Re: [Discuss-gnuradio] compiling c++ blocks

[Eric Blossom]

On Fri, Aug 14, 2009 at 03:07:28PM -0600, Jordan J Riggs wrote:
> On Fri, Aug 14, 2009 at 2:53 PM, Mattias Kjellsson <address@hidden> wrote:
> 
> > Jordan J Riggs wrote:
> >
> >> All,
> >>
> >> I'm attempting to write a block for GNU Radio. However, the tutorial on
> >> http://www.gnu.org/software/gnuradio/doc/howto-write-a-block.html is
> >> significantly different than the structure of gr-how-to-write-a-block
> >> included with the current release of gnuradio. Insofar as I can tell, the
> >> tutorial written by Eric Blossom only explains how to run a QA test on the
> >> block, not how to compile or install it. As a person who has never worked
> >> with autotools (other than to compile other people's code), I am lost in 
> >> the
> >> dark. Can anyone point me to any resources?
> >>
> 
> Mattias,
> 
> I am attempting to modify the block gr_interleaved_short_to_complex such
> that it outputs std::complex<int16_t>, as required by usrp2_sink_16sc.
> Before I try and compile my own code, however, I am simply trying to compile
> an unmodified gr_interleaved_short_to_complex block by adapting the build
> scripts in gr-how-to-write-a-block. And while many of the necessary
> modifications are obvious (such as replacing instances of
> "howto_square_ff.h" with "gr_interleaved_short_to_complex.h"), plenty more
> are not obvious (such as how to modify src/lib/Makefile.swig.gen).

You don't need to modify that file; it's generated.

Just modify Makefile.am

> I really can't express how frustrating this is- I only need to
> compile four small source files.  The problem is that there is just
> alot going on in the build and I really don't understand most if
> it. Compounding the problem is that the aforementioned tutorial does
> not go in to this at all.

The tutorial can't possible cover all of the tools involved.
If you can't intuit what to do, you might consider taking a quick look
at the automake documentation:

  http://www.gnu.org/software/automake


The build system is admittedly complicated, but real world software
tends to be that way. GNU Radio runs on several operating systems, on
several architectures, 32-bit or 64-bit, with-or-without-python, etc.
As far as I can tell, nobody's come up with a build system that
doesn't require some kind of investment in learning how to use it.

Eric