When I create a new bare-board project with the Eclipse based CodeWarrior 10.3 for my FRDM-KL25Z board and GNU gcc, then the ‘Library’ option is grayed out:

Library Option in New Project Wizard

This does *not* mean that libraries cannot be built :-). In fact it is very easy to do this with the GNU tools and Eclipse, and here is how….

Step 1: Creating a normal project

I have created a normal application project with the New Project Wizard (menu File > New > Bareboard Project) using GNU gcc:

Application Project

Step 2: Removing Application Files and Settings

For a library I do not need all the application specific files (like startup code) or linker and debugger files. They are all in the Project_Settings Folder, so I simply delete them:

Deleted Files for a Library Project

Step 3: Adding Library Code

My library should implement some useful functionality (hopefully :-), and to have things simple here, I add this to the main.c file:

/*
* main file of my library
*
*/

int MultiplyBy2(int value)
{
  return value*2;
}

Step 4: Setting up the GCC Archiver
Now I need to tell the project settings that instead of building an application, I want a static library. This is configured in the project settings under the Build Artifact. I use the drop-down and select ‘ARM Cross Target Static Library‘ and press the ‘Apply‘ Button:
Static Library Build Artifact
And to follow a common guideline, I use ‘lib’ to start the library name, and ‘.a’ as file extension in above dialog.
Using the above Artifact Type, it enables the ARM GCC Archiver in the options:
ARM GCC Archiver Option
In the ‘General’ tab I configure the Archiver (ar) options: Usual options are -r (for replace or add files), -s to create a symbol table (gcc usually needs that) and -v for verbose (just so I know what is going on):
Archiver Options
❗ The next step depends on which version of the ARM Ltd Eclipse plugins are used (I use here CodeWarrior for MCU10.3beta), as they have a minor glitch: the order of the arguments needs to be changed to match the arguments expected by the Archiver: the object files needs to be last in the list. For this I need to move the ${INPUTS} variable to the end of the Command Line Pattern:
Moving INPUT to the end of the command line pattern
With this, the command line pattern should look like this:
Command Line Pattern for Archiver
Step 5: Building the Library
That part is easy: compile and build the project as usual gives:
Invoking the Archiver
And the new library/archive shows up in my project structure:
Library Project with Generated Archive
Summary
Even if the New Project wizard does not offer a library option: creating a library with GNU gcc and ar(chiver) e.g. for Kinetis is a matter of a few minutes, and really easy. The minor thing with moving ${INPUT} I expect to be improved for the MCU10.3 final. Using libraries helps me to put again-and-again used software modules in libraries, so I need to compile and build them only once, and can re-use it over and over again.
Happy Archiving 🙂

		
	
			

			
			
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