Invoking Command-Line Tools

To compile, assemble, link, or perform some other programming task with the CodeWarrior command-line tools, you type a command at a command line's prompt. This command specifies the tool you want to run, what options to use while the tool runs, and what files the tool should operate on.

The form of a command to run a command-line tool is

  tool options files   

where tool is the name of the CodeWarrior command-line tool to invoke, options is a list of zero or more options that specify to the tool what operation it should perform and how it should be performed, and files is a list of files zero or more files that the tool should operate on.

The CodeWarrior command-line tools are:

• mwasmcf.exe (coldfire assembler) - the assembler translate asm files into object files
• mwccmcf.exe (coldfire compiler) - the compiler translates C/C++ compilation units into object files.
• mwldmcf.exe (coldfire linker) - the linker binds object files to create executables or libraries.

Which options and files you should specify depend on what operation you want the tool to perform.

The tool then performs the operation on the files you specify. If the tool is successful it simply finishes its operation and a new prompt appears at the command line. If the tool encounters problems it reports these problems as text messages on the command-line before a new prompt appears.

Scripts that automate the process to build a piece of software contain commands to invoke command-line tools. For example, the make tool, a common software development tool, uses scripts to manage dependencies among source code files and invoke command-line compilers, assemblers and linkers as needed, much like the CodeWarrior IDE's project manager.