Develop and Debug with CLion

Licensing

• CLion: Use CMU .edu email to get free, renewable 1-year license for CLion Professional Edition
  • If you are having trouble getting a license with your andrew.cmu.edu email account, try creating an email alias and using that: https://www.cmu.edu/computing/services/comm-collab/email-calendar/how-to/emailalias.html

Setup

• In CLion, select Check out from Version Control > Git, clone the repository. Alternatively, if you've already cloned the repository, choose Open and select the top level project directory.
• Go to File > Settings... (CLion > Preferences... on macOS)
  • Go to Build, Execution, Deployment > CMake. Create as many build profiles as you need. We recommend at least the following 2 for developers:
    • For development: Build type: Debug, CMake options: -DTERRIER_USE_ASAN=ON
    • For benchmarking: Build type: Release, CMake options: -DTERRIER_USE_JEMALLOC=ON
• After CLion processes the CMake project files, choose your build target and profile from the drop-down menu at the top of the IDE and build.
  • All the configurations for build targets should be set up properly by default

Customization

These are optional changes but will make CLion's behavior more consistent with our CI process.

• Go to File > Settings... (CLion > Preferences... on macOS) and then Editor > Inspections > C/C++ > General > Clang-Tidy. Uncheck Use IDE settings. This will force CLion to use the project's .clang-tidy file for real-time inspections. Click the link for Specify Clang-Tidy executable and point it to the binary installed by packages.sh. The default CLion-bundled version may provide different warnings.
• Go to File > Settings... (CLion > Preferences... on macOS) and then Editor > Code Style. Check Enable ClangFormat with clangd server. This will force CLion to use the project's .clang-format file for formatting operations.

Build

• For all build targets except for "terrier" you should use the Build button at the top of the IDE (Ctrl+F9), it looks like a green hammer.

Run

• To run terrier select the "terrier" build target and use the Run button (Shift+F10), it looks like a green hammer. The executable for this build target should already be set to the terrier executable.
• To run a specific unit test select that unit test from the drop down menu at the top of the IDE and use the Run button.

Debug

• Use CLion's built-in debugger to set breakpoints and step through the code.
• To debug terrier select the "terrier" build target and use the Debug button (Shift+F9), it looks like a green bug. The executable for this build target should already be set to the terrier executable.
• To debug a specific unit test select that unit test from the drop down menu at the top of the IDE and use the Debug button.

Tips

• CLion caches the CMake project files, so if you add or remove files you'll want to refresh the build settings by going to Tools > CMake > Reset Cache and Reload Project or File > Reload CMake Project.
• If you right click a file then you can use the Git option to do the following:
  • Annotate: This will show the git blame of a file
  • Show History: This will the git commit history of a file