Custom Build Actions

The Custom Build Actions dialog appears when you click the Custom Build Actions... on the Build page. It allows you to specify external actions that are performed before and after each project build.

External build actions

External build actions are specified as command lines, much as you would enter commands in a command prompt window. At build time, Tarma QuickInstall writes the build action commands to a temporary batch file, starts a command processor to execute the batch file, waits until the command processor has finished executing the batch file, then resumes the build process.

Some hints and tips:

• The external build actions are not performed during preflight checks. Pre-build actions are performed after the preflight checks are successfully completed, immediately before the project build proper starts. Post-build actions are performed after the build process is completed, regardless of the success or failure of the build.
• The pre-build and post-build commands are written to separate batch files, with file names based on the build target and ~Pre.bat or ~Post.bat suffixes. The batch files are written to the build folder (i.e., the same folder that holds the output and log files of the build process), and are retained until the next project build. You can use this feature for diagnostic purposes (the contents of each batch file are also copied to the build log).
• The batch files are executed with the current directory set to the build folder, so any file names that you specify should either be fully qualified, or relative to the build folder.
• Tarma QuickInstall uses the COMSPEC environment variable to determine which command processor to use. Therefore, if you have installed an alternate command processor such as JP Software's 4DOS or 4NT, you can take advantage of their extended command syntax in the pre- and post-build actions if the COMSPEC environment variable is set to point to the alternate command processor.
• Command line redirection works as expected. In particular, you can use > and >> to capture output from your commands, if desired.
• You can use project variables as part of the command lines. However, project variables that contain system information lookup (using the syntax <@...>, <%...>, or <#...>; see Project variables for details) directly or indirectly, resolve to empty strings because Tarma QuickInstall does not perform system information lookup during the build process.
• Be sure to quote any file names that include spaces. This also applies to build-time project variables such as <BuildTarget>, which might expand to include spaces. If necessary, inspect the build log or the batch files that Tarma QuickInstall generates if you encounter any problems in this respect.
• During the build process, Tarma QuickInstall opens the build log file with read-only sharing. Therefore, your custom actions cannot write to the build log file and can only read it if they open it with read-only access. Attempts to open the log file with both read and write access (even if only to read it) will fail.

Fields

Pre-build actions

Enter the actions that you want performed before each project build. You should enter them as command lines, similar to the command lines that you would use in a command prompt window.

Post-build actions

Enter the actions that you want performed after each project build. You should enter them as command lines, similar to the command lines that you would use in a command prompt window.

OK

Click this button to confirm the actions and return to the Build page.

Cancel

Click this button to cancel the dialog; any changes that you made to the actions will be discarded.