The +Symbian build process

Symbian platform programs are initially developed for a Symbian emulator +running on Windows, and are then rebuilt for the ARM processor (native) targets +used in real Symbian platform phones. Building can be performed from the Windows +command line, or from within an IDE if one is available. The descriptions +given in this documentation set concentrate on command line building, as documentation +for using an IDE is normally distributed with the IDE itself.

Note: This page includes a description of the use of Symbian's +SBSv1 build system, which provides the bldmake and abld command +line tools. Symbian also provides a newer command line build system, called +SBSv2, in its Platform Developer Toolkit (PDT) product. SBSv2 can help achieve +improved build speed over SBSv1.

Build targets

This section describes the tools +and compilers supported on the kits supplied by Symbian. Note that licensees +or third-parties may supply additional tools, or extend support to additional +compilers which are not described here.

Symbian build their emulator +code with the Metrowerks CodeWarrior compiler. This is known as the WINSCW build +target. Binaries built with this compiler are put in the epoc32\release\winscw and epoc32\winscw directory +trees.

You can build your programs for the Symbian emulator using +Metrowerks CodeWarrior. The build tools also have support for using the Microsoft +Visual Studio .NET 2003, or Microsoft Visual Studio v6 IDEs. See The +Symbian emulator build targets for more details.

To build code +for a phone, a compiler based on the Application Binary Interface (ABI) for +the ARM Architecture is needed. This is a standard for the interfaces of binary +code running in ARM environments, and is intended to allow inter-operation +of binaries produced by different compilers that conform to the standard. +The specification is published by ARM at http://infocenter.arm.com.

The Symbian platform +build tools are configured to work with two compilers in particular:

ARM's own RealView Compiler +Tools (RVCT). This is particularly intended for licensee's building ROMs for +phones. For details, see ARM's website at http://www.arm.com.

The situation +is complicated by there existing two versions of the ARM ABI, referred to +as v1 and v2 respectively. The toolchain allows either to be chosen.
A version of the GNU +Compiler Collection (GCC) that supports the ABI for the ARM Architecture. +This compiler is delivered on Symbian platform kits, and is freely available. +This target is known as GCCE. It can only be used to compile +code to v2 of the ARM ABI, not to the earlier v1.

See The native +build targets for more details.

Project files

Because of the variety of targets +and toolchains available, Symbian platform allows projects to be specified +in a form not specific to any. These neutral project files are then used by +Symbian platform tools to create toolchain-specific project files when these +are required.

The key project files are:

a project definition +file (.mmp file) that describes a project to be built. +This is an environment neutral file that can be used by the tools to produce +make files for any of the supported target environments. It also defines resource +file and application information files to be built.
a component description +file (bld.inf), which lists all the projects in a component, +and gives additional build instructions.

When you create a new project, you write these files (or typically +copy existing similar files and modify them) in a text editor. IDE's may allow +new projects to be created from existing template projects.

See How to build GUI applications, How to build DLLs, +and How to build EXEs for +guidance on how to write project files for the three most common types of +program. See the Build +tools reference for details on the file formats and syntax.

Building from the command line

You can build for +any target from the command line. The procedure is summarised below.

Create a project specification +(.mmp) file.
Create a component definition +file (bld.inf). In many cases this will specify a single +project mmp file.
Run bldmake from +the directory where the bld.inf file is located:

bldmake +bldfiles

This creates a abld.bat batch +file, which you use in the next step.
Use abld +build to build the project.

This builds the project +for all valid targets and both release and debug variants. To build for a +particular target and variant, use abld build +target-name variant, for example

abld build +winscw udeb

to build for the debug variant of WINSCW.

For more details on using the tools, see How +to use bldmake and How +to use abld.