Application development primer docs broken by west merge

[mbolivar]

Describe the bug

The documentation recommends creating an application and build directory somewhere in the home directory. This is likely outside the west installation, so running commands like ninja flash or west flash in the build directory are unlikely to work.

To Reproduce

https://docs.zephyrproject.org/latest/application/application.html

Expected behavior

Docs should lead to working apps

Impact

Showstopper for v1.14; these docs must work

Screenshots or console output

E.g.:

"Create an application directory on your workstation computer, outside of the Zephyr base directory. Usually you’ll want to create it somewhere under your user’s home directory."

Environment (please complete the following information):

• OS: N/A
• Toolchain N/A
• Commit SHA or Version used e.g. b73c9b3

Additional context
N/A

[carlescufi]

Well that is actually a major problem I had not foreseen. Do we need to require all external apps to be inside the zephyr installation? Can we make ninja flash work based on ZEPHYR_BASE and $ZEPHYR_BASE..\.west instead?

[nashif]

i was surprised by this as well, discussed this briefly on #west yesterday.

[mbolivar]

Can we make ninja flash work based on ZEPHYR_BASE and $ZEPHYR_BASE..\.west instead?

I don't like the idea of using ZEPHYR_BASE because that could point to the wrong tree if users use zephyr-env.sh.

The west issue is zephyrproject-rtos/west#175; please refer there for some discussion of the solutions.

[SebastianBoe]

I don't know about "west flash".

But for "ninja flash", I would assume that since the flashing-related code is in-tree we could have some kind of in-tree frontend to invoke it. (Assuming we aren't able to solve "west flash").

[mbolivar]

But for "ninja flash", I would assume that since the flashing-related code is in-tree we could have some kind of in-tree frontend to invoke it. (Assuming we aren't able to solve "west flash").

Yeah, you read my mind. I'm going to try that. Monorepo "default" flashing and debugging can then continue to work.

[mbolivar]

But for "ninja flash", I would assume that since the flashing-related code is in-tree we could have some kind of in-tree frontend to invoke it. (Assuming we aren't able to solve "west flash").

Yeah, you read my mind. I'm going to try that. Monorepo "default" flashing and debugging can then continue to work.

This turns out to be impossible. The extension commands rely too much on modules inside west, such as west.cmake. So we really can't build this in-tree frontend.

[SebastianBoe]

That's a shame.