[cdt-dev] New Build UI

[Sean Evoy <sevoy@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi,
We have been working on a new build
model and UI for some time now. Today we finally posted the first iteration
of that work. Despite its many short-comings, we felt that it was important
to get it into the hands of the CDT community now so that you can start
playing with it and provide your feedback on the direction we are going
in. 

Howto use the Build System
The key to success is to keep your expectations
low. That said, here's a cookbook for getting a simple executable up and
running.
1. You must use a new managed project.
Fortunately, there's a wizard for creating them. 
        *
Select File | New | Project 
        *
Select 'C' or 'C++' in the left pane. 
        *
You should see an entry 'Managed Make C (or C++) Project' in the right
pane. Highlight that and click 'Next'. 
        *
Choose a name, then hit 'Next'. 
        *
You *must* select the platform in the combo box (i.e. Cygwin Executable
even if it is selected).
        *
If you do, the check-list below will be populated with the predefined configurations
for that platform. If you must, you can uncheck the one you don't want.
        *
At this point you can hit 'Finish' or proceed to meddle with the binary
parser and inter-project dependencies (although the builder ignores dependencies
right now ...)
2. Add a file or 2 (the class wizard
that Hoda added is quite nice for this).
3. Right click on the project in the
navigator or C/C++ project view. Select 'Properties' from the menu.
4. Select C/C++ Build from the list
in the left pane. If it isn't there, then you didn't use the right wizard
to create your project.
5. It's pretty much self-explanatory
from here (I hope). Select a tool in the list, make some changes in a likely
looking widget, and hit 'Apply'. See below for some limitations. 
6. You can rebuild/build after this
to see the makefile being generated. Again, see below for limitations.

Limitations
Hmm. There are lots and lots of these,
so I will try to summarize the top-flight things that will trip you up
for now. 
1. There is only one toolchain defined
in the patch that you can access through the UI; namely for Cygwin. If
you must try this elsewhere, there is a Linux definition in the plugin.xml
file for name        org.eclipse.cdt.ui. You
can set the 'isTest' fields to false and add some option categories and
options. The Cygwin example is a good starting point. Please note that
the schema is still in flux, so if you create and submit a new target,
then we might have to update it later.
2. So far, I have tested that it builds
a simple executable (HelloWorld is OK; your complex, multi-site project
with 10M LOC is not going to build just yet). 
3. There is a target defined for static
libraries, but I have not tested it, and I wouldn't bet the farm that it
builds anything. 
4. There are no tools defined for yacc,
Lex, Bison, etc .... Just plain, vanilla C++ files.
5. While on the subject of C and C++
files, you will also note that the g++ wrapper is called, even for C files.
That will be addressed when I return from holidays in a week.
6. The builder treats the last configuration
you edited in the UI as the current default. There is no visual cue to
tell you which configuration is the "default". However, it will
effect the flags that are used during build so this is something we have
to address.
7. The builder is not very smart about
what has changed and what needs to be rebuilt. So, just do a full rebuild
all the time if you want to keep the makefile up-to-date.
8. The builder is not very smart about
dependencies between source and header files.
9. The builder is not very smart. Period.
10. The UI will not resize for really
large pages. It is being generated 'on the fly' based on the toolchain
definition and that is work yet to be done.
11. Switching between configurations
is not as smooth as it could be. Information is not lost, but you will
have to reselect the tool. This will be fixed, of course.
12. The manage configuration workflow
has not been fully implemented. I did not disable the 'Manage', but don't
expect it to work and please, no bugzilla reports on it, OK?
13. The command line summary tool is
not implemented yet. It's on its way.

A Final Word
Sam Robb provided an initial build model
and UI, work we used as the starting point for what we have posted so far.
Doug Schaefer did all of the architectural work on how the build model
defines information and more importantly, how it persists and recovers
it. Both these developers deserve the lion's share of the credit; they
did the heavy lifting. I just introduced the bugs. Enjoy.

Sean Evoy
Rational Software - IBM Software Group
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada