This irks me...

[Treczoks]

Hi!

Something for the folder "Things that really need improvement in the xTimeComposer system":

When it comes to real embedded development (in contrast to doing something on embedded linux, which is something totally different), Eclipse is a horrible debugging environment. Compared to real embedded development platforms like KEIL or iSystem for ARM and 8051, this is a nightmare.

Why? Well, among other things, when I debug an application on KEIL uVision, I have a nice menu called "Peripherals" where I get nice dialog boxes for the peripherals of the chip. I can interactively look into each UART, GPIO pin state (and setup), timer or interrupt controller, and can even change settings while the controller is stopped for debugging.

It would be very nice if I could do just this on the XMOS, checking and changing IO states and setups, channel states, timers, etc.

The current state of affairs is unbearable. Ports, timers and channels are just some numbers in the "Variables" or "Expressions" tab. Ports are the worst, the number given as value makes no sense at all (totally different ports and a timer all have the same "Value" value):
TX_Data 804325786
TX_DataEnable 804325786
TX_ClockPort 804325786
TX_Clock 804325786
-- all while the little window below gives "65" and the value.

And I got the impression that the debugger sometimes shows bogus values even for normal variables. I have not dug into this to the detail, but I had one occurance where the "Expressions" tab showed totally bogus values for some variables, while the system still worked (It could not have run if the data in that array was as the debugger showed), and a print...() of the arrays content showed that the data from this perspective was sane.

My most important debugging tool at the moment is the oscilloscope, as the debugger is not really helpful. As nice as the chips are, debugging on XMOS is a ROYAL pita.

OK, back to work... I had to dump this anger and frustration somewhere.
Yours, Christian

[sethu_jangala]

Hi Christian,

Could you upload your workspace in which you find the reported issues. Also, could you tell the procedure on how to replicate the reported issue.

Sethu.