Build and program

After the application has been created, you can use the supported IDE of your choice for building and programming. You can also use command line tools. The ModusToolbox™ build system infrastructure provides several make variables to control the build. So, whether you are using an IDE or command line tools, you edit the

Makefile

variables as appropriate. See the

ModusToolbox™ build system

chapter for detailed documentation on the build system infrastructure.

Variable	Description
TARGET	Specifies the target board/kit. For example, KIT_PSC3M5_EVK
APPNAME	Specifies the name of the application
TOOLCHAIN	Specifies the build tools used to build the application
CONFIG	Specifies the configuration option for the build [Debug Release]
VERBOSE	Specifies whether the build is silent or verbose [0 - 3]

ModusToolbox™ software is tested with various versions of the TOOLCHAIN values listed in the following table. Refer to the release information for each product for specific versions of the toolchains.

TOOLCHAIN	Tools	Host OS	Variable
GCC_ARM	GNU Arm® Embedded Compiler	macOS, Windows, Linux™	CY_COMPILER_GCC_ARM_DIR
ARM	Arm® compiler	Windows, Linux™	CY_COMPILER_ARM_DIR
IAR	Embedded Workbench	Windows	CY_COMPILER_IAR_DIR
LLVM_ARM	Open-source compiler	macOS, Windows, Linux™	CY_COMPILER_LLVM_ARM_DIR

In the Makefile, set the

TOOLCHAIN

variable to the build tools of your choice. For example:

TOOLCHAIN=GCC_ARM

. There are also variables you can use to pass compiler and linker flags to the toolchain.

ModusToolbox™ software installs the GNU Arm® toolchain and uses it by default. If you wish to use another toolchain, you must provide it and specify the path to the tools. For example,

CY_COMPILER_IAR_DIR=[yourpath]

. If this path is blank, the build infrastructure looks in the

ModusToolbox

install directory. These variables can also be set as environment variables for your system, so you don't have to change it for each application. See

Path make variables

for details about different variables' usage.

Use an IDE

The ModusToolbox™ ecosystem supports third-party IDEs, and we provide user guides for using those IDEs with a ModusToolbox™ application:

• Eclipse IDE for ModusToolbox™ user guide

• Visual Studio Code for Modus Toolbox™ user guide

• Keil µVision for ModusToolbox™ user guide

• IAR Embedded Workbench for Modus Toolbox™ user guide

Use command line

make build

When the Project Creator tool finishes creating the application and imports all the required dependencies, the application is ready to build. From the appropriate terminal, type the following:

make build

This instructs the build system to find and gather the source files in the application and initiate the build process. In order to improve the build speed, you may parallelize it by giving it a

-j

flag (optionally specifying the number of processes to run). For example:

make build -j16

In multi-core applications, it is possible to build only the current project instead of the entire application by using the following command:

make build_proj

make program

Connect the target board to the machine and type the following in the terminal:

make program

This performs an application build and then programs the application artifact (usually an .

elf

or .

hex

file) to the board using the recipe-specific programming routine (usually OpenOCD). You may also skip the build step by using qprogram instead of program. This will program the existing build artifact.