gnupic@linuxhacker.org

Craig,

I am really impressed with what you have achieved so far. I really like the
fact that SDCC can make use of a linker. This should make for smaller
programs.

One thing I have noticed porting SDCC to PIC18F is that the problem of bank
selection is not as prevalent in PIC18F because all registers are in the
same bank. Actually, the first bank contains all registers and 128 bytes
that can be used for RAM. If a program uses little RAM, then, it is possible
that no bank selection will be required! This should also make the code much
smaller.

I will have some time free in a week or two. I would like to try the linker
with PIC18F to see if it works. Can you give me some instructions on how to
use it (or is it documented anywhere on the gpasm/gplink Web page)?

Thanks,

Martin

----- Original Message -----
From: "Craig Franklin" <craigfranklin@attbi.com>
To: "Martin Dubuc" <m.dubuc@rogers.com>
Cc: <gnupic@linuxhacker.org>
Sent: Saturday, April 05, 2003 6:05 PM
Subject: Re: gpasm


> Your interest is probably for the SDCC pic target?  I have cc'ed the
> gnupic list.  I think most of SDCC developers are listening.
>
> I have put in a lot of work.
>
> There are a couple of minor bugs in the gpasm coff output, but I believe
> all devices are working.  All but two of the gpasm coff test files are
> passing.
>
> gputils-0.11.0 was the first version with a functional linker (gplink)
> and archive tool (gplib).  I have been using them with 14 bit devices,
> things seem to be working.  My next big task is to write test files and
> fix bugs.
>
> You are probably interested in linking 18xx objects.  I havn't tried.
> There are probably some big bugs that I don't know about.  The test
> files should help me fix them.
>
> I am encouraged by what has been accomplished, but realistically it will
> take a few more minor releases (6-8 weeks) before gplink will be alpha
> for all devices.  I am calling it pre-alpha now.  I would like SDCC to
> start using the linker.  This will help to uncover the bugs faster.
>
> I wish I had some time to put into SDCC, but it just hasn't been
> possible.  There has been too much work on the backend.  As I stated
> before, I have an SDCC patch started.  Some of the basics are taken care
> of, but not much more.  I think I will clean up what I have and send to
> to everyone.  Give me a couple of days.  Maybe Scott can make an SDCC
> cvs branch for the relocatable changes.
>
> > Martin Dubuc wrote:
> >
> > Craig,
> >
> > Have you worked on gpasm the past few months? I am curious to learn
> > about the ongoing improvments. Have you worked on relocation/link?
> >
> > Martin