Hello all, I have implemented a feature in newt: the ability to run custom shell commands at build time.
<https://github.com/apache/mynewt-newt/pull/335> Is there any extra functionality that you'd like to see here? All comments are appreciated. I am duplicating the PR text here, but the formatting is a little nicer in the PR. Thanks, Chris --- A package specifies custom commands in its `pkg.yml` file. There are two types of commands: 1) pre_cmds (run before the build), and 2) post_cmds (run after the build). ### EXAMPLE Example (apps/blinky/pkg.yml): pkg.pre_cmds: scripts/pre_build1.sh: 100 scripts/pre_build2.sh: 200 pkg.post_cmds: scripts/post_build.sh: 100 For each command, the string on the left specifies the command to run. The number on the right indicates the command's relative ordering. When newt builds this example, it performs the following sequence: scripts/pre_build1.sh scripts/pre_build2.sh [compile] [link] scripts/post_build.sh If other packages specify custom commands, those commands would also be executed during the above sequence. For example, if another package specifies a pre command with an ordering of 150, that command would run immediately after `pre_build1.sh`. In the case of a tie, the commands are run in lexicographic order. All commands are run from the project's base directory. In the above example, the `scripts` directory would be a sibling of `targets`. ### CUSTOM BUILD INPUTS A custom pre-build command can produce files that get fed into the current build. A command can generate any of the following: 1) .c files for newt to compile. 2) .a files for newt to link. 3) .h files that any package can include. .c and .a files should be written to "$MYNEWT_USER_SRC_DIR" (or any subdirectory within). .h files should be written to "$MYNEWT_USER_INCLUDE_DIR". The directory structure used here is directly reflected by the includer. E.g., if a script writes to: $MYNEWT_USER_INCLUDE_DIR/foo/bar.h then a source file can include this header with: #include "foo/bar.h" ### DETAILS 1. Environment variables In addition to the usual environment variables defined for debug and download scripts, newt defines the following env vars for custom commands: * MYNEWT_USER_SRC_DIR: Path where build inputs get written. * MYNEWT_USER_INCLUDE_DIR: Path where globally-accessible headers get written. * MYNEWT_PKG_NAME: The full name of the package that specifies the command being executed. * MYNEWT_APP_BIN_DIR: The path where the current target's binary gets written. These environment variables are defined for each processes that a custom command runs in. They are *not* defined in the newt process itself. So, the following snippet will not produce the expected output: BAD Example (apps/blinky/pkg.yml): pkg.pre_cmds: 'echo $MYNEWT_USER_SRC_DIR': 100 You can execute `sh` here instead if you need access to the environment variables, but it is probably saner to just use a script. 2. Detect changes in custom build inputs To avoid unnecessary rebuilds, newt detects if custom build inputs have changed since the previous build. If none of the inputs have changed, then they do not get rebuilt. If any of them of them have changed, they all get rebuilt. The $MYNEWT_USER_[...] base is actually a temp directory. After the pre-build commands have run, newt compares the contents of the temp directory with those of the actual user directory. If any differences are detected, newt replaces the user directory with the temp directory, triggering a rebuild of its contents. 3. Paths Custom build inputs get written to the following directories: * bin/targets/<target>/user/src * bin/targets/<target>/user/include Custom commands should not write to these directories. They should use the $MYNEWT_USER_[...] environment variables instead.
