[En-Nut-Discussion] qnutconf path mysteries

[Harald Kipp]

Thiago A. Corrêa wrote:
> On Tue, Dec 8, 2009 at 9:52 AM, Harald Kipp <harald.kipp at egnite.de> wrote:
>> start searching at the installation directory and stop searching as soon
>> as they find
>>
>> C:\ethernut-4.9\crossworks\nut\...
>>
>> which is just a temporary directory containing a few patches, but no
>> conf directory.
>>
> 
> It must contain an os/version.c in that path, as that's what it looks
> for, like nutconf. We could simplify and look for conf/repository.nut
> but then if you had a temporary directory containing that file, the
> same thing would happen.

Well, but your code tells a different story :-)

if ( folder.contains( nutFolder ) )
{
  QDir nut( folder );
  if ( nut.exists( filename ) )
    return QDir::current().relativeFilePath( QDir( folder
).absoluteFilePath( filename ) );
  else
    return QString();
}

As soon as the path currently searched contains "/nut/", then
findRelativePathDepthSearch will return, even if filename doesn't exist.



>> I'm not yet sure how to fix this in a right way, because ...
> 
> Does it needs fixing? I'm not sure if this situation needs fixing?

It does. Consider an application which contains a subdirectory nut.

Try the following test case on your machine. Create the normal tree, e.g.

C:\ethernut-4.8.5\nut
C:\ethernut-4.8.5\apps
C:\ethernut-4.8.5\blds

Make sure the app dir is called apps, not nutapp, so it will be searched
before nut.

Now create a new directory

C:\ethernut-4.8.5\apps\myapp\nut\test

and try the qnutconf.


> Although in practice a single configurator *could* work with any
> version of Nut/OS, this might not be always true, and I belive
> shouldn't be officially supported. I think (q)nutconf should be run
> directly below the nut folder containing sources.

I'm typically using the latest Configurator for all trees. So far it
seems to be fully backward compatible.

But in general: Yes. In order to play safe, the exec that came with the
specific distribution should be used.

> (lua script needs to figure out
> the compiler for example, that could be nice)

Why not, sounds cool.


> Running from c:\Ethernut-x.y.z should work fine. 

Again your code tells a different story. :-)

 if ( QDir::current().absolutePath().contains(
QRegExp("[\\\\/]nut[\\\\/]") ) )

in findRelativePath will evaluate to false, because there is no "\nut\"
in "c:\Ethernut-x.y.z".

then

 current.cdUp();

will make sure, that the loop

while ( !current.isRoot() )

is not executed, because c:\Ethernut-x.y.z\.. is already the root. So
findRelativePath will return an empty string and

 repositoryFile = srcpath + "/conf/repository.nut";

evaluates to "/conf/repository.nut".


> About the "allow multiple configurations" I agree. It doesn't work
> propery at all (nutconf). 

Note, that it had been provided by Christian Welzel 3 years ago as a
quick solution. It doesn't work well, but survived already 3 years and I
won't miss it. Often I'm changing between several platforms many times a
day.


> the other hand, the compiler settings is more anoying. If you have
> boards with atmega and arm or atmega and uc3 (different boards,
> different confs), then whenever you need to build for another board,
> you need to change the compiler settings.

You mean with "allow multiple configurations" enabled, you still need to
update the settings manually? This works fine here.

Harald