XC16Bootloaders - How do you generate a hex file combining a bootloader and an application project?

A hex file can be created that contains both the application and the bootloader. Merging the bootloader and application hex files can be done as follows:

First, make a hex file for the bootloader and then load it into your application project. A unified hex file will be made by the compiler. Please read section 5.4 of the MPLAB® X IDE User's Guide which can be downloaded from the 'Documentation' tab of the product landing page.

Steps to be followed (from Section 5.4 of the User's Guide):

  1. In the project tree, there is a branch called loadables in MPLAB X IDE.
  2. Open the first project
  3. Right-click on loadables in the project tree and add the second project.
  4. Perform a build or debug. That will merge both project hex files or elf files for debugging.
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Check to make sure that the two projects do not overlap in memory. If they do, you will get an error. When combining the Bootloader and Application projects in MPLAB X IDE, make sure that both the bootloader's configuration and the application's configuration bits are the same. Otherwise, this will generate a data conflict error with a given address. To resolve this, match the bootloader's configuration bits with the application's configuration bits.

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Please note that his method doesn't work for all PIC® MCUs. We do not have a document listing which ones work. The only way to verify for now is by testing it. For an XC16 application, if there is a data conflict at the IVT, in the XC16 linker options uncheck the box for creating the default ISR.
Here's a forum post that has some good discussion on "Merging Bootloader and Application Hex files": http://www.microchip.com/forums/m441306.aspx.

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