chore: use nushell as a task runner

[2bndy5]

This is completely optional. It allows simplifying (local) dev workflow by using nushell (isolated) as a task runner via nur.

Requirements

nur needs to be installed locally.

Note

nushell is compiled as the backend implementation of nur.
Therefore, nushell does not need to be installed.

Windows

It is easier to just install nur from the github release assets.

Linux

Unfortunately, nur needs to be built from it's rust sources.

1. Install rust with rustup and follow the prompts. If installing on a RPi, then I recommend selecting a "minimal" install configuration (instead of the "default" configuration) to avoid wasting disk space. The minimal configuration can also be set later with rustup set profile minimal, but the std lib docs will still exist on disk until upgrading to the next rust release.
2. Install nur from source using cargo install nur --locked. The --locked option is important (uses the nur project's cargo.locked manifest).

Using nur

Once nur is installed you can list the tasks defined in the file named "nurfile".

task name	what it does
nur docs	Builds docs with doxygen. This task also accepts an --open (or -o) option (switch) to open the built docs in your default browser.
nur examples	Builds the Linux examples. Built binaries will reside in examples_linux/build directory.
nur fmt	Runs clang-format (v14) on changed C++ sources. This task also accepts an --all (or -a) option (switch) to run clang-format on all C++ sources.
nur lib	Builds and installs the RF24 library using cmake
nur pico	Builds the Pico SDK examples. Built binaries will reside in examples_pico/build directory.
nur py	Install the python wrapper. Requires the lib (& boost.python) to be installed.

Tip

All tasks except nur fmt accept a --dirty (or -d) flag to reuse an existing build env. If no build env exists, then one will be configured.

The tasks that use CMake (nur lib, nur examples, and nur pico) also forward any additional arguments passed (except -d, --dirty) in to cmake. This allows further configuring the build as needed.

# build Pico SDK examples for the Adafruit QtPy board
nur pico -DPICO_BOARD=adafruit_qtpy_rp2040

Reminder

All tasks have their own --help (-h) option.

nur fmt -h

nur version 0.16.0+0.104.0
Project path: C:\dev\RF24
Executing task: fmt

Run clang-format on C++ files.

By default, only changed C++ sources are formatted (uses `git status`).
The clang-format version is expected to be v14.
If v14 is not found, then an error is thrown.

Usage:
  > nur fmt {flags}

Flags:
  -a, --all: Format all C++ sources
  -h, --help: Display the help message for this command

Input/output types:
  ╭───┬───────┬────────╮
  │ # │ input │ output │
  ├───┼───────┼────────┤
  │ 0 │ any   │ any    │
  ╰───┴───────┴────────╯


Task execution successful

[TMRh20]

I don't fully understand this but approving anyway. :p

[2bndy5]

I admit, the syntax of the nurfile is not easy to comprehend. But basically, you install nur and use it anywhere within the repo.

Instead of doing this to build the lib and examples (from scratch)

mkdir build && cd build
cmake ..
make
sudo make install
cd ../examples_linux
mkdir build && cd build
cmake ..
make
./gettingStarted

You can just use nur:

nur lib -d
nur examples -d
./examples_linux/build/gettingStarted

I added the optional -d (or --dirty) switches to speed up consecutive builds, but -d is ignored if there is no previous build directory to use.

Run clang-format on any changed C++ files:

nur fmt

Run clang-format on every C++ file (regardless of git status info):

nur fmt -a

[2bndy5]

I just found out nushell has early support for running parallel jobs. Using this feature I'm able to clang-format 100 files in about 1 sec (was over 2 sec without parallelism before). 💯