GNU MCU Eclipse plug-ins v4.3.1-201801092051 released

Posted on January 10, 2018 by Liviu Ionescu.

Version 4.3.1-201801092051 is a new release; the main additions are: improved debugging via a detailed peripheral viewer, now also available for debugging RISC-V applications, and better integration with the xPack binary tools (RISC-V toolchain, OpenOCD).

Binary files »

The peripheral viewer

The initial peripheral viewer used for ARM devices was enhanced and now can also be used for debugging RISC-V applications.

The peripheral definitions come from XSVD files, a new format similar to CMSIS SVD, but enhanced with new features and encoded in JSON.

The projects generated by the SiFive project template already include the XSVD files, and access to them is automatic.

For projects created manually, the XSVD file can be made available by installing the @sifive/sifive-devices xPack, or by manually configuring the path to the file.

Better xPack integration

Binary tools installed as xPacks are now fully integrated into the plug-ins:

• the path management logic was extended to search for the tools in the xPack repository,
• to further simplify path management, a new button was added to the preferences & properties pages; the xPack… button allows to select one of the package versions installed, without having to browse through the filesystem. If the given tool has no binary xPacks, the button is disabled.

New features

• [Issue:#266] To more easily identify the GNU MCU Eclipse specific preferences & properties pages, their names were prefixed with MCU, like MCU Peripheral Views, MCU Packages
• [Issue:#265] To simplify the path management for the binary tools installed via the xPack mechanism, a new xPack… button was added to the preferences & properties pages.
• [Issue:#264] Given the improved integration with xPacks, the search algorithm for the binary tools was extended to include the xPack repository folders.
• [Issue:#263] According to Microsoft, the new recommended location to install the binaries on Windows is \AppData\Roaming; the search paths was extended to include this path.
• [Issue:#130] Although the recommended configuration is to use xPacks or CMSIS Packs, there are situations when it is necessary to use a custom XSVD/SVD file; to allow the debug configuration to use custom files, a new tab was added to the J-Link/OpenOCD/QEMU debug configurations.

Addressed bugs

• [Issue:#267] In certain conditions, even if the ARM plug-in was not installed, the ARM template was still visible. Similarly, even if the Packs plug-in was not installed, the Packs perspective button was present. This was identified as the result of some incorrect inter-bundles references, that were removed.
• [Issue:#262] In certain conditions, the MCU property page and the pages below were visible although the projects were not even C/C++; the correct behaviour for these pages is to be visible only for C/C++ projects created by the ARM or RISC-V plug-ins. Fixed.
• [Issue:#260] In certain conditions, the debug plug-ins did not properly perform variables substitution; fixed.
• [Issue:#250] The title of the SiFive template wizard was wrong; fixed.

Template changes

• the SiFive template was updated to the latest version of the xPacks.
• [Issue:#254] Support requests caused by not being able to run the projects created by the Hello World template were logged; these projects were not intended to be executed on real hardware, since the code does not include any device specific startup code; to help users avoid this error, a more explicit notice was added to the projects stating this limitation.
• [Issue:#259] On windows, the code generated by the new SiFive template included many empty lines, caused by a problem in the algorithm to strip white spaces in the Liquid template engine; fixed.

Other changes

• none

Known problems

• none