Build and upload outside of Arduino IDE

[solvaholic]

I like the Arduino IDE, it makes all the steps super easy. For editing code, tho, I prefer using VS Code. I'd also like to lint, build, and test regardless of IDE, for example on a GitHub Actions runner. How to build a sketch and upload it, without using the Arduino IDE?

### Tasks
- [x] Understand [the sketch build process](https://arduino.github.io/arduino-cli/sketch-build-process/)
- [x] Build and upload with `arduino-cli`
- [x] Build and upload with VS Code (/cc https://github.com/solvaholic/arduino/issues/4#issuecomment-1826360930)
- [ ] Lint and build in a Codespace
- [ ] Lint and build in an Actions workflow
- [ ] What sort of testing is possible locally, without uploading?

[solvaholic]

Maybe helpful

If you find yourself thinking a Makefile will help, check out sudar/Arduino-Makefile and Sudar's blog.

If you find yourself wanting to run builds in a container, check out some prior art: https://hub.docker.com/r/arduinoci/ci-arduino-esp32 https://hub.docker.com/r/domatic/arduino

[solvaholic]

Understand the sketch build process

I think that's sort of like:

• cat Sketch/*.ino Sketch/*.pde > Sketch.cpp
• Prepend #include <Arduino.h>, if it's not already there
• Generate prototypes for all functions (what's this mean?)
• Add #line directives so compiler warnings and error swill make sense (neat!)
• Resolve dependencies
• Compile the code

[solvaholic]

Build and upload with arduino-cli

I think I'd like to have arduino-cli download and install libraries in my clone of this repo. And I'd like to control which configuration file it uses. Docs say arduino-cli will use the config file specified by --config-file option, or the one stored in directories.data.

Can you guess where directories.data is written? It seems like I'll need to either overwrite the default config file or specify a --config-file each time I run arduino-cli.

8052acab71 creates script/bootstrap.sh to set up the local arduino-cli configuration file, arduino-cli.yaml.

[solvaholic]

Build and upload with arduino-cli

f97260bde5 updates script/bootstrap.sh to install Arduino core and libraries. After that, this seems to do the trick:

cd ~/repos/arduino
./script/bootstrap.sh

_port=/dev/cu.usbserial-0001
_board=Heltec-esp32:esp32:wifi_kit_32
_sketch=esp32_hello

arduino-cli --config-file ./arduino-cli.yaml \
compile -b $_board $_sketch 

arduino-cli --config-file ./arduino-cli.yaml \
board attach -p $_port -b $_board \
--board-options "UploadSpeed=115200" \
$_sketch

arduino-cli --config-file ./arduino-cli.yaml \
upload $_sketch

[solvaholic]

Build and upload with VS Code

Microsoft's extension looks like it should Just Work: https://github.com/microsoft/vscode-arduino

For me, however, it did not. In case I come back to it, or you're facing similar challenges, here are a few of the issues I was unable to pass:

• Each way I configured arduino.path and arduino.commandPath, the extension failed to use my arduino-cli
• When using the built-in arduino-cli, it doesn't know about my installed core, libraries, and packages
• Neither the Library Manager nor the Board Manager let me install stuff
• After manually refreshing libraries and boards, each Manager stuck at a "Loading..." display

Using Arduino IDE costs me less time and attention than troubleshooting that mess.

[solvaholic]

Using Arduino IDE costs me less time and attention than troubleshooting that mess.

And maintaining my own build and upload scripts costs even less, so 5fdb9189ef introduces those. Now my environment is easily reproducible, I don't have to remember the steps, and I can work in my preferred editor.