Bug 10071

Summary: Suggested clarifications to [dirs] and [cleandirs]
Product: [Documentation] BitBake User Manual Reporter: ulfalizer
Component: bitbake-manualAssignee: Scott Rifenbark <srifenbark>
Status: RESOLVED FIXED QA Contact:
Severity: normal    
Priority: Medium CC: sgw, srifenbark
Version: 2.2   
Target Milestone: 2.2 M4   
Hardware: x86   
OS: Multiple   
Whiteboard: 04 August 2016: RESOLVED
OS type for building Yocto: --- Type of Regression: ---
Verified: Documentation change: Done (doc changes complete)

Description ulfalizer 2016-08-02 22:51:04 UTC
The 'dirs' and 'cleandirs' descriptions in 3.6. Variable Flags could be rewritten as follows to e.g. make it clearer how they deal with already existing directories:

  cleandirs: Empty directories that should be created before the task runs.
    Directories that already exist are removed and recreated to empty them.
  
  dirs: Directories that should be created before the task runs. Directories that
    already exist are left as is. The last directory listed is used as the
    current working directory for the task.


I'd also change all the flags to include [] to make them easier to search for, e.g. "[dirs]: Empty directories...", but that's probably more controversial. :)

Cheers,
Ulf
Comment 1 ulfalizer 2016-08-02 22:51:36 UTC
This is the last documentation patch in a while by the way. :)
Comment 2 Scott Rifenbark 2016-08-04 00:46:50 UTC
Ulf, 

I made the text changes. See http://www.yoctoproject.org/docs/2.2/bitbake-user-manual/bitbake-user-manual.html#variable-flags.

Regarding the other suggestion.. I searched through the manual for anything related to "flags" and discovered some inconsistencies in how I present them in context.  Most of the time, I use a normal font and surround the flag with double quotes (e.g. The "deptask" varflag for tasks ...).  Other times, I format them in code text and have them in square brackets (e.g. ... use the [eventmask] flag for ...).  I even found a spot where I refer to two example flags in text where I format them as code but have neither quotes or brackets.  

I think I am going to scrub the manual and format them all in code style text and use the square brackets.  Done.

Scott
Comment 3 ulfalizer 2016-08-04 01:22:51 UTC
Sounds reasonable to me. Thanks for the changes!

Cheers,
Ulf
Comment 4 Scott Rifenbark 2016-08-04 18:20:05 UTC
Setting to RESOLVED and putting the doc flag to "done."

Scott