Files
buildroot/docs
Yann E. MORIN f9cdca48a5 docs/manual: use space-separated list for BR2_EXTERNAL
Specifying a list of br2-external trees is poorly documented, and the
only example uses a colon to separate the br2-external paths.

Adding the support for colon-separated list is the biggest mistake that
was made when introducing support for multiple br2-external [0]. Indeed,
both space and colon can be used to separate entries in the list, and it
is also possible to mix the two. However, internally, the list is stored
as a space-separated list, and all the code will split on spaces.

Besides, all other lists in Buildroot are a space-separated:
    BR2_ROOTFS_DEVICE_TABLE
    BR2_ROOTFS_STATIC_DEVICE_TABLE
    BR2_TARGET_TZ_ZONELIST
    BR2_ROOTFS_USERS_TABLES
    BR2_ROOTFS_OVERLAY
    BR2_ROOTFS_PRE_BUILD_SCRIPT
    BR2_ROOTFS_POST_BUILD_SCRIPT
    BR2_ROOTFS_POST_FAKEROOT_SCRIPT
    BR2_ROOTFS_POST_IMAGE_SCRIPT
    ...

So, using colons is odd.

The fact that BR2_EXTERNAL is passed on the command line rather than
being a Kconfig item is not a reason enough to justify that it be
colon-separated.

Change the documentation to only mention using a space-separated list.

Of course, for backward compatibility, we keep the code as-is to accept
a colon-separated list, but we just do not advertise it.

Note that keeping the split on colons means that colons are not accepted
in pathnames of br2-external trees; in practice, this is not a new
restriction, or one that could lift as usign colons in Makefiles are
problematic anyway.

[0] in 20cd497387 core: add support for multiple br2-external trees

Reported-by: Fiona Klute (WIWA) <fiona.klute@gmx.de>
Reported-by: Brandon Maier <Brandon.Maier@collins.com>
Signed-off-by: Yann E. MORIN <yann.morin.1998@free.fr>
Cc: Arnout Vandecappelle (Essensium/Mind) <arnout@mind.be>
Signed-off-by: Romain Naour <romain.naour@smile.fr>
2026-03-13 22:12:18 +01:00
..