To obtain the project Git repository, start the Git GUI, either from the Start Menu (Programs, Git, Git GUI), from the Start Screen Git GUI icon or by typing "Git GUI" on the Start Screen (and there are probably other ways). For Windows 8, it probably dumped the Git GUI icon right on the Start Screen. For Windows 8.1, click the Down Arrow at the bottom-left and find the Git GUI under Git (pin to the Start screen if desired).
In the opening dialog of Git GUI, click on Clone Existing Repository. Enter https://github.com/thunder422/ibcp in the Source Location and set to Target Directory by clicking the Browse button. Find the Documents folder (or another folder), and click the OK button. To the Target Directory, add /ibcp (it must be a non-existing folder or and error will occur) and click the Clone button. After a few moments, the repository will be cloned. The next time the Git GUI is started, the same dialog appears, however, the Git GUI remembers the repositories that have been opened previously. Select the Repository menu and the recent repositories are listed.
The main Git GUI will be started indicating it is on the master branch. Check out the latest branch by Branch, Create..., click the Matching Tracking Branch Name option, click the Tracking Branch option, select origin/branch0.6 (or another branch) and click the Create button. This will create a local branch. Now the project can be opened in Qt Creator so start Qt Creator and select File and Open File or Project... and navigate to the Documents and then ibcp folder. Select the CMakeLists file (the .txt is not displayed unless file extensions are enabled) and click the Open button.
The CMake Wizard dialog appears with the build directory set to ...\Documents\ibcp-build, click the Next button. For a debug build (optional) add -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Debug into the Arguments field and then click the Run CMake button. For some reason, there are a bunch of errors the first time. Just click the Run CMake button again and it should complete successfully. Click the Finish button and the application is ready to be built.
To start the build, click the Hammer icon (lower left, or type Ctrl+B or use the Build menu). The run the program, click the Run/Play icon (lower left, or type Ctrl+R or use the Build menu). For a debug build use the Debug/Play icon (lower left, or type F5 or use the Debug menu). The application should start in GUI mode.
[commit ec787762b9] [commit 3285823de0]
Showing posts with label QtCreator. Show all posts
Showing posts with label QtCreator. Show all posts
Sunday, August 10, 2014
Saturday, August 9, 2014
Installing QtCreator on Windows 8.1
Downloading Qt Creator was described a few posts ago. The latest version of Qt Creator at the time is 3.1.2. Open the qt‑creator‑opensource‑windows‑x86‑3.1.2.exe download file and click through, accepting the recommended Installation Folder, the license, and Start Menu shortcuts. Accept the User Access Control if asked. At the end go ahead and Launch Qt Creator as some post install configuration is needed.
Qt Creator should be able to find the various utilities and Qt 4.8.6 since these are on the path, but it does not appear to actually look for some of these, so these need to be configured manually. In Qt Creator selected Tools and Options... Click the Build & Run page.
On the Qt Versions tab, if Qt 4.8.6 was not auto-detected, it needs to be set manually. Click the Add button and browse to the C:\Qt\4.8.6\bin directory and select the qmake.exe (just qmake if extensions are not displayed). Click the Apply button.
On the Compilers tab, if MinGW was not auto-detected, it needs to be set manually. as MinGW (x86 32bit in C:\mingw32\bin). Click the Add button and select MinGW (from the drop down menu). On the Compiler path field, click the Browse button and navigate to the C:\mingw32\bin directory and select g++. Click the Apply button.
On the Debuggers tab, it GDB was not auto-detected, it needs to be set manually. Click the Add and replace the default New Debugger name with something like GDB 7.7 (which is the version installed with MinGW). Click the Browse... button and browse to This PC, Local Disk (C:) (or whatever it may be called), mingw32, bin, gdb and click the Open button. Click the Apply button.
On the CMake tab, click the Browse... button and navigate to This PC, Local Disk (C:), Program Files (x86), Cmake 2.8, bin, cmake and click the Open button. Click the Apply button.
Finally on the Kits tab, select the Desktop (default) under manual, which is italicized with a yellow triangle warning indicating it is not configured properly. Under the Debugger field, select GDB 7.7 on the drop down (only debugger listed). The warning should go away since the Compiler and Qt Version fields are already set. Click the OK button.
The configuration can be testing by compiling one of the Examples. On the Welcome page (icon on upper-left), select Examples. I selected the first example: 2D Painting Example. On the Configure Project page that appears next, click the Configure Project button. Test building by clicking the Hammer icon (lower-left or type Ctrl+B). After a few moments it should finish. Click the Run/Play icon (or type Ctrl+R) to run the program. It should present two rotating patterns. Qt and Qt Creator have been successfully installed.
Qt Creator should be able to find the various utilities and Qt 4.8.6 since these are on the path, but it does not appear to actually look for some of these, so these need to be configured manually. In Qt Creator selected Tools and Options... Click the Build & Run page.
On the Qt Versions tab, if Qt 4.8.6 was not auto-detected, it needs to be set manually. Click the Add button and browse to the C:\Qt\4.8.6\bin directory and select the qmake.exe (just qmake if extensions are not displayed). Click the Apply button.
On the Compilers tab, if MinGW was not auto-detected, it needs to be set manually. as MinGW (x86 32bit in C:\mingw32\bin). Click the Add button and select MinGW (from the drop down menu). On the Compiler path field, click the Browse button and navigate to the C:\mingw32\bin directory and select g++. Click the Apply button.
On the Debuggers tab, it GDB was not auto-detected, it needs to be set manually. Click the Add and replace the default New Debugger name with something like GDB 7.7 (which is the version installed with MinGW). Click the Browse... button and browse to This PC, Local Disk (C:) (or whatever it may be called), mingw32, bin, gdb and click the Open button. Click the Apply button.
On the CMake tab, click the Browse... button and navigate to This PC, Local Disk (C:), Program Files (x86), Cmake 2.8, bin, cmake and click the Open button. Click the Apply button.
Finally on the Kits tab, select the Desktop (default) under manual, which is italicized with a yellow triangle warning indicating it is not configured properly. Under the Debugger field, select GDB 7.7 on the drop down (only debugger listed). The warning should go away since the Compiler and Qt Version fields are already set. Click the OK button.
The configuration can be testing by compiling one of the Examples. On the Welcome page (icon on upper-left), select Examples. I selected the first example: 2D Painting Example. On the Configure Project page that appears next, click the Configure Project button. Test building by clicking the Hammer icon (lower-left or type Ctrl+B). After a few moments it should finish. Click the Run/Play icon (or type Ctrl+R) to run the program. It should present two rotating patterns. Qt and Qt Creator have been successfully installed.
Monday, December 31, 2012
GUI – Icons and Tool Bar
Now that the resource mechanism has been added to the project, actions can now be added to the tool bar with appropriate icons. Contrary to what was said at the beginning of the last post, tool bar items can be text and are text if no icon has been assigned to them. In any case, icons will be used here for the tool bar. Also, when an action has an assigned icon, the icon also appears on the menu item in the menus.
First icons need to be assigned to the actions. The easiest way to do this is with Designer inside QtCreator. The icons can be assigned the same as with the MainWindow object, but it is easier to add the icons from the Action Editor tab at the bottom of Designer. Double-clicking on the action brings up the Edit Action dialog. The icon is added by clicking the ... button on the Icon: field line. Appropriate icons were added to all of the actions. To add the actions to the tool bar, the actions are simply dragged from the Action Editor to the tool bar.
Note: The icons will not be available on the Select Resource dialog until the program has been built after the icons have been added to the resource file.
The icons were obtained from the KDE Oxygen icon set (found in the /usr/share/icons/oxygen/32x32/actions/ directory on Linux) except for the Qt icon, which was obtained from the Qt SDK. All of the icon file names were renamed to match the menu and menu item the icon was assigned to. The Oxygen icons can be distributed with the source code and embedded within the program as long as the program is under the LGPL (Lesser GNU Pulbic License) version 3, which this program is being developed under.
[commit a2d2675627]
First icons need to be assigned to the actions. The easiest way to do this is with Designer inside QtCreator. The icons can be assigned the same as with the MainWindow object, but it is easier to add the icons from the Action Editor tab at the bottom of Designer. Double-clicking on the action brings up the Edit Action dialog. The icon is added by clicking the ... button on the Icon: field line. Appropriate icons were added to all of the actions. To add the actions to the tool bar, the actions are simply dragged from the Action Editor to the tool bar.
Note: The icons will not be available on the Select Resource dialog until the program has been built after the icons have been added to the resource file.
The icons were obtained from the KDE Oxygen icon set (found in the /usr/share/icons/oxygen/32x32/actions/ directory on Linux) except for the Qt icon, which was obtained from the Qt SDK. All of the icon file names were renamed to match the menu and menu item the icon was assigned to. The Oxygen icons can be distributed with the source code and embedded within the program as long as the program is under the LGPL (Lesser GNU Pulbic License) version 3, which this program is being developed under.
[commit a2d2675627]
GUI – Icons and Resources
The next item for the GUI is to add items to the tool bar, which has already been created, but is currently only blank. Unlike the menu items which are text, the tool bar items are icons. It is convenient if the icons are part of the application file and not separate files that must be included to run and must be loaded by the application.
This is accomplished by converting the icon files into C++ source files that are then compiled and linked into the application. The Qt Resource Compiler (RCC) is used to convert the icon files to source files. All the resources for the program are listed in an XML resource (.qrc) file. QtCreator makes it easy to create and maintain these resource files.
To create the resource file, the new file wizard was again utilized. Under Files and Classes the Qt item (lower-left) and Qt Resource file (upper-right) was selected. On the next Choose the Location dialog, the Name: field was set to ibcp.qrc. On the next Project Management dialog, the defaults were selected (which was set to git). Once finished, QtCreator opened up a specific resources editing window.
To start simple, an application icon was given to the program, which will appear in the upper corner of the application window and on the task bar of the OS. Up to now, a generic icon was being used (an X icon on Linux/KDE and a generic program icon on Windows). An icon file was created by the name ibcp.png and placed in the new images sub-directory. The image chosen and created consists of two lightning bolts, which represents the letter I, two to represent Interactive and Incremental, for the type of BASIC compiler being created. The lightning bolt itself represents speed, since the goal of this project is to make a fast interactive BASIC compiler.
To add this new icon to the resource file, the Add button at the bottom resource editing window was clicked and Add Prefix was selected. The Prefix: field, which defaulted to /new/prefix1 was cleared (which set it to a single slash). The Add/Add Files was then selected, which opened a file selection dialog. The images/ibcp.png file was selected, which added the file to the resource list.
To assign this icon file to the application, in Designer, the MainWindow object was selected (upper-right panel) and under properties (lower-right panel), the ... button was clicked for the windowIcon property, which displayed a Select Resource dialog. The images item (left-side) was selected, which displayed the ibcp.png icon (right-side), which was selected.
To finish, the building of the resources needed to be added to the CMake build file. Resources are handled by the qt4_add_resources command that is added as part of the Qt4 CMake module. This command is given a list of resource files (in this case ibcp.qrc) and produces a list of resource source files that are generated by RCC. This list of generated source files was then added to the add_executable command.
[commit ba9ee1be2a]
This is accomplished by converting the icon files into C++ source files that are then compiled and linked into the application. The Qt Resource Compiler (RCC) is used to convert the icon files to source files. All the resources for the program are listed in an XML resource (.qrc) file. QtCreator makes it easy to create and maintain these resource files.
To create the resource file, the new file wizard was again utilized. Under Files and Classes the Qt item (lower-left) and Qt Resource file (upper-right) was selected. On the next Choose the Location dialog, the Name: field was set to ibcp.qrc. On the next Project Management dialog, the defaults were selected (which was set to git). Once finished, QtCreator opened up a specific resources editing window.
To start simple, an application icon was given to the program, which will appear in the upper corner of the application window and on the task bar of the OS. Up to now, a generic icon was being used (an X icon on Linux/KDE and a generic program icon on Windows). An icon file was created by the name ibcp.png and placed in the new images sub-directory. The image chosen and created consists of two lightning bolts, which represents the letter I, two to represent Interactive and Incremental, for the type of BASIC compiler being created. The lightning bolt itself represents speed, since the goal of this project is to make a fast interactive BASIC compiler.
To add this new icon to the resource file, the Add button at the bottom resource editing window was clicked and Add Prefix was selected. The Prefix: field, which defaulted to /new/prefix1 was cleared (which set it to a single slash). The Add/Add Files was then selected, which opened a file selection dialog. The images/ibcp.png file was selected, which added the file to the resource list.
To assign this icon file to the application, in Designer, the MainWindow object was selected (upper-right panel) and under properties (lower-right panel), the ... button was clicked for the windowIcon property, which displayed a Select Resource dialog. The images item (left-side) was selected, which displayed the ibcp.png icon (right-side), which was selected.
To finish, the building of the resources needed to be added to the CMake build file. Resources are handled by the qt4_add_resources command that is added as part of the Qt4 CMake module. This command is given a list of resource files (in this case ibcp.qrc) and produces a list of resource source files that are generated by RCC. This list of generated source files was then added to the add_executable command.
[commit ba9ee1be2a]
Sunday, December 30, 2012
Actions/Menus – Using Designer
I discovered a much better and easier way to create actions and menus for the application without having to write all the lines of code by using Designer within QtCreator. The UI form for the main window is opened in Designer by double-clicking on mainwindow.ui from the project files area.
Main menus are added by double-clicking on the "Type Here" text at the top of the edit area and entering the text. Hot keys are entered by preceding the desired character with an '&' ampersand character. The menus can be repositioned by dragging them as desired.
Menu items are added is a similar way, by selecting the main menu and again double-clicking the "Type Here" text. Separators are added by double-clicking the "Add Separator" text. Status tips are entered in the statusTip field on the lower-right side properties after selecting the desired action from the upper-right side object tree list. Shortcut keys can be entered in the shortcut field in the properties area or can be entered using the Action Editor tab at the bottom of Designer.
Designer automatically names the actions with the name "actionXxx" where Xxx is the text entered for the menu item. The under-bar character is used for spaces, so these were removed to follow the camel casing naming convention. Qt will make connections between actions and functions automatically if the functions are named correctly. For the menu item actions, the functions are named on_actionXxx_triggered() where actionXxx is the name of the action and triggered is the name of the signal to connect. All of the dummy program functions were renamed to this form so that the needed connections are made automatically.
However, this does not work for connecting the actionExit triggered signal to the MainWindow::close() function, since this does not follow the automatic naming convention. This was accomplished by using Signal & Slots Editor tab at the bottom of Designer. A new signal/slot is added by clicking the large plus icon. For this new entry, the Sender was set to actionExit, the Signal was set to triggered(), the Receiver was set to MainWindow, and the Slot was set to close().
The actionAboutQt action could not be setup in Designer since there is no way to connect to the application's aboutQt() function using the Signal & Slots Editor because the application object is not an available Receiver. This was instead accomplished by adding a new on_actionAboutQt_triggered() function to MainWindow, which simply calls qApp‑>aboutQt().
Now that all the actions and menus are in the UI form for MainWindow, the action enumeration, action pointers and menu pointers were removed from the class definition. The pointers are now contained in the Ui::MainWindow class that is automatically generated from the mainwindow.ui form file by the UIC (Qt User-Interface Compiler), which MainWindow contains a member pointer to. Since the setupUi() function, called in the constructor, now creates the actions and sets up the menus, the createActions() and createMenus() functions are no longer needed and were removed.
[commit 46737de13d]
Main menus are added by double-clicking on the "Type Here" text at the top of the edit area and entering the text. Hot keys are entered by preceding the desired character with an '&' ampersand character. The menus can be repositioned by dragging them as desired.
Menu items are added is a similar way, by selecting the main menu and again double-clicking the "Type Here" text. Separators are added by double-clicking the "Add Separator" text. Status tips are entered in the statusTip field on the lower-right side properties after selecting the desired action from the upper-right side object tree list. Shortcut keys can be entered in the shortcut field in the properties area or can be entered using the Action Editor tab at the bottom of Designer.
Designer automatically names the actions with the name "actionXxx" where Xxx is the text entered for the menu item. The under-bar character is used for spaces, so these were removed to follow the camel casing naming convention. Qt will make connections between actions and functions automatically if the functions are named correctly. For the menu item actions, the functions are named on_actionXxx_triggered() where actionXxx is the name of the action and triggered is the name of the signal to connect. All of the dummy program functions were renamed to this form so that the needed connections are made automatically.
However, this does not work for connecting the actionExit triggered signal to the MainWindow::close() function, since this does not follow the automatic naming convention. This was accomplished by using Signal & Slots Editor tab at the bottom of Designer. A new signal/slot is added by clicking the large plus icon. For this new entry, the Sender was set to actionExit, the Signal was set to triggered(), the Receiver was set to MainWindow, and the Slot was set to close().
The actionAboutQt action could not be setup in Designer since there is no way to connect to the application's aboutQt() function using the Signal & Slots Editor because the application object is not an available Receiver. This was instead accomplished by adding a new on_actionAboutQt_triggered() function to MainWindow, which simply calls qApp‑>aboutQt().
Now that all the actions and menus are in the UI form for MainWindow, the action enumeration, action pointers and menu pointers were removed from the class definition. The pointers are now contained in the Ui::MainWindow class that is automatically generated from the mainwindow.ui form file by the UIC (Qt User-Interface Compiler), which MainWindow contains a member pointer to. Since the setupUi() function, called in the constructor, now creates the actions and sets up the menus, the createActions() and createMenus() functions are no longer needed and were removed.
[commit 46737de13d]
Thursday, November 29, 2012
Qt Application – Main Window Class
The main window of a Qt Application contains the menu bar, any tool bars, optional dock widgets, a status line and a central widget (for example, contains the main document, which for this project will contain the BASIC program).
To create the new MainWindow class, the new file wizard in QtCreator was again used. This time the Qt type was selected under Files and Classes, and Qt Designer Form Class was selected on the right upper box, which will create both a C++ header and a source file for the new class along with Qt Designer form file. After clicking Choose..., the wizard asks for the form template type, where Main Window was selected. The defaults were selected for the remaining dialogs of the wizard.
The wizard sets up a simple form for main window containing a central widget, menu bar, main tool bar and a status bar. These can be seen in the Designer window in QtCreator (edit the mainwindow.ui file, by double clicking on it in QtCreator's project file list). For the moment, nothing will be down with this as it will remain inactive (temporarily). More about the initial implementation of this class in the next post.
To create the new MainWindow class, the new file wizard in QtCreator was again used. This time the Qt type was selected under Files and Classes, and Qt Designer Form Class was selected on the right upper box, which will create both a C++ header and a source file for the new class along with Qt Designer form file. After clicking Choose..., the wizard asks for the form template type, where Main Window was selected. The defaults were selected for the remaining dialogs of the wizard.
The wizard sets up a simple form for main window containing a central widget, menu bar, main tool bar and a status bar. These can be seen in the Designer window in QtCreator (edit the mainwindow.ui file, by double clicking on it in QtCreator's project file list). For the moment, nothing will be down with this as it will remain inactive (temporarily). More about the initial implementation of this class in the next post.
Monday, November 26, 2012
Command Line Class
To create the new CommandLine class, the new file wizard in QtCreator was used. The wizard is started by selecting New File or Project... on the File menu. The C++ type was selected under Files and Classes, and C++ Class was selected on the right upper box, which will create both a C++ header and a source file for the new class.
On the next dialog, the class name is entered and the wizard automatically creates the header and source file names along with the path, any of which can be changed. A Qt base class can also be selected, but wasn't for this class. The final dialog allow the new source files to be added to version control. If QMake was being used, the file would be added to the QMake build file, but for CMake, this has to be done manually.
This new class now handles the version option along with using the Tester class for the test options and running the tests if specified on the command line. The command line arguments are processed in the constructor, which sets a processed flag if the arguments result in using the command line only, or if an error occurs. There are only command lines at the moment, so this flag is always set. The intention is that the caller then checks this flag (via a constant access function) and if not set, the GUI will be started.
Besides the constructor, this class contains a private function for handling the version option and a function to get an output stream to the standard output device (which the output stream on the first call). The destructor deletes this output device if it was created. The class contains members for the program base name (no access function since it is currently only used internally), the processed flag, the output stream and a list of strings for the GPL statement.
Previously there was a function to output the GPL statement. As part of the constructor, a list of strings is created for this statement. The QT_TR_NOOP() macro is used (verses the tr() function) so that the strings will be found by the translation utilities. Only if the tr() function is used later on the strings will translations be used. This list is passed to the Tester class for output, but the tr() function is not used on the strings so they will not be translated in the test output (to make sure test results match the expected results).
The main function now creates a CommandLine instance passing the command line arguments to the constructor. If the processed flag is set (for now it will be), a single slot timer is connected to the application quit function to force the program to quit upon entered the event processing loop. The Tester class run function was modified to accept the GPL statement string list, which is output when appropriate.
[commit ea8e56dd68]
On the next dialog, the class name is entered and the wizard automatically creates the header and source file names along with the path, any of which can be changed. A Qt base class can also be selected, but wasn't for this class. The final dialog allow the new source files to be added to version control. If QMake was being used, the file would be added to the QMake build file, but for CMake, this has to be done manually.
This new class now handles the version option along with using the Tester class for the test options and running the tests if specified on the command line. The command line arguments are processed in the constructor, which sets a processed flag if the arguments result in using the command line only, or if an error occurs. There are only command lines at the moment, so this flag is always set. The intention is that the caller then checks this flag (via a constant access function) and if not set, the GUI will be started.
Besides the constructor, this class contains a private function for handling the version option and a function to get an output stream to the standard output device (which the output stream on the first call). The destructor deletes this output device if it was created. The class contains members for the program base name (no access function since it is currently only used internally), the processed flag, the output stream and a list of strings for the GPL statement.
Previously there was a function to output the GPL statement. As part of the constructor, a list of strings is created for this statement. The QT_TR_NOOP() macro is used (verses the tr() function) so that the strings will be found by the translation utilities. Only if the tr() function is used later on the strings will translations be used. This list is passed to the Tester class for output, but the tr() function is not used on the strings so they will not be translated in the test output (to make sure test results match the expected results).
The main function now creates a CommandLine instance passing the command line arguments to the constructor. If the processed flag is set (for now it will be), a single slot timer is connected to the application quit function to force the program to quit upon entered the event processing loop. The Tester class run function was modified to accept the GPL statement string list, which is output when appropriate.
[commit ea8e56dd68]
Saturday, October 27, 2012
Building On Windows With Qt
In order to build the program (that now requires Qt), CMake needs to be able to find the Qt files. It accomplishes this by looking for the Qmake executable (qmake.exe on Windows) even if it is not actually used, but its location is used to determine where Qt is installed. To find the Qmake executable, CMake searches the directories in the execution path.
On Linux, the qmake executable is already in the standard directories. On Windows, the directory for qmake.exe needs to be added to the execution path. The instructions for adding a directory to the execution path was given in the post on October 20. The directory C:\QtSDK\Desktop\Qt\4.8.1\mingw\bin needs to be added. If using the MSYS command line, the directory /c/QtSDK/Desktop/Qt/4.8.1/mingw/bin needs to be added to the path (see post on October 7).
QtCreator can be used to access the git repository (see post on October 20). To switch to the latest development branch (branch0.2 at the time of this post), the branch needs to retrieved from the repository on GitHub. On the Tools menu, select Git and then Pull. Only local branches can be checked out, so a local branch needs to be created. On the Tools menu, select Git and then Branches.... Select branch0.2 under origin and click the Add... button. Click OK on the next Dialog. This will create local branch0.2, which can now be selected and checked out with the Checkout button. Select Close to dismiss the Branches dialog.
To build, first select Run CMake on the Build menu and make sure the Generator is set to MinGW Generator (MinGW (x86 32bit)). Now click the Run CMake button. As mentioned previously, sometimes a bunch of errors occur the first time. Trying a second time causes no errors. If at any time there are problems running CMake, deleted every file in the qtcreator-build and try again.
There is a problem in running the regtest script in Windows XP when the build directory is under the current user directory under the C:\Documents and Settings\ directory. The problem occurs because there are spaces in the directory name, which causes bash to incorrectly process the line. There is no problem on Windows 7 because the user directories are under the C:\Users\ directory (which has no spaces). There is also no problem if the build directory is under the user home directory within MSYS (again no spaces). As for regtest.bat, this batch file requires the build to be performed in the source directory. Also note that the new memory test script is not available on Windows.
On Linux, the qmake executable is already in the standard directories. On Windows, the directory for qmake.exe needs to be added to the execution path. The instructions for adding a directory to the execution path was given in the post on October 20. The directory C:\QtSDK\Desktop\Qt\4.8.1\mingw\bin needs to be added. If using the MSYS command line, the directory /c/QtSDK/Desktop/Qt/4.8.1/mingw/bin needs to be added to the path (see post on October 7).
QtCreator can be used to access the git repository (see post on October 20). To switch to the latest development branch (branch0.2 at the time of this post), the branch needs to retrieved from the repository on GitHub. On the Tools menu, select Git and then Pull. Only local branches can be checked out, so a local branch needs to be created. On the Tools menu, select Git and then Branches.... Select branch0.2 under origin and click the Add... button. Click OK on the next Dialog. This will create local branch0.2, which can now be selected and checked out with the Checkout button. Select Close to dismiss the Branches dialog.
To build, first select Run CMake on the Build menu and make sure the Generator is set to MinGW Generator (MinGW (x86 32bit)). Now click the Run CMake button. As mentioned previously, sometimes a bunch of errors occur the first time. Trying a second time causes no errors. If at any time there are problems running CMake, deleted every file in the qtcreator-build and try again.
There is a problem in running the regtest script in Windows XP when the build directory is under the current user directory under the C:\Documents and Settings\ directory. The problem occurs because there are spaces in the directory name, which causes bash to incorrectly process the line. There is no problem on Windows 7 because the user directories are under the C:\Users\ directory (which has no spaces). There is also no problem if the build directory is under the user home directory within MSYS (again no spaces). As for regtest.bat, this batch file requires the build to be performed in the source directory. Also note that the new memory test script is not available on Windows.
Wednesday, October 24, 2012
Finding Memory Leaks (Linux)
QtCreator can be used to find memory leaks using the Analyze mode. This requires the valgrind program, which can be installed via the valgrind package on Ubuntu based distros. Unfortunately it looks like this program has not been ported to Windows (MinGW), so Windows developers are out of luck (at least when using MinGW with the Qt SDK).
In order to use valgrind, the program to check must be compiled with debugging information. To do this with CMake under QtCreator, in the Run CMake dialog, the Arguments line needs to be set to ‑DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Debug. This is a nuisance because it needs to be done every time CMake is run the first time and there appears to be no way to automate this inside QtCreator. So an alternate scheme was devised using CMake (will be described in the next post).
Once Analyze mode is selected (by the icon on the side panel or Ctrl+6), the Analyzer panel will appear. In this panel, the mode needs to be changed from QML Profiler to Valgrind Memory Analyzer. The program is started using the start (play) icon (left side of Analyzer panel toolbar). Once the program ends, any memory issues will be reported.
After using the Analyzer to learn about list element deallocation, I thought it might be a good idea to check the ibcp program for any memory issues. There is already an implementation to detect token memory leaks accomplished by overloading the new and delete operators for the Token structure, but there are many other memory allocation operations in the program.
So this process was started for each parser, expression and translator test. For each, the run arguments were set (Projects page, Run Settings) and the Analyzer was run. This were no memory issues on the parser tests, however, some problems were found on the translator tests, which will be discussed in following posts.
In order to use valgrind, the program to check must be compiled with debugging information. To do this with CMake under QtCreator, in the Run CMake dialog, the Arguments line needs to be set to ‑DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Debug. This is a nuisance because it needs to be done every time CMake is run the first time and there appears to be no way to automate this inside QtCreator. So an alternate scheme was devised using CMake (will be described in the next post).
Once Analyze mode is selected (by the icon on the side panel or Ctrl+6), the Analyzer panel will appear. In this panel, the mode needs to be changed from QML Profiler to Valgrind Memory Analyzer. The program is started using the start (play) icon (left side of Analyzer panel toolbar). Once the program ends, any memory issues will be reported.
After using the Analyzer to learn about list element deallocation, I thought it might be a good idea to check the ibcp program for any memory issues. There is already an implementation to detect token memory leaks accomplished by overloading the new and delete operators for the Token structure, but there are many other memory allocation operations in the program.
So this process was started for each parser, expression and translator test. For each, the run arguments were set (Projects page, Run Settings) and the Analyzer was run. This were no memory issues on the parser tests, however, some problems were found on the translator tests, which will be discussed in following posts.
Sunday, October 21, 2012
Build Issues Discovered
While writing the procedures for building with QtCreator, some issues were discovered. The first was with running CMake on Windows. The first time it produces errors no matter which generator is selected. It also appeared that adding "‑G "MSYS Makefiles" caused it to work, but adding this before still caused errors. It turns out this was not necessary, simply clicking the Run CMake button a second time worked with no error. The previous post about this was updated.
The next problem was when trying to use the included MinGW (with GCC 4.4) in the Qt SDK. It was still trying to use the static linking, which is not supported in versions before GCC 4.5. It turns out there were two problems. First, the check to whether to add the static linking options should have been greater than 4.4, but was incorrectly less than 4.5. Second, the add_definitions command used in the CMake file adds compiler options, not linker options. The command add_target_properties should have been used with the LINK_FLAGS property option.
Due to these linking issues, the binaries posted on Sourceforge were not linked with static linking. This is not an issue with Linux since the required libraries will be present. However, for Windows, a missing DLL message will occur on a system without the required libraries. Therefore, a new binary zip file was updated (labels 0.1.16a). The update executable was actually tested on a Windows XP system without the require libraries this time. The sources and Linux binary were not updated. If building from source, the required libraries will be present. The repository on GitHub was updated with new tag release0.1.16a.
The final problem is in using the MinGW installed with the Qt SDK. Even though the static linking problems were corrected, the included MinGW cannot (alone) be used the build the project. The issue is that the awk utility is needed to create the auto-generated header files and there is not included awk utility with MinGW. It is included with the MSYS package.
The next problem was when trying to use the included MinGW (with GCC 4.4) in the Qt SDK. It was still trying to use the static linking, which is not supported in versions before GCC 4.5. It turns out there were two problems. First, the check to whether to add the static linking options should have been greater than 4.4, but was incorrectly less than 4.5. Second, the add_definitions command used in the CMake file adds compiler options, not linker options. The command add_target_properties should have been used with the LINK_FLAGS property option.
Due to these linking issues, the binaries posted on Sourceforge were not linked with static linking. This is not an issue with Linux since the required libraries will be present. However, for Windows, a missing DLL message will occur on a system without the required libraries. Therefore, a new binary zip file was updated (labels 0.1.16a). The update executable was actually tested on a Windows XP system without the require libraries this time. The sources and Linux binary were not updated. If building from source, the required libraries will be present. The repository on GitHub was updated with new tag release0.1.16a.
The final problem is in using the MinGW installed with the Qt SDK. Even though the static linking problems were corrected, the included MinGW cannot (alone) be used the build the project. The issue is that the awk utility is needed to create the auto-generated header files and there is not included awk utility with MinGW. It is included with the MSYS package.
Saturday, October 20, 2012
Running in QtCreator
After the program has been built it can be run or debugged in QtCreator. For now, command line arguments need to be added before running the program, otherwise it will only output a usage message.
Command line arguments are set on the Projects screen (the Projects icon on the side or Ctrl+5) by selecting the Run Settings button along the top of the screen. For example, under Run, enter ../thunder422‑ibcp/test/translator01.dat to run the first translator test (assuming the default directories were used up to now).
Again there are multiple ways to run the program (play icon on lower side, Ctrl+R, Run on the Build menu). Same for running in the debugger; though note that in order to trace through the program, a breakpoint needs to be set first or the program runs (in the debugger) until it exits.
Command line arguments are set on the Projects screen (the Projects icon on the side or Ctrl+5) by selecting the Run Settings button along the top of the screen. For example, under Run, enter ../thunder422‑ibcp/test/translator01.dat to run the first translator test (assuming the default directories were used up to now).
Again there are multiple ways to run the program (play icon on lower side, Ctrl+R, Run on the Build menu). Same for running in the debugger; though note that in order to trace through the program, a breakpoint needs to be set first or the program runs (in the debugger) until it exits.
Building With QtCreator
Now that it has been configured for all the tools, everything can be done inside QtCreator. Start QtCreator and select New Project... on the File menu. In the New dialog select Project from Version Control and then Git Repository Clone. After clicking the Choose... button, the git repository can be selected. For Clone URL: enter https://github.com/thunder422/ibcp. If desired, change the Checkout path. The Checkout directory will default to thunder422-ibcp. Click the Next button and the repository will be cloned.
Once finished, the CMake Wizard dialog appears asking for the Build Location. The default directory can be used. The next dialog of the wizard is to Run CMake. On Windows, the Generator: needs to be changed to MinGW Generator (MinGW (x86 32bit)) assuming MinGW 4.4 was installed with Qt SDK, otherwise this is the only generator available.
Clicking the Run CMake button at this point causes a bunch of errors.Adding ‑G "MSYS Makefiles" to the Arguments: line appears to resolve the problem. Adding this before clicking the Run CMake button the first time does not make it work though clicking a second time does. Clicking the Run CMake button a second time works. I have no explanation for this at the moment. This is a similar problem that caused issues with NetBeans and CMake. On Linux, clicking the Run CMake button is all that is necessary.
Adding ‑DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Debug to the Arguments: line turns on debug information to that the debugger can be used. After CMake is run, the program can be built. There are a number of ways to begin the build, including the Build menu, Ctrl+B and the hammer looking icon at the bottom of the tool bar on the left side. The build can be monitored by clicking the 4 Compile Output button along the bottom of the screen.
Once finished, the CMake Wizard dialog appears asking for the Build Location. The default directory can be used. The next dialog of the wizard is to Run CMake. On Windows, the Generator: needs to be changed to MinGW Generator (MinGW (x86 32bit)) assuming MinGW 4.4 was installed with Qt SDK, otherwise this is the only generator available.
Clicking the Run CMake button at this point causes a bunch of errors.
Adding ‑DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Debug to the Arguments: line turns on debug information to that the debugger can be used. After CMake is run, the program can be built. There are a number of ways to begin the build, including the Build menu, Ctrl+B and the hammer looking icon at the bottom of the tool bar on the left side. The build can be monitored by clicking the 4 Compile Output button along the bottom of the screen.
Post Qt Installation Setup (Windows)
After installation of the Qt SDK, the tools (git, MinGW and CMake) need to be integrated with QtCreator. On Linux, no further configuration is needed as all tools will be located where QtCreator can find them. However, on Windows, this is not the case.
For git, the binary directory for the git tools need to be in the execution path. On Windows XP, right-click on My Computer and select Properties. On the Advanced tab, click the Environment Variables button. On the lower pane under System Variables, find and selected the Path variable. Click Edit and add C:\Program Files\Git\bin somewhere on the Variable value line (make sure to add the semicolon separator). On Windows 7 the instructions are similar. Start by right-clicking Computer and select Properties. Now select Advanced system settings, go to the Advanced tab and follow the same instructions except add C:\Program Files (x86)\Git\bin to Path.
Now start QtCreator. QtCreator should have automatically found the external MSYS/MinGW 4.6.2 previously installed. On the Tools menu select Options, go to the Build & Run page, and select the Tool Chains tab. Under Auto-detected there will be an entry Mingw as a GCC for Windows targets (if the MinGW 4.4 was installed as part of Qt SDK) and an entry MinGW (x86 32bit), which is the previously installed MinGW 4.6.2. The g++ path can be seen by selecting this entry, which should show C:\MinGW\bin\g++.exe.
For the final tool, CMake, select the CMake tab next to Tool Chains. If the correct path was added to the Path under Environment Variables, the path to cmake.exe will already be set. Otherwise, click Browse and find cmake.exe, which will be found under C:\Program Files\CMake 2.8\bin\cmake.exe (Windows XP) or C:\Program Files (x86)\CMake 2.8\bin\cmake.exe (Windows 7) if CMake was installed in the default location. Don't select cmake-gui.exe.
Now it's time to see if QtCreator is able to build and debug the ibcp program before we start any Qt related modifications.
For git, the binary directory for the git tools need to be in the execution path. On Windows XP, right-click on My Computer and select Properties. On the Advanced tab, click the Environment Variables button. On the lower pane under System Variables, find and selected the Path variable. Click Edit and add C:\Program Files\Git\bin somewhere on the Variable value line (make sure to add the semicolon separator). On Windows 7 the instructions are similar. Start by right-clicking Computer and select Properties. Now select Advanced system settings, go to the Advanced tab and follow the same instructions except add C:\Program Files (x86)\Git\bin to Path.
Now start QtCreator. QtCreator should have automatically found the external MSYS/MinGW 4.6.2 previously installed. On the Tools menu select Options, go to the Build & Run page, and select the Tool Chains tab. Under Auto-detected there will be an entry Mingw as a GCC for Windows targets (if the MinGW 4.4 was installed as part of Qt SDK) and an entry MinGW (x86 32bit), which is the previously installed MinGW 4.6.2. The g++ path can be seen by selecting this entry, which should show C:\MinGW\bin\g++.exe.
For the final tool, CMake, select the CMake tab next to Tool Chains. If the correct path was added to the Path under Environment Variables, the path to cmake.exe will already be set. Otherwise, click Browse and find cmake.exe, which will be found under C:\Program Files\CMake 2.8\bin\cmake.exe (Windows XP) or C:\Program Files (x86)\CMake 2.8\bin\cmake.exe (Windows 7) if CMake was installed in the default location. Don't select cmake-gui.exe.
Now it's time to see if QtCreator is able to build and debug the ibcp program before we start any Qt related modifications.
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