version of the package. It is used as the version for the ipk packages. As such, it is required for all packages that create such packages. Most target packages fall in this category.

<PKG>_MD5

The md5 checksum of the source archive. PTXdist calculates the checksum before extracting the archive and will abort if does not match. Upstream project occasionally change the content of an archive without releasing a new version. This check helps to ensure that all developers work with the same source code.

<PKG>_SUFFIX

The archive suffix without the leading ‘.’, e.g. ‘tar.gz’ or ‘zip’. This is only used locally to define <PKG>_URL and <PKG>_SOURCE.

<PKG>_URL

This is the download URL for the source archive. It is a space separated list of URLs. PTXdist will try each URL until it finds one that works. There are two main reasons to provide more than one URL: 1. Additional mirror(s) in case the main location is unavailable. 2. Some projects move old versions into a separate directory when a new version is released. Providing both versions of the URL ensures that PTXdist still has a working URL after the next upstream release.

URLs can have options. Options are appended to the URL separated by ‘;’. For normal downloads the following options are supported:

no-check-certificate to indicate that SSL certificate checking should be disabled.

no-proxy to disable any configured proxy.

cookie:<value> to specify a cookie that should be sent.

Files in the local filesystem can be addressed with file:// URLs. In this case, the URL can also point to a directory. In this case <PKG>_DIR will be a symlink to the specified directory. ‘lndir://’ can be used to create a shadow copy instead. For locations inside the BSP the URL should use $(PTXDIST_WORKSPACE) to define the correct absolute path.

If no source archive is available, PTXdist can get the source from revision control systems. ‘git’ and ‘svn’ are currently supported. Note that this cannot be used to follow a branch! PTXdist will create the archive defined <PKG>_SOURCE and use it if available.

Git URLs must either start with ‘git://’ or end with ‘.git’. They have a mandatory tag=<tagname> option.

Svn URLs must start with ‘svn://’. They have a mandatory rev=r<number> option.

<PKG>_SOURCE

The location of the downloaded source archive. There should be no reason to set this to anything other than $(SRCDIR)/$(<PKG>).$(<PKG>_SUFFIX).

For local URLs (file:// or lndir://) <PKG>_SOURCE must not be set.

<PKG>_PATCHES

The name of the patch directory, relative to any of the paths listed in PTXDIST_PATH_PATCHES (i.e., according to the search order described in Patching Packages). If not specified, the default patch directory name is set to the value of the <PKG> variable.

This variable can be set for multiple packages that should share the same patch stack (e.g. kernel packages).

<PKG>_DIR

This is the directory where the source archive is extracted. In most cases this is set to $(BUILDDIR)/$(<PKG>). However, if two packages use the same source archive, then something else must be used to make sure that they use different directories. See the rules for ‘gdb’ and ‘gdbserver’ for an example.

<PKG>_LICENSE

The license of the package. The SPDX license identifiers should be used here. Use proprietary for proprietary packages and ignore for packages without their own license, e.g. meta packages or packages that only install files from projectroot/.

<PKG>_LICENSE_FILES

A space separated list of URLs of license text files. The URLs must be file:// URLs relative to <PKG>_DIR. Absolute URLs using $(PTXDIST_WORKSPACE) can be used in case the license text is missing in the upstream archive. Arguments are appended with ‘;’ as separator. The md5=<md5sum> argument is mandatory. It defines the md5 checksum of the full license text. startline=<number>;endline=<number> can be used in case the specified file contains more than just the license text, e.g. if the license is in the header of a source file. For non ASCII or UTF-8 files the encoding can be specified with encoding=<enc>.

For most packages the variables described above are undefined by default. However, for cross and host packages these variables default to the value of the corresponding target package if it exists.

<PKG>_CONFIG

This variable specifies a configuration file of some kind for the packages. For packages with <PKG>_CONF_TOOL set to kconfig the variable must specify an absolute path to the kconfig file. For image packages that use genimage, PTXdist will look for config/images/$(<PKG>_CONFIG) in the BSP and PTXdist in the usual search order.

<PKG>_STRIP_LEVEL

When PTXdist extracts source archives, it will create <PKG>_DIR first and then extracts the archive there. If <PKG>_STRIP_LEVEL is set to 1 (the default) then PTXdist removes the first directory level defined inside the archive. For most packages that this is the same as just extracting the archive. However, this is useful for packages with badly named top-level directories or packages where the directory must be renamed to avoid collisions (e.g. gdbserver).

The main use-case for <PKG>_STRIP_LEVEL is to set it to 0 for packages without a top-level directory.

In theory <PKG>_STRIP_LEVEL could be set to 2 or more to remove more than one directory level.

<PKG>_BUILD_OOT

If this is set to YES then PTXdist will build the package out of tree. This is only supported for autoconf, qmake and cmake packages. The default is YES for cmake packages and NO for everything else. It will use $(<PKG>_DIR)-build as build directory.

This is especially useful for file:// URLS that point to directories to keep the source tree free of build files.

KEEP can be used instead of YES. In this case the build tree is not deleted at the beginning of the prepare stage. This make reconfiguration faster. This should only be used for packages that can handle configuration changes correctly and rebuild everything as needed.

<PKG>_SUBDIR

This is a directory relative to <PKG>_DIR. If set, all build operations are executed in this directory instead. By default <PKG>_SUBDIR is undefined so all operations are executed in the top-level directory.

Build Environment for all Stages

<PKG>_PATH

This variable defines the PATH used by all build stages. It is evaluated as is, so it must start with PATH=. If undefined, PTXdist will use PATH=$(CROSS_PATH) for target packages PATH=$(HOST_PATH) for host packages and PATH=$(HOST_CROSS_PATH) for cross packages. It must be set by packages that use the variable locally in the make file or if more directories are added, e.g. to PATH=$(PTXDIST_SYSROOT_CROSS)/bin/qt5:$(CROSS_PATH) for packages that use qmake from Qt5.

<PKG>_CFLAGS, <PKG>_CPPFLAGS, <PKG>_LDFLAGS

Compiler, preprocessor and linker are never called directly in PTXdist. Instead, wrapper scripts are called that expand the command line before calling the actual tool. These variables can be used to influence these wrappers. The specified flags are added to the command line when appropriate. In most cases this it the preferred way to add additional flags. Adding them via environment variables or make arguments can have unexpected side effects, such as as overwriting existing defaults.

<PKG>_WRAPPER_BLACKLIST

PTXdist has several options in the platformconfig that inject options in the compiler command line. This is used, for example, to add hardening options or change the debug options. This can occasionally cause problems for packages that use the compiler in certain ways, such as the Linux kernel or various bootloaders. With this variable a package can disable individual options by setting it to a space separated list of the corresponding Kconfig symbols (without the PTXCONF_ prefix).

Prepare Stage

<PKG>_CONF_ENV

The environment for the prepare stage. If undefined, PTXdist will use $(CROSS_ENV) for target packages, $(HOST_ENV) for host packages and $(HOST_CROSS_ENV) for cross packages. It must be set by packages that use the variable locally in the make file or if extra variables are added. In this case the definition should start with the default value.

<PKG>_CONF_TOOL

This variable defines what tool is used to configure the package in the prepare stage. Possible values are:

• NO to do nothing in the prepare stage.
• autoconf for packages that use autoconf
• qmake for qmake based packages. Note: the required Qt version must be selected.
• cmake for cmake based packages. Note HOST_CMAKE must be selected to ensure, that cmake is available for configuration.
• kconfig for kconfig based packages. Note <PKG>_CONFIG must be set as described above.
• perl for perl modules.
• python or python3 for Python packages with a normal setup.py.

<PKG>_CONF_OPT

This variable adds arguments to the command-line of the configuration tool. If undefined, PTXdist will use a default value that depends on the configuration tool of the package. This default value should also be used when adding additional options. The following defaults exist:

• autoconf: $(CROSS_AUTOCONF_USR)/$(HOST_AUTOCONF)/$(HOST_CROSS_AUTOCONF) for target/host/cross packages.
• cmake: $(CROSS_CMAKE_USR)/$(HOST_CMAKE_OPT) for target/host packages. Cross packages cannot be built with cmake
• qmake: $(CROSS_QMAKE_OPT) for host packages. Host and cross packages cannot be built with qmake.

All other configuration tools have no default options. This variable is ignored for kconfig and python/python3.

Compile Stage

<PKG>_MAKE_ENV

This variables defines additional environment variables for the compile stage. In most cases this variable remains undefined because all necessary defines are picked up in the prepare stage. For python/python3 packages PTXdist will use the default value from <PKG>_CONF_ENV. For packages without configuration tool this must be set correctly, usually based on the <PKG>_CONF_ENV default values, e,g. $(CROSS_ENV) for target packages.

<PKG>_MAKE_OPT

This variables defines additional parameters to be forwarded to make in order to build the package. It defaults to nothing to let make traditionally build the first defined target.

<PKG>_MAKE_PAR

This variables informs PTXdist, if this package can be built in parallel. Some (mostly very smart selfmade) buildsystems fail doing so. In this case this variable can be set to NO. PTXdist will then build this package with one CPU only. The default is, to build packages in parallel.

Install Stage

<PKG>_INSTALL_OPT

This variable defaults to install which is used as a target for make. It can be overwritten if the package needs a special target to install its results.

<PKG>_PKGDIR

This variable must not be set by the user. It defines package install directory. All files will be installed relative to this directory. It can be used by manual install stages. It is defined as $(PKGDIR)/$(<PKG>) which expands to <platform-dir>/packages/foo-1.1.0 on our foo example.

Targetinstall Stage

The targetinstall stage has no additional variables.

Image Packages

Image packages use a different set of variables. They have the same <PKG> and <PKG>_DIR variables as other packages, but the rest is different.

<PKG>_IMAGE

This is the filename of the image that is created by the rule. This is usually $(IMAGEDIR)/<image-file-name>.

<PKG>_FILES

This is a list of tar balls that are extracted to generate the content of the image. PTXdist will add the necessary dependencies to these files to recreate the image as needed. If a tar ball is created by another PTXdist package then this package should be selected in the menu file.

<PKG>_PKGS

This is another mechanism to add files to the image. It can be uses instead of or in addition to <PKG>_FILES. It must be set to a list of ptxdist packages (the lowercase name of the packages). PTXdist will add the necessary dependencies.

Note that this will not ensure that the packages are enabled or that all all package dependencies are satisfied. $(PTX_PACKAGES_INSTALL) can be used to specify all enabled packages. Or $(call ptx/collection, $(PTXDIST_WORKSPACE)/configs/<collection-file-name>) can be uses to to specify the packages enabled by this collection. In both cases = must be uses instead of := due to the makefile include order.

<PKG>_CONFIG

genimage packages use this to specify the genimage configuration file. PTXdist will search for the specified file name in config/images/ in the BSP, platform and PTXdist in the usual search order.

<PKG>_NFSROOT

If this is set to YES then PTXdist will create a special nfsroot directory that contains only the files from the packages specified in <PKG>_PKGS. This is useful if the normal nfsroot directory contains conflicting files from multiple images. The created nfsroot directory is <platform-dir>/nfsroot/<image-name>.

<PKG>_LABEL

This is a tar label to put on an image. This is supported by image-root-tgz and images created with the image-tgz template.

5.2. Rule File Macro Reference

Rules files in PTXdist are using macros to get things work. Its highly recommended to use these macros instead of doing something by ourself. Using these macros is portable and such easier to maintain in the case a project should be upgraded to a more recent PTXdist version.

This chapter describes the predefined macros in PTXdist and their usage.

Whenever one of these macros installs something to the target’s root filesystem, it also accepts user and group IDs which are common in all filesystems Linux supports. These IDs can be given as numerical values and as text strings. In the case text strings are given PTXdist converts them into the corresponding numerical value based on the BSP local files passwd and group. If more than one file with these names are present in the BSP PTXdist follows its regular rules which one it prefers.

Many paths shown here contains some parts in angle brackets. These have special meanings in this document.

<platform>

The name of a platform. Corresponds to the variable PTXCONF_PLATFORM

<platform-src>

The directory where the platform is defined. Corresponds to the variable PTXDIST_PLATFORMCONFIGDIR

<platform-dir>

Concatenated directory name with a leading platform- and the name of the selected platform name, e.g. <platform>. If the name of the currently active platform is foo, the final directory name is platform-foo. Corresponds to the variable PTXDIST_PLATFORMDIR

Note

The list of supported macros is not complete yet.

targetinfo

Usage:

$(call targetinfo)

Gives the user feedback about which build stage has just started. That’s why it should always be the first call for each stage. For the package foo and the compile stage, this macro will output:

--------------------
target: foo.compile
--------------------

touch

Usage:

$(call touch)

Gives the user feedback about which build stage has just finished. That’s why it should always be the last call for each stage. For the package foo and the compile stage, this macro will output:

finished target foo.compile

clean

Usage:

$(call clean, <directory path>)

Removes the given directory <directory path>

world/get, world/extract, world/prepare, world/compile, world/install

Usage:

$(call world/get, <PKG>)

The same for all other macros. These are the default build commands for the corresponding stages. For more details see the documentation of the default stages below.

extract

Usage:

$(call extract, <PKG>)

Extract a source archive into a directory. The source archive to unpack is taken from the <PKG>_SOURCE variable, and the directory to unpack to is taken from the <PKG>_DIR variable. This macro doesn’t do anything if <PKG>_URL points to a local directory instead of an archive or online URL.

The target directory is not removed, so extract can be used multipe times in a row to extract several archives. Usually clean is called before the first extract.

compile

Usage:

$(call compile, <PKG>, <build arguments>)

This macro is very similar to world/compile. The only differences is that is uses the specified build arguments instead of <PKG>_MAKE_OPT. This is useful if make needs to be called more than once in the compile stage.

world/execute, execute

Usage:

$(call execute, <PKG>, <command with arguments>)
$(call world/execute, <PKG>, <command with arguments>)

These macros make it possible to execute arbitrary commands during the build stages. This is usefull because the environment is identical to the default build commands world/*.

world/execute also handles the generic setup handled in the current build stage. For prepare this means that, for out ot tree builds, the build directory is deleted prior to executing the specified command. For install the package directory is deleted.

When --verbose is used then the full command is logged. With --quiet both stdout and stderr are redirected to the logfile.

install_copy

Usage:

$(call install_copy, <package>, <UID>, <GID>, <permission>, <source> [, <dest> [, <strip> ]])

Installs given file or directory into:

• the project’s <platform-dir>/root/
• an ipkg/opkg packet in the project’s <platform-dir>/packages/

Some of the parameters have fixed meanings:

<package>

Name of the IPKG/OPKG the macro should work on

<UID>

User ID the file should use in the target’s root filesystem

<GID>

Group ID the file should use in the target’s root filesystem

<permission>

Permission (in an octal value) the file should use in the target’s root filesystem

The remaining parameters vary with the use case:

The <source> parameter can be:

• a directory path that should be created in the target’s root filesystem. In this case the <destination> must be omitted. The given path must always start with a / and means the root of the target’s filesystem.
• an absolute path to a file that should be copied to the target’s root filesystem. To avoid fixed paths, all packages are providing the <PKG>_DIR variable. So, this parameter in our foo example package can be a $(FOO_DIR)/foo.
• a minus sign (-). PTXdist uses the <destination> parameter in this case to locate the file to copy from. The <destination> is uses a path relative to the package install directory. This only works if the package uses the default or a similar install stage. For our foo example used source file is <platform-dir>/packages/foo-1.1.0/<destination>.

The <dest> parameter can be:

• omitted if a directory in target’s root filesystem should be created. For this case the directory to be created is in the <source> parameter.
• an absolute path and filename with its root in target’s root filesystem. It must start with a slash (//). If also the <source> parameter was given, the file can be renamed while copying. If the <source> parameter was given as a minus sign (-) the <destination> is also used to locate the source. For our foo example package if we give <destination> as /usr/bin/foo, PTXdist copies the file <platform-dir>/packages/foo-1.1.0/usr/bin/foo

The <strip> is a complete optional parameter to prevent this macro from the regular stripping process it does on files. Most of the cases stripping debug information from files is intended. But some kind of files getting destroyed when this stripping happens to them. One example is a Linux kernel module. If it gets stripped, it can’t be loaded into the kernel anymore.

full strip

fully strip the file while installing when this parameter is y or not given at all (default case).

partially strip

only strips real debug information from the file when this parameter is k. Useful to keep Linux kernel module loadable at run-time

no strip

preserve the file from being stripped when this parameter is one of the following: 0, n, no, N or NO.

Due to the complexity of this macro, here are some usage examples:

Create a directory in the root filesystem:

$(call install_copy, foo, 0, 0, 0755, /home/user-foo)

Copy a file from the package build directory to the root filesystem:

$(call install_copy, foo, 0, 0, 0755, $(FOO_DIR)/foo, /usr/bin/foo)

Copy a file from the package build directory to the root filesystem and rename it:

$(call install_copy, foo, 0, 0, 0755, $(FOO_DIR)/foo, /usr/bin/bar)

Copy a file from the package install directory to the root filesystem:

$(call install_copy, foo, 0, 0, 0755, -, /usr/bin/foo)

install_tree

Usage:

$(call install_tree, <package>, <UID>, <GID>, <source dir>, <destination dir>, <strip>])

Installs the whole directory tree with all files from the given directory into:

• the project’s <platform-dir>/root/
• an ipkg packet in the project’s <platform-dir>/packages/

Some of the parameters have fixed meanings:

<package>

Name of the IPKG/OPKG the macro should work on

<UID>

User ID the directories and files should use in the target’s root filesystem or - to keep the UID from the source tree

<GID>

Group ID the directories and files should use in the target’s root filesystem or - to keep the GID from the source tree

<source dir>

This is the path to the tree of directories and files to be installed. It can be - to use the package directory of the current package instead

<destination dir>

The basename of the to-be-installed tree in the root filesystem

<strip>

same as for install_copy.

Note: This installation macro

• uses the same permission flags in the destination dir as found in the source dir. This is valid for directories and regular files
• skips all directories with names like .svn, .git, .pc and CVS in the source directory

Examples:

Install the whole tree found in /home/jbe/foo to the root filesystem at location /usr/share/bar.

$(call install_tree, foo, 0, 0, /home/jbe/foo, /usr/share/bar)

Install all files from the tree found in the current package FOO to the root filesystem at location /usr/share/bar.

$(call install_tree, foo, 0, 0, -, /usr/share/bar)

If the current package is foo-1.0 the base path for the directory tree will be $(PKGDIR)/foo-1.0/usr/share/bar.

install_alternative_tree

Usage:

$(call install_alternative_tree, <package>, <UID>, <GID>, <destination dir>)

Installs the whole source directory tree with all files from the given directory into:

• the project’s <platform-dir>/root/
• an ipkg packet in the project’s <platform-dir>/packages/

The <destination dir> is used like in the install_alternative to let PTXdist search in the same directories and order for the given directory.

Some of the parameters have fixed meanings:

<package>

Name of the IPKG/OPKG the macro should work on

<UID>

User ID the directories and files should use in the target’s root filesystem or - to keep the UID from the source

<GID>

Group ID the directories and files should use in the target’s root filesystem or - to keep the GID from the source

<destination dir>

The basename of the to-be-installed tree in the root filesystem

Note

This installation macro

• uses the same permission flags in the destination dir as found in the source dir. This is valid for directories and regular files
• skips all directories with names like .svn, .git, .pc and CVS in the source directory

Examples:

Install the whole tree found in project’s projectroot/usr/share/bar to the root filesystem at location /usr/share/bar.

$(call install_alternative_tree, foo, 0, 0, /usr/share/bar)

To install nothing, use a symlink to /dev/null instead of the base directory. See install_alternative for more details.

install_alternative

Usage:

$(call install_alternative, <package>, <UID>, <GID>, <permission>, <destination>)

Installs given files or directories into:

• the project’s <platform-dir>/root/
• an ipkg/opkg packet in the project’s <platform-dir>/packages/

The base parameters and their meanings:

<package>

Name of the IPKG/OPKG the macro should work on

<UID>

User ID the file should use in the target’s root filesystem

<GID>

Group ID the file should use in the target’s root filesystem

<permission>

Permission (in an octal value) the file should use in the target’s root filesystem

The parameter <destination> is meant as an absolute path and filename in target’s root filesystem. PTXdist searches for the source of this file in:

• the local project
• in the used platform
• PTXdist’s install path
• in the current package

As this search algorithm is complex, here an example for the file /etc/foo in package FOO. PTXdist will search for this file in the following order:

• project’s directory projectroot.<platform>/etc/foo
• project’s directory projectroot/etc/foo.<platform>
• platform’s directory <platform-src>/projectroot/etc/foo.<platform>
• project’s directory projectroot/etc/foo
• platform’s directory <platform-src>/projectroot/etc/foo
• ptxdist’s directory projectroot/etc/foo
• package’s directory $(FOO_PKGDIR)/etc/foo
• package’s directory $(FOO_DIR)/etc/foo

The generic rules are looking like the following:

• $(PTXDIST_WORKSPACE)/projectroot$(PTXDIST_PLATFORMSUFFIX)/etc/foo
• $(PTXDIST_WORKSPACE)/projectroot/etc/foo$(PTXDIST_PLATFORMSUFFIX)
• $(PTXDIST_PLATFORMCONFIGDIR)/projectroot/etc/foo$(PTXDIST_PLATFORMSUFFIX)
• $(PTXDIST_WORKSPACE)/projectroot/etc/foo
• $(PTXDIST_PLATFORMCONFIGDIR)/projectroot/etc/foo
• $(PTXDIST_TOPDIR)/projectroot/etc/foo
• $(FOO_PKGDIR)/etc/foo
• $(FOO_DIR)/etc/foo

Note: You can get the current values for the listed variables above via running PTXdist with the print parameter:

$ ptxdist print PTXDIST_PLATFORMSUFFIX

install_alternative is used by upstream PTXdist packages to install config files. In some rare use-cases the file should not be installed at all. For example if the config file is generated at runtime or provided by a special configuration package. This is possible by creating a symlink to /dev/null instead of a file at one of the locations described above. PTXdist skips installing the file if it detects such a symlink.

install_link

Usage:

$(call install_link, <package>, <point to>, <where>)

Installs a symbolic link into:

• the project’s <platform-dir>/root/
• an ipkg/opkg packet in the project’s <platform-dir>/packages/

The parameters and their meanings:

<package>

Name of the IPKG/OPKG the macro should work on

<point to>

Path and name the link should point to. Note: This macro rejects absolute paths. If needed use relative paths instead.

<where>

Path and name of the symbolic link.

A few usage examples.

Create a symbolic link as /usr/lib/libfoo.so pointing to libfoo.so.1.1.0 in the same directory:

$(call install_link, foo, libfoo.so.1.1.0, /usr/lib/libfoo.so)

Create a symbolic link as /usr/bin/foo pointing to /bin/bar:

$(call install_link, foo, ../../bin/bar, /usr/bin/foo)

install_archive

Usage:

$(call install_archive, <package>, <UID>, <GID>, <archive> , <base path>)

Installs archives content into:

• the project’s <platform-dir>/root/
• an ipkg/opkg packet in the project’s <platform-dir>/packages/

All parameters have fixed meanings:

<package>

Name of the IPKG/OPKG the macro should work on

<UID>

User ID all files and directory of the archive should use in the target’s root filesystem. A - uses the file’s/directory’s UID in the archive

<GID>

Group ID the files and directories should use in the target’s root filesystem. A - uses the file’s/directory’s GID in the archive

<archive>

Name of the archive to be used in this call. The given path and filename is used as is

<base path>

Base path component in the root filesystem the archive should be extracted to. Can be just / for root.

install_glob

Usage:

$(call install_glob, <package>, <UID>, <GID>, <source dir>, <destination dir>, <yglob>, <nglob>[, <strip>])

Installs parts of a directory tree with all files from the given directory into:

• the project’s <platform-dir>/root/
• an ipkg packet in the project’s <platform-dir>/packages/

Some of the parameters have fixed meanings:

<package>

Name of the IPKG/OPKG the macro should work on

<UID>

User ID the directories and files should use in the target’s root filesystem or - to keep the UID from the source tree

<GID>

Group ID the directories and files should use in the target’s root filesystem or - to keep the GID from the source tree

<source dir>

This is the path to the tree of directories and files to be installed. It can be - to use the package directory of the current package instead

<destination dir>

The basename of the to-be-installed tree in the root filesystem

<yglob>

A list of pathname patterns. All files or directories that match _any_ pattern in the list are installed. Note: the patterns must match the whole absolute path, e.g. */foo. An empty list is equivalent to a pattern that matches all files.

<nglob>

Like <yglob> but any matching files or directories will not be installed. For directories, this includes the whole contents of the directory.

Except for the pathname patterns, this command works like install_tree. The <yglob> and <nglob> patterns are combined: Only files that match <yglob> and do not match <nglob> are installed.

Examples:

Install all shared libraries found in $(FOO_PKGDIR)/usr/lib/foo except libbar.so

$(call install_glob, foo, 0, 0, -, /usr/lib/foo, *.so, */libbar.so)

install_lib

Usage:

$(call install_lib, <package>, <UID>, <GID>, <permission>, <libname>)

Installs the shared library <libname> into the root filesystem.

• the project’s <platform-dir>/root/
• an ipkg/opkg packet in the project’s <platform-dir>/packages/

The parameters and their meanings:

<package>

Name of the IPKG/OPKG the macro should work on

<UID>

User ID the file should use in the target’s root filesystem

<GID>

Group ID the directories and files should use in the target’s root filesystem

<permission>

Permission (as an octal value) the library should use in the target’s root filesystem (mostly 0644)

<libname>

Basename of the library without any extension and path

The install_lib macro searches for the library at the most common directories /lib and /usr/lib. And it searches always in the package’s corresponding directory in <platform-dir>/packages/. It also handles all required links to make the library work at run-time.

An example.

Lets assume the package ‘foo-1.0.0’ has installed the library libfoo into its <platform-dir>/packages/foo-1.0.0 at:

• the lib: <platform-dir>/packages/foo-1.0.0/usr/lib/libfoo1.so.0.0.0
• first link: <platform-dir>/packages/foo-1.0.0/usr/lib/libfoo1.so.0
• second link: <platform-dir>/packages/foo-1.0.0/usr/lib/libfoo1.so

Note

The second link is only needed for the linker at build-time to resolve -lfoo1. It is not needed at run-time so install_lib will skip it.

To install this library and its corresponding link, the following line does the job:

$(call install_lib, foo, 0, 0, 0644, libfoo1)

Note: The package’s install stage must be ‘DESTDIR’ aware to be able to make it install its content into the corresponding packages directory (in our example <platform-dir>/packages/foo-1.0.0/ here).

install_replace

Usage:

$(call install_replace, <package>, <filename>, <placeholder>, <value>)

Replace placeholder with value in a previously installed file.

The parameters and their meanings:

<package>

Name of the IPKG/OPKG the macro should work on

<filename>

Absolute filepath in target root filesystem

<placeholder>

A string in the file which should be replaced. Usually some uppercase word surrounded by @ signs

<value>

The value which should appear in the root filesystem instead of the placeholder, could be some PTXCONF variable

The install_replace macro can be used in targetinstall stage to adapt some template and replace strings with content from menu variables or other sources. For example look at the timezone you set in the ptxdist menu. An install_replace call in rules/timezone.make replaces the string @TIMEZONE@ in the file /etc/timezone in root filesystem with the content of the menu variable PTXCONF_TIMEZONE_LOCALTIME. The file must be installed with some other install_* command before install_replace can be used. A typical call would look like this:

$(STATEDIR)/timezone.targetinstall:
     ...
     @$(call install_replace, timezone, /etc/timezone, @TIMEZONE@, \
             $(PTXCONF_TIMEZONE_LOCALTIME))

ptx/endis, ptx/disen, ptx/wow, ptx/wwo, ptx/yesno, ptx/truefalse, ptx/falsetrue, ptx/onoff, ptx/ifdef

Usage:

$(call ptx/endis, VARIABLE)
$(call ptx/disen, VARIABLE)
$(call ptx/wow, VARIABLE)
$(call ptx/wwo, VARIABLE)
$(call ptx/yesno, VARIABLE)
$(call ptx/truefalse, VARIABLE)
$(call ptx/falsetrue, VARIABLE)
$(call ptx/onoff, VARIABLE)
$(call ptx/ifdef, VARIABLE, [expansion-if-true], [expansion-if-false])

Several macros exist to convert the state (set/unset) of a variable into a string. These are useful for <PKG>_CONF_OPT variables, and expand as follows:

Macro name	Expansion if VARIABLE set	Expansion if VARIABLE unset	Exemplary use case
ptx/endis	enable	disable	autoconf
ptx/disen	disable	enable	autoconf
ptx/wow	without	with	autoconf
ptx/wwo	with	without	autoconf
ptx/yesno	yes	no	autoconf cache vars
ptx/truefalse	true	false	meson
ptx/falsetrue	false	true	meson
ptx/onoff	ON	OFF	cmake
ptx/ifdef	the second parameter	the third parameter	(multiple)

Some real-life examples:

BASH_CONF_OPT      += --$(call ptx/endis, PTXCONF_BASH_DEBUGGER)-debugger
OPENOCD_CONF_OPT   += --$(call ptx/disen, PTXCONF_OPENOCD_PARPORT_DISABLE_PARPORT_PPDEV)-parport-ppdev
COREUTILS_CONF_OPT += --$(call ptx/wwo, PTXCONF_GLOBAL_SELINUX)-selinux
LESS_CONF_ENV      += ac_cv_lib_ncurses_initscr=$(call ptx/yesno, PTXCONF_LESS_NCURSES)

SYSTEMD_CONF_OPT   += -Dmicrohttpd=$(call ptx/truefalse,PTXCONF_SYSTEMD_MICROHTTPD)
SYSTEMD_CONF_OPT   += -Drandomseed=$(call ptx/falsetrue,PTXCONF_SYSTEMD_DISABLE_RANDOM_SEED)

MYSQL_CONF_OPT     += -DWITH_SYSTEMD=$(call ptx/onoff, PTXCONF_MYSQL_SYSTEMD)

CUPS_CONF_OPT      += $(call ptx/ifdef,PTXCONF_CUPS_PERL,--with-perl=/usr/bin/perl,--without-perl)

If the respective variable is set, these statements would expand to:

BASH_CONF_OPT      += --enable-debugger
OPENOCD_CONF_OPT   += --disable-parport-ppdev
COREUTILS_CONF_OPT += --with-selinux
LESS_CONF_ENV      += ac_cv_lib_ncurses_initscr=yes

SYSTEMD_CONF_OPT   += -Dmicrohttpd=true
SYSTEMD_CONF_OPT   += -Drandomseed=false

MYSQL_CONF_OPT     += -DWITH_SYSTEMD=on

CUPS_CONF_OPT      += --with-perl=/usr/bin/perl

whereas if the respective variable is unset, they would expand to the opposite:

BASH_CONF_OPT      += --disable-debugger
OPENOCD_CONF_OPT   += --enable-parport-ppdev
COREUTILS_CONF_OPT += --without-selinux
LESS_CONF_ENV      += ac_cv_lib_ncurses_initscr=no

SYSTEMD_CONF_OPT   += -Dmicrohttpd=false
SYSTEMD_CONF_OPT   += -Drandomseed=true

MYSQL_CONF_OPT     += -DWITH_SYSTEMD=off

CUPS_CONF_OPT      += --without-perl

ptx/get-alternative

This macro can be used to find files or directories in the BSP and PTXdist. There are two arguments, prefix and file. The search path is very similar to install_alternative. The first existing location of the following paths is returned:

• $(PTXDIST_WORKSPACE)/$(prefix)$(PTXDIST_PLATFORMSUFFIX)/$(file)
• $(PTXDIST_WORKSPACE)/$(prefix)/$(file)$(PTXDIST_PLATFORMSUFFIX)
• $(PTXDIST_PLATFORMCONFIGDIR)/$(prefix)/$(file)$(PTXDIST_PLATFORMSUFFIX)
• $(PTXDIST_WORKSPACE)/$(prefix)/$(file)
• $(PTXDIST_PLATFORMCONFIGDIR)/$(prefix)/$(file)
• $(PTXDIST_TOPDIR)/$(prefix)/$(file)

ptx/in-path

This macro can be used to find files or directories in the BSP and PTXdist. There are two arguments, path variable and file. The path variable must be a variable name that is available in a shell called by make. The variable must contain a : separated list of directories. The file will be searched in these directories and the first existing path is returned. PTXdist defines several variables that can be used here. The directories are in the usual search order.

• PTXDIST_PATH_LAYERS contains all layers from PTXDIST_WORKSPACE to PTXDIST_TOPDIR
• PTXDIST_PATH is like PTXDIST_PATH_LAYERS but also contains the PTXDIST_PLATFORMCONFIGDIR for each layer.
• PTXDIST_PATH_SCRIPTS, PTXDIST_PATH_RULES and PTXDIST_PATH_PLATFORMS are like PTXDIST_PATH with the extra scripts/, rules/ and platforms/ subdirectory respectively.

Hint: use the print command to get the exact list of directories for each of these variables.

ptx/in-platformconfigdir

This macro is only useful with multiple layers. It has one argument file. The file is searched for in the platform directory in all layers in the usual search order. It returns the first existing file. If none exists it returns $(PTXDIST_PLATFORMCONFIGDIR)/$(file). This avoids unexpected errors due to empty variables if a file is missing.

5.3. Rule File Layout

Each rule file provides PTXdist with the required steps (in PTXdist called stages) to be done on a per package base:

1. get
2. extract
   • extract.post
3. prepare
4. compile
5. install
   • install.pack
   • install.unpack
   • install.post
6. targetinstall
   • targetinstall.post

Note

Host, image and cross packages don’t need to install anything in the target file system. Therefore, PTXdist only respects the targetinstall and targetinstall.post stages for packages whose name doesn’t start with host-, image-, or cross-.

When you want to depend on the output of a certain image package, you can usually use its image name as an additional prerequisite in your make rule for the dependent stage.

Default stage rules

As for most packages these steps can be done in a default way, PTXdist provides generic rules for each package. If a package’s rule file does not provide a specific stage rule, the default stage rule will be used instead.

Important

Omitting one of the stage rules does not mean that PTXdist skips this stage! In this case the default stage rule is used instead.

get Stage Default Rule

If the get stage is omitted, PTXdist runs instead:

$(STATEDIR)/<pkg>.get:
    @$(call targetinfo)
    @$(call touch)

Which means this step is skipped.

If the package is an archive that must be downloaded from the web, the following rule must exist in this case:

$(<PKG>_SOURCE):
    @$(call targetinfo)
    @$(call get, <PKG>)

extract Stage Default Rule

If the extract stage is omitted, PTXdist runs instead:

$(STATEDIR)/<pkg>.extract:
    @$(call targetinfo)
    @$(call clean, $(<PKG>_DIR))
    @$(call extract, <PKG>)
    @$(call patchin, <PKG>)
    @$(call touch)

Which means a current existing directory of this package will be removed, the archive gets freshly extracted again and (if corresponding patches are found) patched.

extract.post Stage Default Rule

This is an optional stage, mainly used to somehow prepare a package for the next prepare stage step. This stage can be used to generate a configure script out of an autotoolized configure.ac file for example. This separation from the extract stage is useful to be able to extract a package for a quick look into the sources without the need to build all the autotools first. The autotoolized PTXdist templates makes use of this feature. Refer Creating Autotools based Packages for further details.

prepare Stage Default Rule

If the prepare stage is omitted, PTXdist runs a default stage rule, which looks like this:

$(STATEDIR)/<pkg>.prepare:
    @$(call targetinfo)
    @$(call world/prepare, <PKG>)
    @$(call touch)

What world/prepare does depends on some variable settings.

If the package’s rule file defines <PKG>_CONF_TOOL to NO, this stage is simply does nothing.

All rules files can create the <PKG>_CONF_ENV variable and should define it at least to $(CROSS_ENV) (the default) if the prepare stage is used.

If the package’s rule file defines <PKG>_CONF_TOOL to autoconf (FOO_CONF_TOOL = autoconf for our foo example), PTXdist treats this package as an autotoolized package and world/prepare expands to something like this:

cd ${<PKG>_DIR}/${<PKG>_SUBDIR} && \
    ${<PKG>_PATH} ${<PKG>_CONF_ENV} \
    ./configure ${<PKG>_CONF_OPT}

The <PKG>_CONF_OPT should at least be defined to $(CROSS_AUTOCONF_USR).

If the package’s rule file defines <PKG>_CONF_TOOL to cmake (FOO_CONF_TOOL = cmake for our foo example), PTXdist treats this package as a cmake based package and world/prepare expands to something like this:

cd ${<PKG>_DIR} && \
    ${<PKG>_PATH} ${<PKG>_CONF_ENV} \
    cmake ${<PKG>_CONF_OPT}

The <PKG>_CONF_OPT should at least be defined to $(CROSS_CMAKE_USR) or $(CROSS_CMAKE_ROOT).

If the package’s rule file defines <PKG>_CONF_TOOL to qmake (FOO_CONF_TOOL = qmake for our foo example), PTXdist treats this package as a qmake based package and world/prepare expands to something like this:

cd ${<PKG>_DIR} && \
    ${<PKG>_PATH} ${<PKG>_CONF_ENV} \
    qmake ${<PKG>_CONF_OPT}

The <PKG>_CONF_OPT should at least be defined to $(CROSS_QMAKE_OPT).

compile Stage Default Rule

If the compile stage is omitted, PTXdist runs instead:

$(STATEDIR)/<pkg>.compile:
    @$(call targetinfo)
    @$(call world/compile, <PKG>)
    @$(call touch)

Except in some corner cases, world/compile expands to something like this:

cd ${<PKG>_DIR} && \
    ${<PKG>_PATH} ${<PKG>_MAKE_ENV} \
    ${MAKE} ${<PKG>_MAKE_OPT} ${PARALLELMFLAGS}

The variables that are used here are described in the Compile Stage section of the variable reference.

PARALLELMFLAGS can be used in custom compile stages. The default stage uses the same value if <PKG>_MAKE_PAR is set to YES.

install Stage Default Rule

If the install stage is omitted, PTXdist runs instead:

$(STATEDIR)/<pkg>.install:
    @$(call targetinfo)
    @$(call world/install, <PKG>)
    @$(call touch)

Except in some corner cases, world/install expands to something like this:

cd ${<PKG>_DIR} && \
    ${<PKG>_PATH} ${<PKG>_MAKE_ENV} \
    ${MAKE} ${<PKG>_INSTALL_OPT}

The variables that are used here are described in the Install Stage section of the variable reference.

At the end of this stage, all relevant files must be installed in the package install directory.

install.pack Stage Default Rule

The install.pack should not be overwritten. It consists of two steps. The first is, to make the installed files relocatable. This is necessary to ensure that everything works correctly once the files are copied to sysroot in install.post. If creating pre-built archives is enabled, then the second step is to create the archive for the package.

install.unpack Stage Default Rule

The install.unpack is only executed if using pre-built archives is enabled. In this case, it replaces all previous stages. Here, the pre-built is extract.

install.post Stage Default Rule

The install.post is mostly internal. Few packages need to customize it. It copies all files from the package install directory into the corresponding sysroot.

targetinstall Stage Default Rule

There is no default rule for a package’s targetinstall state. PTXdist has no idea what is required on the target at run-time. This stage is up to the developer only. Refer to section Rule File Macro Reference for further info on how to select files to be included in the target’s root filesystem.

targetinstall.post Stage Default Rule

The targetinstall.post stage does nothing by default. It can be used to do some work after the targetinstall stage.

Skipping a Stage

For the case that a specific stage should be really skipped, an empty rule must be provided:

$(STATEDIR)/<pkg>.<stage_to_skip>:
    @$(call targetinfo)
    @$(call touch)

Replace the <stage_to_skip> by get, extract, prepare, compile, install or targetinstall.

5.4. PTXdist parameter reference

PTXdist is a command line tool, which is basically called as:

$  ptxdist <action [args]> [options]

Setup and Project Actions

menu

this starts a dialog based frontend for those who do not like typing commands. It will gain us access to the most common parameters to configure and build a PTXdist project. This menu handles the actions menuconfig, platformconfig, kernelconfig, select, platform, boardsetup, setup, go and images.

select <config>

this action will select a user land configuration. This step is only required in projects where no selected_ptxconfig file is present. The <config> argument must point to a valid userland configuration file. PTXdist provides this feature to enable the user to maintain more than one userland configuration in the same project. The default location for the configuration file is configs/ptxconfig. PTXdist will use this if no other configuration is selected.

platform <config>

this action will select a platform configuration. This step is only required in projects where no selected_platform file is present. The <config> argument must point to a valid platform configuration file. PTXdist provides this feature to enable the user to maintain more than one platform in one project. The default location for the configuration file is configs/*/platformconfig. PTXdist will use that if the pattern matches exactly one file and no other configuration is selected.

toolchain [<path>]

this action will select the toolchain to use. If no path is specified then PTXdist will guess which toolchain to use based on the settings in the platformconfig. Setting the toolchain is only required if PTXdist cannot find the toolchain automatically or if a different toolchain should be used.

collection <config>

this action will select a collection configuration. This step is optional. The <config> argument must point to a valid collection configuration file.

setup

PTXdist uses some global settings, independent from the project it is working on. These settings belong to users preferences or simply some network settings to permit PTXdist to download required packages.

boardsetup

PTXdist based projects can provide information to setup and configure the target automatically. This action lets the user setup the environment specific settings like the network IP address and so on.

menuconfig

start the menu to configure the project’s root filesystem. This is in respect to userland only. It’s the main menu to select which applications and libraries should be built into the target’s root filesystem.

menuconfig platform

this action starts the menu to configure the currently selected platform. As these are architecture and target specific settings, it configures the toolchain, the kernel and a bootloader (but no userland components). The short form for this action is platformconfig.

menuconfig kernel

start the menu to configure the platform’s kernel. As a project can support more than one platform, this will configure the currently selected platform. The short form for this action is kernelconfig.

menuconfig barebox

this action starts the configure menu for the selected bootloader. It depends on the platform settings which bootloader is enabled and to be used as an argument to the menuconfig action parameter. As a project can support more than one platform, this will configure the bootloader of the currently selected platform.

nconfig [<component>]

this action provides a slightly different user experience with the same functionality as menuconfig. It can be used instead of menuconfig for all the component described above.

oldconfig [<component>], allmodconfig [<component>], allyesconfig [<component>], allnoconfig [<component>], randconfig [<component>]

this action will run the corresponding kconfig action for the specified component. oldconfig will prompt for all new options. allmodconfig, allyesconfig and allnoconfig will set all options to ‘m’, ‘y’ or ‘n’ respectively. randconfig will randomize the options. The KCONFIG_ALLCONFIG and KCONFIG_SEED environment variables can be used as described in the Linux kernel documentation.

migrate

migrate the configuration files from a previous PTXdist version. This will run oldconfig and oldconfig platform to prompt for all new options.

Build Actions

go

this action will build all enabled packages in the current project configurations (platform and userland). It will also rebuild reconfigured packages (if any) or build additional packages if they were enabled meanwhile. If enabled, this step also builds the kernel and bootloader images.

get

this action will download the sources for all packages. This is useful to download everything at once. Afterwards the packages can be built without internet access.

getdev

if using pre-built archives is enabled, this action will make sure that all of them exist locally, possibly by downloading them from the configured mirror server.

urlcheck [<package>]

this action will check if the URL for the package (or all packages) still works. It does not download the whole file, so this is relatively fast, but may not be 100% correct in all cases.

get <package>, extract <package>, prepare <package>, compile <package>, install <package>, targetinstall <package>

these actions will build the corresponding stage for the specified package including all previous stages and other dependencies. Multiple packages can be specified.

drop <package>.<stage>

this action will ‘drop’ the specified stage without removing any other files. Subsequent actions depending on this stage will rebuild it. This is useful during development to rebuild a package without deleting the sources. Use clean <package> for a full rebuild of the package.

images

most of the time this is the last step to get the required files and/or images for the target. It creates filesystems or device images to be used in conjunction with the target’s filesystem media. The result can be found in the images/ directory of the project or the platform directory.

If necessary, images also builds all required stages first, so it can be used instead of go.

image <image>

build the specified image. The file name in images/ is used to identify the image. This is basically the same as images but builds just one image.

Clean Actions

clean

the clean action will remove all generated files: all build, packages and root filesystem directories. Only the selected configuration files are left untouched. This is a way to start a fresh build cycle.

clean root

this action will only clean the image packages and the root filesystem directories. All the build directories are left untouched. After using this action, the next go action will regenerate all opkg archives from the already built packages as well as the root filesystem directories. The clean root and go action is useful if the targetinstall stage for all packages should run again.

clean target

this action will call the clean action for each target package, and also clean the root file system afterwards. This can be useful if you want to rebuild the target file system from scratch, without throwing away the already built host and cross packages.

clean <package>

this action will only clean the dedicated <package>. It will remove its build directory and all installed files from the corresponding sysroot directory. Multiple packages can be specified.

distclean

the distclean action will remove all files that are not part of the main project. It removes all generated files and directories like the clean action, and also the created links in any platform and/or select action.

Misc Actions

version

print out the PTXdist version.

test <testname>

run tests

newpackage <type>

create a new PTXdist package. For most package types, this will create <pkg>.make and <pkg>.in files in rules/. Use newpackage help for a list of available package types.

nfsroot

run a userspace NFS server and export the nfsroot (refer to section Using a userland NFS Server for the Target for further details).

gdb

run the cross gdb from the toolchain. The sysroot and other search paths are configured to ensure that gdb finds all available debug files.

bsp-info

show some basic information about the BSP. The currently used configs, all layers, the images that are build, etc.

package-info <pkg>

show some basic information about the package. This includes the version, URL and various paths and directories. The paths for menu and rule file are shown as well, so this can be used to verify that the correct version of these files are used.

print <var>

print the contents of a variable. It will first look for a shell variable with the given name. If none exists, it will run make on all selected package rules, determine if a variable with the given name is known to make, and if so, print it. For make variables, <var> can contain ‘%’. In this case, all variables that match the pattern are printed. If the <var> is undefined, then an error will be generated unless ‘-k’ is used. In that case an empty value is returned.

printnext <var>

assume that the contents of <var> is another variable and print the contents of this variable. Shell variables are currently not checked here. All other rules for print apply.

list-packages

print a list of all selected packages. This list does not include the host and cross tools.

local-src <pkg> [<directory>]

overwrite a package source with a locally provided directory containing the source code. Not specifying the directory will undo the change. Relative paths are converted to absolute paths relative to the workspace.

bash

enter a PTXdist environment bash shell.

bash <cmd> [args...]

execute <cmd> in PTXdist environment.

make <target>

build specified make target in PTXdist.

export_src <target-dir>

export all source archives needed for this project to <target-dir>.

docs-html

build HTML documentation for a BSP. The output is written to Documentation/html/index.html

Overwrite defaults

These options can be used to overwrite default settings. They can be useful when working with multiple configurations or platforms in a single project.

--ptxconfig=<config>

use the specified ptxconfig file instead of the selected default configuration file.

--platformconfig=<config>

use specified platformconfig file instead of the selected default configuration file.

--collectionconfig=<config>

use specified collectionconfig file instead of the selected configuration file.

--toolchain=<toolchain>

use specified toolchain instead of the selected or default toolchain.

--force-download

allow downloading, even if disabled by setup

Options

--force, -f

use this option to overwrite various sanity checks. Only use this option if you really know what you are doing!

--debug, -d

print out additional info (like make decisions)

--quiet, -q

suppress output, show only stderr

--verbose, -v

be more verbose, print command before execute them

--output-sync, --no-output-sync

enable or disable output synchronization. By default output synchronization is only enabled for quiet builds. Output synchronization is implemented by the make --output-sync option. For building packages in parallel, --output-sync=recurse is used. For individual make commands in the build stages --output-sync=target is used. This means that the output for each individual make target and each build stage is grouped together.

Note: If output synchronization is enabled, then the output for each build stage is collected by make and won’t be visible until the build stage is completed. As a result, there will be long periods of time with no visible progress.

--progress

show some progress information in the form of completed/total build stages. This is only shown if --quiet is enabled as well. Note that this adds some extra overhead at the beginning, so it will take some time until the first build stage starts.

--j-intern=<n>, -ji<n>

set number of parallel jobs within packages. PTXdist will use this number for example when calling make during the compile stage. The default is 2x the number of CPUs.

--j-extern=<n>, -je<n>

set number of packages to be built in parallel. The default is 1. Use -j instead of this. It has the same goal and performs better.

-j[<n>]

set the global number of parallel jobs. This is basically a more intelligent combination of -je and -ji. A single package rarely uses all the available CPUs. Usually only the compile stage can use more than one CPU and even then there are often idle CPUs. With the global job pool, tasks from multiple packages can be executed in parallel without overloading the system.

Note: Because of the parallel execution, the output is chaotic and not very useful. Use this in combination with -q and only to speed up building for projects that are known to build without errors.

--load-average=<n>, -l<n>

try to limit load to <n>. This is used for the equivalent make option.

--nice=<n>, -n<n>

run with reduced scheduling priority (i.e. nice). The default is 10.

--dirty

avoid rebuilding packages. By default, if a package is rebuilt, then all packages that depend on it are also rebuilt. This happens because PTXdist cannot know if rebuilding is functionally necessary for the depending packages. By specifying --dirty, depending packages will not be rebuilt if their dependencies were rebuilt. Also, changes to config options, rule and menu file or changed patches will not trigger a rebuild either.

To trigger a rebuild, the relevant stage of a package must be dropped.

--keep-going, -k

keep going. Continue to build as much as possible after an error.

--git

use git to apply patches

--auto-version

automatically switch to the correct PTXdist version. This will look for the correct PTXdist version in the ptxconfig file and execute it if it does not match the current version.

--virtualenv=<dir>

include a Python Virtual Environment. The given path must contain a bin/activate shell script.