Importing Projects from a Bld.Inf File in Tasks

## Importing Projects from a Bld.Inf File

The command-line Symbian toolchain requires that projects are defined with these formats:

- Symbian-specific project file formats (bld.inf)
- Symbian executable files (.exe)

The primary purpose of bld.inf files is to group together closely associated projects, such as a GUI application and a engine DLL used by that application.

The Symbian plug-ins allow you to import projects defined with these formats into the workbench. This is useful if:

- You have existing projects defined using these formats and now wish to move to development in Carbide.c++.

- You need to keep the ability to build from the command line, for example in order to do automated builds, and so maintain the command line project files, but want to use Carbide.c++ for editing code and debugging.

### Projects for Symbian 9.3+

Versions of Symbian 9.3+ devkits include extensive use of PRJ_EXTENSIONS and PRJ_TESTEXTENSIONS. These top-level entries are extension makefile templates whose names are later filled in with target names, sources, and options. The intent is to make source editing easier and dependency checking possible during a build.

Currently if you import a bld.inf file but are not importing all of the components and one of these extensions are found:

- a warning appears at the top of the wizard page
- a warning is shown in the Carbide Project Settings property page
- if not building from the bld.inf, messages appear in the Console and Problems views

The reason being that individual extensions cannot be built from within Carbide, only the complete bld.inf.

#### To import from a bld.inf file

1. Click File > Import... to get a list of available import wizards
2. Select Symbian > Symbian Bld.inf file and click Next to go to the Import Bld.inf page

3. Type the location of the bld.inf file to import, or browse to the file using the Browse button.

NOTE Depending upon which SDKs are installed, you may see both SBSv1 and SBSv2 builders available. It is recommended that SBSv2 be the primary choice as SBSv1 has been deprecated for future Symbian development.

SBSv2 works with recent versions of Symbian^3 and Symbian ^4 SDKs. Both SBSv1 and SBSv2 are GNU make based build systems. SBSv1 uses Perl to generate make files, while SBSv2 uses Python. Select the appropriate builder for your project.

NOTE Choose SBSv2 whenever possible as SBSv1 is being phased out.

When building for SBSv2, the builder will set EPOCROOT to the absolute path (including drive letter) to the kit for the active build configuration. It will also add the path to the sbs bin directory to the start of the PATH variable. This is derived from the SBS_HOME environment variable.

For SBSv2, all build configurations (platform/target), including the built-in platforms (WINSCW, ARMV5), are declared in xml files in the \sbs\lib\config directory. The Build Configurations selection page displays only kits known to support SBSv2.

4. Click Next to select the recognized SDKs and Build Configurations to be created for this project

   The SDKs and Build Configurations shows a tree of the SDKs that are available to be used, and for each SDK, the type of build configurations that are available. You can select a single SDK if you are developing the program for just one version of a platform, or multiple SDKs if your program is to be built against multiple platforms or operating system versions.

> NOTE The platforms listed are dependent upon the filter settings in the Platform Filtering Preferences.

1. Click Next to select the mmp and extension make files

   One MMP file must be selected in order to continue. If the bld.inf file contains more than three MMP files, just select the MMP files you need to import. If there are three or less MMP files, then all are selected for importing.

2. Click Next to enter the Project name and root directory

When creating a project, project files are created in the root directory. Carbide.c++ creates additional files for each project. They consist of:

- .project - an xml file that provides a project description
- .cproject - an xml file that provides additional project information
- .settings folder - contains files that provide build configuration and preference settings

The root directory is a path to the root of your project. All necessary tool components, developer libraries, and information about the SDK are stored in subdirectories under this root. The whole path leading to the SDK root directory must be declared to the Windows system via the Environment Variables settings. The variable name is EPOCROOT and the variable value is the full path where a Symbian SDK is installed in the Windows system.

The root directory should contain all project related files that you want to work with in Carbide. The default directory is calculated by parsing the bld.inf file and mmp file(s).

3. Click Finish to import the project

   The wizard creates the project in the Project Explorer view, where it can be built and edited as normal. If the wizard is unable to read the project files, then the page describes the error that occurred. If an error occurs, you must fix the project file, and then re-import the bld.inf.

##### Related concepts

- Projects
- Project Resources

##### Related tasks

- Creating Projects
- Building Projects

##### Related references

- Platform Filtering Preferences
- Project Directories
- Project Preferences
- Project Types