There doesn't seem to be much documentation on virtual targets at the moment. I suggest adding the following to the end of the PROVIDES glossary entry in the Yocto Reference Manual and BitBake manual: In addition to providing recipes under alternate names, the PROVIDES mechanism is also used to implement <i>virtual targets</i>. A virtual target is a name that corresponds to some particular functionality, e.g. a Linux kernel. Recipes that provide the functionality in question list the virtual target in PROVIDES. Recipes that depend on the functionality in question can include the virtual target in DEPENDS to leave the choice of provider open. Conventionally, virtual targets have names on the form "virtual/function" (e.g. "virtual/kernel"). The slash is simply part of the name and has no syntactic significance. The [PREFERRED_PROVIDER] variable is used to select which particular recipe provides a virtual target. Cheers, Ulf
In the PREFERRED_PROVIDER glossary entry, the word "provide" in the opening sentence could be turned into a link as well: If multiple recipes [provide](http://www.yoctoproject.org/docs/2.2/ref-manual/ref-manual.html#var-PROVIDES) an item...
Hi Ulf, See http://www.yoctoproject.org/docs/2.2/ref-manual/ref-manual.html#var-PROVIDES for the changes in the ref-manual. When we settle on these, I will update the same variable in the BitBake User Manual. I am going to wait though until we are good here. Regarding linking the normal work "provides", I don't want to do that as I have not done that in the past. Scott
Looks good to me. Thanks, Ulf
Thanks Ulf, I am closing the bug. Here is the link to the changed version in the BitBake manual now - http://www.yoctoproject.org/docs/2.2/bitbake-user-manual/bitbake-user-manual.html#var-PROVIDES. Scott