Updated 2007/11/19

Sun Studio 12: Integrated Development Environment (IDE) Readme

  1. Introduction
  2. About the Sun Studio 12 IDE
  3. New and Changed Features
  4. Prerequisite Software
  5. Starting the IDE
  6. Updating the IDE
  7. Configuration Information
  8. Software Corrections
  9. Problems and Workarounds
  10. Limitations and Incompatibilities
  11. Documentation Errata

 

A. Introduction

This document contains information about the Sun Studio IDE.

Product Documentation

 

B. About the Sun Studio 12 IDE

The Sun Studio 12 IDE provides modules for creating, editing, building, debugging, and analyzing the performance of a C, C++, or Fortran application.

 

C. New and Changed Features

D. Prerequisite Software

The Sun Studio IDE requires the following prerequisite software, which is included in the product download file and on the product DVD:

If the IDE cannot find the prerequisite software, it does not start and issues an error message indicating which software is missing. You can install missing prerequisite software using the prepare_system command. For more information, see the System Preparation Tool (prepare_system) readme.

E. Starting the IDE

The command to start the IDE is sunstudio. For details on this command, see the sunstudio(1) man page.

F. Updating the IDE

The IDE's Update Center wizard enables you to update your IDE's installed modules dynamically. When you connect to the Sun Studio Update Center, the IDE checks to see if there are new modules or new versions of already installed modules available. If new or updated modules are available, you can select, download, and install the modules you need.

To add modules from the Update Center:

  1. In the IDE, choose Tools > Update Center.
  2. On the Select Location of Modules page in the Update Center Wizard, select the Sun Studio Update Center and click Next to connect to it.
  3. On the Select Modules to Install page, select a module from the Available Updates and New Modules panel, and click Add to add it to the Include in Install panel. When you have selected all of the modules you want to install, click Next.
  4. Complete the remaining pages of the wizard to install the modules.

If you receive the Unable to Connect to the Update Center Server error message, click OK in the dialog box to close it. Then click the Proxy Configuration button in the wizard and enter a proxy host and port number. After entering the proxy information, click OK to set the values and continue with your update.

By default, the IDE periodically asks checks the Update Center for new updates. You can set the interval or disable the auto-update in the Options window.

To set the frequency with which the IDE checks for updates:

  1. Choose Tools > Options and do one of the following:
    • Click General in the left pane of the Options window.
    • Click Advanced Options in the Options window, expand IDE Configuration > System and select Update Center in the left pane.
  2. Select the update frequency from the Check Period drop-down list.

You can also set the following auto-update properties in the Options window:

To update the Chinese version of the IDE:

If you are updating the Sun Studio software for the Chinese locale, you must register the Chinese Sun Studio Update Center.

  1. In the Sun Studio IDE, choose Tools > Options.
  2. In the Options dialog box, click Advanced Options.
  3. In the IDE Configuration node expand the System node.
  4. Right-click the Autoupdate Types node and choose New > General Update Center.
  5. In the General Update Center dialog box, type Chinese Sun Studio Update Center.
  6. Expand the Autoupdate Types node, select the newly created subnode, type the URL http://gceclub.sun.com.cn/NetBeans/updates/sunstudio/sunstudio12/zh_CN/catalog.xml. in the Server URL property field, and press Enter.
  7. Click Close.

You have now manually registered the Chinese Sun Studio Update Center. To verify that you have done so successfully, choose Tools > Update Center. Your newly registered update center should be included in the list on the Select Location of Modules page of the Update Center Wizard.

G. Configuration Information

The NetBeans 5.5.1 IDE has a default heap size of 128 MB. The Sun Studio 12 IDE runs well with this default setting when you are developing small projects with up to 500 source and header files.

When you are developing larger projects, you will need to increase the heap size. If you get an OutOfMemory exception when developing a large project, the heap size is a likely cause.

You can set the heap size for the Java Virtual Machine (JVM)* on which the NetBeans IDE runs in the netbeans.conf file.

To change the heap size:

  1. Copy the netbeans.conf from the etc folder in the NetBeans installation directory into your NetBeans user directory ($HOME/.netbeans/5.5.1).
  2. In the netbeans.conf file in your user directory, edit the -J-Xmx command line Java startup switch (bolded below) in the netbeans.conf file, and then restart the IDE. 
    # command line switches
netbeans_default_options="-J-Xms32m -J-Xmx128m -J-XX:PermSize=32m
-J-XX:MaxPermSize=96m -J-Xverify:none -J-Dapple.laf.useScreenMenuBar=true"

The recommended heap sizes for NetBeans C/C++ Development Pack for medium and large applications are:

Do not increase the heap size to more than 1 GB.

If you are running the Sun JVM, you can also add the garbage collector switches -J-XX:+UseConcMarkSweepGC (concurrent collector) and -J-XX:+UseParNewGC (parallel collector) to the netbeans.conf file. These options allow the garbage collector to run in parallel with the main execution engine. They might not be supported by non-Sun implementations of the JVM.

For more information on NetBeans switch settings, see the Configuring the IDE section of Using NetBeans IDE 5.5

For more information on NetBeans performance tuning, see Tuning JVM Switches for Performance.

* Note: The terms "Java Virtual Machine" and "JVM" mean a Virtual Machine for the Java(TM) platform.

H. Software Corrections

No new information is available at this time.

 

I. Problems and Workarounds

This section discusses known software problems and possible workarounds for those problems. For updates or patches, check the updated information at http://developers.sun.com/sunstudio/support/.

 

J. Limitations and Incompatibilities

This section discusses limitations and incompatibilities with systems or other software. For last-minute information, see the release notes at http://developers.sun.com/sunstudio/documentation/ss12/release_notes.html

K. Documentation Errata

There is no new information at this time. Additional information might be made available at http://developers.sun.com/sunstudio/

 

Copyright © 2007 Sun Microsystems, Inc. All rights reserved. Use is subject to license terms.