How include paths work

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How include paths work

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lpcware-support
Senior Contributor I

When you add a directory under the "Directories" section of the compiler, you are setting the compilers "-I" option.

"-I" adds a directory to the compiler search path for include files. When the compiler tries to locate header files, it will search each directory in the search path for the exact filename provided in the #include directive.

For example, if your project contains the following directory structure (at the root of the project):

my_headers
  my_header.h
  sub_dir
     my_sub_header.h

You can add the following to the "Directories" compiler setting

  • "../my_headers" ('../' is required as projects are built in a subdirectory of the project root)

In your source, you can:

    #include "my_header.h"
    #include "sub_dir/my_sub_header.h"

Alternatively, you can add the following to the "Directories" compiler setting

  • "../my_headers"
  • "../my_headers/sub_dir" ('../' is required as projects are built in a subdirectory of the project root)

In your source, you can:

    #include "my_header.h"
    #include "my_sub_header.h"

In LPCXpresso IDE, you can specify Include and Library paths as:

  • absolute paths
    • e.g. c:/path/to/directory
  • relative paths
    • e.g. ../relative/directory
  • workspace path
    • e.g. ${workspace_loc:/project/path}
  • path based on an environment variable
    • e.g. ${env_var:ENVIRONMENT_VARIABLE}/path

Note: You should take care to always use forward slashes in paths specifications even when working under Windows, i.e. use / not \ .

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