CLion + Arduino = CLuino

This plugin adds run configurations to CLion that enable you to build and upload arduino sketches. CLuino uses the arduino-builder project that is also used by the arduino ide. This way you can write your code in CLion, and compile and upload it using the official compiler-configuration provided by the Arduino Project.

The vision of this project is to make Arduino development in CLion just as easy as in the Arduino IDE.

Getting started

First install the offical arduino ide and CLion. Than download the latest release CLuino.jar from this project's releases page. Install the downloaded jar as plugin in CLion. See this tutorial for instructions.

Next, create a new project in CLion. Select language level c++11 and replace the content of main.cpp with some arduino-compatible code. For example:

void setup() {
    Serial.begin(9600);
}

void loop(){
    Serial.println(millis());
    delay(1000);
}

WARNING: ALL DEFAULT VALUES ARE SETUP FOR THE ARDUINO UNO. TO USE OTHER BOARDS PLEASE READ THE ADVANCED CONFIGURATION SECTION

Now go into run configurations and add a arduino->compile configuration. Select the main file of your program. In this example this is main.cpp. All other configurations should work out of the box. The configurations hardwares or tools are often automaticly found on your filesystem. If these fields are not automaticly filled in than you must mannually select the hardwares and tools location. See the chapter Advanced Configuration for more information on how to do this. When everything is configured you can run the run-configuration!

If you see no errors in the console than the configuration is correct. To see the build results, look in the out/arduino-build directory. There are two .hex files. One with and one without the bootloader. These hex files can be uploaded to an arduino.

To upload the hex file, create a new arduino->upload run configuration. Select which hex file you want to upload and the serial device that is connected to the arduino. The avrdude config path shoud be automaticly detected on your filesystem. But if this is not the case you have to select this file mannualy. See the chapter Advanced Configuration for more information on how to do this.

Now you are setup to compile and upload your code in a professional ide!

If you do not want to press two buttons (compile and upload) every time you change your code, you can add a 'before-launch' action on the upload run configuraiton. Select 'run another configuration' and choose the corresponding compile run configuration. This way running the upload configration will first compile the code.

Code Support

CLion will not understand things like Serial.println() or millis(). As you might have noticed, CLuino only adds run configurations. These run configurations are fully seperate from the code intelligence that CLion performs. If you want code intelligence like auto-completion and code checking you have to add the arduino header files to your project. There are two ways to do this. The easy way and the hard way. Your choise.

The easy way

1. Download Arduino.h and add this file to your project in a directory called library.
2. In your CMakeList.txt after project() add the following line: include_directories("library")
3. In every file you want to use arduino-code include the arduino header file using the line #include <Arduino.h>

The hard way

Do some dificult stuff in your CMakeList.txt to include all header files in the project. If you have figured out a way to make this work, please contribute and add some tutorial here!

Advanced Configration

Compile

//todo

Upload

avrude config file

The uploading is provied by avrdude. This configuration file is passed to avrdude and contains settings for avr devices. The arduino ide generates this file when uploading a sketch for the first time. The file can than be found in the folllowing directory: ~/.arduino15/packages/arduino/tools/avrdude/6.3.0-arduino9/etc/avrdude.conf. the numbers in this example might be different on your machine because of version differences. This should not be a problem.

You can also mannualy download the avrdude.conf from the Arduino Repository. Just put it somewhere on your system and reference to it. This should work.

Different boards

//todo

FAQ

compile error: arduino: Unknown package

The compiler can not find the package named arduino that contains the board specific build configurations. The first part of the board code (arduino:avr:uno) references a hardware package. The hardware packages are specified in the Hardware section. So this error means that the arduino package cannot be found in the specified Hardware folders.

To fix this you can ether specify a different board package code (for example archlinux-arduino:avr:uno on Arch Linux) that actually exists or install the package that is needed.

Installing a new package can easely be done through the Arduino IDE. Go into Tools -> Boards -> Board Manager and install the board package that you want to use. The package is installed in the following directory: ~/.arduino15/packages/. Make sure you add this directory in the Hardwares section so it is picked up by the compiler.