Using toolchains¶
In this tutorial, you will learn how to build your projects using pre-compiled packages.
Using Aldebaran toolchains¶
Aldebaran C++ SDKs and cross-toolchains are, by definition, toolchains.
Using them is done with
$ qitoolchain create <name> /path/to/toolchain.xml
Adding packages to a toolchain¶
Requirements¶
The requirements for this tutorial are the same as in the Managing dependencies between projects tutorial.
You should have:
- a properly configured qiBuild worktree
- two projects, world and hello, with hello depending on the world library.
You can find these two projects here helloworld.zip
The goal of this tutorial is to manage to compile hello
, using a pre-compiled
binary of world
.
Creating the world package¶
Generating a package for the world
project is done with:
$ qibuild package world
This will create a package named world.tar.gz
in
QI_WORK_TREE/package/world.tar.gz
(or world.tar.gz
on windows)
Inside the package, you will have:
include
|__ world
|__ world.hpp
lib
|__ libworld.so
share
cmake
|__ world-config.cmake
package.xml
Note
The archive generated by qibuild does not contain
a top directory, so be careful if you extract the archive
by hand.
Use qitoolchain extract-package
to put the extracted files
in a properly named directory
The LFS hierarchy is still preserved, and it is the same as in build/sdk
.
The world-config.cmake
is a standard CMake file, but it can be used even after
installing the world package, because it only uses relative paths.
So the world package is usable anywhere.
Note
The world-config.cmake does not even requires qibuild to be used by an other CMake project, all it does is calling standard CMake functions.
Create a toolchain from scratch¶
If you are already using a Aldebaran toolchain, you can skip this section.
Otherwise, you have to create a toolchain from scratch for qibuild to use:
$ qitoolchain create <TOOLCHAIN_NAME>
You are free to choose any name for your toolchain, but it is advised to pick one from this set of configurations:
- linux32
- linux64
- mac32
- mac64
- win32-vs2008
- win32-vs2010
- mingw
Here we will assume you chose linux32
.
This will create a directory looking like:
~/.local/share/qi/toolchains/linux32/
where every packages will be put.
You can check that your toolchain has been created with:
$ qitoolchain info
Toolchain linux32
No feed
No packages
Adding the world package to the toolchain¶
Now you can use:
$ qitoolchain add-package -c linux32 /path/to/worktree/package/world.tar.gz
You can check that your package has been added with:
$ qitoolchain info
Toolchain linux32
No feed
Packages:
world
in /home/user/.local/share/qi/toolchains/linux32/world
This will simply:
- copy the
world
package somewhere in you toolchain directory. - configure some files so that qibuild knows that the
linux32
toolchain can provide theworld
package
When resolving dependencies of the hello
project, qibuild will see that you
use a toolchain called linux32
and that this toolchain provides the
world
project, so it’s enough to set CMAKE_MODULE_PATHS
to
path/to/linux/toolchain/world
The next step is to create a build config that matches the toolchain for qibuild to use:
qibuild add-config linux32 --toolchain linux32
You can now remove the project world
from your worktree, and
configure hello
using the linux32
build config:
qisrc remove world
qibuild configure -c linux32 hello
Creating toolchain feeds¶
Now, that you have a nice local toolchain, and a world
package,
you may want other people to be able to use the world
package,
without them having to recompile it from source.
So here we are going to create a remote configuration file, so
that other developers can simply download the world
package from
a server.
We will assume you have access to a FTP or a HTTP sever.
First, upload the world package, so that is accessible with the url:
http://example.com/packages/world.tar.gz
Next, create a feed.xml
accessible with the url:
http://example.com/feed.xml
, looking like
<toolchain>
<package
name="world"
url = "http://example.com/packages/world.tar.gz"
/>
</toolchain>
Then, from an other machine, run
$ qitoolchain create linux32 http://example.com/feed.xml
Getting package world from http://example.com/packages/world.tar.gz
Toolchain linux32: adding package world
You can see that the feed has been stored in your qibuild configuration:
$ qitoolchain info
Toolchain linux32
Using feed from http://example.com/feed.xml
Packages:
foo
in /home/user/.local/share/qi/toolchains/linux32/world
Note: if you HTTP or FTP server is protected by a password, you can put
the username and password in the .config/qi/qibuild.xml
configuration file.
See the section qibuild.xml configuration file syntax for details.
You can also add the Aldebaran C++ SDKs or cross toolchains as if they were packages. (This sound a bit weird, but it works)
For instance, assuming you were using the atom cross-toolchain and cross-compiled the world package, you can create a feed looking like
<toolchain>
<package name="atom-ctc" url="http://example.com/packages/aldebaran-ctc.tar.gz"
toolchain_file="cross-config.cmake" />
<package name="hello" url="http://example.com/packages/world.tar.gz" />
</toolchain>
Don’t forget the toolchain_file
attribute of the atom-ctc
package, though.
Full feed.xml specification¶
The full specification can be found in the Toolchain feed syntax section
Just for fun¶
You can always add something like
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<?xml-stylesheet type="text/xsl" href="../xsl/toolchain.xsl"?>
With an xsl looking like
<html xsl:version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<body >
<h2> Packages </h2>
<ul>
<xsl:for-each select="toolchain/package">
<li>
<a>
<xsl:attribute name="href">
<xsl:value-of select="@url" />
</xsl:attribute>
<xsl:value-of select="@name" />
</a>
</li>
</xsl:for-each>
</ul>
<h2> Feeds </h2>
<ul>
<xsl:for-each select="toolchain/feed">
<li>
<a>
<xsl:attribute name="href">
<xsl:value-of select="@url" />
</xsl:attribute>
<xsl:value-of select="@url" />
</a>
</li>
</xsl:for-each>
</ul>
</body>
</html>