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-rw-r--r--toolchain/external-toolchain/ext-tool.mk31
1 files changed, 31 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/toolchain/external-toolchain/ext-tool.mk b/toolchain/external-toolchain/ext-tool.mk
index 4cd4f2d4f..0e1deb620 100644
--- a/toolchain/external-toolchain/ext-tool.mk
+++ b/toolchain/external-toolchain/ext-tool.mk
@@ -1,4 +1,35 @@
#
+# This file implements the support for external toolchains, i.e
+# toolchains that have not been produced by Buildroot itself and that
+# are already available on the system on which Buildroot runs.
+#
+# The basic principle is the following
+#
+# 1. Perform some checks on the conformity between the toolchain
+# configuration described in the Buildroot menuconfig system, and the
+# real configuration of the external toolchain. This is for example
+# important to make sure that the Buildroot configuration system
+# knows whether the toolchain supports RPC, IPv6, locales, large
+# files, etc. Unfortunately, these things cannot be detected
+# automatically, since the value of these options (such as
+# BR2_INET_RPC) are needed at configuration time because these
+# options are used as dependencies for other options. And at
+# configuration time, we are not able to retrieve the external
+# toolchain configuration.
+#
+# 2. Copy the libraries needed at runtime to the target directory,
+# $(TARGET_DIR). Obviously, things such as the C library, the dynamic
+# loader and a few other utility libraries are needed if dynamic
+# applications are to be executed on the target system.
+#
+# 3. Copy the libraries and headers to the staging directory. This
+# will allow all further calls to gcc to be made using --sysroot
+# $(STAGING_DIR), which greatly simplifies the compilation of the
+# packages when using external toolchains. So in the end, only the
+# cross-compiler binaries remains external, all libraries and headers
+# are imported into the Buildroot tree.
+
+#
# Copy a toolchain library and its symbolic links from the sysroot
# directory to the target directory. Also optionaly strips the
# library.