Custom build problems handling Greenhills build tools

[smartin]

Hi,

I am now starting work on a new MIPS64 embedded project. There are several engineers working on this project and I am the only one using SlickEdit, all the rest are using Greenhills Multi.

To avoid configuration problems I am using the Greenhills gbuild utility. This means that I am using exactly the same build options as everyone else. Unfortunately this breaks most of the build functionality in the SlickEdit.

My configuration

1.- I am using SlickEdit 13.0.1 with the cumulative hotfixes applied (downloaded today July 11 2008).

2.- I have a workspace with two projects (startup and product)

3.- I have deleted the compile tool from my project because it has no meaning.

4.- I have modified one of the default error parsing regular expressions to handle the multiline error messages from the Greenhills build tools

My problems

1.- If I set the project dependencies (product depends on startup) then SlickEdit will call the vsbuild tool instead of the custom build command. vsbuild fails saying there is no compile tool.

2.- Previously, to make suire that the message list was filled from the build errors, I set the "beep on completion" option. If I do this now it will call vsbuild instead of the custom build tool.  vsbuild fails saying there is no compile tool.

3.- I need to specify some post-build steps, unfortunately this will make SlickEdit use the vsbuild tool instead of the custom build command.  vsbuild fails saying there is no compile tool.

As you can see whatever I do, it calls the vsbuild and this does not work with custom build commands.

Any ideas?

[Lee]

Was this setup as a C++ project initially?  You may need to recreate the project as Generic only project (non-C++) and setup the build tool.  If vsbuild thinks it's a C++ project it will look for the compile tool, if just use a generic project it should just shell out the build command as is.

[smartin]

I created it as a generic only project. I'll retry again on Monday and let you know.

[ScottW, VP of Dev]

On Project > Project Properties, select the Build tab. Which radio button have you selected for "Build System"? You should be using "Build with a user-maintened makefile or custom build command". If you change that value, click OK, which will close this dialog. Then reopen it and make further changes. If you don't click OK, the options on the other tabs will not correspond to the build options selected.

Having set that value, go to the Tools tab and configure the command for Build and Rebuild (or whichever you use). I like to set "Verbose output" and "Clear build window" while I'm debugging this stuff to make sure I see only the stuff from this run and all of the stuff from this run.

Be sure to do this for each project. Selecting "Project > Project Properties" only does this for the active project, which is shown in bold in the Projects tool window. You can right click on a project in the Projects window and select "Project Properties" to configure the selected project.

vsbuild may still be used as a wrapper, which is how we know when you have finished a build so that we can beep and process the errors, but you should still be able to enter a custom build command.

I created projects using the "Generic C/C++" project type and everything seems to be working fine for me.

[smartin]

Ok,

On Project > Project Properties, select the Build tab. Which radio button have you selected for "Build System"

Build with a user maintained makefile is selected

Was this setup as a C++ project initially?

To avoid any queries on this one I am recreating the projects and writing what I am doing as I do it. Hopefully I will never post this bit as it will all work 

1.- Close the workspace, out to a command line, off to my project directory, and finally "move *.v* ..\backup\."

2.- File->New->Workspace->Blank workspace in the project directory

3.- File->New->Project->(Generic) startup project.

3.1.- Files tab: Add C source files

3.2.- Build tab: Build with user maintained makefile or custom build command

3.3.- Tools tab: Command line: c:\ghs\mips424\gbuild src\startupcode.gpj

4.- File->New->Project->(Generic) product project

4.1.- Files tab: Add C source files

4.2.- Build tab: Build with user maintained makefile or custom build command, select beep on completion

4.3.- Tools tab: Command line: c:\ghs\mips424\gbuild src\product.gpj

4.4.- Dependencies tab: Depends on startup

Build now works OK. Removed the compile tool and it still works. Postbuild steps work as well.

Thanks for your help.

[ScottW, VP of Dev]

I'm glad we could help. That's the most important thing. But it's always a little frustrating when we don't actually pin down the root cause. Do you have any ideas what made the difference? Was it the project type? I'm very interested in making sure that the design and documentation for this will prevent as many of these problems as possible. Any feedback you have would be greatly appreciated.

[smartin]

Originally I set up the project as C/C++ generic. That is the only significant difference I can think of.

I'll try again in the near future and see if I can reproduce it.