Building mbed frdm-kl25z C++ applications with eclipse in linux

Join me as I enjoy mbedding!! 😉 The mbed platform contains the libraries you need to set up a project for ARM microcontrollers, including the FRDM-KL25Z… The Application Programming Interfaces (API’s) above the Hardware abstraction Layer (HAL) that make the process of creating an embedded application trivial. You merely just write C++ code in your main function after including the mbed header file. This means if you have a new target, you can do the HAL, port it to mbed and continue enjoying the API in the platform. What I love about it is that even though the firmware provided by Freescale for programming the KL25Z target in the freedom board is tied to the id of the target on the board, mbed firmware allows you to program an external target chip (i am yet to verify this). Get where I am going with this? I wanna buy the microcontrollers and make custom boards, there are opensource tool-chains, and keep exploring…

• Go to the working directory:

  
  cd src/git/
  

• Create a directory for mbed repo:

  
  mkdir mbed
  

• Clone the mbed repo

  
  git clone https://github.com/mbedmicro/mbed.git mbed/
  

• Get into the mbed directory:

  
  cd mbed
  

• Create a private settings file. this helps set some custom configs instead of editing the main settings file.

  
  gedit workspace_tools/private_settings.py
  

  Set

  “GCC_ARM_PATH=&quo;/usr/bin/&quo;”, or the path to where you installed it, save and close. Make sure you use quotation marks, see comment at the end of the post.

• Generate the mbed appliction sources, which is building the libraries:

  
  python workspace_tools/build.py -m KL25Z -t GCC_ARM
  >>> BUILD LIBRARY CMSIS (KL25Z, GCC_ARM)
  
  >>> BUILD LIBRARY MBED (KL25Z, GCC_ARM)
  
  Completed in: (0.26)s
  
  Build successes:
    * GCC_ARM::KL25Z
  

• Install Eclipse juno as described in this post for the installation of eclipse Kepler. I have no idea if Kepler would work, I just installed juno instead to be on the safe side as it was the release used in the reference post. You should try Kepler and comment here ;).
• create a new eclipse c++ application, choose cross compiler, arm-none-eabi-gcc and arm-none-eabi-g++ select debug and disselect release configuration. finish.
• In the project folder, create a source folder, named src.
• Copy paste the build/mbed/ folder into the project’s source folder, src

  
  cp -r build/mbed/ ../FRDM_workspace/mbedtest/src/ 
  

• Go to project settings, under C/C++ build, uncheck Generate Makefiles automatically and set the Build Location build folder to src in my case: ${workspace_loc:/mbedtest}/src/
• Place this makefile in your src folder
• In the make file, change the variable DEVICE = /media/user/MBED/ replacing “user” with your system username. it is the mount folder of your mbed device. In older Ubuntu versions, the path used to be /media/REMOVABLE_DEVICE_NAME/.
• Create a file main.cpp in the src folder and paste the following code, save and close

   
  #include "mbed.h"
  
  Serial s(USBTX, USBRX);
  DigitalOut led(LED1);
  PwmOut ledpwm(LED1);
  
  int main() {
  ledpwm=0;
  led=1;
  s.printf("Hey, this is test: ");
      while(1) {
          ledpwm=ledpwm+0.1;
          wait(0.8);
          if(ledpwm==1){
              s.printf("offn");
              wait(0.2);
              ledpwm=0;
          }
      }
  } 
  

• Make sure your FRDM-KL25z board is plugged in then click on the build button. The program should build and get flashed into the target successfully.

This app pulses and dims the LED as well as reporting the status when LED is finally at zero brightness through the UART serial link which can be monitored using a terminal app like gtkterm, and i guess minicom.

Reference:

embeddedworldweb

Update: Tested with Eclipse Kepler, works just fine

eclipse mbed kl25z c++ application

CDT Build Console:

20:45:42 **** Incremental Build of configuration Debug for project mbedtest ****
make all 
Building file: main.o
Invoking: MCU C++ Compiler
/usr/bin/arm-none-eabi-g++ -g -ggdb -Os -Wall -fno-strict-aliasing -fno-rtti -ffunction-sections -fdata-sections -fno-exceptions -fno-delete-null-pointer-checks -fmessage-length=0 -fno-builtin -mthumb -mcpu=cortex-m0 -MMD -MP -DTARGET_KL25Z -DTOOLCHAIN_GCC_ARM -DNDEBUG -MF out/main.d -I.  -Imbed  -Imbed/TARGET_KL25Z  -Imbed/TARGET_KL25Z/TOOLCHAIN_GCC_ARM  -I. -std=gnu++98 -c main.cpp -o out/main.o
Finished building: main.o

Building target: out/mbed.elf
Invoking: MCU Linker
/usr/bin/arm-none-eabi-gcc -mcpu=cortex-m0 -mthumb -Os -L mbed/TARGET_KL25Z/TOOLCHAIN_GCC_ARM -T mbed/TARGET_KL25Z/TOOLCHAIN_GCC_ARM/MKL25Z4.ld -I.  -Imbed  -Imbed/TARGET_KL25Z  -Imbed/TARGET_KL25Z/TOOLCHAIN_GCC_ARM  -I. -specs=nano.specs -u _printf_float -u _scanf_float -Wl,-Map=out/mbed.map,--gc-sections out/main.o   mbed/TARGET_KL25Z/TOOLCHAIN_GCC_ARM/cmsis_nvic.o mbed/TARGET_KL25Z/TOOLCHAIN_GCC_ARM/startup_MKL25Z4.o mbed/TARGET_KL25Z/TOOLCHAIN_GCC_ARM/retarget.o mbed/TARGET_KL25Z/TOOLCHAIN_GCC_ARM/system_MKL25Z4.o -lmbed -lstdc++ -lsupc++ -lm -lgcc -lc -lnosys -o out/mbed.elf
Finished building target: out/mbed.elf
Copying out/mbed.elf to /media/karibe/MBED/

Printing size
arm-none-eabi-size --totals out/mbed.elf
   text    data     bss     dec     hex filename
  43204     224     712   44140    ac6c out/mbed.elf
  43204     224     712   44140    ac6c (TOTALS)
arm-none-eabi-objcopy -O srec out/mbed.elf out/mbed.s19
arm-none-eabi-objcopy -O binary -v out/mbed.elf out/mbed.bin
copy from `out/mbed.elf' [elf32-littlearm] to `out/mbed.bin' [binary]
arm-none-eabi-objdump -D out/mbed.elf > out/mbed.lst
arm-none-eabi-nm out/mbed.elf > out/mbed-symbol-table.txt


20:45:43 Build Finished (took 559ms)