So we prepared a hiking trip the day before. The weather forecast said “mostly sunny”. Only to find out that the weather was not that great in the morning. Yes, true: Technically the sun is shining, at least above the clouds:
Mostly Sunny? A good day for a hiking tour!
By default, the GNU Linker expects a very special naming scheme for the libraries: the library name has to be surrounded by “lib” and the “.a” extension:
lib<NAME>.a
But what if the library I want to use does not conform to that naming standard?
Non-conforming Library Naming
The benefit of an IDE like Eclipse is: it makes working with projects very easy, as generates make files and it takes and automatically manages the make file(s). But sometimes this might not be what I want because I need greater flexibility and control, or I want to use the same make files for my continues integration and automated testing system. In that case a hand crafted make file is the way to go.
One thing does not exclude the other: This article explains how to use make files with Eclipse with similar comfort as the managed build system in Eclipse, but with the unlimited power of make files:
Makefile Project with Eclipse
It was a very spontaneous hiking tour this Sunday afternoon: a hike up to the Wildspitz mountain and the border between the Canton Schwyz and Zug. Full of beautiful views, flowers and awesome butterflies!
The boarder between the Canton of Schwyz and Canton of Zug is marked with several stones. Below stone No. 18 (dated 1907) near at Langmatt:
Grenzstein Langmatt
NXP has released an updated of their Eclipse based IDE for ARM Cortex-M (Kinetis and LPC) microcontroller: the version v10.0.2 build 411:
MCUXpresso v10.0.2 build 411
A bootloader on a microcontroller is a very useful thing. It allows me to update the firmware in the field if necessary. There are many ways to use and make a bootloader (see “Serial Bootloader for the Freedom Board with Processor Expert“). But such a bootloader needs some space in FLASH, plus it needs to be programmed first on a blank device, so a JTAG programmer is needed. That’s why vendors have started including a ROM bootloader into their devices: the microcontroller comes out of the factory with a bootloader in FLASH. So instead writing my bootloader, I can use the one in the ROM.
FRDM-KL03Z with ROM Bootloader
And as with everything, there are pros and cons of that approach.
The Karwendel is a mountain range on the border between Germany and Austria.
View down to Mittenwald from Karwendel (click to enlarge)
If you are like me – someone who always wants to know what the compiler generates for a piece of source code – then have a look at the Compiler Explorer: A web-based compiler code comparison tool:
Compiler Comparison
Thanks to Matt Godbolt, I can select different compilers and compare their output for a given source code. Very useful to see the impact of a compiler optimization or to compare different GCC compiler versions.
Happy Comparing 🙂
I’m pleased to announce that a new release of the McuOnEclipse components is available in SourceForge, with the following major changes and updates:
SourceForge
Commuting to work can be boring. I’m gifted that I can use the Swiss train system, and I wrote about the “10 Reasons Why I Love my Train Commute“.
Train at Immensee Station
Brendon asked if I need more reasons. I don’t. But there are indeed three more reasons I can share from my work commute today: Three lakes in three minutes. First Lake Lucerne on the right side, then Lake Zug on the left and finally Lake Lauerz on the right. Enjoy the ride:
Happy Commuting 🙂
MCU on Eclipse 