Trace/Debugging

Table of Contents

• Overview
• Viewing variables
• Viewing a memory block
• Usage

Overview

QuarkTS include some basic macros to print out debugging messages. Messages can be simple text or the value of variables in specific base formats. To use the trace macros, a single-char output function must be defined using the qTrace_Set_OutputFcn() macro.

A single-char output function should follow this prototype:

void SingleChar_OutputFcn ( void *sp , const char c ) {
    /* TODO : print out the c variable using the
     * selected peripheral.
     */
}

The body of this user-defined function should have a hardware-dependent code to print out the c variable through a specific peripheral.

Viewing variables

For viewing or tracing a variable (up to 32-bit data) through debug, one of the following macros are available: qTrace_Var or qDebug_Var.

The only difference between qTrace_ and Debug, is that qTrace_ macros, print out additional information provided by the __FILE__ , __LINE__ and __func__ built-in preprocessing macros, mostly available in common C compilers.

Viewing a memory block

For tracing memory from a specified target address, one of the following macros are available: qTrace_Mem or qDebug_Mem.

Usage

In the example below, an UART output function is coded to act as the printer. Here, the target MCU is an ARM-Cortex M0 with the UART1 as the selected peripheral for this purpose.

void putUART1 ( void *sp , const char c ) {
    /* hardware specific code */
    UART1_D = c;
    while ( !( UART1_S1 & UART_S1_TC_MASK ) ) {} /*wait until TX is done*/
}

As seen above, the function follows the required prototype. Later, in the main thread, a call to qTrace_Set_OutputFcn() is used to set up the output-function.

int main( void ) {
    qTrace_Set_OutputFcn( putUART1 );
    ...
    ...
}

After that, trace macros will be available for use.

void IO_TASK_Callback ( qEvent_t e ) {
    static qUINT32_t Counter = 0;
    float Sample;
    ...
    ...
    qTrace_Message( "IO TASK running..." );
    Counter++;
    qTrace_Variable( Counter , UnsignedDecimal );
    Sample = SensorGetSample ();
    qTrace_Variable( Sample , Float );
    ...
    ...
}