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[[br2-external-converting]]
== Converting old br2-external trees

Buildroot 2016.11 introduced a backward-incompatible change in the way
br2-external trees are handled. A minor change has to be made: adding
a name to your br2-external tree, see xref:outside-br-custom[].

This can be done very easily in just a few steps:

 * First, create a new file named +external.desc+, at the root of your
   br2-external tree, with a single line defining the name of your
   br2-external tree:
+
----
$ echo 'name: NAME_OF_YOUR_TREE' >external.desc
----
+
.Note
Be careful when choosing a name: It has to be unique and be made
with only ASCII characters from the set +[A-Za-z0-9_]+.

 * Then, change every occurence of +BR2_EXTERNAL+ in your br2-external
   tree with the new variable:
+
----
$ find . -type f | xargs sed -i 's/BR2_EXTERNAL/BR2_EXTERNAL_NAME_OF_YOUR_TREE_PATH/g'
----

Now, your br2-external tree can be used with Buildroot 2016.11 onward.

.Note:
This change makes your br2-external tree incompatible with Buildroot
before 2016.11.