Where are DFPs Installed?

Depending on your software project type (bare-metal C, Harmony 3 project etc.), DFPs can be installed at several locations on your computer.

DFPs managed/used by the MPLAB® X IDE

DFPs managed/used by the MPLAB X IDE are installed in two locations on your computer, as shown in the Pack Manager:

packs-manager-dfp-locations.png

System Packs Location

This folder contains DFPs which are distributed/installed during the MPLAB X IDE installation:

Windows

C:\Program Files\Microchip\MPLABX\<ide_version>\packs\Microchip\<device_pack>\<dfp_version>

macOS

/Applications/microchip/mplabx/<version>/packs/Microchip/<device_pack>/<dfp_version>

Installed "System" DFP Packs are marked as Installed to System in the Pack Manager as shown:

system-dfp.png

User Packs Location

This folder contains all DFPs which have been installed through the Pack Manager "Update" mechanism or manually installed by the user.

Windows

C:\Users\<user_name>\.mchp_packs\MIcrochip\<device_pack>\<dfp_version>

macOS

/Users/<user_name>/.mchp_packs/Microchip/<device_pack>/<dfp_version>

Installed User DFP Packs are marked as Uninstall in the Pack Manager as shown:

user-dfp.png

DFP Persistence with MPLAB X IDE

When you uninstall MPLAB X IDE, you uninstall the System DFPs. However, the User DFPs will persist on your computer.

DFPs managed/used by the Harmony 3 Framework

The Harmony 3 framework maintains it's own repository of DFPs in GitHub:
https://github.com/Microchip-MPLAB-Harmony/dev_packs.

When you use the Harmony 3 Content Manager to download components to your PC, a copy of this repository is also downloaded.

h3-dfp.png


When you build a Harmony 3 application using MPLAB Harmony 3 Configurator, all the required DFP files are copied into the Harmony 3 project folder. The MPLAB X IDE DFPs are not used:

h3-project-dfp.png


Benefits of the H3 DFP Usage Strategy:

  • Project is self-contained
  • Removed dependency on DFP
  • Project can be shared without the need to share and install the DFP

DFPs components bundled with the XC Compilers

XC Compilers ship with a set of resources (MCU header files) derived from a DFP release, as shown here with XC32:

dfps-in-xc32-folder.png

The version of the DFP can be determined by opening the component-version.h file as shown above.

Within the IDE, you can choose to override the default (IDE-managed) DFPs with the compiler-supplied DFPs via the following Project setting:

dfp-override-setting.png



When using the compiler for standalone compilation on the command line, you can use the -mdfp switch to specify a specific DFP to use for compilation:

-mdfp="C:/My Folder/SAME54_DFP/3.2.56"

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