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  PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DITA Concept//EN" "concept.dtd">
<concept id="GUID-B6B54E07-3B34-5D5C-8815-93383FA8FB4B" xml:lang="en"><title>How
to use abld</title><prolog><metadata><keywords/></metadata></prolog><conbody>
<p>The <filepath>abld.bat</filepath> batch file is used to control all aspects
of building a project. It is created in the current directory by the <filepath>bldmake</filepath> tool
from a component description file <filepath>bld.inf</filepath>. </p>
<p>The syntax reference for this tool exhaustively lists all of the possible
build operations which can be performed using <filepath>abld</filepath>. The
tool's flexibility obscures the fact that most Symbian developers will only
need to use two commands: one for cleaning up all files created in a previous
build, and another for building the current project. </p>
<section><title>Cleaning</title> <p>Cleaning removes all the intermediate
files created during compilation, and all the executables and import libraries
created by the linker. The simplest invocation of this operation deletes the
files for all platforms, and projects belonging to the component. </p> <p><userinput>abld
clean</userinput> </p> <p>It is also possible to specify the platform and
build variant to be cleaned. </p> </section>
<section><title>Building</title> <p> <filepath>abld</filepath> builds projects
based on the makefiles created by <filepath>bldmake</filepath> from the component
information file and project files. </p> <p>The simplest invocation of this
command builds the project for all possible build variants: </p> <p><userinput>abld
build</userinput> </p> <p>However building for a platform can take some time,
and it is usual to only specify the platform required. For example, to build
the debug version on the WINSCW platform specify: </p> <p><userinput>abld
build winscw udeb</userinput> </p> <p>or to build the release version for
ARMV5 use: </p> <p><userinput>abld build armv5 urel</userinput> </p><note>The <codeph>build</codeph> command
combines the other <filepath>abld</filepath> commands: <codeph>export</codeph>, <codeph>makefile</codeph>, <codeph>library</codeph>, <codeph>resource</codeph>, <codeph>target</codeph> and <codeph>final</codeph>, which are carried out
in turn. </note> <p><b>See also </b> </p> <p><xref href="GUID-5A3A3EA0-6C03-56F2-B277-B61A27ABFF9E.dita">Abld
syntax</xref> </p><p><xref href="GUID-793A5EF9-CC16-5EEB-9011-6431EA76EB15.dita">Using
bldmake</xref> </p> </section>
</conbody></concept>