Discussion on: CMake on STM32 | Episode 1: the beginning

[Pierre Gradot]

I guess it was! Thanks a lot for this plugin, it was the key to move from Eclipse to CLion. And moving to CMake & CLion was one of the greatest choices we made on this project!

About these small notes :)

• Using a tool chain seems to be the CMake way to cross-compile, that's why I show it here. If your project is solely made to generate a firmware for a MCU, then setting the toolchain directly in the CMakeLists.txt seems indeed simpler and as efficient. But once you want to also generate a PC-based software, for instance for unit tests and simulators, the toolchain file seems the obvious way. I wanted to make an episode about PC-executed unit tests but never took the time (for the moment?). I wasn't aware of CMake presets, I am going to check them! Thanks!

• You have missed the PS in my article ;) I wasn't aware of this option when I wrote the article. Must simpler indeed! And in the end it's bad for this article: it shows how to call an external software as a post-build step.

• Thanks for sharing. I hope I will use such a MCU one day.

• Thanks!

• Nice to see other people willing for the embedded world to move to C++. I have been using only C++ for the last 5 years. I will never go back to raw C. I have been looking for the Rust a little, but didn't try to run it on MCU for the moment. Maybe one day XD

[Ilia Motornyi]

Rust

Feel free to use my prototype for that. It worked 2 yrs ago:)

I wanted to make an episode about PC-executed

And I am now thinking about an article about emulator-running unit tests. A prototype works. One day.... You know :)

[Pierre Gradot]

I will have a look at it, thank you :)

Yes, I know...

I have tried out CMake presets and they are amazing. I still have a problem to load MVSC presets in CLion. I have a configure preset like this one:

     {
            "name": "mvsc",
            "inherits": "base",
            "description": "Base config for simulator with MSVC",
            "hidden": true,
            "generator": "CodeBlocks - NMake Makefiles"
        },

From the command-line, I must call vcvarsall.bat to configure the compiler before calling cmake --preset=a-preset-that-inherits-from-this-one.

In CLion, do you know how I can call this script when I use the action "Load CMake presets"?

[Ilia Motornyi]

The answer from my colleague:

You actually don't need to run vcvarsall.bat manually. CLion will take care of it. You need to:
configure Visual Studio toolchain in CLion
specify this toolchain in your preset using this JSON fragment:

"vendor": {
    "jetbrains.com/clion": {
      "toolchain": "<toolchain-name>"
    }
}

Here's a more detailed instruction: jetbrains.com/help/clion/cmake-pre...

[Pierre Gradot]

That's even better than asking the support directly! Thanks 😁

It does work if I add the key to the derived preset, but it does work on the base preset. It seems that the "vendor" map is not inherited.

When I read the documentation, it looks like a bug to me:

vendor

An optional map containing vendor-specific information. CMake does not interpret the contents of this field except to verify that it is a map if it does exist. However, it should follow the same conventions as the root-level vendor field. If vendors use their own per-preset vendor field, they should implement inheritance in a sensible manner when appropriate.

[Ilia Motornyi]

Yeah, you are right. Now there is a ticket about it
youtrack.jetbrains.com/issue/CPP-2...

[Pierre Gradot]

That's perfect :)