3.1 General Rules

The general rules for all EDK II INI style documents follow.

Note: Path and Filename elements within the FDF are case-sensitive in order to support building on UNIX style operating systems. Additionally, names that are C variables or used as a macro are case sensitive. Other elements such as section tags or hex digits, in the FDF file are not casesensitive. The use of "..", "../" and "./" in paths and filenames is strictly prohibited.

  • Multiple FDF files may exist in a directory.

  • Text in section tags is case in-sensitive.

  • A section terminates with either another section definition or the end of the file.

  • Token statements terminate with the start of a new token statement, such as the start of a new section or the end of the file.

  • To append comment information to any item, the comment must start with a hash "#" character.

  • All comments terminate with the end of line character.

  • Field separators for lines that contain more than one field are pipe "|" characters. This character was selected to reduce the possibility of having the field separator character appear in a string, such as a filename or text string.

Note: The only notable exception is the PcdName which is a combination of the

PcdTokenSpaceGuidCName and the PcdCName that are separated by the period "." character. This notation for a PCD name is used to uniquely identify the PCD.

  • A line terminates with either an end of line character sequence or a comment.

  • When processing numeric values, either integer or hex, leading zeros specified in the entry may be ignored. For example, 0x00000000000000000000001 can be a valid value for a UINT8 data type, as the actual value is 1.

3.1.1 Line-Extension Backslash

The backslash "\" character in this document is only for lines that cannot be displayed within the margins of this document. The backslash character must not be used to extend a line over multiple lines in the FDF file.

3.1.2 Whitespace characters

Whitespace (space and tab) characters are permitted between token and field separator elements for all entries.

Whitespace characters are not permitted between the PcdTokenSpaceGuidCName and the dot, nor are they permitted between the dot and the PcdCName.

3.1.3 Paths for filenames

Note that for specifying the path for a file name, if the path value starts with a dollar sign "$" character, either a local MACRO or system environment variable is being specified. If the path value starts with one of "letter:\", "/", "\" or "\" the path must be a fully qualified URI location. If it does not, the specified path is relative to the WORKSPACE (or PACKAGES_PATH) environment variable.

Caution: The use of "..", "./" and "../" in a path element is prohibited.

For all FDF files, the specified directory path must use the forward slash character for separating directories. For example, MdePkg/Include/ is Valid.

Note: If the platform integrator is working on a Microsoft Windows* environment and will not be working on a non-windows platform, then the DOS-style directory separator can be used. The forward slash Unix-style directory separator is mandatory for distributions where the build environment is unknown.

Unless otherwise noted, all file names and paths are relative the system environment variable, WORKSPACE(or relative to a directory listed in the PACKAGES_PATH system environment variable). A directory name that starts with a word is assumed by the build tools to be located in the WORKSPACE directory (or a directory listed in the PACKAGES_PATH system environment variable). Search paths for locating the files are WORKSPACE then the ordered list (left to right) of directories listed in the optional PACKAGES_PATH environment variable.

Each module may have one or more INF files that can be used by tools to generate images. Specifically, the EDK Compatibility Package may contain two INF files for any module that contains assembly code. Since the ECP can be used with existing EDK tools (which is only supported by Microsoft and Intel Windows based tools,) a separate INF file to support the multiple tool chain capability of the EDK II build system must be provided for the modules that contain assembly code. The EDK II ECP will use the basename_edk2.inf for the filename of the EDK II build system compatible INF files for non-Windows based tool chains, and use just the basename.inf for the filename of EDK only INF files used by the EDK build system.