 | Building the IVI-COM Driver |
Project DependenciesA Nimbus driver solution consists of several Visual Studio projects. The topic Visual Studio Projects for an IVI-COM Driver discusses each of these projects. When these projects are created and added to the driver solution, Nimbus adds the appropriate build dependencies so that the projects are built in the proper order when the entire driver solution is built.
For example, the unit test project obviously relies upon the driver project, so Nimbus adds to the unit test project a dependency on the driver project. This ensures the driver project is built before the unit test project is built. Similarly, the driver setup project requires the driver and the help project to be built before it can be built, so it has dependencies on both of those projects.
To view the project dependencies
From Solution Explorer, right click on the solution node (not the Nimbus node), and choose Properties.
The Solution Property Pages Dialog appears.
Choose Project Dependencies from the tree view on the left.
Use the Project combo box on the right to view the project dependencies for the various Visual Studio projects in the driver solution.
Building the DriverBuilding a complete Nimbus IVI driver requires up to three separate compilation steps. First, the build steps for 32-bit and 64-bit driver builds are separate because Visual Studio can only compile against one platform at a time. Also, the build step for compiling the help file and the driver installer is intentionally separate from the build step for compiling other projects in the driver solution because the help and installer projects are typically built less often than the driver project and the unit test projects. This is why the help and installer projects are unchecked in the x86 and x64 solution configurations.
 Important |
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Before building the driver, it is important to properly setup the Visual Studio solution build configurations. Visual Studio does not provide programmatic access to these settings, so Nimbus is unable to automatically configure them. The topic Required Visual Studio Configuration Changes provides details on what exactly must be done before building. |
To perform a complete build of the IVI-COM driver:
From the Solution Platforms combo box (typically near the top of the IDE), choose x86.
From the Build menu, select Build Solution.
This will perform a 32-bit compilation of the driver project, the unit test projects, and any client application projects in the solution. It will also generate the MATLAB® wrapper.
For a Debug build, the output files will be placed in the following folder:
<solutionFolder>\build\Debug\x86
For a Release build, the output files will be placed in the following folder:
<solutionFolder>\build\Release\x86
From the Solution Platforms combo box, choose x64.
NoteIf the x64 platform is not shown as an option in the Solution Platforms combo box, then the 64-bit C++ compiler was not installed when Visual Studio was installed. To install the 64-bit compiler, re-run the Visual Studio installer and select the 64-bit compiler from the installation options available under a Custom install.
From the Build menu, select Build Solution.
This will perform a 64-bit compilation of the driver project, the unit test projects, and any client application projects in the solution. It will also generate the MATLAB® wrapper.
For a Debug build, the output files will be placed in the following folder:
<solutionFolder>\build\Debug\x64
For a Release build, the output files will be placed in the following folder:
<solutionFolder>\build\Release\x64
See Also