4.2.2. Externally Managed Build

Build systems not managed by Eclipse.

• Recommended (needed) for existing projects.
• Any build system that supports command line build can be covered using this mechanism. (e.g. Using MSVC)

It involves these steps:

1. Add the source within Eclipse
2. Tell Eclipse how to build it.
3. (Optionally) Fix Indexing

Since we are covering ZLib source in this book, let’s have a walk through how that code is imported / built into Eclipse.

Tip

For our example, ZLib is present in C:\sw\src\zlib\1.2.3\zlib-1.2.3

And the build commands is

make -f win32/Makefile.gcc LOC="-DDEBUG -g" all

Follow the steps as shown below to import any Makefile based project into Eclipse.

The parameters in steps marked [X] might have to be adapted other projects.

1. Create a new C Project. File ‣ New ‣Project, C Project (Select C++ Project if your project is based on C++`)

2. [X] Set project name as Zlib-1.2.3

3. Unset Use default location

4. [X] Set Location as C:\sw\src\zlib\1.2.3\zlib-1.2.3

5. Set Project Type as Makefile project ‣ Empty Project

6. Set Toolchain as MinGW GCC (On Linux, select Linux GCC)

   

7. Click Next button

8. Click Advanced Settings

   

9. Select the option, C/C++ Build

   

10. Change the build command to

    make -f win32/Makefile.gcc LOC="-DDEBUG -g"

    

11. The Console view should show the build output.

    

12. The Project Explorer view should show the generated binaries.

    

4.2.2.1. Settings for Externally managed build

The feature to Change the Make Utility is already described.