\nInstalling Toolchains<\/a>
\nImporting Existing Toolchains<\/a>
\nReferencing Toolchains<\/a>
\nTroubleshooting Toolchains<\/a>
\nIntegration with MSBuild<\/a><\/p>\n
<\/a>Supported Toolchain Types<\/h2>\nVisualGDB supports the following types of toolchains:<\/p>\n
\n- GCC (GNU C\/C++ compiler):\n
\n- MinGW\/Cygwin<\/li>\n
- Cross-compilers for Embedded or Linux targets<\/li>\n
- Native GCC running on Linux targets<\/li>\n
- Cross-GCC for Linux targets running on another Linux system<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n
- ARMCC and ARMClang (running on Windows only)<\/li>\n
- IAR (running on Windows only)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
We provide pre-built toolchains for many popular platforms that can be downloaded here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/a>Installing Toolchains<\/h2>\nVisualGDB can install many GCC-based toolchains out-of-the-box. Simply select a download link in one of the VisualGDB Project Wizards and it will automatically download and install a toolchain:![\"\"](\"https:\/\/visualgdb.com\/w\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/install.png\")
<\/a>If your firewall is preventing VisualGDB from downloading toolchains, you can always download and install them manually from the GNUToolchains site<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/a>Importing Existing Toolchains<\/h2>\nVisualGDB can automatically detect the following 3rd-party toolchains installed on your computer:<\/p>\n
\n- GNU ARM Embedded Toolchain<\/a><\/li>\n
- Keil ARMCC and ARMClang<\/a><\/li>\n
- IAR for ARM<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
You can also import the toolchains (from both Windows or Linux machines) to VisualGDB by using the import buttons at the bottom of the Toolchain Selector:![\"\"](\"https:\/\/visualgdb.com\/w\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/import.png\")
<\/a>If the imported toolchain does not appear in the list, see the troubleshooting<\/a> section that describes how VisualGDB stores the toolchains.<\/p>\n<\/a>Referencing Toolchains<\/h2>\nVisualGDB-based projects do not include a copy of a toolchain definition. Instead, they contain the following fields to uniquely identify an existing toolchain:<\/p>\n
\n- Toolchain ID<\/li>\n
- Toolchain version (GCC\/GDB versions and a toolchain revision number)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
You can find out the toolchain version used by a specific project by looking into VisualGDB Project Properties -> Build Settings<\/strong> (the exact page name depends on the project type) or by directly checking the VisualGDB settings file (*.vgdbsettings<\/strong>, *.vgdbcmake<\/strong> or *.vgdbproj<\/strong>) or the embedded profile file (e.g. stm32.xml<\/strong>):<\/p>\n <ToolchainID>com.visualgdb.arm-eabi<\/ToolchainID>\r\n <ToolchainVersion>\r\n <GCC>9.3.1<\/GCC>\r\n <GDB>8.3.1<\/GDB>\r\n <Revision>1<\/Revision>\r\n <\/ToolchainVersion><\/pre>\nIf you open a project that references an unknown toolchain, VisualGDB will automatically suggest downloading or locating it:![\"\"](\"https:\/\/visualgdb.com\/w\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/resolve.png\")
<\/a>If you would like to have multiple flavors of the same toolchain, try manually changing the toolchain ID in <Toolchain Directory>\\Toolchain.xml <\/strong>file and re-importing it into VisualGDB.<\/p>\n<\/a>Troubleshooting Toolchains<\/h2>\nYou can find a list of all toolchain known to VisualGDB via Tools->VisualGDB->Manage VisualGDB Packages->Installed->Toolchains<\/strong>:![\"\"](\"https:\/\/visualgdb.com\/w\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/packages.png\")
<\/a>If the window doesn’t show the toolchain you imported, try enabling the View->Other Windows->VisualGDB Diagnostics Console<\/strong> before opening the VisualGDB Package Manager. It will contain a detailed diagnostic log on finding the toolchains.<\/p>\nHow VisualGDB Locates Toolchains<\/h3>\n
VisualGDB uses the following logic to find installed toolchains:<\/p>\n
\n- First, it checks the %LOCALAPPDATA%\\VisualGDB\\ToolchainProfiles\\<host name><\/strong> directory. Each directory there can contain one of the following:\n
\n- A CustomToolchain.xml<\/strong> file that contains location of the toolchain, and also the names\/paths of various toolchain components.<\/li>\n
- A ToolchainLink.txt<\/strong> file that contains the directory of the toolchain. The directory pointed by ToolchainLink.txt<\/strong> should contain either CustomToolchain.xml<\/strong> or Toolchain.xml<\/strong>. This only works for toolchains located on Windows.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/li>\n
- Then, it checks the Software\\Sysprogs\\GNUToolchains<\/strong> registry keys (both HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE<\/strong> and HKEY_CURRENT_USER<\/strong>) for toolchains installed from GNUToolchains<\/a>.<\/li>\n
- Finally, it searches the registry keys specified in %VISUALGDB_DIR%\\Rules\\KnownToolchains.xml<\/strong>. This imports GNU ARM toolchain, as well as KEIL\/IAR toolchains.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
How VisualGDB Remembers Imported Toolchains<\/h3>\n
When you import a toolchain via the VisualGDB Project Wizard, it will try to create a Toolchain.xml<\/strong> or CustomToolchain.xml<\/strong> file in the toolchain directory, and the link to the toolchain by creating the ToolchainLink.txt <\/strong>file under %LOCALAPPDATA%<\/strong>. This preserves the toolchain settings even if you reset the VisualGDB’s %LOCALAPPDATA%<\/strong> directory.<\/p>\nIf the toolchain directory is not writable, VisualGDB will create the Toolchain.xml<\/strong> or CustomToolchain.xml<\/strong> file directly under %LOCALAPPDATA%<\/strong>. It will have exactly the same effect as placing it to the toolchain directory and linking it with ToolchainLink.txt<\/strong>.<\/p>\nToolchain.xml vs CustomToolchain.xml<\/h3>\n
Due to backward compatibility reasons, VisualGDB uses 2 different toolchain definition formats. The Toolchain.xml<\/strong> file is used for toolchains supplied by Sysprogs, while CustomToolchain.xml<\/strong> is used for toolchains that were imported manually. The CustomToolchain.xml<\/strong>-based toolchain definitions can be edited using the “Customize” button as shown below:![\"\"](\"https:\/\/visualgdb.com\/w\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/imported-1.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a>Integration with MSBuild<\/h2>\nThe MSBuild-based projects use a special mechanism for loading the toolchain descriptions. First of all, the project must specify the toolchain ID, version and build host in the MSBuild-level settings (it is updated automatically when using VisualGDB wizards and VisualGDB Project Properties GUI):![\"\"](\"https:\/\/visualgdb.com\/w\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/msbuild.png\")
<\/a>You can use the “Rebuild MSBuild & IntelliSense files for this toolchain<\/strong>” link to automatically update the MSBuild-level properties based on VisualGDB-level properties:![\"\"](\"https:\/\/visualgdb.com\/w\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/rebuild.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Toolchains are collections of tools (such as GCC, GNU Assembler or GDB) that are used to build and debug projects<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[199],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/visualgdb.com\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6271"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/visualgdb.com\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/visualgdb.com\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/visualgdb.com\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/visualgdb.com\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6271"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/visualgdb.com\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6271\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6291,"href":"https:\/\/visualgdb.com\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6271\/revisions\/6291"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/visualgdb.com\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6271"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/visualgdb.com\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6271"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/visualgdb.com\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6271"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
- \n
- MinGW\/Cygwin<\/li>\n
- Cross-compilers for Embedded or Linux targets<\/li>\n
- Native GCC running on Linux targets<\/li>\n
- Cross-GCC for Linux targets running on another Linux system<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n
- ARMCC and ARMClang (running on Windows only)<\/li>\n
- IAR (running on Windows only)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
We provide pre-built toolchains for many popular platforms that can be downloaded here<\/a>.<\/p>\n
<\/a>Installing Toolchains<\/h2>\n
VisualGDB can install many GCC-based toolchains out-of-the-box. Simply select a download link in one of the VisualGDB Project Wizards and it will automatically download and install a toolchain:
<\/a>If your firewall is preventing VisualGDB from downloading toolchains, you can always download and install them manually from the GNUToolchains site<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/a>Importing Existing Toolchains<\/h2>\n
VisualGDB can automatically detect the following 3rd-party toolchains installed on your computer:<\/p>\n
- \n
- GNU ARM Embedded Toolchain<\/a><\/li>\n
- Keil ARMCC and ARMClang<\/a><\/li>\n
- IAR for ARM<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
You can also import the toolchains (from both Windows or Linux machines) to VisualGDB by using the import buttons at the bottom of the Toolchain Selector:
<\/a>If the imported toolchain does not appear in the list, see the troubleshooting<\/a> section that describes how VisualGDB stores the toolchains.<\/p>\n<\/a>Referencing Toolchains<\/h2>\n
VisualGDB-based projects do not include a copy of a toolchain definition. Instead, they contain the following fields to uniquely identify an existing toolchain:<\/p>\n
- \n
- Toolchain ID<\/li>\n
- Toolchain version (GCC\/GDB versions and a toolchain revision number)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
You can find out the toolchain version used by a specific project by looking into VisualGDB Project Properties -> Build Settings<\/strong> (the exact page name depends on the project type) or by directly checking the VisualGDB settings file (*.vgdbsettings<\/strong>, *.vgdbcmake<\/strong> or *.vgdbproj<\/strong>) or the embedded profile file (e.g. stm32.xml<\/strong>):<\/p>\n
<ToolchainID>com.visualgdb.arm-eabi<\/ToolchainID>\r\n <ToolchainVersion>\r\n <GCC>9.3.1<\/GCC>\r\n <GDB>8.3.1<\/GDB>\r\n <Revision>1<\/Revision>\r\n <\/ToolchainVersion><\/pre>\n
If you open a project that references an unknown toolchain, VisualGDB will automatically suggest downloading or locating it:
<\/a>If you would like to have multiple flavors of the same toolchain, try manually changing the toolchain ID in <Toolchain Directory>\\Toolchain.xml <\/strong>file and re-importing it into VisualGDB.<\/p>\n<\/a>Troubleshooting Toolchains<\/h2>\n
You can find a list of all toolchain known to VisualGDB via Tools->VisualGDB->Manage VisualGDB Packages->Installed->Toolchains<\/strong>:
<\/a>If the window doesn’t show the toolchain you imported, try enabling the View->Other Windows->VisualGDB Diagnostics Console<\/strong> before opening the VisualGDB Package Manager. It will contain a detailed diagnostic log on finding the toolchains.<\/p>\nHow VisualGDB Locates Toolchains<\/h3>\n
VisualGDB uses the following logic to find installed toolchains:<\/p>\n
- \n
- First, it checks the %LOCALAPPDATA%\\VisualGDB\\ToolchainProfiles\\<host name><\/strong> directory. Each directory there can contain one of the following:\n
- \n
- A CustomToolchain.xml<\/strong> file that contains location of the toolchain, and also the names\/paths of various toolchain components.<\/li>\n
- A ToolchainLink.txt<\/strong> file that contains the directory of the toolchain. The directory pointed by ToolchainLink.txt<\/strong> should contain either CustomToolchain.xml<\/strong> or Toolchain.xml<\/strong>. This only works for toolchains located on Windows.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/li>\n
- Then, it checks the Software\\Sysprogs\\GNUToolchains<\/strong> registry keys (both HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE<\/strong> and HKEY_CURRENT_USER<\/strong>) for toolchains installed from GNUToolchains<\/a>.<\/li>\n
- Finally, it searches the registry keys specified in %VISUALGDB_DIR%\\Rules\\KnownToolchains.xml<\/strong>. This imports GNU ARM toolchain, as well as KEIL\/IAR toolchains.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
How VisualGDB Remembers Imported Toolchains<\/h3>\n
When you import a toolchain via the VisualGDB Project Wizard, it will try to create a Toolchain.xml<\/strong> or CustomToolchain.xml<\/strong> file in the toolchain directory, and the link to the toolchain by creating the ToolchainLink.txt <\/strong>file under %LOCALAPPDATA%<\/strong>. This preserves the toolchain settings even if you reset the VisualGDB’s %LOCALAPPDATA%<\/strong> directory.<\/p>\n
If the toolchain directory is not writable, VisualGDB will create the Toolchain.xml<\/strong> or CustomToolchain.xml<\/strong> file directly under %LOCALAPPDATA%<\/strong>. It will have exactly the same effect as placing it to the toolchain directory and linking it with ToolchainLink.txt<\/strong>.<\/p>\n
Toolchain.xml vs CustomToolchain.xml<\/h3>\n
Due to backward compatibility reasons, VisualGDB uses 2 different toolchain definition formats. The Toolchain.xml<\/strong> file is used for toolchains supplied by Sysprogs, while CustomToolchain.xml<\/strong> is used for toolchains that were imported manually. The CustomToolchain.xml<\/strong>-based toolchain definitions can be edited using the “Customize” button as shown below:
<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a>Integration with MSBuild<\/h2>\n
The MSBuild-based projects use a special mechanism for loading the toolchain descriptions. First of all, the project must specify the toolchain ID, version and build host in the MSBuild-level settings (it is updated automatically when using VisualGDB wizards and VisualGDB Project Properties GUI):
<\/a>You can use the “Rebuild MSBuild & IntelliSense files for this toolchain<\/strong>” link to automatically update the MSBuild-level properties based on VisualGDB-level properties:<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Toolchains are collections of tools (such as GCC, GNU Assembler or GDB) that are used to build and debug projects<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[199],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/visualgdb.com\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6271"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/visualgdb.com\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/visualgdb.com\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/visualgdb.com\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/visualgdb.com\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6271"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/visualgdb.com\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6271\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6291,"href":"https:\/\/visualgdb.com\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6271\/revisions\/6291"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/visualgdb.com\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6271"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/visualgdb.com\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6271"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/visualgdb.com\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6271"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
- A ToolchainLink.txt<\/strong> file that contains the directory of the toolchain. The directory pointed by ToolchainLink.txt<\/strong> should contain either CustomToolchain.xml<\/strong> or Toolchain.xml<\/strong>. This only works for toolchains located on Windows.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/li>\n
- A CustomToolchain.xml<\/strong> file that contains location of the toolchain, and also the names\/paths of various toolchain components.<\/li>\n
- First, it checks the %LOCALAPPDATA%\\VisualGDB\\ToolchainProfiles\\<host name><\/strong> directory. Each directory there can contain one of the following:\n
- Keil ARMCC and ARMClang<\/a><\/li>\n
- GNU ARM Embedded Toolchain<\/a><\/li>\n