January 93 - Jasik's Incremental Build System and ObjectMaster
Jasik's Incremental Build System and ObjectMaster
Vinko Tsui
Why Incremental build? The first and foremost reason is to save time. Incremental
build systems provide you with the ability to avoid recompiling the entire source file
and link all object codes each time a procedure changes. It allows you, the
programmer, to compile and link in just the procedure containing the change, hence
the name "Incremental Build". The Incremental Build System (IBS) discussed in this
article comes as an integrated feature of Jasik Design's The Debugger (TD), and the
version I'm using is Universal version 2.5.4 (11/18/92). The compiler discussed is
the Apple's Macintosh Programmers Workshop (MPW), and the version I'm using is
3.3a14. Unfortunately, MPW's compiler does not support partial compilations, so the
only time saver is the linking of your application.
Using IBS
The most common environment for Jasik's Incremental Build System (IBS) is MPW.
The main reason for MPW's popularity is that nothing else supported Jasik's IBS, at
least not until the appearance of ObjectMaster. Using IBS with MPW requires learning
some new habits while editing your source; otherwise, more time may be wasted than
gained. I will explain in greater detail later.
Before I go into depth about how to use these two tools together, the reader should
understand how to set up an IBS project in the MPW environment. Setting up an IBS
project is required whether you're using IBS in the MPW or the OM environment.
Since OM is primarily an object-oriented environment and FrameWorks is an
object-oriented development publication, I will narrow my discussion to MacApp
applications. For MacApp applications to take advantage of the IBS feature, MABuild
must create .map and .sym files. This can be done by adding the -Sym and -LinkMap
options to your MABuildDefaults symbol.
Creating IBS Projects
In MPW the features of IBS are available through an additional menu in the Menu Bar.
This menu is appended to the Menu Bar by the UserStarpup•IBS supplied by Jasik
Designs as part of the TD package.
Before editing anything in the source, the programmer will have to create an IBS
project. This can be accomplished by selecting the "Create Project" menu item in the
IBS menu. When this menu item is chosen, a dialog will appear explaining that an IBS
project is defined by an application or tool you are concerned with, and that the .map
and .sym files must also reside in the same folder. Click on the "OK" button to
acknowledge this dialog, then a Standard GetFile dialog is displayed for you to locate the
application. Now navigate to one of the "." folders (ie. .Debug Sym) which contains the
application and then click on the "Create" button to select it. IBS will then respond
with another information dialog indicating that a "ProjInfo" folder will be created
within your "." folder to hold miscellaneous IBS project files. When you acknowledge
this, an other dialog comes up asking you to choose the FIRST option that applies to the
IBS project that you're creating. In our case it will always be option #1 that reads "is
a MacApp based". Select option #1 and then click the "OK" button. At this point a new
xxx_IBS.proj file is created in the "." folder where xxx is the name of your
application. There you have it. You have created an IBS project for your MacApp
application and are now ready to use IBS with your incremental changes.
To verify that you have done it right, select the IBS menu, and you should see your
application with the appropriate path listed as one of the menu items at the bottom of
the menu. Each time you create a new IBS project, the new project and its path will be
appended to the bottom of the IBS menu. The current active IBS project will have a
bullet (•) on the left side of its name. Having the correct IBS project active is very
important, because if you have the wrong application active, you will not be able to
jump to the shell from within TD while you're debugging you rapplication.
IBS & MPW
This is the environment that Jasik's IBS was initially intended for. To begin using IBS
you must be already running the application. After you have started your application,
break into TD at a GetNextEvent (idle) stage of your application. While in TD select the
"Side Door to Shell" menu item from the leftmost menu where TD shows the available
memory. This will bring you back into the MPW shell with the application still
running, but you will not be able to select it or any other applications with Finder.
Choose a procedure that you would like to edit, and open the file that contains it.
Now comes the point I mentioned at the beginning of the article, about having to learn
new habits in editing your source. My normal habit when I'm editing my source is to
make some small change and than hit Command-S to save my changes; this will be
disastrous when using IBS if you have not done an "Add Hint". Before you save any part
of your code, highlight the name of the procedure or procedures (including the class
name ie. TMyClass::MyProcedure). Wth the name selected go to the IBS menu and select
the "Add Hint" menu item. When you select the "Add Hint" menu item, it tells IBS that
the procedure highlighted is the one to be edited. It will make a copy of your source file
containing the procedure and name it "xxx.cp_old" where xxx is the name of your
source file. Now you can perform the change you wanted.
If you forgot to do the "Add Hint" step and if your editing habits are similar to mine,
you will have to do a regular MABuild, by going back to TD, killing the application and
then doing an MABuild from MPW. This is why I say that your normal routine will
have to change, unless your normal routine does not include saving your work every
now and then. With unexpected crashes hovering around corners, especially in a
development environment, I don't even notice hitting the Command-S combination
anymore.
After you are satisfied that all required changes are done, go to the IBS menu and select
the "PatchBuild" menu item. This will tell IBS to go ahead and recompile your changes,
and then apply the appropriate patches to your object code and send you right back to
TD. In TD's "Notes" window you will see a line with your application name and the
statement "PLI sym patches installed". This statement indicates that all your changes
are in effect and you can continue your debugging.
You may find this all too cumbersome to be useful, but think about the 5 to 10 minutes
that a large MacApp application takes to Link. All this time spent just to correct a
simple spelling mistake in a variable name. Fortunately, this cumbersome procedure
does not have to be endured, because ACI came to our assistance with the creation of
ObjectMaster.
IBS & ObjectMaster
The version of ObjectMaster described here is version 1.0.2. Life is much simpler
using IBS under the OM environment. You still have to create the IBS project from
within MPW (by the way the MPW shell must be version 3.3 or greater for it to work
with OM; otherwise, you must use ToolServer. This is because version 3.3x of MPW is
AppleEvent aware.) as described above. If you're using the ToolServer rather than
MPW, then you will have to execute the same script as the IBS menu "Create Project
menu item does. Either from ToolServer's Execute Script facility execute the
IBS_Create_Proj script, or from OM's Worksheet execute the OMIBS_CreateProject
script. After the IBS project is created, you will have to let OM know about it. From
the Build menu in OM find the "Incr. Build Sys." sub menu and select the "Set
Project" menu item. This will bring up a Standard GetFile dialog for you to locate the IBS Project that was created. Navigate to the "." folder that you have specified in MPW
and choose the newly created xxx_IBS.proj file.
To activate the IBS feature, all you have to do is to select the "Incremental Build" menu
item from the IBS sub menu in OM. After you "Exited" TD using the "Side Door to
Shell", each time a procedure is changed from the Browser window the appropriate
IBS "Add Hint" command will be done automatically. Note that only changes from within
the Browser window will be tracked automatically by OM for IBS, any changes from
within the File window will have no similar effect.
When you're ready to implement your changes, all you have to do is to select the "Patch
Build" menu item from the IBS sub menu in OM. Unfortunately, there are no
indications within OM that a Patch Build is in progress, so you will not know that
something is happening. You will have to either keep the MPW Worksheet visible or
switch to MPW to monitor the Patch Build process. As in the MPW environment, when
the Patch Build process is completed it will bring you back to TD for debugging. One
more additional time saver as compared to MPW is that you can "Kill" your executed
application from OM rather than jumping back to TD and terminating the application.
This is done by the appropriately called menu item "Kill Problem Program" in the IBS
sub menu.
Last Words
To say the least I am for the use of IBS with ObjectMaster. This is not to say that IBS is
not usable in the MPW environment, just that OM makes it much easier. To find out
more about The Debugger you can contact Jasik Design at (415) 322-1386 or ALink:
D1037. For ObjectMaster you can contact ACIUS in North America at (408)
252-4444 ALink: D4444, in France try ACI at 33-1-42.27.38.54.