Showing posts with label templates. Show all posts
Showing posts with label templates. Show all posts

Thursday, December 4, 2008

Embedded C++ constructs - Part 2

As mentioned in part 1, I'll now get into an UART example, providing the basic functionality through a class. This example works with the LPC ARM7 family from NXP Semiconductors (Philips).

Register abstraction

First here is how I abstract a hardware register. It's nothing special but a simple template class:



namespace HW
{
/**
* Individual HW register
*/
template < unsigned long int BASE, unsigned long int OFF >
class Reg
{
public:
void operator = (const unsigned long int & val) {
*((volatile unsigned long int *)(BASE + 4*OFF)) = val;
}

unsigned long int & operator = ( const Reg & reg ) {
return *((volatile unsigned long int *)(BASE + 4*OFF));
}

operator unsigned long int () {
return *((volatile unsigned long int *)(BASE + 4*OFF));
}
};

};

(I used C-like casts here but it would be better to use reinterpret_cast<> instead)


Three operators are implemented. It's essential to be able to cast the class to an unsigned int so we can use it transparently.

The template parameters let us provide a base and offset address which will be useful when a peripheral is abstracted through a template class.

UART peripheral abstraction

The UART peripheral in the LPC2xxx family consists of a collection of registers, starting from a base address. There are some interesting bits lying around on the microcontroller too that control peripheral power, the peripheral's clock and associated interrupts. Here all of them are encapsulated in a single class, except for the interrupts (to do).



namespace HW
{
/**
* UART Module Abstraction
*/
template<unsigned int BASE, unsigned int PCON_BIT, unsigned int PCLK_SEL>
class RegUART
{
public:
void powerOn() {
PCONP |= (1<<PCON_BIT);
}

void setClkDiv( unsigned int divv ) {
PCLOCK_SELECT( PCLK_SEL, divv );
}

HW::Reg<BASE, 0> RBR;
HW::Reg<BASE, 0> THR;
HW::Reg<BASE, 0> DLL;
HW::Reg<BASE, 1> DLM;
HW::Reg<BASE, 1> IER;
HW::Reg<BASE, 2> IIR;
HW::Reg<BASE, 2> FCR;
HW::Reg<BASE, 3> LCR;
HW::Reg<BASE, 5> LSR;
HW::Reg<BASE, 7> SCR;
HW::Reg<BASE, 8> ACR;
HW::Reg<BASE, 9> ICR;
HW::Reg<BASE, 10> FDR;
HW::Reg<BASE, 12> TER;
};
};

#define HWUART0 HW::RegUART< UART0_BASE_ADDR, PCLK_UART0, PCLK_UART0 >
#define HWUART1 HW::RegUART< UART1_BASE_ADDR, PCLK_UART1, PCLK_UART1 >
#define HWUART2 HW::RegUART< UART2_BASE_ADDR, PCLK_UART2, PCLK_UART2 >
#define HWUART3 HW::RegUART< UART3_BASE_ADDR, PCLK_UART3, PCLK_UART3 >

PCONP and PCLOCK_SELECT() are macros defined in another file, nothing special.

HWUARTx are macros that help when specifying certain port. It will be used in the next piece of code.



#include <string.h>

namespace Drivers
{
/**
* LPC2xxx UART Peripheral
* Polled.
*
* @param T Hw::RegUART
* Use HWUART0, HWUART1...
*/
template< class T >
class PolledUart
{
private:
T UART;

public:

/**
* Init UART
*
* @param brate desired baudrate
*/
void init(unsigned int brate) {

UART.setClkDiv( PCLK_DIV_1 );
UART.powerOn();

UART.LCR = 0x80; //DLAB = 1

UART.DLL = (Fpclk/16)/brate & 0xFF;
UART.DLM = (((Fpclk/16)/brate) >> 8) & 0xFF;

UART.LCR = 3 | //8 bit char length
(0<<2) | // 1 stop bit
(0<<3) | //no parity
(0<<4) | //partity type
(0<<6) | //disable break transmission
(0<<0) ; //enable access to divisor latches

UART.FCR = (0x07); //FIFO ENABLE, Rx & Tx
}

/**
* Transmit a single byte
*
* @param c
*/
void tx( unsigned char c ) {
while ( !( UART.LSR & (1<<5) ) )
;
UART.THR = c;
}

/**
* Transmit several bytes
*
* @param data data to transmit
* @param length length of 'data'
*/
void tx( const unsigned char *data, unsigned int length ) {
while( length-- > 0 )
tx( *(data++) );
}

/**
* Transmit a C string
*
* @param str
*/
void tx( const char *str ) {
tx( (const unsigned char *) str, strlen(str) );
}

/**
* Byte receive
* BLOCKING
*
* @return unsigned char received char
*/
unsigned char rx(void)
{
while ( !( UART.LSR & (1<<0) ) )
;

return UART.RBR;
}

/**
* Returns if there is data to be read in the FIFO
*
* @return bool true if there is data available
*/
bool isDataAvailable(void)
{
if ( UART.LSR & (1<<0) )
return true;
else
return false;
}
};
};

PolledUart implements UART basic functionality. No constructor is used to avoid undesired code creation, so init() must be called before using any other function.

Even though this class contains a RegUART class as a private member it won't take any extra memory since the compiler (at least gcc-elf-arm here) will optimize the template. I did some tests and there is no difference in code size with a simple C function doing the same statements directly.

Finally, to see how it works, if we wanted to use UART0 through this class we could instantiate it like this:



Drivers::PolledUart< HWUART0 > Uart0;

void testUart0()
{
Uart0.init(115200); //init @ 115200 bps

Uart0.tx("Hello there!\n");
}

If the class is to be used by many C++ files one should consider declaring it extern inside a header file and implementing it in a single cpp one. That would save code by avoiding function inlining each time it's used.

Improvements

This is just a basic version to demonstrate how easy and clean code can get. Here are some modifications that will make the class more useful:

  • If there is an RTOS it would be useful to protect this class from concurrent access by using semaphores. It's not a difficult task, a mutex should be declared and initialized (maybe inside a constructor).
  • An interrupt-based uart is nice too, even better if RTOS' messages queues are used. This shouldn't be a problem either.

Tuesday, December 2, 2008

Embedded C++ constructs - Part 1

There has been a big explosion about using C++ within embedded systems. Recently David sent me some interesting papers and info about Embedded C++ so here I present what I've been doing so far (or at least a small portion of it).

Templates

First I have to say that templates are not a code bloat if they're managed with care. In fact the C++ compiler is supposed to optimize them at compile time.

Here are some base templates I've coded to ease pin mapping on the LPC23xx ARM family.



#include "lpc24xx.h" /* LPC23/24xx register definitions */
#include "static_assert.h" /* static assert for non-C++0x compilers */

namespace HW
{
/**
* Output Pin Abstraction
*/
template<unsigned int port, unsigned int pin>
class OutPin
{
STATIC_ASSERT(pin <= 31, PinMustBeLessThan32);

public:
OutPin() {
*(&FIO0DIR + 8*port) |= (1<<pin); //configure pin as output
}
void Set(void) { *(&FIO0SET + 8*port) = (1<<pin);}
void Clr(void) { *(&FIO0CLR + 8*port) = (1<<pin);}
};

/**
* Input Pin Abstraction
*/
template<unsigned int port, unsigned int pin>
class InPin
{
STATIC_ASSERT(pin <= 31, PinMustBeLessThan32);

public:
InPin() {
*(&FIO0DIR + 8*port) &= ~(1<<pin); //configure pin as input
}

operator bool () {
if ( (*(&FIO0PIN + 8*port)) & (1<<pin) )
return true;
else
return false;
}
};
};

This may look a like waste of code at first glance. However these classes avoid many mistakes and provide a hardware independent interface to pin outputs and inputs, it's just a question of redefining this templates to fit the platform.

Also note that the compiler will throw an error if pin's value is not within the allowed range. This is also a protection and won't waste any processor instructions or any other memory. It would be useful to limit the port range too. The above templates use the static assert method described earlier in this post.

The constructors will manage to configure the port pin as output or input. If the pin is defined globally then the constructor will be called before entering the main function, configuring the pin as it should. If it is defined inside a function or by using the new operator (which I would try to avoid)  then the constructor will be called when it is instantiated.

Here is an example:



// Pin 0.25
HW::OutPin< 0,25 > myLed;
// Pin 1.20
HW::InPin< 1,20 > mySwitch;

void invert(void)
{
if ( mySwitch )
myLed.Clr();
else
myLed.Set();
}

Beautiful, isn't it? The generated code (arm-elf-gcc 4.2.x) is exactly the same as if it is done manually by writing/reading the corresponding registers. There is no loss in performance compared to the equivalent C code.

In the next post I will discuss a UART implementation by using similar code constructions.

What I do not like about C++

C++ lacks many useful C99 characteristics and g++ doesn't implement them either. I could live without most of them but what really hurts me is to avoid using Designated Initializers, specially on structs. It won't be a big problem if struct's data is on RAM but it's disappointing when structs are on ROM (const).

If we want a struct to be in ROM while using C++ it has to be declared const, but in addition constructors can't be used or the const-declared struct will be placed in RAM (cRazY). It is an understandable limitation but that means that the only way to initialize a struct is by passing each element one by one and in the exact order as they're defined in the struct. That is error prone, particularly when a new element is added in the middle of the struct. So when we try to switch to C++ to avoid errors we become prone to issues that were solved with C99.

So, that's the only thing I don't like about C++, the solution? Use C for cont struct initializers and C++ for the rest? Don't know.