Difference between layer and metadata in Yocto

Question

I am trying to understand yocto terminology. I understood that recipe is a set of instructions used by bitbake tool to fetch the source code, configure, compile and generate the package ( software component ).

Metadata is collection of Configuration files ( .conf ), Recipes ( .bb and .bbappend ) , Classes ( .bbclass ) and Includes ( .inc ).

What I don't understand is the term 'layer'. Is the term 'layer' and 'metadata' both same or different

For example: meta-fsl-arm : Is this a layer or metadata.

Answer 1

Metadata is just a generic term for data describing other data as wiki explains.

Layers are recipe containers (folders), so meta-fsl-arm is indeed a layer.

I suggest you to read some documentation, those slides helped me, as well as mega manual and Yocto wiki.