5.15. Using an External SCM

If you're working on a recipe that pulls from an external Source Code Manager (SCM), it is possible to have the OpenEmbedded build system notice new recipe changes added to the SCM and then build the resulting package that depends on the new recipes by using the latest versions. This only works for SCMs from which it is possible to get a sensible revision number for changes. Currently, you can do this with Apache Subversion (SVN), Git, and Bazaar (BZR) repositories.

To enable this behavior, simply add the following to the local.conf configuration file found in the Build Directory:

     SRCREV_pn-<PN> = "${AUTOREV}"
            

where PN is the name of the recipe for which you want to enable automatic source revision updating.

In fact, the Yocto Project provides a distribution named poky-bleeding, whose configuration file contains the line:

     require conf/distro/include/poky-floating-revisions.inc
            

This line pulls in the listed include file that contains numerous lines of exactly that form:

     SRCREV_pn-gconf-dbus ?= "${AUTOREV}"
     SRCREV_pn-matchbox-common ?= "${AUTOREV}"
     SRCREV_pn-matchbox-config-gtk ?= "${AUTOREV}"
     SRCREV_pn-matchbox-desktop ?= "${AUTOREV}"
     SRCREV_pn-matchbox-keyboard ?= "${AUTOREV}"
     SRCREV_pn-matchbox-panel ?= "${AUTOREV}"
     SRCREV_pn-matchbox-panel-2 ?= "${AUTOREV}"
     SRCREV_pn-matchbox-themes-extra ?= "${AUTOREV}"
     SRCREV_pn-matchbox-terminal ?= "${AUTOREV}"
     SRCREV_pn-matchbox-wm ?= "${AUTOREV}"
     SRCREV_pn-matchbox-wm-2 ?= "${AUTOREV}"
     SRCREV_pn-settings-daemon ?= "${AUTOREV}"
     SRCREV_pn-screenshot ?= "${AUTOREV}"
     SRCREV_pn-libfakekey ?= "${AUTOREV}"
     SRCREV_pn-oprofileui ?= "${AUTOREV}"
          .
          .
          .
            

These lines allow you to experiment with building a distribution that tracks the latest development source for numerous packages.

Caution

The poky-bleeding distribution is not tested on a regular basis. Keep this in mind if you use it.