Tag Archives: CodeWarrior

Eclipse Debugging with Strings – Part 2

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Maybe a better title for this post would be “Eclipse Debugging with Strings Attached’? Digging a bit more into the domain of string debugging, things are not always the way I wish they are.

I’m using here CodeWarrior for MCU10.2, which is based on Eclipse 3.6. Let’s use the following piece of code with the ARM Cortex-M4 Kinetis K60 core and the Freescale ARM compiler:

char buf[] = "abcd";
char *p = &buf[0];

unsigned char ubuf[]="ABCD";
unsigned char *up = &ubuf[0];

signed char sbuf[]="1234";
signed char *sp = &sbuf[0];

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Eclipse Debugging with Strings

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Here I am: past midnight, and debugging why my Kinetis ARM Cortex-M4 K60N512 application. So now you know what keeps me up at night :-). Stepping through some code which is using all kind of strings:

Debugging the K60 with Eclipse and CodeWarrior

Debugging the K60 with Eclipse and CodeWarrior

The challenge is: how to debug my strings?

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Please Check Your License

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The good thing with many vendors is: they offer development tools free of charge. And the limitations are typically reasonable for many projects. The Eclipse based CodeWarrior for MCU10 is not an exception: it comes in a free (‘Special’) Edition which allows up to 128 KByte of code to download for my ARM/Kinetis projects.

But, when I tried to debug an Example I have downloaded from the web, I get this dialog:

“Download size limit has been exceeded. Please check your license.”

Download Size Limit Has Been Exceeded

Download Size Limit Has Been Exceeded

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Virtual COM/USB CDC for OSBDM/OSJTAG

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Many new notebooks do not have a serial port any more: everything is USB. This can lead to problems (see USB or not: CDC with Processor Expert) as many embedded targets  use normal RS-232. In my classes I’m using the Tower boards: some Tower boards have an on-board 2 pin RS-232 header, e.g. the Tower TWR-MCF52259. Others like the TWR-K60N512 use the added TWR-SER board. The Tower boards have as well a USB capable S08JM60 which is used for debugging (OSBDM/OSJTAG), so why not using the OSBDM microcontroller as Serial-to-USB gateway?

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CodeWarrior Flash Programming from a DOS Shell

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I can do test automation or standalone flash programming using the Debugger Shell. But this requires me to use a view inside of Eclipse. What would be nice is to do such things from a lower level: from a Windows Command window (CMD or DOS Shell). This is possible with usage of Eclipse/CodeWarrior in command line mode.

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Standalone Flash Programmer

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In Scripting, the Debugger Shell and Debugger Shell: Test Automation I was exploring how to use the Debugger Shell for automation. For my lectures at the university I need to program multiple boards with the same application. I don’t want (and need) a debugger for this: all what I need is a ‘Standalone Flash Programmer’: the ability to flash one or multiple boards without debugging.

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Debugger Shell: Test Automation

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The development cycle does not end with debugging. Debugging is something manual, but for testing and automation I want to develop scripts I can run in an automated fashion. For this I use a tool in CodeWarrior: the Debugger Shell as command line debugger and using TCL as scripting language. This gives me a powerful way into automation and scripting with the debugger: from basic access to memory, to stepping and controlling the execution up to programming the flash memory.

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Software and Hardware Breakpoints

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Using breakpoints is central part of debugging. I’m usually debugging my applications in flash memory. Because nearly all the microcontrollers I use have on-chip flash memory, and have more flash than RAM. With debugging in flash I limited by the number of hardware breakpoints. And here is the advantage with debugging code in RAM: availability of ‘unlimited’ software breakpoints. But how does this all works, and how to make efficient usage of hardware breakpoints?

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There is a Time and Date for both Worlds

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The Kinetis ARM Cortex-M4(F) is a wonderful machine: a 32bit architecture, plenty of FLASH and RAM, an ideal play field. I love the Kinetis Tower boards, and even more the Freedom board which has an ARM Cortex-M0+ on it. I have a lot of projects on S08, S12 and ColdFire at the university, and they are all using a lot of Processor Expert components. Processor Expert is such a great productivity tool: having software in components allows easy software re-use. With Processor Expert abstracting from the hardware, I can easily port my applications to new boards and processors. Well, until Processor Expert changed for Kinetis :-(.

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Watching Static Variables

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Debugging static variables, especially ‘static locals’ is sometimes challenging. Especially ‘static local’ debugging depends on the compiler capability how they are encoded in to the object file. I have found out that at least with CodeWarrior for MCU and ARM/Kinetis this works straight forward. Only ‘Watch Expressions’ need special attention.

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