Building a Project Outside of MPLAB X IDE

MPLAB® X IDE uses GNU Make as its build tool. The installation of MPLAB X IDE provides this program. The locations are:

  • Windows® 64-Bit OSC:\Program Files\Microchip\MPLABX\vx.xx\gnuBins\GnuWin32\bin
  • Linux® 32/64 OS/opt/microchip/mplabx/vx.xx/mplab_ide/bin
  • Mac® OS X®/Applications/microchip/mplabx/vx.xx/mplab_ide.app/Contents/Resources/mplab_ide/bin

where vx.xx represents the version.

MPLAB X IDE automatically adds the directory containing the make to its own path variable. If you want to build outside of the IDE, you must add the directory to the PATH environmental variable.

The Makefile in the MPLAB X IDE project directory can be called directly to build the default configuration:

Command – Type on a single line Description
$ make clean To remove all intermediate objects and final images
$ make To create the production image (HEX file)
$ make TYPE_IMAGE=DEBUG_RUN To create the debug image (ELF file)

If the project has more than one configuration, then:

Command – Type on a single line Description
$ make -f Makefile
CONF=Configuration clean
To remove all intermediate objects and final images for configuration Configuration
$ make -f Makefile
CONF=Configuration
To create the production image (HEX file) for configuration Configuration
$ make -f Makefile
CONF=Configuration TYPE_IMAGE=DEBUG_RUN
To create the debug image (ELF file) for configuration Configuration

The names of the images by default are (with respect to the MPLAB X IDE directory):

dist/$CONF_NAME/production/$PROJ_NAME.production.hex
dist/$CONF_NAME/debug/$PROJ_NAME.debug.elf
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