Using the wRTOS RTDLL Template

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

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

The wRTOS project contains four build configurations: Windows Release, Windows Debug, RTSSRelease, and RTSSDebug. The wRTOS 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 wRTOS program elements, which contain C/C++ code to create wRTOS objects and demonstrate their use.

Note: wRTOS only supports absolute pathnames.

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

Creating a wRTOS RTDLL

The wRTOS RTDLL template provides the structure for creating wRTOS RTDLLs. Use the following procedure to create a wRTOS project using any wRTOS RTDLL template in Microsoft Visual Studio.

Note: wRTOS does not support building managed RTSS applications. For additional information on using wRTOS from within a Windows managed code application, see the wRTOS Managed Code Reference.

To create a wRTOS RTDLL project:

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

• SDK Version – If you have multiple versions of the SDK installed, select the version you want to use. Binaries built using the current SDK will not load in previous versions of the wRTOS Runtime.
• Project Type – You can create a project in C or C++. Select the type of project source you want to create. This generates 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:
• Microsoft C Runtime support – Adds C/C++ Runtime support. Most programs need support for C Runtime functions.
• Network Link Layer (NL2) support – Adds support for the Network Link Layer (NL2) component.
• TCP/IP support – Adds support for the TCP/IP Stack component within RTSS configurations and Windows socket libraries for Windows configurations.
• GigE Vision support – Adds support for GigE Vision.
• E-CAT support - Adds support for the E-CAT Fieldbus.

5. If no other options are needed, click Finish to create the project. Otherwise, continue editing program settings for this application.

• Provide a program framework – The wRTOS RTDLL Template can build a basic program framework consisting of source and header files or an empty project. When Provide a program framework is not selected, the wRTOS RTDLL template sets only the project settings. It does not include any header or C/C++ files, and all program elements become grayed-out.  When Provide a program framework is checked, the wRTOS 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, an exported variable, and an exported class.

When Provide a program framework is selected, 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 not selected, these options are grayed out.

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

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

wRTOS Custom Macro

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

• wRTOS.cpp.x64.user.props
• wRTOS.cpp.win32.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 wRTOS RTDLL template:

x64

• RTSSDebug – Real-time DLL that has debug flags enabled
• RTSSRelease – Optimized Real-time DLL that does not include additional debug information
• Debug – Windows 64-bit DLL linked to wRTOS that has debug flags enabled
• Release – Windows 64-bit DLL linked to wRTOS

For instructions on manually building a 32-bit RTDLL, see Building a 32-bit User Space Application.