TipsAndTricks/Packaging Prebuilt Libraries

Some library vendors do not release source code for their software but do release pre-built binaries. This articel shows how to deal with such libraries.

In the example below we work with libraries for the FT4222 USB I/O chip. Libraries are built for x86 32 and 64bit architectures and packaged in zip file. The key steps are as follows

• The vendor will have licence so add a licence flag
• Vendor provides a tarball containing libraries so set SRC_URI appropriately.
• Set COMPATIBLE_MACHINE so that recipe cannot be be used with an unsupported architectures. In this example we support Minnowboard Max (32 and 64bit), Intel Edison and qemux86.
• We installing, use the MACHINE override to set source directory within tarball appropriately.
• As vendor provides versioned libraries, we can use so_oeinstall to install shared library and creates symbolic links. If vendor does not do this, consult the Packaging Nonversioned Library article
• As the vendor likely used the different LDFLAGS from your Yocto build, disable checking by adding ldflags to INSANE_SKIP
• Vendor typically ship release builds with debug symbols so disable stripping to prevent packaging errors by setting INHIBIT_PACKAGE_STRIP and INHIBIT_SYSROOT_STRIP.

Complete recipe would look like this.

SUMMARY = "FTDI FT4222 Library"
SECTION = "libs"
LICENSE_FLAGS = "ftdi"
LICENSE = "CLOSED"

COMPATIBLE_MACHINE = "intel-corei7-64|intel-core2-32|edison|qemux86"

# BUILD_NUMBER is set to build number of libft4222 release tarball
# Set subdir variable so that files are unpacked unto ${S}
BUILD_NUMBER = "35"
PR = "r${BUILD_NUMBER}"
SRC_URI = "http://www.ftdichip.com/Support/SoftwareExamples/${PN}-${PV}.${BUILD_NUMBER}.tgz;subdir=${PN}-${PV}"
SRC_URI[md5sum] = "c5bc189fb5b167daf662ff81c66cde55"
SRC_URI[sha256sum] = "df03e50f4a205474eaacadcdb59dc602237e95d48008ede8fc2d1f2493e54845"

MACHINE_DIR_intel-corei7-64 = "build-x86_64"
MACHINE_DIR_intel-core2-32 = "build-i386"
MACHINE_DIR_edison = "build-i386"
MACHINE_DIR_qemux86 = "build-i386"

INSANE_SKIP_${PN} = "ldflags"
INHIBIT_PACKAGE_STRIP = "1"
INHIBIT_SYSROOT_STRIP = "1"

do_install () {
	install -m 0755 -d ${D}${libdir}
	oe_soinstall ${S}/${MACHINE_DIR}/libft4222.so.${PV}.${BUILD_NUMBER} ${D}${libdir}
	install -m 0755 -d ${D}${includedir}
	install -m 0755 ${S}/*.h ${D}${includedir}
}