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digitalmars.D - Need help making minimal bare metal ARM Cortex-M D program

reply "Mike" <none none.com> writes:
I am very new to D, but I finally got my toolchain compiled and 
working.  I'm using LDC.  I failed with GDC and eventually gave 
up.

I am trying to get an _extremely_ minimal bare metal ARM Cortex-M 
HelloWorld-type program compiled and executed on my STM32F4-based 
hardware.  I know the toochain is buggy for arm right now, but 
I'm hoping I can do something about that if I can just get 
started.

Here's the basic C code and linker script for my hardware. It 
doesn't actually print "hello world".  I intend to add that after 
I get the following basic code compiled and downloaded to my 
hardware.

/***************************
* start.c
****************************/
// defined in linker script
extern unsigned long _stack_end;

void handler_reset(void)
{
   //Print hello world using SWI
}

__attribute__ ((section(".interrupt_vector")))
void (* const table_interrupt_vector[])(void) =
{
   (void *) &_stack_end,
   handler_reset
};

/***************************
* linkerscript.ld
****************************/
MEMORY
{
   CCRAM    (rxw) : ORIGIN = 0x10000000, LENGTH =   64k
   SRAM     (rxw) : ORIGIN = 0x20000000, LENGTH =  128k
   FLASH    (rx)  : ORIGIN = 0x08000000, LENGTH = 1024k
}

SECTIONS
{
.ccm (NOLOAD) :
	{
		. = ALIGN(4);
         *(.ccm)
		. = ALIGN(4);
	} >CCRAM
	
	stackTop = ORIGIN(CCRAM) + LENGTH(CCRAM);
Nov 24 2013
next sibling parent reply "Mike" <none none.com> writes:
Please delete this thread.  I hit a tab and a space while typing 
my code, resulting in a premature submit.  I will make a separate 
complete post.

Sorry,
Mike
Nov 24 2013
parent "Iain Buclaw" <ibuclaw ubuntu.com> writes:
On Sunday, 24 November 2013 at 12:45:19 UTC, Mike wrote:

 Please delete this thread.  I hit a tab and a space while 
 typing my code, resulting in a premature submit.  I will make a 
 separate complete post.

 Sorry,
 Mike


This is a mailing list, not a forum. We can't delete things here. 
  :o)
Nov 24 2013
prev sibling parent reply "Iain Buclaw" <ibuclaw ubuntu.com> writes:
On Sunday, 24 November 2013 at 12:43:01 UTC, Mike wrote:

 I am very new to D, but I finally got my toolchain compiled and 
 working.  I'm using LDC.  I failed with GDC and eventually gave 
 up.


I know Johannes has some patches yet to trickle down into gdc.  
And druntime is does not support ARM fully in 2.063, but it would 
be helpful if you could take some time to let people know what 
went wrong when you tried things, rather than just giving up.  
Otherwise, nothing will get fixed.
Nov 24 2013
parent reply "Mike" <none none.com> writes:
On Sunday, 24 November 2013 at 12:53:42 UTC, Iain Buclaw wrote:

 On Sunday, 24 November 2013 at 12:43:01 UTC, Mike wrote:

 I am very new to D, but I finally got my toolchain compiled 
 and working.  I'm using LDC.  I failed with GDC and eventually 
 gave up.


 I know Johannes has some patches yet to trickle down into gdc.  
 And druntime is does not support ARM fully in 2.063, but it 
 would be helpful if you could take some time to let people know 
 what went wrong when you tried things, rather than just giving 
 up.  Otherwise, nothing will get fixed.


I don't think the problems I encountered with GDC were the fault 
of GDC.  They were my fault.  I have more to learn about the 
Linux platform.  It seems the GCC toolchain is highly dependent 
on the  host platform and if things aren't set up just right, you 
get errors that have nothing to do with the actual problem.

Also, when I tried to follow the crosstools instructions here 
(http://wiki.dlang.org/GDC/Cross_Compiler) I found that the 
latest crosstools was missing some of the options that are needed.

I have been quite successful using the GNU Tools for ARM Embedded 
Processors here (https://launchpad.net/gcc-arm-embedded), and I 
hope to merge this with the GDC code and give it another try.  I 
tried it this weekend, but I wasn't even able to get the shell 
scripts to run without errors.

And, I didn't JUST give up.  I worked on it all weekend, every 
weekend, for the past 3 weeks.  I'm tired of the platform 
dependencies, and I'm anxious to just get started.  Once I get 
more familiar with D and have some working code, I'll give GDC 
another try.
Nov 24 2013
parent reply Johannes Pfau <nospam example.com> writes:
Am Sun, 24 Nov 2013 14:19:43 +0100
schrieb "Mike" <none none.com>:


 On Sunday, 24 November 2013 at 12:53:42 UTC, Iain Buclaw wrote:

 On Sunday, 24 November 2013 at 12:43:01 UTC, Mike wrote:

 I am very new to D, but I finally got my toolchain compiled 
 and working.  I'm using LDC.  I failed with GDC and eventually 
 gave up.


 I know Johannes has some patches yet to trickle down into gdc.  
 And druntime is does not support ARM fully in 2.063, but it 
 would be helpful if you could take some time to let people know 
 what went wrong when you tried things, rather than just giving 
 up.  Otherwise, nothing will get fixed.




Cortex-M is the 'bare metal' branch of ARM where you usually don't run
linux so druntime won't work anyway. There are some compiler fixes in
my branch that could be interesting though:
https://github.com/jpf91/GDC/commits/arm

BTW: I'll start merging back the fixes to gdc master this week. Some
fixes have to be merged into phobos upstream though so it might take
some time.


 
 I don't think the problems I encountered with GDC were the fault 
 of GDC.  They were my fault.  I have more to learn about the 
 Linux platform.  It seems the GCC toolchain is highly dependent 
 on the  host platform and if things aren't set up just right, you 
 get errors that have nothing to do with the actual problem.
 
 Also, when I tried to follow the crosstools instructions here 
 (http://wiki.dlang.org/GDC/Cross_Compiler) I found that the 
 latest crosstools was missing some of the options that are needed.


You mean options for bare metal builds or options described in the
wiki? I'm not sure if crosstool-NG works well with bare metal builds.


 
 I have been quite successful using the GNU Tools for ARM Embedded 
 Processors here (https://launchpad.net/gcc-arm-embedded), and I 
 hope to merge this with the GDC code and give it another try.  I 
 tried it this weekend, but I wasn't even able to get the shell 
 scripts to run without errors.
 
 And, I didn't JUST give up.  I worked on it all weekend, every 
 weekend, for the past 3 weeks.  I'm tired of the platform 
 dependencies, and I'm anxious to just get started.  Once I get 
 more familiar with D and have some working code, I'll give GDC 
 another try.
 


GCC build scripts can be annoying, especially when cross-compiling.
Your best bet is still crosstool-NG though, what exactly are the
missing options?
Nov 24 2013
next sibling parent reply "Mike" <none none.com> writes:
On Sunday, 24 November 2013 at 14:21:57 UTC, Johannes Pfau wrote:

 Cortex-M is the 'bare metal' branch of ARM where you usually 
 don't run
 linux so druntime won't work anyway. There are some compiler 
 fixes in
 my branch that could be interesting though:
 https://github.com/jpf91/GDC/commits/arm


I'm aware of the druntime will not work, which is why I'm trying 
to find a way to write and compile code _without_ the druntime or 
phobos.  See my re-post.


 Also, when I tried to follow the crosstools instructions here 
 (http://wiki.dlang.org/GDC/Cross_Compiler) I found that the 
 latest crosstools was missing some of the options that are 
 needed.


 You mean options for bare metal builds or options described in 
 the
 wiki? I'm not sure if crosstool-NG works well with bare metal 
 builds.

 GCC build scripts can be annoying, especially when 
 cross-compiling.
 Your best bet is still crosstool-NG though, what exactly are the
 missing options?


A couple of the options don't seem to exist in crosstools.  
Specifically "Go to C compiler, select Other languages and enter 
d".  Pretty hard to tell the compiler to support D without this 
option.

The GNU Tools for ARM scripts are specifically written for 
cross-compiling, and even Canadian cross compiling. When I run 
the build scripts, I get:

cat ~/mylongdir/src/gcc/gcc/BASE-VER: No such file or directory.

I looked through the shell script, but code like this

GCC_VER=`cat $SRCDIR/$GCC/gcc/BASE-VER`
GCC_VER_NAME=`echo $GCC_VER | cut -d'.' -f1,2 | sed -e 's/\./_/g'`

is a little hard for me to figure out.

Again, the problem here is not with GDC; it's that I don't know 
enough about the Linux tools to know what its trying to do here 
and what I can do about it.

LLVM, clang, and LDC built on the first try after 3 weekends 
struggling with GCC.
Nov 24 2013
parent reply "jerro" <a a.com> writes:
 A couple of the options don't seem to exist in crosstools.  
 Specifically "Go to C compiler, select Other languages and 
 enter d".  Pretty hard to tell the compiler to support D 
 without this option.


Have you set 'Try features marked as EXPERIMENTAL'?
Are you using a recent version of crosstool-NG? And in case
this isn't clear, there isn't a 'D' option to choose from,
you need to type 'D' into the field.
Nov 24 2013
parent reply "Mike" <none none.com> writes:
On Sunday, 24 November 2013 at 15:32:04 UTC, jerro wrote:

 A couple of the options don't seem to exist in crosstools.  
 Specifically "Go to C compiler, select Other languages and 
 enter d".  Pretty hard to tell the compiler to support D 
 without this option.


 Have you set 'Try features marked as EXPERIMENTAL'?
 Are you using a recent version of crosstool-NG? And in case
 this isn't clear, there isn't a 'D' option to choose from,
 you need to type 'D' into the field.


Yes, I tried experimental features, obsolete features, and number 
of other things.  I know there isn't a D option to check.  I was 
fully expecting a text field to type the letter 'D' into, but the 
"Other languages" option does not exist.  It appears to have been 
replaced with a "C++" check option.

Give it a try yourself, and you'll see what I mean.
Nov 24 2013
parent reply "jerro" <a a.com> writes:
It seems languages other than C are disabled for bare metal 
builds. You could try searching for cc.ini in your crosstool-ng 
installation and commenting out the line

if ! BARE_METAL

and
Nov 24 2013
parent reply Johannes Pfau <nospam example.com> writes:
Am Sun, 24 Nov 2013 18:18:22 +0100
schrieb "jerro" <a a.com>:


 It seems languages other than C are disabled for bare metal 
 builds. You could try searching for cc.ini in your crosstool-ng 
 installation and commenting out the line
 
 if ! BARE_METAL
 
 and
 

 


Good to know. I'll prepare a patch
( I'm currently implementing cross-native builds for crosstool-NG
anyway)
Nov 24 2013
parent reply "Mike" <none none.com> writes:
On Sunday, 24 November 2013 at 18:38:19 UTC, Johannes Pfau wrote:

 Am Sun, 24 Nov 2013 18:18:22 +0100
 schrieb "jerro" <a a.com>:


 It seems languages other than C are disabled for bare metal 
 builds. You could try searching for cc.ini in your 
 crosstool-ng installation and commenting out the line
 
 if ! BARE_METAL
 
 and
 

 


 Good to know. I'll prepare a patch
 ( I'm currently implementing cross-native builds for 
 crosstool-NG
 anyway)


Just tried again with crosstools-ng 1.19.0.  I commented out the 
appropriate lines in my cc.ini file, but the build failed with...

" The following requested languages could not be built: d "

... in the build.log file.

Also, the instructions here 
(http://gdcproject.org/wiki/Cross%20Compiler/crosstool-NG) say:

"If druntime & phobos do not yet compile for your target you can 
disable them:

Start ct-ng menuconfig, go to "C compiler" and add 
"--disable-libphobos" to "Core gcc extra config" and "gcc extra 
config". "

While the "Core gcc extra config" option exists, "gcc extra 
config" does not.

The quest continues...
Nov 30 2013
parent reply "Mike" <none none.com> writes:
On Sunday, 1 December 2013 at 05:23:19 UTC, Mike wrote:

 On Sunday, 24 November 2013 at 18:38:19 UTC, Johannes Pfau 
 wrote:

 Am Sun, 24 Nov 2013 18:18:22 +0100
 schrieb "jerro" <a a.com>:


 It seems languages other than C are disabled for bare metal 
 builds. You could try searching for cc.ini in your 
 crosstool-ng installation and commenting out the line
 
 if ! BARE_METAL
 
 and
 

 


 Good to know. I'll prepare a patch
 ( I'm currently implementing cross-native builds for 
 crosstool-NG
 anyway)


 Just tried again with crosstools-ng 1.19.0.  I commented out 
 the appropriate lines in my cc.ini file, but the build failed 
 with...

 " The following requested languages could not be built: d "

 ... in the build.log file.

 Also, the instructions here 
 (http://gdcproject.org/wiki/Cross%20Compiler/crosstool-NG) say:

 "If druntime & phobos do not yet compile for your target you 
 can disable them:

 Start ct-ng menuconfig, go to "C compiler" and add 
 "--disable-libphobos" to "Core gcc extra config" and "gcc extra 
 config". "

 While the "Core gcc extra config" option exists, "gcc extra 
 config" does not.

 The quest continues...


Thinking about this a little more, I figured the only way GCC 
would not no about D is if the GCC sources were not patched...and 
sure enough, I had crosstools pointing to the wrong folder.  My 
mistake.
Nov 30 2013
parent reply "Mike" <none none.com> writes:
On Sunday, 1 December 2013 at 06:00:08 UTC, Mike wrote:

 On Sunday, 1 December 2013 at 05:23:19 UTC, Mike wrote:

 On Sunday, 24 November 2013 at 18:38:19 UTC, Johannes Pfau 
 wrote:

 Am Sun, 24 Nov 2013 18:18:22 +0100
 schrieb "jerro" <a a.com>:


 It seems languages other than C are disabled for bare metal 
 builds. You could try searching for cc.ini in your 
 crosstool-ng installation and commenting out the line
 
 if ! BARE_METAL
 
 and
 

 


 Good to know. I'll prepare a patch
 ( I'm currently implementing cross-native builds for 
 crosstool-NG
 anyway)


 Just tried again with crosstools-ng 1.19.0.  I commented out 
 the appropriate lines in my cc.ini file, but the build failed 
 with...

 " The following requested languages could not be built: d "

 ... in the build.log file.

 Also, the instructions here 
 (http://gdcproject.org/wiki/Cross%20Compiler/crosstool-NG) say:

 "If druntime & phobos do not yet compile for your target you 
 can disable them:

 Start ct-ng menuconfig, go to "C compiler" and add 
 "--disable-libphobos" to "Core gcc extra config" and "gcc 
 extra config". "

 While the "Core gcc extra config" option exists, "gcc extra 
 config" does not.

 The quest continues...


 Thinking about this a little more, I figured the only way GCC 
 would not no about D is if the GCC sources were not 
 patched...and sure enough, I had crosstools pointing to the 
 wrong folder.  My mistake.


I was finally able to build a GDC cross compiler using GCC 4.8.2, 
the GDC 4.8 branch, and crosstools-ng 1.19.0.  However, I found 
the following errors in the instructions located here 
(http://gdcproject.org/wiki/Cross%20Compiler/crosstool-NG)

1.  The "Other Languages" option does not appear for a bare metal 
build.  You must modify the cc.ini file to make it available per 
jerro's insructions above.  Thanks jerro
2.  The "Core gcc extra config" option exists, but the "gcc extra 
config" does not.  It doesn't appear to be necessary, but I have 
yet to test this toolchain.
3.  The "Paths and misc options, Local tarballs directory" option 
does not seem to be correct.  For me, I had to go to "C Compiler" 
-> "gcc version" and choose "Custom gcc" and point crosstools-ng 
to the folder containing the merged GCC/GDC source code.

I hope this information is useful to someone.
Dec 01 2013
parent Johannes Pfau <nospam example.com> writes:
Am Sun, 01 Dec 2013 09:58:01 +0100
schrieb "Mike" <none none.com>:


 I was finally able to build a GDC cross compiler using GCC 4.8.2, 
 the GDC 4.8 branch, and crosstools-ng 1.19.0.  However, I found 
 the following errors in the instructions located here 
 (http://gdcproject.org/wiki/Cross%20Compiler/crosstool-NG)


BTW: The new location is
http://wiki.dlang.org/GDC/Cross_Compiler/crosstool-NG


 
 1.  The "Other Languages" option does not appear for a bare metal 
 build.  You must modify the cc.ini file to make it available per 
 jerro's insructions above.  Thanks jerro


That's a bug in crosstool-NG, I'll try to get it fixed.


 2.  The "Core gcc extra config" option exists, but the "gcc extra 
 config" does not.  It doesn't appear to be necessary, but I have 
 yet to test this toolchain.


It's indeed not necessary for bare-metal builds. That's probably
because the instructions weren't tested on bare metal builds.


 3.  The "Paths and misc options, Local tarballs directory" option 
 does not seem to be correct.  For me, I had to go to "C Compiler" 
 -> "gcc version" and choose "Custom gcc" and point crosstools-ng 
 to the folder containing the merged GCC/GDC source code.


Back when I wrote those instructions the "Custom gcc" option didn't
exist. Custom gcc will work just fine, but there's a subtle difference:
crosstool-NG may automatically apply some patches for certain GCC
versions. It won't apply those patches when using the "Custom gcc"
option.

However, the method described in the wiki only works if the patched
sources are packaged into a new tarball with exactly the same name as
the original tarball (gcc-4.7.1.tar.bz2/gcc-4.8.2.tar.bz2/...). Then
crosstool-NG may have cached the extracted sources and those have to be
deleted. And nowadays crosstool-NG might actually prefer .tar.xz files,
so if you have an unpatched tar.xz file in the source directory it
file has to be deleted. I'll probably add some text about these issues
to the documentation.


 I hope this information is useful to someone.


It definitely is. Thanks for the feedback!
Dec 01 2013
prev sibling parent reply Ellery Newcomer <ellery-newcomer utulsa.edu> writes:
On 11/24/2013 06:21 AM, Johannes Pfau wrote:

 Am Sun, 24 Nov 2013 14:19:43 +0100
 schrieb "Mike" <none none.com>:


 On Sunday, 24 November 2013 at 12:53:42 UTC, Iain Buclaw wrote:

 On Sunday, 24 November 2013 at 12:43:01 UTC, Mike wrote:

 I am very new to D, but I finally got my toolchain compiled
 and working.  I'm using LDC.  I failed with GDC and eventually
 gave up.


 I know Johannes has some patches yet to trickle down into gdc.
 And druntime is does not support ARM fully in 2.063, but it
 would be helpful if you could take some time to let people know
 what went wrong when you tried things, rather than just giving
 up.  Otherwise, nothing will get fixed.




 Cortex-M is the 'bare metal' branch of ARM where you usually don't run
 linux so druntime won't work anyway. There are some compiler fixes in
 my branch that could be interesting though:
 https://github.com/jpf91/GDC/commits/arm

 BTW: I'll start merging back the fixes to gdc master this week. Some
 fixes have to be merged into phobos upstream though so it might take
 some time.


I actually tried to get a gdc build a week or two ago for a cortex-a8 
using ng-crosstools-linaro. I managed to get up to compiling druntime, 
which then was pointing to a commit prior to

https://github.com/D-Programming-Language/druntime/commit/541e7ba00d5e75426bb677d7f7548a47a904551f

so it failed. Then I figured I'd wait for your fixes.
Nov 24 2013
parent Johannes Pfau <nospam example.com> writes:
Am Sun, 24 Nov 2013 09:35:57 -0800
schrieb Ellery Newcomer <ellery-newcomer utulsa.edu>:


 On 11/24/2013 06:21 AM, Johannes Pfau wrote:

 Am Sun, 24 Nov 2013 14:19:43 +0100
 schrieb "Mike" <none none.com>:


 On Sunday, 24 November 2013 at 12:53:42 UTC, Iain Buclaw wrote:

 On Sunday, 24 November 2013 at 12:43:01 UTC, Mike wrote:

 I am very new to D, but I finally got my toolchain compiled
 and working.  I'm using LDC.  I failed with GDC and eventually
 gave up.


 I know Johannes has some patches yet to trickle down into gdc.
 And druntime is does not support ARM fully in 2.063, but it
 would be helpful if you could take some time to let people know
 what went wrong when you tried things, rather than just giving
 up.  Otherwise, nothing will get fixed.




 Cortex-M is the 'bare metal' branch of ARM where you usually don't
 run linux so druntime won't work anyway. There are some compiler
 fixes in my branch that could be interesting though:
 https://github.com/jpf91/GDC/commits/arm

 BTW: I'll start merging back the fixes to gdc master this week. Some
 fixes have to be merged into phobos upstream though so it might take
 some time.


 
 I actually tried to get a gdc build a week or two ago for a cortex-a8 
 using ng-crosstools-linaro. I managed to get up to compiling
 druntime, which then was pointing to a commit prior to
 
 https://github.com/D-Programming-Language/druntime/commit/541e7ba00d5e75426bb677d7f7548a47a904551f
 
 so it failed. Then I figured I'd wait for your fixes.
 
 


Hi, 
as Iain started merging 2.064 the ARM branch merge will probably be
delayed until the 2.064 merge is complete. I updated my branch to
be on the last 2.063 revision which still compiles with gcc-4.8:
https://github.com/jpf91/GDC/commits/arm

It'd be awesome if you could help with some alpha-testing.
Unfortunately cross-compilers are completely untested and I'll first
have to make the test suite run for cross-compilers. But if you could
build a native compiler, run the test suite and unit tests and report
the results, that'd be awesome.

See http://wiki.dlang.org/GDC/Test_Suite
and http://wiki.dlang.org/GDC/Test_Suite#Running_unit_tests
for more information.
Dec 01 2013