Specifying runtime package dependencies

The results of most recipes are packages managed by the package manager. As we saw in the previous sections, it requires information about all those packages and how they relate. For example, a package may depend on or conflict with another.

Constraints exist within multiple package relationships; however, those constraints are package format-specific, so BitBake has specific metadata to abstract those constraints.

Here is a list of the most used package runtime constraints:

• RDEPENDS: The list of packages must be available at runtime, along with the package that defines it.
• RPROVIDES: This is the list of symbolic names a package provides. By default, a package always includes the package name as a symbolic name. It can also include alternative symbolic names provided by that package.
• RCONFLICTS: This is the list of packages known to conflict with the package. The final image must not include conflicting packages.
• RREPLACES...