Variant configuration file syntax in Build tools reference

A variant configuration file (.var) defines settings that are specific to a variant. It is used to modify certain aspects of an existing build platform.

KEYWORD [OPERATION] [VALUE]

A summary of keywords, operations and values is given below:

Possible keywords are as follows:

`VARIANT`	Indicates that VALUE is the name of the variant configuration.
`VIRTUAL`	Indicates that the variant is meant only for grouping variants and not to be used as a build configuration.
`EXTENDS`	Indicates that the variant extends an existing variant configuration.
`VARIANT_HRH`	Specifies the pre-included header (`.hrh`) file that defines feature macros.
`BUILD_INCLUDE`	Specifies the location of the files to be included when building the binary.
`ROM_INCLUDE`	Specifies the location of the files to be included when building the ROM image containing the variant binary.

Note: If VARIANT_HRH keyword is not present, then /epoc32/include/variant/name.hrh is used.

The possible operations are set, append and prepend. These operations provide the flexibility of extending the existing include paths within the .var file. The operations are applicable only to the BUILD_INCLUDE and ROM_INCLUDE keywords.

Example

# default.var
VARIANT default
BUILD_INCLUDE set         /epoc32/include
BUILD_INCLUDE append   /epoc32/include/variant
ROM_INCLUDE set        /epoc32/rom/include

# phone.var
VARIANT phone
EXTENDS default
BUILD_INCLUDE append   /epoc32/include/variant/phone
ROM_INCLUDE prepend    /epoc32/rom/phone

For the variant phone the include lists will be:

BUILD (/epoc32/include, /epoc32/include/variant, /epoc32/include/variant/phone)
ROM (/epoc32/rom/phone, /epoc32/rom/include)

Value can be a variant name, a file name or a directory name. for example, myphone or /epoc32/tools/variant/name.var.

Use '/' as the path separator between files and directories.
Begin all paths with '/' implying that they are relative to EPOCROOT.

An example of a variant:

VARIANT     name
VIRTUAL
EXTENDS     parent
VARIANT_HRH /epoc32/include/variant/something.hrh
BUILD_INCLUDE   set      directoryA
BUILD_INCLUDE   append       directoryB
BUILD_INCLUDE   prepend  directoryC
ROM_INCLUDE set        directoryD
ROM_INCLUDE append     directoryE
ROM_INCLUDE prepend    directoryF

All .var files must exist in /epoc32/tools/variant.
A default variant configuration file (default.var) must exist in /epoc32/tools/variant/.
The name of the variant configuration file (.var) must be same as the variant name. For example, if the variant name is myvar, then the variant configuration file must be named as myvar.var.
Each variant must have a default <variant_name>.hrh file at /epoc32/include/variant/. If you want to use any other .hrh file under EPOCROOT, use the VARIANT_HRH keyword to specify its name along with the relative path.
A default variant cannot be VIRTUAL.

Variant configuration file syntax

Purpose

Syntax

Keyword

operation

value

Example

Notes

See also