[cdt-dev] Shared tool settings between tools?

[Alex Blewitt <alex.blewitt@xxxxxxxxx>]

I've had some success in getting the Objective C support going - I've defined an ObjC Compiler tool (which adds the mapping between m->o files) and ObjC Linker tool (to add the -framework line). In the end, it was largely changes in the plugin.xml (http://code.google.com/p/objectiveclipse/source/browse/trunk/org.eclipse.cdt.objc.core/plugin.xml).

One question I have is how to defined shared settings between the linker and the compiler. It's not really a major issue, but since I was in the code anyway, I wanted to add -arch to the flags as well. I think this is needed for both the linker and compiler, but when I defined the optionCategory and option in both places, it seemed that the values for the -arch in the compiler weren't replicated in the changes for -arch for the linker (which would be a bit annoying). I thought it might be possible to share the settings somehow between the two? I've got the <tool> definitions in the above google code link if anyone can shed obvious light (though I've commented the -arch out right now).

The second question I have is how to enable the ObjC compiler/linker by default for the objc projects. I've defined the tools with a nature filter (relies on CDT Bug 270879 but I don't think it's a show-stopper if it shows up accidentally anyway). Oddly, when you select ObjC Compiler, it wants to replace the existing GCC compiler (tool definition below), but when I select the ObjC linker, it wants to add it to the list.

natureFilter="objcnature"

id="cdt.managedbuild.tool.gnu.objc.compiler"

name="%objc.compiler.name"

superClass="cdt.managedbuild.tool.gnu.c.compiler">

 

natureFilter="objcnature"        

id="cdt.managedbuild.tool.gnu.objc.linker"

name="%objc.linker.name"

superClass="cdt.managedbuild.tool.macosx.c.linker">

The change to the compiler, to add the 'objcSource' type and definition should be applicable to any gcc-based tool, so I'm not even sure if it makes sense to have a separate ObjC compiler - or whether this is just a convenient stepping-stone. The change to the linker (adding -framework) is only specific to the Mac OS X linker though (but could easily replace the existing linker). 

I'd like to know if I'm on the right track here, and whether I should try and create a replacement toolset which would include the ObjC compiler/linker by default in place of the existing ones.

Alex