Whci PRU-C-compiler is recommended?

[Karl Karpfen]

Hi,

it seems there are two C-compilers available that are able to generate PRU-code. One from TI and one introduced here in this board. But...which one is recommended to be used? That's what I found out so far, may be somebody can add some missing information to make it easier to choose one:

TI's PRU-C-compiler is

- available at http://software-dl.ti.com/codegen/non-esd/downloads/beta.htm

- BETA

- can be used to create ARM-objects (which can be linked to a bare metal application and loaded to PRU on start-up automatically?)

Community/Open Source PRU-C-compiler is

- avaialble at https://github.com/dinuxbg/gnupru

- BETA

- GCC-based and therefore more stable

[din...@gmail.com]

Hi Karl,

The PRU GAS and LD ports should be in a good shape. But the PRU GCC port has not yet reached beta. Judge for yourself:

• PRU GCC has not been "battle tested" on a big project.
• Only two small examples are currently used to "sanity check" the pru gcc releases.
• PRU GCC has no known bugs.

If you can take a little risk and don't mind checking the compiler-generated assembler, then go ahead and try PRU GCC.

If you want an "ASAP, no hassles" C compiler for PRU, TI's one would be a more suitable choice right now.

Regards,
Dimitar

[Karl Karpfen]

OK, I'll try GCC version! Just wanted to collect some information regarding both compilers in this thread...

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[Jason Kridner]

The latest version of the C compiler is no longer in beta. Even
better, it is a freely redistributable binary. While not as good as
redistributable source like the GCC, at least we can easily get it to
everyone;

http://software-dl.ti.com/codegen/non-esd/downloads/download.htm#PRU

I updated the wiki page and http://beagleboard.org/pru. I expect this
to be included in upcoming Debian releases, if not the GCC as well.

>>>
>>> Community/Open Source PRU-C-compiler is
>>>
>>> - avaialble at https://github.com/dinuxbg/gnupru
>>> - BETA
>>> - GCC-based and therefore more stable
>>>
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[Karl Karpfen]

Meanwhile I'm more than happy with TI's C-compiler. Especially the disassembler is very useful in case one has to count instructions to get the exact number of clock cycles a code-sequence requires (needed in some realtime applications).

[din...@gmail.com]

Just to let you know that the PRU GCC toolchain also has a disassembler:
   pru-objdump -d myprog.elf
For more information do "man objdump"

Regards,
Dimitar

[Karl Karpfen]

That's cool! Is there also a tool to extract text and data binaries out of an ELF file to load it into PRUs instruction and data RAM separately?

[din...@gmail.com]

The standard objcopy should be able to extract and convert:
  pru-objcopy -j .data myprog.elf -O binary DMEM.bin
  pru-objcopy -j .text myprog.elf -O binary IMEM.bin

Alternatively, you can parse the ELF file yourself, as does the example loader:  https://github.com/dinuxbg/gnupru/blob/master/example/host/pload.c#L109

Regards,
Dimitar