2.5 uptime prototype

With the basic functionality available so far, I can write something in the vein of the Unix uptime command. 
$ man -k uptime
uptime (1)           - Tell how long the system has been running.
I am going to make a quick prototype first to validate the concept.

Implementation

I already have a one second based System Tick interrupt routine, so I just need to make sure it updates a count of seconds. I make a copy of usart1tx.c as uplow.1.c to make the changes. I use a number suffix for the filename when I anticipate making several revisions. 
volatile unsigned uptime ;  /* seconds elapsed since boot */

#ifdef LED_ON
static void userLEDtoggle( void) {
    GPIO( LED_IOP)[ ODR] ^= 1 << LED_PIN ;   /* Toggle User LED */
}
#endif

void SysTick_Handler( void) {
    uptime += 1 ;
#ifdef LED_ON
    userLEDtoggle() ;
#endif
}
The global variable uptime is marked volatile, the compiler needs this information to avoid optimization as the value changes concurrently when an interrupt is triggered.

I move the user LED toggling code to a dedicated local function userLEDtoggle() as this is not the only task of SysTick_Handler() anymore and a call to toggle the LED is needed during initialization. I adjust the initialization code accordingly.

I write a first uptime.1.c to print the count of seconds every time the uptime counter value changes. 

/* uptime.1.c -- tells how long the system has been running */
#include <stdio.h>

extern volatile unsigned uptime ;
extern void kputc( unsigned char c) ;

void kputu( unsigned u) {
    unsigned r = u % 10 ;
    u /= 10 ;
    if( u)
        kputu( u) ;

    kputc( '0' + r) ;
}

int main( void) {
    unsigned last = 0 ;

    for( ;;)
        if( last != uptime) {
            last = uptime ;
            kputu( last) ;
            puts( " sec") ;
        } else
            __asm( "WFI") ; /* Wait for System Tick Interrupt */
}
As before for kputc(), the implementation of kputu() to print an unsigned integer in decimal format is not optimal but still functional.

Build

I update Makefile with the composition. 
SRCS = startup.c uplow.1.c uptime.1.c
Unfortunately, when I try to build an executable, the link phase fails. 
$ make
f030f4.elf
D:\Program Files (x86)\GNU Arm Embedded Toolchain\arm-gnu-toolchain-14.2.rel1-mi
ngw-w64-i686-arm-none-eabi\bin\arm-none-eabi-ld.exe: uptime.1.o: in function `kp
utu':
D:\home\Projects\stm32bringup/uptime.1.c:13:(.text+0x6): undefined reference to 
`__aeabi_uidivmod'
D:\Program Files (x86)\GNU Arm Embedded Toolchain\arm-gnu-toolchain-14.2.rel1-mi
ngw-w64-i686-arm-none-eabi\bin\arm-none-eabi-ld.exe: D:\home\Projects\stm32bring
up/uptime.1.c:14:(.text+0x14): undefined reference to `__aeabi_uidiv'
make: *** [Makefile:49: f030f4.elf] Error 1
The compiler has generated code that references two functions __aeabi_uidivmod and __aeabi_uidiv when compiling the lines 13 and 14 of uptime.1.c. 
    unsigned r = u % 10 ;
    u /= 10 ;
This happens because the compiler generates code for Cortex-M0 which has no integer division support. So integer division needs to be implemented by code as it is not supported by hardware. I need to pass the linker a reference to GNU Arm Embedded Toolchain library for Cortex-M0. The library file is libgcc.a, the option -l and -L of the linker tell what the library name is (-lgcc => libgcc.a) and where to look for it. 
LIBDIR  = $(GCCDIR)/lib/gcc/arm-none-eabi/14.2.1/thumb/v6-m/nofp
LIB_PATHS = -L$(LIBDIR)
LIBS = -lgcc

$(PROJECT).elf: $(OBJS)
    @echo $@
    $(LD) -T$(LD_SCRIPT) $(LIB_PATHS) -Map=$(PROJECT).map -cref -o $@ $^ $(LIBS)
    $(SIZE) $@
    $(OBJDUMP) -hS $@ > $(PROJECT).lst
Once the Makefile has been updated, the build finish successfully. 
$ make
f030f4.elf
   text    data     bss     dec     hex filename
    769       0       8     777     309 f030f4.elf
f030f4.hex
f030f4.bin
Checking the linker produced map file, f030f4.map, I can see which library (libgcc.a) but also which modules in the library ( _udivsi3.o and _dvmd_tls.o) have been used to resolve the symbols (__aeabi_uidiv and __aeabi_idiv0). 
Archive member included to satisfy reference by file (symbol)

D:/Program Files (x86)/GNU Arm Embedded Toolchain/arm-gnu-toolchain-14.2.rel1-mi
ngw-w64-i686-arm-none-eabi/lib/gcc/arm-none-eabi/14.2.1/thumb/v6-m/nofp\libgcc.a
(_udivsi3.o)
                              uptime.1.o (__aeabi_uidiv)
D:/Program Files (x86)/GNU Arm Embedded Toolchain/arm-gnu-toolchain-14.2.rel1-mi
ngw-w64-i686-arm-none-eabi/lib/gcc/arm-none-eabi/14.2.1/thumb/v6-m/nofp\libgcc.a
(_dvmd_tls.o)
                              D:/Program Files (x86)/GNU Arm Embedded Toolchain/
arm-gnu-toolchain-14.2.rel1-mingw-w64-i686-arm-none-eabi/lib/gcc/arm-none-eabi/1
4.2.1/thumb/v6-m/nofp\libgcc.a(_udivsi3.o) (__aeabi_idiv0)

Testing

I flash the board and start execution, the output works as expected, the first line “1 sec” appears one second after reset with a new line following every second after that.

uptime v1 output

Library management

With Cortex-M0 version of libgcc.a available I have some extra flexibility in handling usage of the library.
  1. Work with a local copy of the gcc library.
  2. Work with a local copy of the modules extracted from the gcc library.
  3. Work with my own library made from the needed modules extracted from the gcc library.
The ar command distributed by the GNU Arm embedded toolchain is the same GNU ar as found in the Linux distributions or Cygwin and MSYS2 distributions on Windows. So I use my native environment implementation for convenience. This is true for the utility commands (ar, objcopy, objdump and size) but not for gcc and ld.

Checkpoint

I have hacked a quick prototype of uptime and found an extra dependency to Gnu Arm Embedded Toolchain: some modules included in libgcc.a have to be included at link time as the chipset I am using has no support for integer division. At this stage I will reuse the library as it is, but I know where to look in the map file generated by the linker to find which modules are included. If I ever need a better control of the link phase, I can use ar to extract locally those modules from the library.

Next, I will write uptime with a better structure.

© 2020-2025 Renaud Fivet