Re: [bitbake-devel] [PATCH 1/2] bitbake-setup: support multiple source override files

On Fri, May 29, 2026 at 06:46:32PM +0200, Alexander Kanavin wrote:
> On Fri, 29 May 2026 at 16:52, Ernest Van Hoecke via
> lists.openembedded.org
> <[email protected]> wrote:
> > The bitbake-setup documentation currently states that:
> > "The --source-overrides option can be passed multiple times, in which
> > case the overrides are applied in the order specified in the
> > command-line."
> >
> > However, this is not currently true and only the last --source-overrides
> > argument is actually used.
> 
> To be honest, I'd rather fix the documentation, and avoid increasing
> code complexity in the lack of clear use case. It's always possible to
> merge multiple jsons into one with a simple python script. This would
> also keep things consistent with the 'multiple sets of sources in
> json' idea, where you'd only pick one of them.
> 
> Alex
>

I arrived at this from a real use case. Admittedly, that might now be
semi-artifical if we don't want the other default-source-overrides
patch.

My setup idea was to have all sources move, then use a fixed revisions
override to create a "release" setup at known pins, and then apply
another override on top of that one to create an "integration" setup for
CI where most sources are at known pins, but some repos are at latest.

By overriding again, it prevents needing to maintain a "release" and
"integration" sources override files, that are mostly duplication of
each other.

You're right that this can easily be managed with other tools, the small
risk I see is that lots of custom solutions start growing around
bitbake-setup, but with your feedback on the other patch I also see less
value in this one.

In short, the expectation here is that people use their own tooling to
manage the .conf.json and source overrides .json files? If so I'll send
a patch later to remove the multiple --source-overrides option from the
docs.

Kind regards,
Ernest