How to use abld

The abld.bat batch file is used to control all aspects of building a project. It is created in the current directory by the bldmake tool from a component description file bld.inf.

The syntax reference for this tool exhaustively lists all of the possible build operations that can be performed using abld. The tool's flexibility hides the fact that most developers will only need to use two commands: one for cleaning up all files created in a previous build, and another for building the current project.

See also

Using bldmake

Cleaning removes all the intermediate files created during compilation, and all the executables and import libraries created by the linker. The simplest use of this operation deletes the files for all platforms, and projects belonging to the component.

> abld clean

It is also possible to specify the platform and build variant to be cleaned.

abld builds projects based on the makefiles created by bldmake from the component information file and project files.

The simplest use of this command builds the project for all possible build variants.

> abld build

However, building for a platform can take some time, and it is usual to only specify the platform required. For example, to build the debug version on the WINSCW platform, specify the following command.

> abld build winscw udeb

Or, to build the release version for ARMV5,

> abld build armv5 urel

You can also build projects for a feature variant configuration of ARMV5, using the following command:

> abld build ARMV5.myvar

Where, myvar is the name of the variant configuration of ARMV5 platform.

For more information on building feature variants, refer to How to build feature based variants.

Note: The build command combines the other abld commands: export, makefile, library, resource, target, and final, which are run in turn.

Abld syntax