Re: Improving build system

Il 16/05/2025 15:30, David Brown ha scritto:

On 16/05/2025 12:46, pozz wrote:

Il 16/05/2025 11:12, David Brown ha scritto:

On 15/05/2025 23:25, pozz wrote:

Il 15/05/2025 11:03, David Brown ha scritto:

On 14/05/2025 23:51, pozz wrote:

Il 14/05/2025 11:03, David Brown ha scritto:

On 13/05/2025 17:57, pozz wrote:

[...]

>
I worked on PIC8 and AVR8 and IMHO AVR8 is much better then PIC8.
Regarding Cortex-M, SAM devices are fine for me.

>
The 8-bit PIC's are extraordinarily robust microcontrollers - I've seen devices rated for 85 °C happily running at 180 °C, and tolerating short-circuits, over-current, and many types of abuse.  But the processor core is very limited, and the development tools have always been horrendous.  The AVR is a much nicer core - it is one of the best 8-bit cores around.  But you are still stuck working in a highly device-specific form of coding instead of normal C or C++.

>
Why do you write "highly device-specific form of coding"? Considering they are 8-bits (and C is at-least-16-bits integer), it seems to me an acceptable C language when you coimpile with avr-gcc.
>
You can use int variables without any problems (they will be 16-bits). You can use function calls passing paramters. You can return complex data from functions.
>
Of course flash memory is in a different address space, so you need specific API to access data from flash.
>
Do you know of other 8-bits cores supported better by a C compiler?
>

 Certainly C programming with avr-gcc is closer to normal C than C programming with PIC's and other 8-bit devices.
 But I don't want to work with "the most normal C considering the limitations of the processor" - I want to work with normal C and C++.
 I don't want to have to think about using "uint8_t" instead of "int" because of processor efficiency.  I don't want to be limited in my pointer usage because the processor can't handle pointers well.  I don't want to have a non-linear memory, where pointers to flash are different to pointers to ram and bigger devices have a mess of address spaces and linker complications if you have large blocks of read-only data.  I don't want my C++ restricted because of severely limited calling conventions, pointer usage, and limited registers.
 ARM core microcontrollers these days are significantly smaller, cheaper and lower power than AVRs in most categories.  There's a few situations in which AVRs might still be the best choice in a new product, but I consider them legacy devices, with development only for minor updates to existing products.

We were comparing 8-bits cores.  Obviously ARM Cortex-M MCUs are much nicer to program.  Anyway I disagree on the "cheaper".
Digikey sells 1000pcs of ATmega328PB-AU at 1.17€ in tray.
ATSAMD20E14B-AUT at 1.76€ as a cut-tape. This MCU has only 16kB of Flash.

(I'll be happy to switch to RISC-V to replace or complement ARM.)
 

>

And you are still stuck with Microchip's attitude to development tools.  (You can probably tell that I find this very frustrating - I would like to be able to use more of Microchip / Atmel's devices.)

>
Maybe we already talked in the past about this. I don't know if avr-gcc was developed by Atmel or Arduino community.

 Neither.  It was independent, based on voluntary work, with Atmel making half-hearted support on occasion.
 

Anyway, for AVR8 you have the possibility to use gcc tools for compiling and debugging. There are many open source tools. I think you could avoid completely Microchip/Atmel IDE for AVR8 without any problems. Arduino IDE is a good example.
>

 The Arduino IDE and libraries are great for quick tests, getting familiar with hardware, hobby projects, and proofs-of-concept, but terrible for serious work.
 But yes, you can do real work with AVRs without Microchip or Atmel's IDE's.
 

>

2.
>
You don't need to use bash or other *nix shells for makefile or other tools if you don't want to.  When I do builds on Windows, I run "make" from a normal command line (or from an editor / IDE). It is helpful to have msys2's usr/bin on your path so that make can use *nix command-line utilities like cp, mv, sed, etc.  But if you want to make a minimal build system, you don't need a full msys2 installation - you only need the utilities you want to use, and they can be copied directly (unlike with Cygwin or WSL).
>
Of course you /can/ use fuller shells if you want.  But don't make your makefiles depend on that, as it will be harder to use them from IDEs, editors, or any other automation.

>
In the beginning (some years ago) I started installing GNU Make for Windows, putting it in c:\tools\make.  Then I created a simple Makefile and tried to process it on a standard Windows command line. It was a mess!  I remember there were many issues regarding: slash/backslash on file paths, lack of Unix commands (rm, mv, ...) and so on.  Native Windows tools need backslash in the paths, but some unix tools need slash.  It was a mess to transform the paths between the two forms.
>

>
Most tools on Windows are happy with forward slash for path separators as well.

>
mkdir, just to name one?  And you need mkdir in a Makefile.

>
Don't use the crappy Windows-native one - use msys2's mkdir.  As I said:
>
bin_path :=
RM := $(bin_path) rm
MKDIR := $(bin_path) mkdir
>
and so on.
>
Now your makefile can use "mkdir" happily - with forward slashes, with "-p" to make a whole chain of directories, and so on.

>
Yes, sure, now I know.  I was responding to your "Most tools on Windows are happy with forward slash". I thought your "tools on Windows" were native Windows commands.
>

 Ah, okay.  Many programs that come with Windows /are/ happy with forward slashes for paths - because the relevant Windows API's are happy with forward slashes.  But the old stuff, especially the commands built into the old command shell, can't handle them.  There will also be trouble for commands that use forward slashes for flags and other parameters.  I meant that there is no problem with utilities compiled on Windows that run natively (as distinct from under WSL, or restricted to a bash shell, or something like that).
 

I think your suggestion is: explicitly call msys tools (rm, mkdir, gcc) in normal Windows CMD shell, without insisting in using directly the msys shell. Maybe this will help in integration with third-parties IDE/editors (such as VSCode, C::B, and so on).
>

 Yes, exactly.
 

>
I'm going to create a new post regarding editors and debugger... stay tuned :-D

>
You are keeping this group alive almost single-handedly :-)  Many of us read and answer posts, but few start new threads.

>
I'm the student, your are the teachers, so it is normal I make the questions :-D
>
[OT] I like newsgroups for chatting with others on specific topics. Nowadays unfortunately newsgroups are dying in favor of other social platforms: Facebook, reddit, blogs.... Do you know of some other active platforms about embedded?
>

 I too like Usenet as the non-social social network :-)
 I suppose some day I will join reddit.  The comp.lang.c and comp.lang.c++ newsgroups are quite active, and might be of interest to you. 

I usually read the first.

comp.arch has some interesting conversations too sometimes. 

Subscribed.

(And there is always sci.electronics.design, if you want a somewhat anti-social newsgroup that occasionally talks about electronics.)

:-D

It looks like you don't have the 32-bit static libraries included in your msys2/mingw64 installation - these things are often optional. (It might be referred to as "multi-lib support".)  I haven't used gcc on Windows for a long time - most of my work is on Linux.  But I'm sure that you'll find the answer easily now you know it is the 32-bit static libraries (libmingw32.a) that you are missing.

>
On many places they suggest to use msys2/mingw32 for generating 32-bits Windows binaries. For example here[1].
>
[1] https://superuser.com/questions/1473717/compile-in-msys2-mingw64-with-m32-option
>

 Try looking in other places :-)
 To be honest, I have not looked at this - I don't need to use gcc on Windows myself.  And neither my Windows nor my msys2 / mingw64 installation have been updated in many years - the tools I need don't change much.  But I have no doubt that mingw64 /can/ generate 32-bit Windows binaries, that your problem is the missing static libraries, and that it is a significantly superior toolchain to the older mingw - primarily because that uses the slow, outdated and limited external MS DLL's for standard C library functions.

Anyway I'm not able to fix the error I have. I will look in some other places.