7 years, 10 months ago.

Offline Compile/Debugger. Best free solution?

I am looking at ways to debug and develop offline for mbed. I have found the eclipse pages in the documentation: https://docs.mbed.com/docs/debugging-on-mbed/en/latest/Debugging/Debugging_Eclipse_pyOCD/

It seems to be exactly what I need, unrestricted and free. However it is missing some information under step 11 in "Importing to Eclipse and building" and I am unable to get it to build.

What is missing and/or Are there any other fairly robust, free ways to compile and debug mbed offline?

2 Answers

7 years, 10 months ago.

If you are building for ST boards then they have a full Eclipse-based solution with debugger (SW4STM32) If you want a generic version there is gcc4mbed https://developer.mbed.org/forum/mbed/topic/4820/ There are a few more solutions out there that are Eclipse based but these are both capable of doing mbed offline.

You might find that IAR or Keil provide a solution that works as well and depending on the code size and usage it might be free.

7 years, 10 months ago.

I tried almost all options in mbed export.

Keil uVision 5

  • Pro: Most of the exported projects work without modification.
  • Con: 32 kB code limit

GCC (ARM Embedded)

  • Pro: All of the projects work without modification. Free. I tried it with Cygwin make on Windows. Fast (paralell) compiling with -j8 option.
  • Con: You have to edit Makefile for optimal performance. You have to create a Makefile based project in an IDE.

IAR

  • Pro:
  • Con: Not free, huge download size, so skipped.

CooCox CoIDE

  • Pro: Most of the exported projects work with little modification. Free. (Comment printf or change to semihosting, etc.)
  • Con: Poor website performance, hard to download, hard to search in forums, etc. Bigger projects always recompiled even when nothing has been modified. Maybe a configuration bug in mbed exporter.

Emblocks (EmBitz)

  • Pro: All of the projects work without modification. Free. It has its own compiler or can be used with ARM GCC.
  • Con: There is a bug in the mbed exporter, added "do not link" switch to the project... So no elf or hex after compile. You have to remove the -c switch in project config page.

SW4STM32

  • Pro: Free.
  • Con: Only STM. Hard to register before download. Have to install 32 bit Java. Mystical error message when WinAVR installed. (Have to remove WinAVR from PATH) Bunch of compiler errors, so skipped.

1-Is Keil free for All mbed Library ?

2-I downloaded SW4STM32 but my windows was 64 bit. so java conflicts to download the gcc compiler in SW4STM32 and also in eclipse when put this link in Install new software (http://sourceforge.net/projects/gnuarmeclipse/files/Eclipse/updates/) and I did this notes : (http://gnuarmeclipse.github.io/blog/2016/12/02/plugins-install-issue/) and the IDE still wasn't see this gcc compiler as new software !

what can I do ?

3- what about visual studio ? Is it free ? has it a debugger ?

posted by ibrahim mostafa 01 Feb 2017

Keil is free below 32 kB code size. I do not use SW4STM32. Visual Studio is free, but the ARM embedded plugin (VisualGDB) is not.

posted by Mark Peter Vargha 01 Feb 2017

IAR "Kickstart" with 32kB limit is free.

posted by Bill Bellis 01 Feb 2017