boul51/arduino-genmakefile

Description

The goal of this script is to generate a Makefile and optionally a QtCreator qmake project for an Arduino sketch.
It generates a Makefile which relies on arduino-cli, and allows building and running an Arduino project from command line.
It can also generate a qmake project, from which you can edit, build and run the Arduino project.
This can be useful if you prefer working from command line or want to use a non Arduino IDE (e.g. QtCreator)
Several options can be set using some yaml configuration files.

Prerequisites

OS

The script works only under Linux. Since it relies on python3, it should be quite easy to port to a different platform.

arduino-cli

The script expects arduino-cli to belong to your PATH variable.

python3

The script relies on python3 and the pyyaml python package.

How to use it

Create some configuration files

Create one or several yaml configuration files (check the "variables" paragraph from more information)
A minimal configuration consists of the fqbn variable.

Invoke the generation script

Launch the script to generate your project files.
Example:
arduino-genmakefile.py --sketch mysketch.ino --config myconf.yaml --makefile Makefile.myconf --qmake mysketch_myconf.pro

Invoke make

The script generates a Makefile with three targets:

build

Compile the sketch:
make -f <Makefile-path>

run

Compile and upload the sketch, and run the specified debug command (cf debug_command variable):
make -f <Makefile-path> run

clean

Clean the build:
make -f <Makefile-path> clean

Open project from qtcreator

If you passed the --qmake <path> option, you can build and run the Arduino project from QtCreator:

• open the generated .pro file from QtCreator
• select any Qt configuration (it doesn't matter since we'll build using arduino-cli)
• uncheck the Build Settings/General/Shadow build option
• remove the Build Settings/Build steps/qmake step
• uncheck the Run settings/Run/Run in terminal option (except if you want to run your debug command in a terminal, e.g. when you using minicom as debug command)

You can now use the QtCreator build and run commands.

Note: Along with the .pro file, a .pri file with the same prefix is created (cf below).

Note: In order to have better auto-completion and syntax highlighting in QtCreator, the script attempts to set the HEADERS, SOURCES and INCLUDEPATH qmake variables. For this, it scans your libs variable directories.
Additionally, some paths can be added or removed using the qmake_dirs and qmake_excluded_dirs variables.
The script also attemps to set the DEFINES variable to the qmake file by checking the compiler output.

The HEADERS, SOURCES, INCLUDEPATH and DEFINES variables have no impact on the compilation.
They are used only for syntax highlighting and source code navigation in QtCreator.

The script will try to keep as many relative paths as possible, so that the .pro and .pri files can be added to SCM.
Additionnally, when the paths start with ~/, the ~/ will be expanded to $$HOME in the qmake files.
Relative paths are added to the .pro file, while absolute paths are added to the .pri file.
This can be practical if you wish to add only the .pro file to SCM.

Variables

Several variables can be set in your yaml configuration files.
It is possible to include several configuration files by passing several times the --config option.
It is also possible to "include" some additional configuration files from a configuration file. (cf configs variable)

fqbn

• type: string
• default: none
• description: the "fully qualified board name". All valid fqbns can be obtained with command arduino-cli board listall
• example value:

fqbn: arduino:sam:arduino_due_x

Note: this is the only mandatory variable.

configs

• type: array of strings
• default: []
• description: some additional configuration files to be used
• example value:

configs:
    - ~/conf/common-config.yaml
    - conf/project-config.yaml

Notes:

• when a path is relative, the directory of the configuration file where it is declared is prepended
• if an array variable is present in several files, the values are merged
• if a scalar variable is present in several files, the last found value is used

cflags

• type: array of strings
• default: []
• description: additional flags passed to the preprocessor and compiler. It uses the --build-property compiler.cpp.extra_flags option of arduino-cli
• example value:

cflags:
    - -Wall
    - -I"$(CURDIR)"
    - -DNO_PRAGMA_MARK
    - -DSERIAL_IFACE=SerialUSB
    - '"-DMY_STRING="SOME STRING""'

libs

• type: array of strings
• default: []
• description: additional libraries paths. It uses the --library option of arduino-cli
• example value:

libs:
 - libs/lib1
 - ~/libs/mycommonlib

Note: when a path is relative, the directory of the configuration file where it is declared is prepended

debug_command

• type: string
• default: cat $$SERIALPORT
• description: command to be run by the make run rule
• example value:

debug_command: minicom -D $$SERIALPORT

Note: The SERIALPORT variable is set internally by the Makefile run target, it will be set to the serial device matching the attached board with the given fqbn (e.g. /dev/ttyACM0)

baudrate

• type: string
• default: 115200
• description: the baudrate to be set before starting the debug command
• example value:

baudrate: 9600

qmake_dirs

• type: string array
• default: []
• description: the list of additional paths to be scanned to add sources to the qmake project
• example value:

qmake_dirs:
 - "~/.arduino15/packages/arduino/hardware/sam"
 - "~/.arduino15/packages/arduino/tools/arm-none-eabi-gcc"

Note: you'll probably want to use different values here depending on your board. Note: when a path is relative, the directory of the configuration file where it is declared is prepended

qmake_exclude_dirs

• type: string array
• default: []
• description: the list of paths to be excluded from qmake_dirs. This can be useful if you add a directory with a lot of sources, but want to exclude part of it.
• example value:

qmake_exclude_dirs:
 - "~/.arduino15/packages/arduino/hardware/avr"

Note: when a path is relative, the directory of the configuration file where it is declared is prepended

Templates

The script is uses templates for the Makefile and qmake project, located in the templates directory.
You can select some different templates using the --makefile-template and --qmake-template options.

Sample project

You can refer to the tests/simple directory, which contains a sample project.