Eclipse with MSPGCC tutorial
TODO: we need to place new screenshots here setting up the eclipse 3.3 project...
Project Setup
When eclipse is started, the following dialog will appear:
If desired, you can specify your preferred location where all your eclipse projects reside. On Windows/cygwin the better place for workspace is somewhere in cygwin filesystem hierarchy (e.g. c:\cygwin\home\username\workspace).
After eclipse is running, upon first start a welcome screen appears. This one may be closed. Then select File->New->Project... from the menu and select the following entry:
Click Next and enter the project name:
Then, Next again:
The default selections are OK. With Debug, a preselected set of parameters can be established for debug sessions (mostly non-optimized code, or code in RAM) as well for release sessions (optimized compiler coding).
After a project is established you can move existing source files in the project directory. These source files are automatically part of the project. You need not specify which files belong to the project. Take care of this. Do not enter source files in your project directory or a subdirectory when these shall not compile. Do the same for the library search path in Cygwin C Linker Libraries properties.
We will now adjust the project properties for this demo project to have it compiled with mspgcc.
Click the right mouse key while pointing to your project name in the navigator or the C/C++ projects window and choice properties. Then next dialog window select "C/C++ Build", "Settings". The following window appears (here with information next to "command" filled out as desired): Copy this information into your properties window, of course specify your own processor derivative. Paste the same command line into the "GCC C Linker" Tool Settings area. Enter "msp430-as" into the GCC Assembler area, Command.
Then select the include directory for system header files under "Directories":
Note that the shown screenshot is from Windows/cygwin configuration and you should enter both paths in the exact order: the first is unix-style, and is necessary for dependency checking, and the second is for eclipse browser to find headers for auto completion etc.
Under the Build artifact tab of the window, enter "elf" as the "artifact extension". Under "Binary Parsers" select the elf-format.
Note, you should put the crt object for your device (crt430xXXXX.o) into your project's Debug directory before first build.
If you are launching the eclipse for the first time, the automatic build is turned off. Otherwise, after the closing the properties dialog, automatic build will start, or you can build a project manually.
Now a first successful build should be the result:
Note the warning in the edit window. GCC complains that the main function is not defined with a return value. Eclipse provides an error/warning location bar just in parallel with the vertical scroll bar. When you click on it, the cursor is set to the chosen warning or error location.
Now we can initiate a debug session, see next page.
