[yocto] bbappend file causes php package to disappear

[Matt Schuckmann]

> I've been fighting a problem where bitbake can't find the php package
> during the do_rootfs task and I've determined that it has something to
> do with the bbappend file I added to my layer for php.

It's funny how once you give up and post a question to a message board new insights pop into your head and you (or at least I) often find the solution on your own. 

Turns out the problem was by turning of the phar and pear options in my bbappend caused the php package to be empty and therefore no php ipk was generated. There was a note about not creating the empty package way down in the log file for the do_package step but I never saw it. 

I added ALLOW_EMPTY_${PN} = "1" to my bbappend and now things are working much better. 

It's really frustrating when silent failures like this occur and they seem to happen to new users like me all too often with this tool. 

Matt S.