Using make to build and deploy LeJOS programs on the EV3

As discussed earlier my aim is to automate the repetitive nature of the edit-build-deploy-run cycle for programming the EV3 using LeJOS. To that end I set up build.gradle to build the project from the command-line as explained here. Furthermore I set up wifi on the EV3 (using a usb dongle). The next step was to edit ~/.ssh/config and add an entry for the EV3:

  Host ev3

      User root
      HostName 192.168.1.16
      IdentityFile ~/.ssh/abid_ev3

Note: Since the wifi setup on the EV3 is DHCP (not static) the IP address is liable to change, in which event one has to modify ~/.ssh/config accordingly.

The next step is to create a Makefile in your project root. Here is a link to the one I'm using for my "Rover" project. Note the extensive use of PHONY and EMPTY targets to ensure that build and scp tasks are only performed when needed. make once correctly set up takes care of the dependencies. I only need to issue make run from the terminal and the source is compiled and the jar file copied to the EV3 only if needed. Sweet and simple, just the way I like it.

You can take a look at the complete Rover source code on github. There you will also find a number of other repos for my various LeJOS EV3 projects.