Re: Debugging: Am I a dreamer. . . ?

In message <JYp7F0WlGlHP@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Simon Clubley <clubley@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes
In article <X0BDLJNJEFGIFAL8@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Chris H <chris@xxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:
In message <48184695$0$23852$8404b019@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, David Brown
<david@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes

What's wrong with debugging using printf? I don't mean specifically
"printf", which you should normally avoid in a small embedded system,

Well you have answered the question.

but the general idea of putting out extra information while the program
runs is a very useful debugging technique.

Yes but not the same as using printf.


Are you objecting to the use of the C function printf() within a embedded
environment for debugging or are you objecting to the use of serial port
output as a debugging tool ?

Printf mainly.

The serial port is used by various debug systems. Monitors and some RTOS.

In AVR land, I don't use printf as it's bloated (by embedded standards),
Exactly.

but I do have my own interrupt based UART I/O routines that I use for
normal communication with other serial devices as well as debugging.

The routines implement a tty for the hardware UART as well as a Tx-only
software UART for debugging output. As both UART's are interrupt based,
and the output can be optionally buffered in an application specified
buffer, I see very little overhead in using the software UART for
outputting debug information.

Fair enough. I assume this code is shipped in the release?

Where you need to ship release, not debug, code you can't beat an ICE for full speed non intrusive debugging. They have many features you just can't do with a serial port.

--
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