Problems with inclusion of C header file with automatically generated makefile

Question

I have started to develop the C language software in the Xilinx Vitis IDE which Eclipse based. Organization of my project is following:

-Application
-Drivers
 -drivers
  -Adc
  -Pwm
   -Pwm.c
   -Pwm.h
-Utils
 -Bits.h
 -Maths.h

All the directories i.e. Application, Drivers and Utils are linked into the workspace via "Link folder" option. The only one way how I was able to include the Bits.h into the Pwm.c was to specify the whole path to the Bits.h on my disk. Otherwise the compiler reports fatal error: Bits.h: No such file or directory. The compilation process is managed by the automatically generated makefile with this content:

# Makefile generated by Xilinx.

PROCESSOR = ps7_cortexa9_0
LIBRARIES = ${PROCESSOR}/lib/libxil.a
BSP_MAKEFILES := $(wildcard $(PROCESSOR)/libsrc/*/src/Makefile)
SUBDIRS := $(patsubst %/Makefile, %, $(BSP_MAKEFILES))


ifneq (,$(findstring win,$(RDI_PLATFORM)))
 SHELL = CMD
endif

all: libs
    @echo 'Finished building libraries'

include: $(addsuffix /make.include,$(SUBDIRS))

libs: $(addsuffix /make.libs,$(SUBDIRS))

clean: $(addsuffix /make.clean,$(SUBDIRS))

$(PROCESSOR)/lib/libxil.a: $(PROCESSOR)/lib/libxil_init.a
    cp -f $< $@

%/make.include: $(if $(wildcard $(PROCESSOR)/lib/libxil_init.a),$(PROCESSOR)/lib/libxil.a,)
    @echo "Running Make include in $(subst /make.include,,$@)"
    $(MAKE) -C $(subst /make.include,,$@) -s include  "SHELL=$(SHELL)" "COMPILER=arm-none-eabi-gcc" "ASSEMBLER=arm-none-eabi-as" "ARCHIVER=arm-none-eabi-ar" "COMPILER_FLAGS=  -O2 -c" "EXTRA_COMPILER_FLAGS=-mcpu=cortex-a9 -mfpu=vfpv3 -mfloat-abi=hard -nostartfiles -g -Wall -Wextra -g3 -O0"

%/make.libs: include
    @echo "Running Make libs in $(subst /make.libs,,$@)"
    $(MAKE) -C $(subst /make.libs,,$@) -s libs  "SHELL=$(SHELL)" "COMPILER=arm-none-eabi-gcc" "ASSEMBLER=arm-none-eabi-as" "ARCHIVER=arm-none-eabi-ar" "COMPILER_FLAGS=  -O2 -c" "EXTRA_COMPILER_FLAGS=-mcpu=cortex-a9 -mfpu=vfpv3 -mfloat-abi=hard -nostartfiles -g -Wall -Wextra -g3 -O0"

%/make.clean: 
    $(MAKE) -C $(subst /make.clean,,$@) -s clean 
clean:
    rm -f ${PROCESSOR}/lib/libxil.a

It is obvious that my "solution" is unacceptable. So I would like to ask you for an advice how to resolve this issue correctly. Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

Answer 1

You can add include paths to the project. These are paths where the compiler will search for include files. Any include file located in one of the directories in the include paths list should be found; you do not need to specify its path when including the file.

How you do this in the Xilinx environment appears to depend on how your project is set up.

If it is a managed make project:

Properties -> C/C++ Build In "Tools Settings" tab select the "Include Paths"

If it is a standard make project:

Properties->C/C++ Include Paths and Symbols>

Then "Add External Include Path"

If it gives you the option to add the path as absolute or relative path, choose relative path; this allows another user to put the project, with the same internal directory structure, in a different place on the hard drive, which is what you want. In the screenshots in the documentation I referenced, the paths appear relative.

See this documentation for more details, screenshots, etc.

Note: I am answering based on the documentation; I have not worked with this IDE myself.

Note also that you can use relative paths in an #include directive, but they are not necessarily relative to the location of the file that includes them. They are more likely to be relevant to the root of the project (basically, wherever 'make' will be effectively run).