Building Projects and Symbian Components

Building projects consists of a new abld-based build system that wraps build functionality around existing SDK build tools that invoke makmake commands (e.g. bldmake bldfiles and abld build).

The plug-ins provide extra functionality to set up suitable build configurations for Symbian OS C++ projects. The initial selection of a build configuration is done when you create a project, as described in Creating New Projects. You can later change the Active Build Configuration. The Build Configurations also provides a command (Project > Build All Configurations) to build all the selected build configurations in a batch.

Building Symbian OS C++ projects can involve the use of Symbian OS specific tools, such as the Symbian OS resource compiler. For detailed information on such tools, see the documentation for the SDK that you are using.

You build projects to process the source files that comprise a program and generate object code. The compiler flags syntax errors in the source files. Use the Properties for <project_name> window to control how the project is built. The following methods build a project:

Figure 1 - Right-click project name to build a project

Building a Project

    or

    Carbide.c++ builds the project. During the build a build dialog will appear on screen and a task bar is shown at the bottom right of the perspective when the build is run in the background. All output as the build progresses is shown in the Console view and all build errors and warnings appear in the Problems view.

    Whether a full build or incremental build is requested, Carbide forwards the request to the SDK make system. The SDK make system determines if anything needs to be built. So Carbide will always check that makefiles are up-to-date and check dependencies.

    A project is also built if you make a change to a project and then click Debug. It may be useful to automatically save modified resources before a manual build process by enabling the Save automatically before build option in the Window > Preferences > General > Workspace preference panel.

    NOTE If you want to turn off building before launching, uncheck the Build (if required) before launching option in the Window > Preferences > Run/Debug > Launching preference panel.

When performing a build, output is displayed in the Console window. If you do not want to clear the console before each build you need to uncheck the option Always clear console before building in the Build Console panel. This option is enabled by default. You can access this panel by selecting Window > Preferences > C/C++ > Build Console preference panel (figure 2).

Not clearing the console can be useful when you are performing multiple builds, such as a regular project build, building a project package (.pkg) file, and building a ROM image. For example, if you do not clear the console before each build, then a subsequent build will not overwrite information from a previous build.

Figure 4 - Build Console Preference Panel

 

Concepts
Tasks