Re: [avr-chat] boundschecking & instrumentation

[Eric Weddington]

Steve Franks wrote:
> Hola~
>  
> 1a) Anybody looked into boundschecking & test coverage tools, such as:
>  
> http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=88372
>  
> and
>  
> http://sourceforge.net/projects/covtool
>  
> by chance?
>  
> 1b) Any GCC experts out there know if they would play with the embedded 
> gcc flavors as opposed to just the 'big machine' (linux/win32) flavors 
> of gcc?

Just a casual glance of covtool (above) shows that it is not designed 
for embedded systems. It talks about adding statements in your code, 
then running it through the tool, and then executing the code which then 
writes data to a log file. All of this assumes an execution environment 
that has a filesystem, file I/O, etc. This does not really apply to the AVR.

And yes, I have heard about boundschecking. Again, I doubt that this 
would be well suited to the AVR.

If you are interested in some interesting tools that are designed for 
the AVR then I suggest that you look into Avrora:
<http://compilers.cs.ucla.edu/avrora/>
Among basic simulation it also has: profiling utilities, instrumentation 
capabilities, control flow graph tool, and a stack checker. Note, 
however, that I have not tried Avrora so I cannot comment on its efficacy.


> 2) Anyone ever played with the NuMega, WindRiver or other professional 
> stuff for that matter on embedded compilers of any kind?  I think the 
> level of projects our community is dealing with is ready for this level 
> of verification - in my 'day job' I have to play with professional 
> verification tools for powerpc, and they @!#$%^ in terms of integration 
> and downright quirkiness - makes GCC internals & configuration look 
> clean by comparison, so needless to say I'd prefer something developed 
> by a 'community', but I'm open to any sort of experiences y'all are 
> willing to share...(appologies if anyone out there works for Windriver - 
> I'll substantiate my flame with specifics if you want to talk)

Could you be a bit more specific with what you would like to see?

--
Eric Weddington