Other Considerations

Apart from being a general pain to version controll, there are a number of other things that you should know about when setting up a version controlled build environment for Platform Builder.

Install as little as possible

If you don't plan to develop for all architectures, don't install them. For each additional architecture, a large amount of files will be copied into the build tree, most of which are binary files (libs) that generally are costly to version control. By keeping the tree as slim as possible you not only save disk space, you cut down on time spent checking out a new tree or switching branches, you also only have to worry about keeping the current architecture set up to date with QFE:s and rollups. If you need another architecture, you can allways install and import it tothe VCS later.

Catalog Database

A classic problem you’re bound to run into is when updating or importing CEC files into the catalog. PB actually uses an Access database to store this information. Before you can get anything into that database you need to check it out. The “.mdb” database is located under “…\WINCE500\PUBLIC\COMMON\OAK\CATALOG\DATABASE\pbdb.mdb”.

SDK generation

Another caveat is with SDK generation. While most of PB’s tools rely on system variables to find it’s way round the source tree, The SDK wizard is practically system variable agnostic. For example, all extra files you specify to go into the SDK are “absolute path”. If your project members have their projects checked out to different paths on their respective machines, it will break the SDK wizard. Also, the SDK wizard has a habit of failing silently, so be sure to check out the SDK files before editing the SDK.

Evaluation version

Putting a build tree from an evaluation version of Platform Builder under version control might seem like a smart thing to do, giving you the ability to develop part of your design while your Platform Builder Full Version order is snail-pacing its way through your company’s internal paperwork.

As smart as it seems, it might create some pretty nasty problems later on. The evaluation version is “time-bombed” and expires after a couple of months. Since all tools needed to build a platform reside inside the build tree, you’ve actally put the “time-bombed” evaluation versions under version control. When checking out the working copy, this will overwrite the commercial versions of the tools. So, remember to import a fresh tree once you get the full version of the tool, or otherwise the build system will mysteriously stop working after a couple of months, in spite of having the full licensed version of Plaform Builder.

As usual, I highly appriciate any comments on this article. Especially bad splelling or if you have found errors in this article, or of you think you have some relevant feedback that wil make this article better.