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  • Author Author: rscasny
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Poll: Would You Be Interesting in an ESSENTIALS on Debugging?

Debugging is an activity just about everyone involved in embedded design or working with any kind of single board computer does. What are the principles of debugging? In other words, the ESSENTIALS of [approaches to] debugging?

 

Poll Question: Would you be interested in an Essentials on Debugging?

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  • I'm going to own up here: When I don't understand an IDE's debug capability I revert to other approaches -  using infinite loops or delays to blink an LED, message the screen or UART to signify the code has successfully reached a certain place. I think it is always a good investment of time to understand the debug function in any software IDE, being able to check values are as expected and the code flows to where it should (e.g. great for picking up errors in C when = and == are used incorrectly and the code piles on through regardless ! )

     

    Looking forward to this Essentials image

  • in reply to 14rhb

    That LED technique has been so useful over the years, it is worth adding an LED to new designs just for this purpose.

    LEDs are everywhere, what would we do without LEDs?

    Maybe an essentials just on LEDs would be appropriate.

  • in reply to dougw

    Good point.

    Every micro design needs, iff possible, an LED, a test pin connected to an IO pin and access to the UART as well as access to the on chip debugging pins.

    The LED can let you do some kind of debugging without any tools at all.

    The pin is needed for timing -  can be incredibly useful.

    The UART for proper messages from the code.

    And the on chip debugger makes everything 10x easier if its available.

     

    MK

  • in reply to dougw

    Yes, a LED is so useful, it can be left blinking occasionally via a long period timer ISR just to show the system hasn't locked up and to confirm it is still powered - very handy when there are no other visible peripherals like an LCD. Many of my microcontroller projects start with a 'splashscreen' which may as simple as to flash the main LED's a couple of times using a delay function I made, this confirms I/O is setup correctly and that critical timing is good i.e. the clock rate is now known.

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  • in reply to dougw

    Yes, a LED is so useful, it can be left blinking occasionally via a long period timer ISR just to show the system hasn't locked up and to confirm it is still powered - very handy when there are no other visible peripherals like an LCD. Many of my microcontroller projects start with a 'splashscreen' which may as simple as to flash the main LED's a couple of times using a delay function I made, this confirms I/O is setup correctly and that critical timing is good i.e. the clock rate is now known.

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