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Development With Command Line Tools

info

If you want to develop using a GUI tool, please visit About HARDWARIO Code or TOWER VSCode Extension chapter.

This chapter focuses on developing firmware using strictly command-line tools.

caution

This chapter will go over using multiple tools like CMake and ninja, it will also go over our command-line flashing tool. There is a separate chapter on Firmware Flashing Tool where you can learn how to install it.

Installation​

You will need to install a few tools so you will be able to build your project:

note

All of these have to be in PATH.

Development cycle​

  • First, you need to clone some firmware from our GitHub. For a blank start, there is the twr-skeleton firmware available

    • To clone the firmware use:

      git clone https://github.com/hardwario/twr-skeleton.git --recursive
      note

      The --recursive flag is needed to clone all submodules as well, mainly SDK submodule.

  • Open the project in your favorite editor
  • Make some changes to the code
  • Run CMake to generate build files: 
    cmake -B obj/debug . -G Ninja -DTYPE=debug -DCMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE=sdk/toolchain/toolchain.cmake
  • Run ninja to generate the final firmware binary: 
    ninja -C obj/debug
  • Flash firmware to your device with bcf (you will be prompted to select the device that you want to flash) 
    bcf flash
  • If you want to attach the console to your device for some debugging, run bcf with --log flag or just run bcf log: 
    bcf flash --log
    OR 
    bcf log
  • To clean output so you can compile everything from scratch just run: 
    ninja -t clean
  • Repeat these steps until you have the final firmware that you want