Introduction

Movable Nios projects, what's this?

If you move your Nios eclipse project to an other location and want to change or build the BSP project, you will get an error like this:

Here the project was moved from "C:\my_design" to "D:\my_design". Unfortunately some paths are coded absolute in the project files. The problem is located in the following files:

• create-this-bsp
• settings.bsp

In my example the problem of "create-this-bsp" looks like:

SOPC_DIR=C:/my_design/de1_7seg_bpc/hw/
SOPC_FILE=C:/my_design/de1_7seg_bpc/hw/system.sopcinfo

And the problem of "settings.bsp" looks like:

<BspGeneratedLocation>C:\my_design\de1_7seg_bpc\sw\de1_7seg_bsp</BspGeneratedLocation>
<SopcDesignFile>C:\my_design\de1_7seg_bpc\hw\system.sopcinfo</SopcDesignFile>

To solve this problem, a little program is needed.

Hardware

For this project an Altera DE1 Board was used:

Software

The problem could not be solved with the Nios SBT. Therefore I decide to create a small program which checks both projects files and correct the problem.

But there exist one little limitation. The project structure must look like:

The limitation is that the project must use two folders, hw and sw. The folder name must be lowercase. The hw folder contains the HDL part and sw the software project. If you use this structe, the problem can be solved with bsp-path-check.exe.

Copy bsp-path-check.exe in the BSP folder, here de1_7seg_bsp. Start the program with a double click, a backup will be created from the two project files and the absolute path will be corrected.

THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS "AS IS" AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COPYRIGHT OWNER OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.

Make a copy of your project before you use bsp-path-check.exe

After the use of bsp-path-check.exe you must generate the BSP again. Wait, there exist an other pitfall too. For the BSP project location: a relative path must be used. In my example it looks like:

The bsp-path-check.exe and the example project can be found in the download section.
bsp-path-check.exe is part for the example project too.

Download

bsp-path-check_20140503 (18 KB) md5sum of the exe: f3e8df953f1851a929c968f7065c3bbb

de1_7seg_bpc_20140503.zip (99 KB)