diff --git a/documentation/poky-ref-manual/ref-variables.xml b/documentation/poky-ref-manual/ref-variables.xml
index 69bb3d43dd..e411ceb9c0 100644
--- a/documentation/poky-ref-manual/ref-variables.xml
+++ b/documentation/poky-ref-manual/ref-variables.xml
@@ -435,9 +435,11 @@
DEPENDS
- A list of build-time dependencies for a given recipe.
- The variable indicates recipes that must have been staged before a
- particular recipe can configure.
+ Lists a recipe's build-time dependencies
+ (i.e. other recipe files).
+ The system ensures that all the dependencies listed
+ have been built and have their contents in the appropriate
+ sysroots before the recipe's configure task is executed.
@@ -2002,45 +2004,61 @@ recipes-graphics/xorg-font/font-alias_1.0.3.bb:PR = "${INC_PR}.3"
RDEPENDS
- A list of packages that must be installed as part of a package being built.
- The package being built has a runtime dependency on the packages in the
- variable's list.
- In other words, in order for the package being built to run correctly,
- it depends on these listed packages.
- If a package in this list cannot be found during the build, the build
- will not complete.
+ Lists a package's run-time dependencies (i.e. other packages)
+ that must be installed for the package to be built.
+ In other words, in order for the package to be built and
+ run correctly, it depends on the listed packages.
+ If a package in this list cannot be found, it is probable
+ that a dependency error would occur before the build.
+
- Because the RDEPENDS variable applies to packages
- being built, you should
- always attach an override to the variable to specify the particular runtime package
- that has the dependency.
- For example, suppose you are building a development package that depends
- on the perl package.
- In this case, you would use the following RDEPENDS
- statement:
+ The names of the variables you list with
+ RDEPENDS must be the names of other
+ packages as listed in the
+ PACKAGES
+ variable.
+ You should not list recipe names (PN).
+
+
+
+ Because the RDEPENDS variable applies
+ to packages being built, you should
+ always attach a package name to the variable to specify the
+ particular run-time package that has the dependency.
+ For example, suppose you are building a development package
+ that depends on the perl package.
+ In this case, you would use the following
+ RDEPENDS statement:
RDEPENDS_${PN}-dev += "perl"
- In the example, the package name (${PN}-dev) must
- appear as it would in the
- PACKAGES namespace before any
- renaming of the output package by classes like debian.bbclass.
+ In the example, the package name
+ (${PN}-dev) must appear as it would
+ in the
+ PACKAGES
+ namespace before any renaming of the output package by
+ classes like debian.bbclass.
+
- Some automatic handling occurs around the RDEPENDS
- variable:
+ In many cases you do not need to explicitly add dependencies
+ to RDEPENDS since some automatic
+ handling occurs:
- shlibdeps: If a runtime
- package contains a shared library (.so), the build
- processes the library in order to determine other libraries to which it
- is dynamically linked.
- The build process adds these libraries to RDEPENDS
- to create the runtime package.
- pcdeps: If the package
- ships a pkg-config information file, the build process
- uses this file to add items to the RDEPENDS
- variable to create the runtime packages.
+ shlibdeps: If
+ a run-time package contains a shared library
+ (.so), the build
+ processes the library in order to determine other
+ libraries to which it is dynamically linked.
+ The build process adds these libraries to
+ RDEPENDS when creating the run-time
+ package.
+ pcdeps: If
+ the package ships a pkg-config
+ information file, the build process uses this file
+ to add items to the RDEPENDS
+ variable to create the run-time packages.