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Environment variables ​

BuildBox uses several environment variables to work. These variables are kept up-to-date by local environment mechanism, and are influenced by active target settings.

WARNING

Do not write BuildBox environment variables directly, use BuildBox API for that. This is the same for standard environment variables managed by BuildBox.

BuildBox environment variables can be used anywhere, for example for scripting tests, packages distribution.

BuildBox specific variables ​

It is possible to list only BuildBox environment variables and their values by running:

bbx env

Here is a partial list of these variables and their meaning:

  • BB_TARGET: active target name
  • BB_PROJECT_DIR: active project base directory
  • BB_PROJECT_PROFILE_DIR: active project profile directory (.bbx/)
  • BB_PROJECT_SRC_DIR: active project sources directory
  • BB_TARGET_DIR: active target base directory
  • BB_TARGET_SRC_DIR: active target sources directory
  • BB_TARGET_BUILD_DIR: active target build directory
  • BB_LAST_TARGET: previous active target name
  • BB_TARGET_VAR_*: target specific variable
  • BB_TOOLS_DIR: tools local clones directory
  • BB_CACHE_DIR: BuildBox cache
  • BB_TRASH_KEEP_DAYS: minimum days to keep data in BuildBox trash
  • BB_BUILD_JOBS: concurrent build jobs number
  • BB_BINDIR: BuildBox public and internal executables paths
  • BB_DIR: BuildBox sources directory
  • BB_WORKDIR: project profile directory path (.bbx/), bind-mounted at the same path on both host and container
  • BB_LAUNCHER_ID: PID of the host-side bbx launcher process; used to locate the named pipes for the bb_host_send mechanism
  • BB_PREBUILT_USERNAME: pre-built target release user name for remote server
  • BB_PREBUILT_SERVER: pre-built target server address
  • BB_PREBUILT_PATH: pre-built target remote path
  • BB_PREBUILT_ONLY_TAGGED: pre-built target 1 to restrict pre-built target generation only to tagged projects, else 0
  • BB_CONFIG: active project configuration file path (.bbx/config)
  • BB_USER_CONFIG: user configuration file path (~/.config/buildbox/config)
  • BB_SYSTEM_CONFIG: system configuration file path (/etc/buildbox/config)
  • BB_USER_CONFIG_DIR: user configuration directory, bind-mounted in the container at its host path; when unset, $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/buildbox is used
  • BB_SYSTEM_CONFIG_DIR: system configuration directory; when unset, /etc/buildbox is used
  • BB_LOCAL_ENV_LAST_*: used for local environment cache computation

Target build settings variables ​

The following variables describe the active target hardware and its toolchain. They are not listed by bbx env:

  • CPU
  • CPU_FAMILY
  • CPU_DESCRIPTION (do not rely on its value to condition code flow as it is a human-readable string subject to change)
  • CPUDEF
  • CHOST

BuildBox does not know anything about CPU and toolchains: these variables, as well as CFLAGS and LDFLAGS, come from the target build settings of the active target, and default to a native build when the target file does not define them. Add a setting to the target file to change any of them, never write these variables directly.

Standard variables managed by BuildBox ​

Moreover, BuildBox local environment mechanism keeps up-to-date the following environment variables:

  • PATH
  • LD_LIBRARY_PATH
  • PKG_CONFIG_PATH
  • ACLOCAL_PATH
  • XDG_DATA_DIRS
  • CFLAGS, target build directory and tools include paths, completed with the active target build settings flags
  • LDFLAGS, target build directory and tools library paths, completed with the active target build settings flags
  • TMPDIR, a temporary directory under the project profile directory