[yocto] Package mono-libs-4.5 size increase in Mono version 4.4.x

[Craig McQueen]

I wrote:
> I've just had to upgrade from Mono 4.2.x to Mono 4.4.x, to get a fix for SMTP
> SSL/TLS.
> 
> I'm using the mono-libs-4.5 package. I see that the size of it has increased
> quite a lot (several MB) due to the upgrade. It looks as though it's now
> putting a bunch of files in /usr/lib/mono/4.5-api in addition to the old
> /usr/lib/mono/4.5.
> 
> I can see this mentioned in the Mono 4.4.0 release notes:
> http://www.mono-project.com/docs/about-mono/releases/4.4.0/
> 
> But the rationale is not entirely clear to me. Is it possible to cut down the
> Yocto image size by removing one of /usr/lib/mono/4.5-api and
> /usr/lib/mono/4.5, or some other refactoring?

It looks as though, in my image for the device, I only need /usr/lib/mono/4.5.

In my custom layer, I've made a mono_4.4.%.bbappend file which contains:

    # Split /usr/lib/mono/4.5-api off into a separate package.
    PACKAGES += "${PN}-libs-4.5-api"
    
    FILES_${PN}-libs-4.5-api                = "${libdir}/mono/4.5-api/*"
    FILES_${PN}-libs-4.5                    = "${libdir}/mono/4.5/*"

My image includes the package mono-libs-4.5 (as it did before when I was using Mono 4.2.x). Now the image size is back to near what it was for Mono 4.2.x, and everything on the target device seems to be running fine.

-- 
Craig McQueen