AVR Freaks

Tools, Atmel Studio (AVR-related)

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Posted by DieCore: Thu. Dec 22, 2011 - 06:43 PM

Hello

I am a bit disappointed to see that there are no advanced breakpoints in AS 5.1 beta 148

Whats the point to have a hardware debugger without any advanced breakpoints which i think they can make our debugging easier and more productive?

Does anyone see any data breakpoints for AVR8 or AVR32 UC3 in the AS 5.1 beta?
http://dirac.org/linux/gdb/04-Br...

Atmel guys what about Trace (for UC3 only), Watchpoints and Catchpoints ?

Its a bit strange to me that i haven't seen anyone complaining about a feature that was in AS4 (data breakpoints) and the trace feature for UC3 AVR32 arch (in AVR32studio) and suddenly disappeared and buried since AS5 Beta...

Please feel free to post any other features that should be in AS5 series.

Tags:

Jamiro14

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Posted by Jamiro14: Fri. Dec 23, 2011 - 11:55 AM

I haven't seen anyone else complain about this but one of my main complaints is that every time I want to program something I have to open AVR Programming and then I have to close it since I'm unable to edit the code while AVR Programming is open. :?
My solution for this is having a AS4 window open just to program since having another AS5 open would slow down the computer.

tsgd84

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Posted by tsgd84: Fri. Dec 23, 2011 - 12:04 PM

> My solution for this is having a AS4 window open just
> to program since having another AS5 open would slow
> down the computer.

How about using atprogram command from "AVR Studio 5.1 Command Prompt"?
atprogram is a command line utility through which you can program the device

Regards,
Deena

danv

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Posted by danv: Fri. Dec 23, 2011 - 01:07 PM

Jamiro14 wrote:

every time I want to program something I have to open AVR Programming and then I have to close it since I'm unable to edit the code while AVR Programming is open. :?

The "Debug | Start without debugging" menu choice will reprogram and launch the current program, so that you do not need to open the Programming Dialog.

-dan

Jamiro14

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Posted by Jamiro14: Fri. Dec 23, 2011 - 03:01 PM

danv wrote:

Jamiro14 wrote:
every time I want to program something I have to open AVR Programming and then I have to close it since I'm unable to edit the code while AVR Programming is open. :?

The "Debug | Start without debugging" menu choice will reprogram and launch the current program, so that you do not need to open the Programming Dialog.

-dan

I always knew there had to be a better solution. Thank you very much. :D

Just one doubt, is it possible to assign a shortcut to this action? This would be great... 8)

----Edit---
Nevermind. I've found it. Tools->Options->Environment->Keyboard and you can assign your shortcuts

PeteAVR

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Posted by PeteAVR: Fri. Dec 23, 2011 - 03:09 PM

Quote:

Just one doubt, is it possible to assign a shortcut to this action? This would be great... Cool

Right click in the Toolbar and choose Customize. In the Customize Dialog click on Keyboard. There you can give "Start without Debugging" a keyboard shortcut. Sigh. This is not the first time I wrote this in the forum.

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Posted by DieCore: Sun. Dec 25, 2011 - 12:38 PM

I think the Visual Assist X in AS 5.1 Beta its exacty the same version with the AS 5. It suppose that the AS 5.1 beta has a newer ver of Visual Assist X...

Merry Christmas and Happy new Year!

tsgd84

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Posted by tsgd84: Mon. Dec 26, 2011 - 05:53 AM

VAX that was shipped with AS 5.1 beta has the version 10.6.1859.5, but the one that was shipped with AS 5.0 had 10.6.1843.5

Most possibly lower version of VAX(with AS 5.0) would have got upgraded with the newer version of VAX

Regards,
Deena

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Posted by DieCore: Sat. Dec 31, 2011 - 12:46 PM

i dont know why but both installations of AS 5 and 5.1 Beta have 10.6.1859.5 ver of the VAX in my pc.

tsgd84

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#10

Posted by tsgd84: Sat. Dec 31, 2011 - 05:30 PM

Looks like VAX(lower version) with AS 5.0 has got updated with the newer version of VAX :-)

Regards,
Deena

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#11

Posted by Zaphodikus: Wed. Jan 4, 2012 - 08:41 PM

The inability to download your hex file with one click is something we talked about in the version 5.0 time a year ago. I'm no embedded guru, but every other system I've used in workplace has always been one-click and at most an enter key bash to burn a ROM.

Besides, the "download without debugging" option is broken implementation-wise, because if debugging is not supported on your target or ISP setup, the command baulks and does bugger-all. Fat help.

Conrad Braam - www.softcircuitry.blogspot.com - www.plcsimulator.org
Always start off poorly, that way when you finally figure it out, you can get a few surprise hits in.

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#12

Posted by Zaphodikus: Wed. Jan 4, 2012 - 08:47 PM

The "Programmer" screen has a habit of forgetting what my ISP and target are, Every time I have to click the "apply" button before moving on. What's the use-case for forcing me to click "apply" to select my target device every single time unless I have 2 projects open atthe same time? I think 5.0 used to do this too, so it's perhaps not a new bug.

Other than a shaky start the 5.1 'beata' works pretty well for me. :-)

/edit: I emailed my bug to Atmel, and they created a ticket and a new user on the support system for me. At least someone will have to take the effort to read it and hit the 'reject' button now.

Conrad Braam - www.softcircuitry.blogspot.com - www.plcsimulator.org
Always start off poorly, that way when you finally figure it out, you can get a few surprise hits in.

Last Edited: Wed. Jan 4, 2012 - 08:56 PM

Levenkay

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#13

Posted by Levenkay: Wed. Jan 4, 2012 - 08:53 PM

I would settle for being able to mouse over variables in the sourcecode being debugged and having their values displayed as a tooltip.

Have they got this working yet?

After that, the ability to right-click on a symbol and command the environment to navigate you to the symbol's definition (something that even Microsoft lost the ability to do when they "improved" VS2008 to VS2010)

danv

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#14

Posted by danv: Wed. Jan 4, 2012 - 08:54 PM

Zaphodikus wrote:

Besides, the "download without debugging" option is broken implementation-wise, because if debugging is not supported on your target or ISP setup, the command baulks and does bugger-all. Fat help.

My "sources" tell me that Launch without debugging should work also for non debugging tools like STK600 and AVRISPMK2.

What combination of tool/interface are you referring to that does not work ? Did you try on the AS5.1 Beta as well ?

Thanks, Dan

danv

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#15

Posted by danv: Wed. Jan 4, 2012 - 08:58 PM

Levenkay wrote:

I would settle for being able to mouse over variables in the sourcecode being debugged and having their values displayed as a tooltip.

Have they got this working yet?

After that, the ability to right-click on a symbol and command the environment to navigate you to the symbol's definition (something that even Microsoft lost the ability to do when they "improved" VS2008 to VS2010)

1. Datatips should work like in VS2010, provided there's enough debug info. You can also pin them to the source code like in VS2010.
2. Symbol navigation is provided by the integrated VisualAssist and is vastly superior to the VS2010 offering.

Regards, Dan

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#16

Posted by Zaphodikus: Wed. Jan 4, 2012 - 09:05 PM

Launch without debugging
5.1 beta 'Full' which I downloaded on monday
AVRDragon and an atmega8515 over ISP. Here is the message I get:

AVR Studio was unable to start your debug session. Please verify device selection, interface settings, target power and connections to the target device.
>
Timestamp: 2012-01-04 20:59:14.473
Severity: ERROR
ComponentId: 20000
StatusCode: 0
Launch error :Index and length must refer to a location within the string.
Parameter name: length

... I think the other issue with the IDE 'forgetting' to apply my settings every time I go into the "AVR Programming" dialog is kicking it out. The last bit of the message seems to point that direction.
I have to hit the "Apply" button in the Programming dialog all the time, frustrating. It hence takes me 4 clicks to do a download.

Conrad Braam - www.softcircuitry.blogspot.com - www.plcsimulator.org
Always start off poorly, that way when you finally figure it out, you can get a few surprise hits in.

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#17

Posted by Zaphodikus: Wed. Jan 4, 2012 - 09:15 PM

The earlier suggested work-around to the download one-click problem to open 2 instances of AVR Studio works for me :-)

Conrad Braam - www.softcircuitry.blogspot.com - www.plcsimulator.org
Always start off poorly, that way when you finally figure it out, you can get a few surprise hits in.

danv

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Location: Atmel, Norway

#18

Posted by danv: Wed. Jan 4, 2012 - 10:42 PM

Zaphodikus wrote:

Launch error :Index and length must refer to a location within the string.

Sounds like a bug. Any chance you could post the project file (csproj) here or in a PM ?

Thanks, Dan.

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#19

Posted by DieCore: Sun. Jan 8, 2012 - 08:01 AM

I donâ€™t know if they will develop advanced breakpoints in the final ver of AS 5.1 but I hope they will OPTIMIZE the compilation speed of the AS 5.1 Final for both AVR8 and AVR32 GCC compilers!

Its so slow even with fast cpu in my opinion compared to compile the project with a linux toolchain.

Could it use multitheading gcc to speed up the compilation process when there many CPU cores?

Dean had mentioned something i think somewhere in the forum concerning the AS5 compilation speed but i couldnâ€™t find it.

clawson

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Location: (using avr-gcc in) Finchingfield, Essex, England

#20

Posted by clawson: Sun. Jan 8, 2012 - 12:58 PM

Quote:

the compilation speed

Really? What happens if you forget AS5.1 all together and build with the same Makefile at the command line? On the whole the compilation speed is set by avr-gcc and that's not exactly known for being slow?!?

(I wonder if your problem is that when it searches PATH for the tools it's stalling on a network drive early in PATH or something?)

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#21

Posted by abcminiuser: Sun. Jan 8, 2012 - 01:39 PM

Quote:

Dean had mentioned something i think somewhere in the forum concerning the AS5 compilation speed but i couldnâ€™t find it.

The AVRToolchain builds are significantly slower for me on my quad core i7 with 8GB of RAM and a SSD (so not limited at all by the hardware) than the old WinAVR binaries. I suspect the AVRToolchain versions are built with something not quite right, since I can build the LUFA trunk many, many times faster when using a virtual Ubuntu machine on the same physical machine.

I realize there's a tax to be had with regards to *nix tools cross-compiled onto Windows (since each execution needs to load in and prepare a pseudo-unix environment) but the difference between WinAVR and AVRToolchain on the same machine is different enough for me to suspect that there's a problem.

I'll go benchmark the two and report back here.

- Dean :twisted:

Make Atmel Studio better with my free extensions. Open source and feedback welcome!

clawson

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#22

Posted by clawson: Sun. Jan 8, 2012 - 01:47 PM

I haven't checked but maybe the toolchain binaries are dependent on cygwin1.dll ? (the WinAVR ones aren't as they are built with MinGW/Msys).

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#23

Posted by abcminiuser: Sun. Jan 8, 2012 - 01:59 PM

Not sure - I did a search for Cygwin DLLs in the AVRToolchain directory and didn't find anything.

The results are in:

Quote:

avr-gcc (AVR_8_bit_GNU_Toolchain_3.3.1_445) 4.5.1
> Time Taken: 09:43

avr-gcc (WinAVR 20100110) 4.3.3
> Time Taken: 06:18

(Note that the above is compiling the entire LUFA trunk from scratch, including all 40+ demos and applications)

- Dean :twisted:

Make Atmel Studio better with my free extensions. Open source and feedback welcome!

pab

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#24

Posted by pab: Mon. Jan 9, 2012 - 08:24 AM

clawson wrote:

I haven't checked but maybe the toolchain binaries are dependent on cygwin1.dll ? (the WinAVR ones aren't as they are built with MinGW/Msys).

They are not dependent on cygwin at all. They are pure mingw32 applications.

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#25

Posted by DieCore: Fri. Jan 13, 2012 - 09:57 PM

abcminiuser wrote:

Not sure - I did a search for Cygwin DLLs in the AVRToolchain directory and didn't find anything.

The results are in:

Quote:
avr-gcc (AVR_8_bit_GNU_Toolchain_3.3.1_445) 4.5.1
> Time Taken: 09:43

avr-gcc (WinAVR 20100110) 4.3.3
> Time Taken: 06:18

(Note that the above is compiling the entire LUFA trunk from scratch, including all 40+ demos and applications)

- Dean :twisted:

Ok Dean
What about the compilation speed when you compile it again inside of AS5 & AS5.1 beta?

I think its gona be too slow compared the pure cmd but it could be clear if you could bench it.

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#26

Posted by abcminiuser: Sat. Jan 14, 2012 - 03:26 PM

Quote:

Ok Dean
What about the compilation speed when you compile it again inside of AS5 & AS5.1 beta?

I think its gona be too slow compared the pure cmd but it could be clear if you could bench it.

I'm sure it's worse, but there's no way I'm going to convert all forty projects into a gigantic AVRStudio 5 project to test out the speed - it would take a week to do.

- Dean :twisted:

Make Atmel Studio better with my free extensions. Open source and feedback welcome!

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#27

Posted by DieCore: Sat. Jan 14, 2012 - 08:59 PM

abcminiuser wrote:

Quote:

Ok Dean
What about the compilation speed when you compile it again inside of AS5 & AS5.1 beta?

I think its gona be too slow compared the pure cmd but it could be clear if you could bench it.

I'm sure it's worse, but there's no way I'm going to convert all forty projects into a gigantic AVRStudio 5 project to test out the speed - it would take a week to do.

- Dean :twisted:

Is there any "easy" way to do it? Like copying the master LUFA folder in a AS5 - AS5.1 solution and then configure it to have external makefile for the build?