Linux development workflow

[talha-opteran]

Question

What's your question?

I'm confused about what the development workflow looks like for AirSim. Some clarification on how others are approaching this would be nice.

Include context on what you are trying to achieve

For context, I'm looking to extend the Unreal plugin which requires modifying code in:

Blocks\Plugins\AirSim\Source
Blocks\Plugins\AirSim\Source\Airlib

Context details

OS: Ubuntu 20.04 AirSim: git master Unreal: git master (4.27.1) IDE: VSCode

Include details of what you already did to find answers

From my understanding of the docs, there are 2 approaches:

1. As described in the docs, [1][2], this workflow is as follows:

   git pull                          
   build.sh                       
   cd Unreal\Environments\Blocks         
   update_from_git.sh
   **Modify code in the above directories**
   update_to_git.sh
   build.sh

   However, as mentioned in #2975, update_to_git.sh deletes the Airlib\src directory in the AirSim repo. This also causes the subsequent build.sh to fail.

2. In this approach, [3], it recommends developing in the root Airlib as well as Unreal\Plugins directories directly followed by running build.sh to copy the changes to the Unreal project.

This works well but is tedious as it requires manual setup to work with IDE features like intellisense.

So what is the official approach and what are others using? Thanks

[rajat2004]

I personally use the 2nd approach of working on the root AirLib and Unreal/Plugins dir. It has a benefit for quicker testing of AirLib changes for compilation issues first, and then going for UE4. Haven't found Intellisense or other IDE features to be very good tbh since they don't work with UE4 headers and code

[jonyMarino]

@talha-opteran on windows, I prefer to use the first approach. That is because I use visual studio with the debugger in Blocks project. Find no problems for now in using update_to_git. In Linux, I think the second approach is more straightforward.

[talha-opteran]

Thanks for the input.

@jonyMarino I think the reason you don't have problems in windows with update_to_git.bat is because it is using robocopy. Not sure how that works but Linux uses rsync with the --delete option which causes the Airlib\src folder to be deleted.