Thanks for that description Leland, I like the way you've laid out the command line options, very clear.
I'm reasonably happy with makefiles and don't use the IDE much but I still like to know more about how it works.
the .o files of the core are merged into a single archive (core.a) file using AVR-AR.
Every time or just after a new install?
After adding the #include, the Arduino preprocessor creates a function prototype for each functions defined within the {sketchName}.cpp file.
Coding Badly mentioned this the other day in another thread. This would explain why my 3000-line program that compiles in seconds outside the IDE takes (and I kid you not) 2-3 minutes or longer when compiled with the IDE. I looked at the processes with task manager and it's all Java (the IDE I assume) then 2 seconds of the compiler.
Is there any way to turn that feature off?
-mmcu={boardPreferences.get("build.mcu")}
This and similar constructs I don't understand. Does this cause AVR-xxx to read the "boards.txt" file to get the parameter. If so where does the program get the filename from. Or is this parsed by the IDE and the correct value inserted in the command line?
Rob