Using CLion for Easier Coding with Pi Pico and C/C++

RE: Using CLion for Easier Coding with Pi Pico and C/C++

shabaz — Sat, 07 Mar 2026 04:11:16 GMT

Just updated the blog with steps I took in 2026 to get CLion working with Pi Pico. It's a little easier than the previous documented steps.

RE: Using CLion for Easier Coding with Pi Pico and C/C++

shabaz — Thu, 04 Sep 2025 13:18:19 GMT

Just upgraded to the latest CLion, and there's a new mode you can switch to, called CLion Nova, which is supposed to have some improvements, but so far looks and feels the same!

But, interestingly, just noticed this:

(source web page).

Also, as part of the recent updates, there is better support specifically for ESP32 projects that use ESP-IDF. Also, faster remote development, although it always seemed speedy before.

Example screenshot of CLion Nova with a Pi Pico project:

RE: Using CLion for Easier Coding with Pi Pico and C/C++

rockethm — Tue, 14 Jan 2025 21:20:07 GMT

Hi, I've tried this on two separate windows machines and can't get it working. When I hit reload project it gives me the following:

C:\Users\Andre\AppData\Local\Programs\CLion\bin\cmake\win\x64\bin\cmake.exe -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Debug -DCMAKE_MAKE_PROGRAM=C:/Users/Andre/AppData/Local/Programs/CLion/bin/ninja/win/x64/ninja.exe -G Ninja "-DCMAKE_C_COMPILER=C:\Program Files (x86)\Arm GNU Toolchain arm-none-eabi\13.3 rel1\bin\arm-none-eabi-gcc.exe" "-DCMAKE_CXX_COMPILER=C:\Program Files (x86)\Arm GNU Toolchain arm-none-eabi\13.3 rel1\bin\arm-none-eabi-g++.exe" -S C:\Users\Andre\CLionProjects\untitled -B C:\Users\Andre\CLionProjects\untitled\cmake-build-debug
-- The C compiler identification is GNU 13.3.1
-- The CXX compiler identification is GNU 13.3.1
-- Detecting C compiler ABI info
-- Detecting C compiler ABI info - failed
-- Check for working C compiler: C:/Program Files (x86)/Arm GNU Toolchain arm-none-eabi/13.3 rel1/bin/arm-none-eabi-gcc.exe
-- Check for working C compiler: C:/Program Files (x86)/Arm GNU Toolchain arm-none-eabi/13.3 rel1/bin/arm-none-eabi-gcc.exe - broken
CMake Error at C:/Users/Andre/AppData/Local/Programs/CLion/bin/cmake/win/x64/share/cmake-3.30/Modules/CMakeTestCCompiler.cmake:67 (message):
The C compiler

    "C:/Program Files (x86)/Arm GNU Toolchain arm-none-eabi/13.3 rel1/bin/arm-none-eabi-gcc.exe"

is not able to compile a simple test program.

It fails with the following output:

    Change Dir: 'C:/Users/Andre/CLionProjects/untitled/cmake-build-debug/CMakeFiles/CMakeScratch/TryCompile-kxnyro'

    Run Build Command(s): C:/Users/Andre/AppData/Local/Programs/CLion/bin/ninja/win/x64/ninja.exe -v cmTC_8436a
    [1/2] C:\PROGRA~2\ARMGNU~1\133167~1.3RE\bin\AR19DD~1.EXE   -fdiagnostics-color=always -o CMakeFiles/cmTC_8436a.dir/testCCompiler.c.obj -c C:/Users/Andre/CLionProjects/untitled/cmake-build-debug/CMakeFiles/CMakeScratch/TryCompile-kxnyro/testCCompiler.c
    [2/2] C:\windows\system32\cmd.exe /C "cd . && C:\PROGRA~2\ARMGNU~1\133167~1.3RE\bin\AR19DD~1.EXE   CMakeFiles/cmTC_8436a.dir/testCCompiler.c.obj -o cmTC_8436a.exe -Wl,--out-implib,libcmTC_8436a.dll.a -Wl,--major-image-version,0,--minor-image-version,0 -lkernel32 -luser32 -lgdi32 -lwinspool -lshell32 -lole32 -loleaut32 -luuid -lcomdlg32 -ladvapi32 && cd ."
    FAILED: cmTC_8436a.exe
    C:\windows\system32\cmd.exe /C "cd . && C:\PROGRA~2\ARMGNU~1\133167~1.3RE\bin\AR19DD~1.EXE   CMakeFiles/cmTC_8436a.dir/testCCompiler.c.obj -o cmTC_8436a.exe -Wl,--out-implib,libcmTC_8436a.dll.a -Wl,--major-image-version,0,--minor-image-version,0 -lkernel32 -luser32 -lgdi32 -lwinspool -lshell32 -lole32 -loleaut32 -luuid -lcomdlg32 -ladvapi32 && cd ."
    C:/PROGRA~2/ARMGNU~1/133167~1.3RE/bin/../lib/gcc/arm-none-eabi/13.3.1/../../../../arm-none-eabi/bin/ld.exe: unrecognized option '--major-image-version'
    C:/PROGRA~2/ARMGNU~1/133167~1.3RE/bin/../lib/gcc/arm-none-eabi/13.3.1/../../../../arm-none-eabi/bin/ld.exe: use the --help option for usage information
    collect2.exe: error: ld returned 1 exit status
    ninja: build stopped: subcommand failed.



CMake will not be able to correctly generate this project.
Call Stack (most recent call first):
CMakeLists.txt:2 (project)

-- Configuring incomplete, errors occurred!

[Finished]

I have no idea what I should do to make it work

RE: Using CLion for Easier Coding with Pi Pico and C/C++

shabaz — Tue, 06 Aug 2024 06:17:29 GMT

Tthe debugging (with PicoProbe) with CLion was already pretty good. I don't know if this was possible before, but all registers can be easily examined.

The screenshot here shows the GPIO0 register value and the meaning of the bits within.

To see that, click on the Peripherals button while debugging, and then navigate to the rp2040.svd file:

A list of peripherals will be shown. I clicked on the top-left check-box, to enable checks in all the boxes.

RE: Using CLion for Easier Coding with Pi Pico and C/C++

shabaz — Tue, 06 Aug 2024 05:55:47 GMT

I have not tried much with it so far, but decided to give the latest CLion 2024 a go.

The current list price is £79 (for a permanent license, even though it states 'yearly'; see 'fallback license' on their webpage for details), but there are many ways to get a significant discount, or even a free yearly license, I had a 40% discount so the total was £56.88 including taxes.

One new feature that immediately looks good, is that the first line in the editor pane indicates the beginning of the function, so that even with large code files, you always know which function you're looking at, and its parameters.

I've updated the blog post to describe how to configure the new CLion, but in a nutshell:

(a) Install the Pico setup for Windows.

(b) In CLion File->Settings, find the Toolchains, and add one called System, and configure as shown in the screenshot below.

That's it, you should now be able to build code by clicking on the hammer icon. However, for existing code that was built earlier CLion versions, you might need to click on Tools->CMake->Reset CMake Cache and Reload Project first.

RE: Using CLion for Easier Coding with Pi Pico and C/C++

Jan Cumps — Tue, 01 Nov 2022 13:48:00 GMT

I'm going to try this out today. Similar setup with Windows and PicoProbe.

I have this running on VSCode, and can compare the "development" experience.

RE: Using CLion for Easier Coding with Pi Pico and C/C++

phoenixcomm — Fri, 22 Jul 2022 15:51:22 GMT

Nice

RE: Using CLion for Easier Coding with Pi Pico and C/C++

michaelkellett — Fri, 22 Jul 2022 08:47:36 GMT

Thanks Shabaz, interesting.

How do you debug the Pi Pico from CLion ?

The strength of the Keil ARM tools is the tight and effective integration of the ARM on chip hardware debugging - it would be nice to get close that for £68 per year rather than nearly £2k.

RE: Using CLion for Easier Coding with Pi Pico and C/C++

DAB — Thu, 21 Jul 2022 18:37:05 GMT

Great post.

Well done.

RE: Using CLion for Easier Coding with Pi Pico and C/C++

shabaz — Thu, 21 Jul 2022 13:09:51 GMT

Hi Andrew and Colin,

Thanks for the feedback!

I think for a free alternative, VS Code is extremely impressive, and it has the best remote file implementation I've seen, which is invaluable for developers.

For coding for the Pico, VS Code requires a more setup, and I still find I need to use the command-line to do the build tasks. I'm perfectly fine with that, but I'm not sure all would be (in the earlier blog post, which focussed on using Visual Code, that was a common response, that it was too complicated to set up), whereas with CLion, there's only a one-liner that needs to be typed to set the SDK path, and the graphical tool will handle everything by itself.

All these modern tools do a very impressive job searching through the code files or hierarchy, to understand identifiers and types, for better error-checking while you type, and for navigating through the code.

I'm currently working on a project where I'm pulling in reasonably large volumes of third party code which I am not familiar with, so having an IDE with the code structure and code navigation support helps loads. CLion automatically checks what I'm typing matches both the Pico SDK function and type definitions, as well as all the functions and types in the libraries I'm pulling in, and I didn't need to do anything to set that up. Visual Code can do that, but not with the way I have it set up. It just takes longer to set things up with VS Code since there are so many extensions and options, and at some point I just work with what I have, since it's good enough. But for a complex project, there's no doubt that hours/days/weeks of effort would be saved, so the cost of the tool becomes trivial. I purchased UltraEdit licenses for quite a few years simply because (at the time) it was ahead of any other text editor, and it improved productivity on a work project. An hour saved paid for a year of UltraEdit. I don't use it now, because other editors have overtaken it.

In the example below, the function f_open is in a separate library of code, and I'll get immediate information about what each parameter to it is. If I get the type wrong, the box will indicate that (as shown with the red arrow).

I'm thinking how I'll write up my project. If I ever want to expect someone to build it themselves, I'll have to make a couple of suggestions, because it's non-trivial to set up the environment for most IDEs. I might make a free suggestion that uses the command-line, and another that uses Visual Code since I've already written up the process for that, and perhaps CLion since that's easy to initially set up and use.

RE: Using CLion for Easier Coding with Pi Pico and C/C++

BigG — Thu, 21 Jul 2022 10:55:12 GMT

One of the considerations on choice of IDE is price of course. Free is always good - as such CLion is probably a non starter for me. And then the other consideration I make is how well the IDE works on a single monitor screen, like a laptop screen, for example, or does it only really work well when you have a large monitor or multiple monitors. So for example, while I've come to like Eclipse IDE I find it is better suited with a large single monitor or multiple monitors, while something like Arduino IDE, for example, and some of the really simplied IDE's like Code::Blocks and VSCode you can get away with working on a laptop. Still none of these really deliver.

Another IDE, which I find works very well is MBed Studio. This is built off https://theia-ide.org/ and I find it much better than VSCode which has the automation curse... as in, there is simply too many interruptions with VSCode expecting this and that as you work. I personally find that very annoying.

One I have not tried, but maybe others have, is QT Creator.

RE: Using CLion for Easier Coding with Pi Pico and C/C++

Andrew J — Thu, 21 Jul 2022 09:22:45 GMT

I’ve used Jetbrains tools in the past and they are good, just a little expensive with their yearly pricing or subscription options. I’ve been using VS Code a lot recently and that’s excellent but as you say, it does take some getting used to because it requires setting up with extensions. I’ve always found Eclipse to be a bit “meh!”, not because it’s a poor product, I just find its UX confusing and it’s never obvious how best to set it up for a specific target dev environment. Just me of course as it’s extremely popular! It makes you appreciate these tools when you’re forced to use something that is “adequate” such as Workshop4 by 4dSystems for use with their LCDs.