Terms used across the xcdl project

CDL stands for Component Definition Language. It was introduced by eCos and is documented in The eCos Component Writer's Guide.

xCDL is the xPack Configuration Definition Language and framework, inspired by eCos CDL.

xCDL uses several concepts inherited from eCos CDL:

xCDL software component: a set of source files that perform a given function, standalone or depending on other components, together with some metadata
xCDL component metadata: additional informations added to software components to describe dependencies, requirements and constraints
xCDL configuration tools: tools running on development machines to create and manage xCDL configurations and component metadata
xCDL configurations: specific metadata definitions, that describe the requirements of an application, like which components are used, the values for preprocessor definitions, toolchain selection, build details, etc
xCDL build configurations: the result of processing an xCDL configuration, usually a build folder with associated build related files (like CMake/meson/GNU Make files); when IDEs (like VS Code or Eclipse) are used, it translates to an IDE build configuration
xCDL requirements: direct requirements, generally components that are mandatory for the build to succeed, like base classes
xCDL constraints: in general hardware dependencies, like the presence of a certain peripheral, but dependencies to software options can also be used

The xPack build configurations and xCDL build configurations should be more or less the same, but details should be worked out.