Using the eRTOS RTDLL Template

eRTOS provides two templates in the Templates/Visual C++ branch in the supported versions of Microsoft Visual Studio:

eRTOS Application – creates a project and solution for the development of eRTOS applications. For more information on this template, see Using the eRTOS Application Template.
eRTOS RTDLL – creates a project and solution for the development of eRTOS Real-Time Dynamic-Link Library (RTDLLs).

The eRTOS project contains two build configurations: eRTOSDebug and eRTOSRelease. The eRTOS RTDLL Template sets the project settings for each configuration according to the program and project options that you specify. The template can also provide a basic C/C++ program framework with which to work. This program framework can include eRTOS program elements, which contain C/C++ code to create eRTOS objects and demonstrate their use.

Note: eRTOS only supports absolute pathnames.

Note: DLL projects built with the eRTOS RTDLL Visual Studio template will not build if the file name begins with a numeral.

Sections in this Topic:

Creating an eRTOS RTDLL
eRTOS Custom Macro
Resulting Configurations

Creating an eRTOS RTDLL

The eRTOS RTDLL template provides the structure for creating eRTOS RTDLLs.

To create an eRTOS RTDLL project:

Create a new project in Visual Studio.
Select C or C++ as the template type.
Select the eRTOS RTDLL template. This template is a single-page dialog that displays the default project settings and provides optional application and program settings.
To accept the current settings, click Finish. Optionally, you can specify other options and libraries that you want to include in your eRTOS application project:

Project Type – You can create a project in C or C++. Select the type of project source you want to create. This causes the generation of either .C or .CPP files and determines which compiler to use when building your application.
Supported String Convention – Specify Unicode, MultiByte, or Ansi. This determines if the associated pre-processor definitions will be included in the project settings.
Add additional headers and libraries:
TCP/IP support – Adds support for the TCP/IP Stack component within Process configurations and Windows socket libraries for Windows configurations.
Network Link Layer support – Adds support for the Network Link Layer (NL2) component.
Microsoft C Runtime support – Adds C/C++ Runtime support. Most programs need support for C Runtime functions.

If these are all the options needed, click Finish to create the project. Otherwise, continue editing program settings for this application.

Provide a program framework – The eRTOS RTDLL Template can build a basic program framework consisting of source and header files, or it can build an empty project. When Provide a program framework is un-checked, the eRTOS RTDLL template sets only the project settings and does not include any header or C/C++ files, and all program elements become grayed-out. When Provide a program framework is checked, the eRTOS RTDLL template inserts into the project C/C++ source files that contain basic program functionality and header files that contain include and define statements. The program framework also contains a code segment for an exported function, exported variable, and an exported class.

When Provide a program framework is checked, you can optionally add elements to the program framework. These code segments show proper usage of Real-time API function calls and can serve as examples of how to set up these elements. Areas in the element code that need to be customized by the user are indicated by "TO DO" comments. You can select more than one type of programming element for a single project. The following table provides the available program elements.

Note: When Provide a program framework is un-checked, these options are grayed out.

Element	Description
Periodic timer thread	Transforms the basic Export function already in the program framework into Timer Thread Export.

Click Finish. This generates the eRTOS solution and project according to the options you selected.

eRTOS Custom Macro

eRTOS utilizes a custom macro, $(eRTOSPlatform), that is used to find the correct library directory for projects. This custom macro requires two property files, which are installed with the eRTOS SDK:

eRTOS.cpp.x64.user.props

All projects import these property files. If they are edited in any way, projects will not load correctly.

Resulting Configurations

Four configurations for creating DLLs are generated in Visual Studio when you create a project using the eRTOS RTDLL template:

x64

eRTOSDebug – Real-time DLL that has debug flags enabled
eRTOSRelease – Optimized Real-time DLL that does not include additional debug information