How to revision control user application code in NRF Connect SDK with minimal code space.

RE: How to revision control user application code in NRF Connect SDK with minimal code space.

Øyvind — Fri, 07 Jan 2022 14:06:48 GMT

There are two Zephyr folder

Zephyr repo - nrf-zephyr e.g. C:\NordicSemi\v1.8.0\zephyr (607 MB)
Zephyr build folder generated by CMake. e.g. nrf\applications\asset_tracker_v2\build\zephyr (26.3MB)

The latter includes the final binary to program your device with. Please see Zephyr's Build and configuration system and the nRF Build and configuration system.

Kind regards,
Øyvind

RE: How to revision control user application code in NRF Connect SDK with minimal code space.

irose — Wed, 05 Jan 2022 15:28:48 GMT

On my machine the Zephyr folder, checkout out from the zephyr git repo, is about 22MB. I'm working thought this documentation now. I'd like to be able to also revision control the build script that can be run from the nrf connect console tools, for both the build server and when we have interns or new employees.

RE: How to revision control user application code in NRF Connect SDK with minimal code space.

Øyvind — Tue, 21 Dec 2021 10:22:24 GMT

Yes, this is a good guide to follow.

[quote user="irose"] would also be committing 22M of the Zephyr repo[/quote]

What 22M are you talking about? Can you please elaborate?

RE: How to revision control user application code in NRF Connect SDK with minimal code space.

AndreHarris — Mon, 20 Dec 2021 19:25:12 GMT

Check out section 2.1.2 of the nRF SDK Tutorial part 2

https://devzone.nordicsemi.com/guides/nrf-connect-sdk-guides/b/getting-started/posts/nrf-connect-sdk-tutorial---part-2-ncs-v1-4-0#h109sk6474irk6c8olzstpo211psva72

this covers user workflow and has 4 options for version control and managing repositories

RE: How to revision control user application code in NRF Connect SDK with minimal code space.

irose — Mon, 20 Dec 2021 14:52:45 GMT

Øyvind, those are the base files, but what I'd like to capture is the entire application including the build configuration.
What I'd like to have happen, is that a junior developer can install the NRF Connect SDK, NRF console tools, VS Code with extension, and build the code base with minimal modification of the files. Merely cloning the repo of application code and importing the project into Nordic Extension in VS Code.

This would be very similar to having a build server do the same. I could commit the entire app folder, however, I would also be committing 22M of the Zephyr repo. This approach defeats the robustness of the west and the zephyr model, where only a tag in the zephyr repo should be needed. I'm not sure what all gets created when build settings are generated by the VS Code extension. If the modules manifest files are specific to the board selected, then of course we'd want to capture that.

I was hoping that there was a short description of this process. Perhaps a white paper or how to guide that indicates the folders/files/modifications necessary to accomplish this task. If the answer is to pour through the zephyr documentation, so be it. Nordic has made development of a product by a single developer easy, however a team that is co-developing needs a more rigorous software development approach.

Perhaps I am looking at this incorrectly. Should I commit the base files for the app and then write script files to run pull all the processes that are run by the Nordic VS Code Extension? If that is the case, that process de-values the automated build creation capability in the Nordic VS Code Extension.

RE: How to revision control user application code in NRF Connect SDK with minimal code space.

Øyvind — Mon, 20 Dec 2021 13:52:53 GMT

Hello,

I'm not sure what you are referring to here. Have you gone through our documentation found in the nRF Connect SDK documents?

Do you mean sharing one project e.g. zephyr\samples\hello_world ? This folder includes:

zephyr\samples\hello_world\src
zephyr\samples\hello_world\src\main.c
zephyr\samples\hello_world\CMakeLists.txt
zephyr\samples\hello_world\prj_uefi.conf
zephyr\samples\hello_world\prj.conf
zephyr\samples\hello_world\README.rst
zephyr\samples\hello_world\sample.yaml

You can generate a freestanding project in e.g. C:\Temp\hello_world, creating an out of tree project. This folder can be shared on e.g. Github. No need to inclucde build folders that are generated when building the project.

See Application Development in the Zephyr repo docuementation

Kind regards,
Øyvind