zephyrproject-rtos/zephyr

Deprecate qemu.cmake in favour of a qemu runner backend

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#5,501 opened on Dec 28, 2017

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 (9 comments) (0 reactions) (1 assignee)C (15,249 stars) (9,144 forks)batch import
EnhancementGood first issuearea: Build Systemarea: Flashing

Description

Hi,

I suspect we want to eventually rename/alias 'flash' to 'run'. And treat qemu emulation as just another runner backend. I believe this would make it easier for us to maintain the runner and qemu infrastructure, and would make it easier for us to keep the user-interface for flashing and running consistent.

A qemu backend would also allow us to move all the symlink/fifo/pipehandling out of qemu.cmake and into a python runner backend.

It is not clear how difficult it would be to do this.

Contributor guide

Tech stack
cpython
Domain
build systemdeveloper experiencetooling
Issue type
refactor
DifficultyEstimated implementation difficulty for a new contributor, from 1 for very small changes to 5 for expert-level work.
4
Estimated timeA rough time range for an experienced contributor to investigate, implement, test, and prepare a pull request.
3-5 days
Activity statusHow available the issue appears right now: fresh, active, stale, blocked, or waiting on maintainer input.
stale
ClarityHow clearly the issue explains the expected change, acceptance criteria, and next step.
mostly clear
Prerequisites
CMakePythonZephyr build systemQEMU basics
Newbie friendlinessA 1-100 score estimating how approachable this issue is for first-time contributors.
20
Research direction
Examine qemu.cmake in the Zephyr repository to understand current symlink/fifo/pipe handling. Review discussion in issue #5501, particularly comments from maintainers regarding the desired runner backend interface. Investigate existing runner backends in the Python scripts directory to model a new QEMU backend. Propose a plan to move QEMU specific logic out of CMake and into Python, ensuring backward compatibility for the 'flash' command.