Include header from include dir into lib dir

1

This is probably a dumb question, but I’m having some difficulties understanding PlatformIO lib directory include path. Here is my setup, I have some global header in the include dir, subfolders in the lib dir with my private libraries, like below:

|--include
|  |- global_header.h
|
|--lib
|  |--Foo
|  |  |- Foo.cpp
|  |  |- Foo.h
|
|- platformio.ini
|--src
   |- main.cpp

I want to be able to #include "global_header.h" in both Foo.h and main.cpp. If I just try to compile without changing anything in my platformio.ini, I get the following error:

lib/Foo/Foo.h:6:10: fatal error: global_header.h: No such file or directory

According to this answer, this is the intended behavior, which ok. So I tried to add build_flags = -Iinclude to my platformio.ini, but then I got an unexpected error:

include/global_header.h:5:10: fatal error: ArduinoLog.h: No such file or directory

But ArduinoLog is not a private library, I have lib_deps = thijse/ArduinoLog in my platformio.ini, and it has been working fine until now.

What would be the best approach to solve this? Do I move the global_header file somewhere else? Add another build_flag? I don’t mind rearranging some things if I’m able to use the header file like I stated in the bolded text above.

2

Duplicate of PIO library doesn't see header files in project's include folder - #8 by valeros.

Can also be solved by giving lib/Foo a library.json manifest that adds the project’s include (and optionally src/) folder to include paths of the library. Example. Then no modification in the user’s platformio.ini has to be made.

3

I had tried to add a library.json, but wasn’t using the correct options, so thanks for the example!

It still didn’t solve the problem with ArduinoLog though, I wanted to include the ArduinoLog library through the global header, so I don’t need to include it in every private library, aka:

In global_header.h

#include <ArduinoLog.h>

In lib/Foo.h

#include "global_header.h"
// I would assume I don't need this include here
//#include <ArduinoLog.h>

But I only managed to compile the project by doing exactly that, including ArduinoLog in Foo.h.

4

This probably has to do with the library dependency finder no seeing the include in its scan chain, try in the library.json, try all values of libLDFMode.

5

It turns out apparently I had two problems, one was about include the global header file, and the other was the library dependency finder configuration. By adding both lines to my platformio.ini everything compiled nicely:

build_flags = -Iinclude
lib_ldf_mode = chain+

I found this solution better than setting this configurations in a library.json file because my project is going to have several private libs, so instead of having this duplicated in every private lib, I’d rather have one global configuration.

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