This document describes the MutekH build system.

Overview of the build process

The build system take a configuration file, processes the dependancies, and compiles the desired kernel.

Depending on the targeted architecture, the output file may be an ELF (.out), a plain binary file (.bin), an intel-hex file (.hex) or an object file (.o).

The build system takes care of dependancies, file modifications, ...

User point of view

Makefile options (command line)

When building with MutekH, several options may be used to change the behavior of the build system. These options are given through variables when calling make, in the form:

$ make VAR1=value1 VAR2=value2

The following options are mandatory:

CONF=

An absolute path to the root configuration file for the desired kernel instance.

The following options may be useful:

VERBOSE=1

Prints all the commands executed

The following options are useful when building out of the source tree:

MUTEK_SRC_DIR

An absolute path to the MutekH source tree. This defaults to .

BUILD_DIR

An absolute path to the directory containing the objects and results, this defaults to .

CONF_DIR

An absolute path to the directory containing the .config.* files, this defaults to $(BUILD_DIR)

Make targets

The following targets are available

kernel

This is the default target. It builds the kernel for the specified configuration file.

clean

This cleans all the compilation results

The following targets are for informational purposes

showpaths

This prints the modules that will be built, their paths, …

cflags

This prints the flags used for compilation

The following targets are available to get help about configuration

listconfig

Prints the current configuration as expanded by MutekH build system. It also prints available --- but currently undefined --- configuration tokens.

listallconfig

Prints all the configuration tokens, even the ones incompatible with the current configuration.

showconfig

This prints detailed information about a given configuration token. Token must be specified with TOKEN= variable argument.

$ make showconfig TOKEN=CONFIG_PTHREAD

MutekH configuration files

MutekH configuration files contain tokens defining the kernel we are currently building. They must contain:

• the license for the application, enforcing license compatibility between some kernel parts and your code,
• the target architecture
• the libraries used, and their configurations
• the used drivers
• some global compilation switches (optimization, debugging, …)

Syntax is token space value. Tokens begin with CONFIG_, value may be unspecified thus defaults to defined. e.g.

CONFIG_LICENSE_APP_LGPL

# Platform type
CONFIG_ARCH_EMU

# Processor type
CONFIG_CPU_X86_EMU

# Mutek features
CONFIG_PTHREAD

CONFIG_MUTEK_CONSOLE

# Device drivers
CONFIG_DRIVER_CHAR_EMUTTY

# Code compilation options
CONFIG_COMPILE_DEBUG

A configuration file may declare a new module, telling the build system the directory where the configuration lies has a local Makefile and some more objects to build.

# New source code module to be compiled
CONFIG_MODULES hello:%CONFIGPATH

For the list of all available tokens, do

$ make listallconfig

For a list of current available tokens depending on your configuration file, do

$ make CONF=path/to/config_file listconfig

Developer point of view

MutekH has a component-based architecture where each module declares its configuration tokens.

The xxx.config files

For each configuration token, one may use the following tags:

desc Description string without quotes

Short description about the token

parent TOKEN

Parent token is help screen. This is only for pretty-printing.

require TOKEN […]

Mandatory requirements, having at least one of the tokens on the line is mandatory, conflict yields error

depend TOKEN […]

Dependencies, having at least one of the tokens on the line is mandatory, conflict implicitly undefines the current token

provide TOKEN […]

Mandatory forced requirements, given tokens are defined, conflict yields an error

provide TOKEN=value

Mandatory forced requirements variant, sets a configuration token to a given value; value must not be undefined

provide TOKEN=+value

Mandatory forced requirements variant, adds a value to a configuration token

exclude TOKEN

Mandatory unrequirements, the specified token must not be defined

suggest TOKEN […]

Makes a token suggest other tokens when it is used. This is for help listing.

single TOKEN […]

Require a single one of the following tokens

Example:

%config CONFIG_SRL
desc MutekS API
provide CONFIG_MODULES=+libsrl:%CONFIGPATH
depend CONFIG_MUTEK_SCHEDULER
depend CONFIG_MWMR
require CONFIG_SRL_SOCLIB CONFIG_SRL_STD
single CONFIG_SRL_SOCLIB CONFIG_SRL_STD
%config end

Here we declare a CONFIG_SRL token

• needing CONFIG_MUTEK_SCHEDULER and CONFIG_MWMR,
• needing one of CONFIG_SRL_SOCLIB or CONFIG_SRL_STD,
• adding the directory containing the .conf as the "libsrl" module

The directories Makefile syntax & rules

Makefiles in directories may use the following variables:

objs

A list of .o files compiled from .c, .s or .S files

meta

A list of files that may be translated from .m4, .cpp or .def files

copy

A list of files that must be copied verbatim from source directory to object directory

subdirs

A list of subdirectories where more files are to be processed. These directories must exist and contain a Makefile.

Makefiles may contain optional flags that may be used for compilation:

file.o_CFLAGS=…

CFLAGS to use for a given object

Moreover, one may use ifeq (…,…) make constructs to conditionally compile different things. Configuration tokens are usable.

Example:

objs = main.o

ifeq ($(CONFIG_SRL_SOCLIB),defined)
objs += barrier.o sched_wait.o srl_log.o hw_init.o
else
objs += posix_wait_cycles.o
endif

main.o_CFLAGS = -O0 -ggdb

The arch & cpu specific parts

Architecture and CPU directories have some special files which are injected in the building process:

• config.mk, included by make. It can define some compilation flags
• ldscript, invoked at link-time.
  • Architecture ldscript must create a loadable binary
  • CPU ldscript usually only specifies the entry point name

config.mk

The arch config.mk may override the following variables:

ARCHCFLAGS

C-compiler flags

ARCHLDFLAGS

Linker flags

LD_NO_Q

Linker for the current architecture does not support -q switch, this slightly changes the linking process.

HOSTCPPFLAGS

Flags to give to host's cpp (HOSTCPP) program. This is only used for expansion of .def files.

The cpu config.mk may override the following variables:

CPUCFLAGS

C-compiler flags

CPULDFLAGS

Linker flags

ldscript

Try info ld for a guide through ldscripts…

This ldscript is taken from architecture's object directory, thus it may be obtained from either:

• copy
• m4 processing
• cpp processing

See arch/emu/ldscript, arch/soclib/ldscript.m4, and arch/simple/ldscript.cpp for the three flavors !

Notes

Prerequisites

The MutekH build-system is based on GNU Make features. It makes intensive use of:

• includes
• $(foreach) $(subst) $(eval) $(call) macros
• macro definitions

Therefore, a Make-3.81 at least is mandatory.