Writing Processor Expert components is not always completely independent of the compiler and underlying microcontroller. In many cases I need to know the compiler for which the source code is generated. Or I need to know on which CPU architecture the code shall run. For this I need to know the compiler and the CPU family.

CPU Family

To know the architecture, the %CPUfamily variable can be checked in the component code. The following values I’m aware of:

• “Kinetis”: Freescale Cortex-M family.
• “ColdFireV1”: ColdFire V1 family.
• “MCF”: ColdFire V2-4 family.
• “HCS08” and “HC08”: HC(S)08 family of microcontrollers.
• “RS08”: RS08 family of microcontrollers.
• “HCS12”, “HC12” and “HCS12X” : HC(S)12(X) family of microcontrollers.
• “56800”: Hawk/DSC controller family.

Following example illustrates the usage (taken from the FreeRTOS component):

%if (CPUfamily = "ColdFireV1") | (CPUfamily = "MCF")
unsigned portLONG uxCriticalNesting = 0x9999UL;
%elif (CPUfamily = "HCS08") | (CPUfamily = "HC08") | (CPUfamily = "HCS12") | (CPUfamily = "HCS12X") | (CPUfamily = "56800")
volatile unsigned portBASE_TYPE uxCriticalNesting;
%elif (CPUfamily = "Kinetis")
/* Each task maintains its own interrupt status in the critical nesting variable. */
static unsigned portBASE_TYPE uxCriticalNesting = 0xaaaaaaaa;
%else
#error "undefined target %CPUfamily!"
%endif

A good trick is as well to have that #error statement as shown above: that way I will know the CPUfamily if I have missed it.

Compiler

The other important thing to know is the compiler. The compiler is a property of the CPU component:

Compiler in CPU Properties

To check on the compiler the macro %Compiler can be used. Following values are known to me:

• “MetrowerksHC08CC” and “MetrowerksHCS08CC”: HIWARE/Metrowerks/Freescale HC(S)08 compiler.
• “CodeWarriorRS08”: Freescale RS08 compiler.
• “MetrowerksHC12CC” and “MetrowerksHC12XCC”: HIWARE/Metrowerks/Freescale HC(S)12(X) compiler.
• “GNUC”: GNU gcc compiler, I use it in combination with %CPUfamily.
• “CodeWarriorColdFireV1”: Metrowerks/Freescale ColdFire V1 compiler.
• “CodeWarriorMCF”: Metrowerks ColdFire V2-V4 compiler.
• “CodeWarriorARM”: Freescale ARM/Kinetis compiler.
• “MetrowerksDSP”: Metrowerks/Freescale DSC/Hawk compiler.

Below is a piece of code showing the usage of it:

%- **********************************************************************
%- Macros for compiler support
%- **********************************************************************
%if (%Compiler = "CodeWarriorColdFireV1") | (%Compiler = "CodeWarriorMCF") | (%Compiler = "CodeWarriorARM") | (%Compiler = "MetrowerksDSP")
%define COMPILER_MW
%elif %Compiler = "CodeWarriorRS08CC"
%elif %Compiler = "MetrowerksHC08CC"
%elif %Compiler = "MetrowerksHCS08CC"
%elif %Compiler = "MetrowerksHC12CC"
%elif %Compiler = "MetrowerksHC12XCC"
%elif %Compiler = "GNUC"
%else
%warning "Unknown compiler %Compiler"
%endif

Happy Compiling 🙂