It does not change behavior but it forces the value to be a string, 
avoiding related problems when performing comparisons on "strict", 
another option as Richard Purdie suggested would be to import the 
boolean function from /meta/lib/oe/types.py in OE-Core into a new types 
module in bitbake, forcing it to get a "good" value that we could then use.

On 08/10/14 11:13, Christopher Larson wrote:
>
> On Tue, Sep 30, 2014 at 9:21 AM, Alejandro Hernandez 
> <alejandro.hernandez@linux.intel.com 
> <mailto:alejandro.hernandez@linux.intel.com>> wrote:
>
>     Forcing strict to be a string, to avoid problems when performing
>     comparisons
>
>     [YOCTO #6762]
>
>     Signed-off-by: Alejandro Hernandez
>     <alejandro.hernandez@linux.intel.com
>     <mailto:alejandro.hernandez@linux.intel.com>>
>     ---
>      lib/bb/fetch2/__init__.py | 4 ++--
>      1 file changed, 2 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)
>
>     diff --git a/lib/bb/fetch2/__init__.py b/lib/bb/fetch2/__init__.py
>     index df2f2b0..10c3346 100644
>     --- a/lib/bb/fetch2/__init__.py
>     +++ b/lib/bb/fetch2/__init__.py
>     @@ -543,8 +543,8 @@ def verify_checksum(ud, d):
>
>          if ud.method.recommends_checksum(ud):
>              # If strict checking enabled and neither sum defined,
>     raise error
>     - strict = d.getVar("BB_STRICT_CHECKSUM", True) or None
>     -        if strict and not (ud.md5_expected or ud.sha256_expected):
>     + strict = d.getVar("BB_STRICT_CHECKSUM", "1") or "0"
>     +        if (strict == "1") and not (ud.md5_expected or
>     ud.sha256_expected):
>
>
> Why was True (second argument of getVar) changed to "1" here? It 
> violates our conventions and doesn't actually change anything in the 
> behavior.
> -- 
> Christopher Larson
> clarson at kergoth dot com
> Founder - BitBake, OpenEmbedded, OpenZaurus
> Maintainer - Tslib
> Senior Software Engineer, Mentor Graphics