eclipse include custom files (c)

Question

Not sure how to phrase the question.

I've created a few files for my c project that I would like to use for multiple projects.

Project root: ~/workspace/myproject
Files :
  ~/workspace/myproject/customlib/myfile.h
  ~/workspace/myproject/customlib/myfile.c

I was able to move them from my eclipse (Code Composer Studio) workspace and replace them with symlinks to their new location.

Custom lib dir: ~/myfiles/customlib

This is working fine but I'd rather not use the symlinks as it becomes necessary to add those symlinks to any project where I want my customlib files. Also when copy/pasting a project in eclipse it doesn't seem to understand the symlink and creates a copy of the file rather than the symlink.

I've set up an include path to ~/myfiles/ but when I compile I get a bunch of unresolved symbol errors.

My custom files depend on files from other include paths as well. (if that might be a hint as to why things are breaking)

Is there another way I can link in these files?

Answer 1

I figured out how I can do what I'm looking for but can't actually post the answer for 8 hours so I'll answer it here.

I was able to add the .c files as "Linked Resources" to my project.

So in the end I had an include path to ~/myfiles and a linked resource ~/myfiles/customlib/myfile.c.

Linked Resources can be found under Project Properties -> Resource -> Linked Resources -> Linked Resources(tab)

Unfortunately, my environment, Code Composer Studio 6 on Ubuntu would not allow me to actually add a linked resource through the IDE.

As a workaround I added the linked resource directly to the .project file.

~/workspace/myproject/.project

Under the section labeled "natures" I added

<linkedResources>
    <link>
        <name>myfile.c</name>
        <type>1</type>
        <locationURI>$%7BPARENT-2-PROJECT_LOC%7D/myfiles/customlib/myfile.c</locationURI>
    </link>
</linkedResources>

The "$%7BPARENT-2-PROJECT_LOC%7D" refers to ~/workspace/myproject/../../ (a.k.a. ~/). The 2 tells it how many ../'s

In case you don't get the locationURI right the first time you should be able to edit the file path from Project Properties -> Resource -> Linked Resources -> Linked Resources(tab)

You can use any defined build variables for the locationURI. Here is another way to write the location URI. PROJECT_LOC/../../myfiles/customlib/myfile.c

Since this is an eclipse project file it will be overwritten with whatever eclipse decides is the proper format for locationURI

You can place the linked resource into a folder in your project by modifying the tag. projectsubfolder/myfile.c. This will create a folder projectsubfolder under your project directory. ~/workspace/myproject/projectsubfolder

Unfortunately this isn't an optimal solution as I will need to add linkedresource entries for every source file I create in my custom lib. CCS fumbles the linked resources when doing a project copy/paste, requiring you to add the linked resources again to your copied project.

In the end it feels like a solution but it really doesn't have much benefit over symlinked files. The only one being that when I copy/paste a project I will know the project isn't using the correct files when it doesn't compile. (symlinking will make a working project with copies of the files instead of the originals)

I imagine I will need to learn about creating .lib files to make the inclusion a little more pain free.