Why do I get errors from Make when trying to Build my application with RVD?

Note 1: This FAQ applies to RealView Debugger (RVD) v1.8.1 and earlier as well as the RealView Developer Kit (RVDK) Suites.

Note 2: The RVD project manager was deprecated in RVD v1.8.1 and is not included in RealView Development Suite (RVDS) v3.0 or later.

RVD for Windows attempts to use whatever the preferred command shell is on a machine; it does this by looking at the SHELL environment variable, and will use whatever shell is referred to there. If the SHELL variable is not set (which is the usual case on Windows) then the COMSPEC variable will be used instead which points to the normal windows shell (cmd.exe or command.exe).

Many shells are not compatible with the RVD make scripts which can result in errors of various types, including;

1. Missing backslashes in paths

     make -f calendar_DebugRel.mk  all
     c:progra~1arm vctprograms2.1328win_32~1armcc -c month.c -g --dwarf2 -O1 -o DebugRelmonth.o
     c:progra~1armrvctprograms2.1328win_32~1armcc: not found
     make:  Error code 255, while making 'DebugRelmonth.o'
     *** Command exited with error or warning: 255

2. syntax error: got EOF, expecting Word

     make -f hello_DebugRel.mk  rebuild
     for %d in ( DebugRelhello.o DebugRelhello.axf none.lib) do if exist %d del %d
     syntax error: got EOF, expecting Word
     make:  Error code 129, while making 'clean'
     *** Command exited with error or warning: 255

3. No such file or directory

     make:  Error -- inash: No such file or directory

There are two solutions to this problem:

1. If no other program on your system uses the SHELL variable then you could unset it (however if set, it is likely that it is or was required by a program)

2. Update the startup.mk script. This script is processed before the RVD build script and sets various options including the choice of shell. For a normal installation the startup.mk script is located at

   C:Program FilesARMRVDCore<version><build>win_32-pentiumetcstartup.mk

   where version and build will be something like 1.6, 1.6.1194, 1.7283 or 1.8554

   Please make a backup of the default startup.mk file and then download the below patch which uses the shell referred to in COMSPEC by default.

    Replacement startup.mk