rtiddsgen compiling IDL includes

Hi,

I think the problem is being caused by the missing semicolon in the declaration of the id members within foo::a and  bar::b

Instead of:  

module foo{ struct a { long id }; };

module bar { struct b { foo::a id }; };

It should be:  

module foo{ struct a { long id; }; };

module bar { struct b { foo::a id; }; };

Note the extra ";" after id.

Unfortunately the error being printed due to the lack of the ";" is a bit misleading.

Gerardo

Hi,

Couuld you attach a simple IDL file that reproduces the problem? That way I can be sure to be looking at the same issue...

Gerardo

OK. I see what is happening. The problem is the way you invoke rtiddsgen2. It seems the behavior changed between rtiddsgen and rtiddsgen2. See note at the end.

You are using:

C:\RTI\rtiddsgen2 -ppDisable -language Java C:\IDL\bar.idl

Try this instead:

C:\RTI\rtiddsgen2 -I C:\IDL -language Java  C:\IDL\bar.idl

This is because if you are using the #include directive in the IDL file then you need to let rtiddsgen2 use the Windows CL.exe pre-processor. However the option -ppDisable prevents it from running the pre-processor. In addition if you are running rtiddsgen2 from a different directory from where the included IDL are placed, then you have to use the -I option to tell rtiddsgen2 pre-processor where to look for these included files.

The issue is that on Windows the CL.exe preprocessor is not included by default. You need to have Microsoft VisualStudio installed... Note that there is a Free VisualStudio Express/Community Edition you can use. Once Visual Studio is in your system you need to make sure CL.exe (which is the command-line C/C++ preprocessor in windows) is in your path. This may happen automatically when VisualScudio is installed or if not you can run the batch file " vcvarsall.bat" that comes with the Visual Studio installaton. This will configure the PATH appropriately. For me this file is at C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 11.0\VC  but I have Visual Studio 12 installed. Other versions will have it in a different place.

Sorry about this confusion. As I mentioned this behavior has changed between rtiddsgen and rtiddsgen2. With the old rtiddsgen the command would have worked as invoked.

If this is too much of a hassle you could still use the old rtiddsgen if you prefer. The resulting output should be the same.

Gerardo

One more thing. I dug a bit more into it... Apparently what is happening is that rtiddsgen (version 1) was assuming that any "unknown type" found when declaring a member (such as the foo::a) was a structure and work OK on that narrow case, assuming it is indeed defined elsewhere. However rtiddsgen2 is trying to be more robust identifying what the referred type is and generate the correct code even if it is not a structure. For this it needs to find the type thus the need to parse the included IDL.

Apparently is possible to have the rtiddsgen2 operate with the old (rtiddsgen version 1) behavior and "assume" specific "unknown types" are structures. This is accomplished with the directive //@resolve-name false   (see section 3.3.8.3 of the Core Libraries and Utilities Users Manual); which can be applied to a single member, or to a structure (so it applies to unknown members in the structure).

So you can make it work with rtiddsgen2 without using the pre-processor if you change the IDL to:

struct bar {
    foo::a id;  //@resolve-name false
}; 

Or to:

struct bar {
    foo::a id; 
};  //@resolve-name false

Gerardo

I have a batch file that calls "rtiddsgen.bat" with several options defined in the user manual. I am NOT using -ppDisable.

However, I get screen output text that says I am using that option:
WARN com.rti.ndds.nddsgen.antlr.auto.IdlLexer C:\\testfolder\\mrap\\idl\\ModeCommand.idl line 1  the usage of the '#include' directive in combination with the 'ppDisable' command-line option may lead to compilation errors. Consider removing the '-ppDisable' command-line option.

Is there some way to eliminate the gratuitous default to -ppDisable?
My IDL files must use #include statements to include other IDL.

Hello Ken,

That is odd.

Can you copy here the full rtiddsgen.bat command line you are using as well as the output from  rtiddsgen.bat -version  so we can try to reproduce that here?

Thanks!

Gerardo

I will attach a text file that contains content of 2 IDL files (one includes the other), the batch file contents, and the screen output (Windows) followed by some questions.

Solved.

I was using a text editor (Notepadd++) which has options for text output. The default setting was Encoding in UTF-8. I toggled over to ANSI, and the odd stuff from rtiddsgen (3 odd chars at file start) disappeared and I got no warnings.

Those extra 3 chars at the front of the IDL file are not visible to WinMerge or other "file compare" tools, but "rtiddsgen" chokes on them.