RE: Patching the nRF Connect SDK (Options)

droberson — Wed, 29 Jan 2025 16:20:57 GMT

Hey Helmut,

This looks neat and promising! Seems similar to applying patches with git. Thanks for letting me know! I will be looking forward to this if it makes its way to future nRF Connect SDK releases.

Thanks,

Derek

RE: Patching the nRF Connect SDK (Options)

droberson — Wed, 29 Jan 2025 16:18:04 GMT

Hey Håkon,

Thanks for the clarification! I suppose I will stick to the existing methods then.

Derek

RE: Patching the nRF Connect SDK (Options)

khelmutlord — Wed, 29 Jan 2025 16:13:02 GMT

A small thing to add since this is/was a common complaint:

https://github.com/zephyrproject-rtos/zephyr/pull/83243

There is a new feature and is not yet in Nordic's fork of Zephyr but may provide a path forward in a future nRF Connect SDK release.

RE: Patching the nRF Connect SDK (Options)

Håkon Alseth — Wed, 29 Jan 2025 14:47:42 GMT

Hi,

There are certain scenarios described here:

https://docs.nordicsemi.com/bundle/ncs-latest/page/nrf/dev_model_and_contributions/adding_code.html

[quote user=""]

Question 1: Can you apply a patch by excluding the patched file from the "clean" version of the nRF Connect SDK when it is downloaded with "west update"?

For example:

Lets say you want to patch the following (Random file I picked): C:\ncs\v2.9.0\nrf\subsys\uart_async_adapter\uart_async_adapter.c

Is it possible to commit ONLY this file to my project repo (I am using SVN) and exclude it from the nRF Connect SDK download via the west.yml file?

[/quote]

No, that isn't possible. For such a method, I would recommend forking the repo in question and aligning it towards what you require.

One could manually patch as well for each checkout, but as you mention; this is error-prone.

[quote user=""]

Edit: Question 2: Can you apply patches to the nRF Connect SDK that is installed in the default location (C:\ncs\...) without modifying the SDK itself?

Perhaps put the patched files in a /patches folder in your project directory and point your project to use that file instead of the one in the nRF Connect SDK? This is what I used to do when developing with the old nRF SDK using Keil uVision IDE.

[/quote]

This is technically possible, but there is no method/command that will ensure that the patches are applied. This required logic will then be pushed onto your application.

[quote user=""]Is my proposed method of excluding a specific file from the vanilla nRF Connect SDK download possible?[/quote]

If you were to add features, like a i2c-sensor that does not exist in sdk-zephyr or sdk-nrf, one can add this locally to a dedicated application with extra_zephyr_modules (docs link: https://docs.zephyrproject.org/latest/develop/modules.html#integrate-modules-in-zephyr-build-system)

With this, you add both the sensor/driver/i2c/my_sensor .c/.h implementation as well as the DT-yaml files.

However, this is for additions, not patching what is already present.

Kind regards,

Håkon