[Bdm-devel] Re: [Zylin-discuss] Embedded CDT survey

[Csaba K. <cgk...@wa...>]

On Fri, 12 Nov 2004 09:44:30 +0100, "=D8yvind Harboe"
<oyv...@zy...> said:
> I would be interested in knowing what the biggest problems currently are
> w.r.t. CDT for embedded development.

I think that a challenge many software developers face is the learning
curve of getting started with embedded development, specifically with
how embedded software development can be different than non-embedded
software development.  Many software developers turn to freely available
development tools such as Eclipse, CDT, gcc, gdb for getting started
with embedded software development.  Some of this is simply because the
tools are there and are available, and some of this is because of
budgetary constraints.

Having a user interface that simplifies the process of developing
embedded applications would help these software developers reduce their
learning curve.  My minimal experience with Eclipse and CDT indicates
that these tools go a long way toward providing such a user interface.=20
Something that could improve what exists would be the creation of a
tutorial for developing an embedded "Hello World" application which
would show someone how to configure CDT for embedded debug, downloading
code to an embedded target, setting a breakpoint, running code on the
embedded target, and examining a variable when the code reaches the
breakpoint.


For embedded development for Motorola/Freescale 68K and ColdFire
targets, there is a patch for GDB that allows GDB to control a target
processor via a parallel port based BDM interface made by P&E
Manufacturing.

This BDM patch for GDB is available via the "BDM tools" at SourceForge
(http://sourceforge.net/projects/bdm/).

The BDM patch provides GDB with additional commands for controlling the
target processor via the BDM interface.  GDB takes control of the target
processor via "target bdm /dev/bdmcf0" or a similar command.  It would
be convenient if CDT were to provide a way to specify/store "bdm" target
as an option and to specify/store the "/dev/bdmcf0" parameter as a
debugger configuration option.

Providing a convenient user interface for resetting a target processor
would be nice.  With the BDM patch, this is accomplished via the command
"bdm_reset" (I think this may have been changed to "bdm-reset" in newer
versions of the BDM patch).

Similarly, having a way to re-download code to a target (without
restarting GDB or having to use the GDB command line from within CDT for
the GDB "load" command) would be nice.

I believe that the BDM project offers utility programs separate from GDB
that allow features such as programming flash memory on a target
(bdmflash, bdmctrl tools).  I personally am not familiar with these
tools, but commercial IDEs for embedded software development often have
flash programming features integrated into the IDE.

This would be my personal wish list and I think would make embedded
developers in the 68K/ColdFire world very happy.  I am CC-ing the BDM
tools mailing list in the hopes that some of those people might offer
their input as well.


Csaba Kormendy
Quadros Systems, Inc.