Build setup

Build using Makefile

1. Open your project folder. It is better to use VSCODE.

2. Open terminal from your project folder.

3. Build project using make command.

   It is very easy this time to build the project using Makefile. You just need to use the make command and nothig.

   make -j
   

   -j is for doing all jobs code at once. It speeds up build time using parallel processing. If you want to do n jobs at once, use -jn. For example, executing 8 tasks at once:

   make -j8
   

Tip

Add -Wl,--print-memory-usage to LDFLAGS in Makefile to print memory usage.

LDFLAGS = $(MCU) -specs=nano.specs -T$(LDSCRIPT) $(LIBDIR) $(LIBS) -Wl,-Map=$(BUILD_DIR)/$(TARGET).map,--cref -Wl,--gc-sections
LDFLAGS += -Wl,--print-memory-usage

4. If you want to clean the project, use make clean.

Build using CMake

1. Open your project folder. It is better to use VSCODE.

2. Open terminal from your project folder.

3. Build project using cmake command.

   mkdir build
   cd build
   cmake ..
   make -j
   

But this does not generate .bin file which is needed for flashing the microcontroller. To generate, you need to use arm-none-eabi-objcopy.

arm-none-eabi-objcopy -O binary <your_project_name.elf> <your_project_name.bin>

We always do this job. So, it is better to generate binary file using CMake.

4. Add these lines at the bottom of CMakeLists.txt.

   # Generate binary
   add_custom_command(
       OUTPUT ${CMAKE_BINARY_DIR}/${CMAKE_PROJECT_NAME}.bin
       COMMAND arm-none-eabi-objcopy -O binary ${CMAKE_BINARY_DIR}/${CMAKE_PROJECT_NAME}.elf ${CMAKE_BINARY_DIR}/${CMAKE_PROJECT_NAME}.bin
       DEPENDS ${CMAKE_PROJECT_NAME}
       COMMENT "Converting ELF to binary"
   )
   
   # Binary target
   add_custom_target(bin ALL
       DEPENDS ${CMAKE_BINARY_DIR}/${CMAKE_PROJECT_NAME}.bin
       COMMENT "Generating binary file"
   )
   

   To build using only one line of command, a script file is needed.

5. Create a build.sh file at your project folder for compiling and generating binary file.

   build.sh

   #!/bin/bash
   
   set +e
   
   if [[ "$1" == "clean" ]]; then
       rm -rf build
   fi
   
   if [ ! -d "build" ]; then
       mkdir build
   fi
   
   cd build
   cmake ..
   make -j
   cd ..
   

6. Make build.sh executable.

   chmod +x build.sh
   

7. Compile using one line of command.

   ./build.sh
   

   To clean first then build, run:

   ./build.sh clean