Category Archives: Tips & Tricks

Hot-Sync: Attach, Connect & Download

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Usually I compile my sources, link it and pass it to the debugger for downloading it to the target. And ‘downloading’ means for me: flashing to the target (RAM debugging is something for the non-hardcore programmers ;-)). But there are more options than only downloading and flashing. There is definitely more which helps me to do post-mortem (yes, I *love* Latin :cool:) debugging.

Downloading means to me that the debugger will program my application into the device, then loads the symbolics (debug information, source file information, …) and then I debug my application. Looking at the ‘Debug As’ options, there is as well Attach and Connect:

Debug as Attach, Connect and Download

Debug as Attach, Connect and Download

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Hovering and Debugging

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Eclipse provides in the Editor view great tool tips (called ‘hovers’) which shows what is behind a macro: I can move my mouse over it, and it shows me the content behind it:

Macro Expansion Hover in Editor View

Macro Expansion Hover in Editor View

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A Library with ARM gcc and Eclipse

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When I create a new bare-board project with the Eclipse based CodeWarrior 10.3 for my FRDM-KL25Z board and GNU gcc, then the ‘Library’ option is grayed out:

Library Option in New Project Wizard

Library Option in New Project Wizard

This does *not* mean that libraries cannot be built :-). In fact it is very easy to do this with the GNU tools and Eclipse, and here is how….

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Tutorial: USB CDC with the KL25Z Freedom Board

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Question: What to do on a rainy Sunday?
Answer: Having fun with USB and the KL25Z Freedom board! :-).

In “A shell for the Freedom board” I used the UART-to-USB OpenSDA capability of the KL25Z Freedom board: The KL25Z processor uses the OpenSDA K20 microprocessor as Serial-to-USB converter. But this only works because of the P&E OpenSDA USB CDC (Communication Device Class) implementation. If I create my board without OpenSDA, I need a different approach: I want to do USB CDC with the KL25Z :twisted:.

USB CDC Device on COM22

USB CDC Device on COM22

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Compiler Defines and Eclipse Editor Highlighting

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In this post I have found settings for Eclipse Indexer to show the state if defines correctly. Usually I have something like this in my projects:

debug me

debug me

So I define the macro DEBUG_ME on the compiler command line. And it is cool to see that the Eclipse editor correctly grays out the code which is not enabled. But for this the Eclipse Editor view needs to know about the macro, but how does this work?

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Processor Expert, gcc C++ and Kinetis-L with MQXLite

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The Kinetis-L is a 32bit microprocessor family, based on ARM Cortex M0+. It comes with ARM gcc in CodeWarrior. Although the Kinetis-L does not have much RAM, it is very possible to use gcc with C++, especially as a programmer I keep the limited RAM amount in mind. So I thought I try C++ and Processor Expert for my Kinetis-L KL25Z Freedom board.

If I select C++ as language in the New Bareboard Project Wizard of CodeWarrior, then I cannot select Processor Expert or Device Initialization:

C++ in the New Project Wizard

C++ in the New Project Wizard

That makes somewhat sense, as Processor Expert creates normal C code and C files, but no C++. Still, what if I need C++? This is doable, but with anything advanced, I need to know exactly what I want and what I do. Here is the ‘How to use C++ with Processor Expert’.

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White Space or not, that’s the question

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There are times when I want to know *exactly* what is inside my source files. In my article on EHEP explains how to get down to the hex bytes of a source file. But in many cases I’m interested to see the non printable/white characters only. Showing white spaces in the sources is easy in Eclipse: I use the ‘Show Whitespace Characters‘ toolbar icon:

Show Whitespace Characters

Show Whitespace Characters

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S-Record, Intel Hex and Binary Files

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My earlier posts were around the Kinetis gcc compiler which comes with CodeWarrior for MCU10.3. MCU10.3 comes as well with the Freescale Kinetis compiler as in MCU10.2. In “S-Record Generation with gcc for ARM/Kinetis” I explored how to generate S19 or other output files with gcc. However, you only can produce one file format at a time. What if I need multiple formats or a different format. What if I need to do the same with non-gcc build tools? S-Records are usually easy as supported in the linker. Other formats need a bit more plumbing. So this post is how I can create and manipulate the different output formats, so I can use it with a bootloader.

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