New build system introduced, testing and feedback needed

gloomyandy

This is probably sacrilege but I find using cmake overly complex and much prefer good old make. cmake is great when it works, but when there is a problem it can be very hard to identify what is the cause. The LPC and STM32 builds of RRF both use make, for the recent ESP32 version of the Duet WiFi software I used cmake (to fit in with the espressif build system), it is way more complex and hard to debug than the corresponding make system I use to build the ESP8266 version. Maybe I'm just too old school, but having watched many software projects disappear down a rat hole of a "new improved build system", sometimes simple is best.

mfs12

@gloomyandy, settting cmake up i stumbled also in quite some pitfalls. although i think the found solution is quite handy but still not perfect. but neither is make, it also has a lot of pitfalls from my experience.

But once either of them is working things should be ok.

So far we are living with eclipse build file generation, which is even harder to debug compared to make and cmake.

What convinced me to use cmake is the support for different IDEs, I hope this will lower the bar to build and develop the project.

Let's give it a shot.

mfs12

@gloomyandy said in New build system introduced, testing and feedback needed:

The LPC and STM32 builds of RRF both use make

Can you point me to the repository? Eventually it would be an option to port your solution to RRF.

jay_s_uk

@mfs12
Here's the main build repo https://github.com/gloomyandy/RRFBuild/tree/v3.4-dev

oliof

@gloomyandy I kind of agree. Considering I need to manually pass the really important info (where are the build binaries, what do I want to build) manually into CMake to make it work on Windows, a well-constructed set of Makefiles might be cleaner and easier to follow along in the end. But I won't say no to CMake, and it's @mfs12´s weapon of choice (-:

gloomyandy

@mfs12 The repo that jay pointed you to is the overall build repo. The actual make files we currently keep in the CoreN2G repo (which may or may not be a good idea):
https://github.com/gloomyandy/CoreN2G/tree/v3.4-dev/src/STM32F4/makefiles
https://github.com/gloomyandy/CoreN2G/tree/v3.4-dev/src/LPC/makefiles

I doubt if these qualify as a "well constructed set of makefiles", but they do the job. For historical reasons we currently keep two separate sets of build files for the two different mcus, it would probably make sense to combine them and have a different make build target.

cmake is certainly a lot easier to handle than the eclipse build file system!

oozeBot

Thanks all. I'm getting further and can create the build files, but am now stuck at the following:

PS C:\Eclipse\PanelDueFirmware> make -C build all -j12
make: Entering directory 'C:/Eclipse/PanelDueFirmware/build'
Makefile:32: *** missing separator.  Stop.

I've tried other variations with no luck. FYI - (Get-Command make).Path returns:

C:\Program Files\GNU ARM Eclipse\Build Tools\2.6-201507152002\bin\make.exe

Thanks in advance.

mfs12

@oozeBot
can you send the file 'C:/Eclipse/PanelDueFirmware/build/Makefile'

There's something wrong with the makefile. any path you pass as commandline parameter needs to be in quotes, backslash replaced with slash and whitespaces escaped with backslash.

Can you share your cmake call?

oozeBot

@mfs12 - Here you go - both renamed to ".txt". I believe I've setup env.vmake correctly. With it, my cmake command is just

cmake -B build

env.cmake.txt

Makefile.txt

I'm reviewing the makefile now - one thing of note I've found is on line 79 - note the double "\\". edit - changing the \\ to \ didn't fix it. still reviewing.

C:\Eclipse\PanelDueFirmware\build\\CMakeFiles\progress.marks

edit - There was an unescaped space in my env.cmake file that I just corrected, but still receiving the same error.

mfs12

@oozeBot somehow make wants the if-block at line 32 indented. I don't understand why. Weird enough.

Anyway i want cmake to run on you machine so hacking the makefiles is not really an option. Just for testing.

oozeBot

@mfs12 - thanks. I got past it by indenting the entire IF block in both makefile and CMakeFiles\makefile2. Pretty strange..

Current error I'm researching:

PS C:\Eclipse\PanelDueFirmware> make -C build all
make: Entering directory 'C:/Eclipse/PanelDueFirmware/build'
make[1]: Entering directory 'C:/Eclipse/PanelDueFirmware/build'
make[1]: *** No rule to make target '/nologo'.  Stop.
make[1]: Leaving directory 'C:/Eclipse/PanelDueFirmware/build'
Makefile:79: recipe for target 'all' failed
make: *** [all] Error 2
make: Leaving directory 'C:/Eclipse/PanelDueFirmware/build'

mfs12

You can always make the build verbose.

$ make -C build VERBOSE=1 all

oozeBot

@mfs12 - Thank you for the hand-holding.

~~I see an error but am not sure where it came from yet. Look at line 5. That does not exist on my system and was not defined anywhere that I have yet to find.~~

edit - that's the path to "make" and does exist. My mistake - I was looking in Program Files (x86).

PS C:\Eclipse\PanelDueFirmware> make -C build VERBOSE=1 all
make: Entering directory 'C:/Eclipse/PanelDueFirmware/build'
"C:\Program Files\CMake\bin\cmake.exe" -SC:\Eclipse\PanelDueFirmware -BC:\Eclipse\PanelDueFirmware\build --check-build-system CMakeFiles\Makefile.cmake 0
"C:\Program Files\CMake\bin\cmake.exe" -E cmake_progress_start C:\Eclipse\PanelDueFirmware\build\CMakeFiles C:\Eclipse\PanelDueFirmware\build\CMakeFiles\progress.marks
C:/Program Files/GNU ARM Eclipse/Build Tools/2.6-201507152002/bin/make  -f CMakeFiles\Makefile2 /nologo -w -- VERBOSE=1 all
make[1]: Entering directory 'C:/Eclipse/PanelDueFirmware/build'
make[1]: *** No rule to make target '/nologo'.  Stop.
make[1]: Leaving directory 'C:/Eclipse/PanelDueFirmware/build'
Makefile:79: recipe for target 'all' failed
make: *** [all] Error 2
make: Leaving directory 'C:/Eclipse/PanelDueFirmware/build'

mfs12

@oozebot said in New build system introduced, testing and feedback needed:

C:/Program Files/GNU ARM Eclipse/Build Tools/2.6-201507152002/bin/make

How old is your eclipse and toolchain? Is this a date 201507152002?

I think this might be an issue.

mfs12

this nologo parameter is somehow related to verbosity. So if you remove VERBOSE=1 again. Does it work then?

oozeBot

@mfs12 no, it returned the same error as I posted above.

My toolchain is

C:\Program Files (x86)\GNU Arm Embedded Toolchain\10 2021.07\bin

and the Eclipse IDE is

Version: 2021-06 (4.20.0)
Build id: 20210612-2011

Reviewing now how to update make.exe

mfs12

in the end this /nologo parameter is the issue. Make thinks it's a target but it's actually parameter intended for the windows linker. Really strange.

If you delete that. You get a step further.

mfs12

Apparently you can install additional tools using eclipse. Probably update them as well. Eventually this didn't happen for some time.

oozeBot

@mfs12 - much closer now. I had two versions of make.exe. I updated it and removed all references to /nologo. However, the version without a logo is what I am needing to compile?

Here is where I currently am at.

PS C:\Eclipse\PanelDueFirmware> make -C build VERBOSE=1 

...

C:\Eclipse\PanelDueFirmware\build C:\Eclipse\PanelDueFirmware\build C:\Eclipse\PanelDueFirmware\build\CMakeFiles\paneldue.elf.dir\DependInfo.cmake --color=
make[2]: Leaving directory 'C:/Eclipse/PanelDueFirmware/build'
C:/Program Files/GNU ARM Eclipse/Build Tools/2.6-201507152002/bin/make  -f CMakeFiles\paneldue.elf.dir\build.make  -nw -- VERBOSE=1 CMakeFiles\paneldue.elf.dir\build
make[2]: Entering directory 'C:/Eclipse/PanelDueFirmware/build'
make[2]: *** No rule to make target 'lib\librrf\librrf.a', needed by 'paneldue.elf'.  Stop.
make[2]: Leaving directory 'C:/Eclipse/PanelDueFirmware/build'
make[1]: *** [CMakeFiles\Makefile2:93: CMakeFiles\paneldue.elf.dir\all] Error 2
make[1]: Leaving directory 'C:/Eclipse/PanelDueFirmware/build'
make: *** [Makefile:80: all] Error 2
make: Leaving directory 'C:/Eclipse/PanelDueFirmware/build'

oliof

did you check out librrf as a submodule as detailed in the build instructions?