Post by thread:[PIC] Compiler recommendations

Opinions Wanted! Please share your opinions on the following development tools... A. CCS C B. HI-TECH C C. PicBasic Pro D. other ...with respect to... 1. Most inclusive library of examples. 2. Most PIC hardware support (ie hardware PWM, I2C, etc) My criteria for the "best" development system is the one with the most inclusive library of examples. I find a good discussion group and BIG libraries is the fastest way to achieve rapid development. Thanks! Derek Cowburn spam_OUTdcowburnTakeThisOuTibtcorp.com -- http://www.piclist.com hint: The list server can filter out subtopics (like ads or off topics) for you. See http://www.piclist.com/#topics

Basic - have a look at BasicMicro http://www.basicmicro.com - there support is excellent and the IDE comes with a ICD and Oscilloscope built in - you do need their programmer for the IDC and Oscilloscope and Terminal gadgets to work. Drawback - it compiles a tokenised assembler and all maths are 32 bit so its hex file is larger than one might want. There are basic compilers that produce smaller files and listable ASM files such as CelestialHorizons. 'C' I use the C Pro compiler from Forest in the UK http://www.fored.co.uk - produces reasonable size hex files, has a built in simulator will do the 18 series as well. Debugger requires an add on piece of hardware and only works on the 877. Allows in the Pro version multiple linked projects also has a Rapid Development facility does include an ASM stand alone compiler and you can simulate/inject wave forms buttons etc. Unlockable demo can be downloaded (30day) Drawback- The major drawback is the IDE's error checking, it doesn't pick up missing semicolons or braces and if these are missing can cause some strange error messages, or, it will exit before your eyes! There is an extremely good, but not cheap Pascal Compiler from a German company, produces tight code, you can download a size limited demo (2K IIRC) and obviously purchasing unlocks it Drawback - They no longer support the PIC compiler only the AVR version The best C compiler is about U$1300.00 so might be expensive if your unlikely to get you outlay back. Colin -- cdb, .....bodgy1KILLspam@spam@optusnet.com.au on 28/07/2002 -- http://www.piclist.com hint: The list server can filter out subtopics (like ads or off topics) for you. See http://www.piclist.com/#topics

We are using CCS C (PCM version) for 16F876. As a C compiler, it is pretty poor. It missed errors that any decent ANSI C compiler that was written in the last 10 years would catch easily. For example, if you have an 'int foo()' function and does not return a value, it does not complain. Nor if instead of passing a struct, you pass a pointer. Very lame indeed. Reminds me of the old K&R type C compilers of 20 years ago. Also, the version we got when we purchased it about two month ago was buggy (e.g.. generating wrong code when page switching is required or a buggy definition of the assert() macro). When we downloaded the latest version about 2 weeks ago, the bugs we were aware of seem to be fixed. Nevertheless, we are going to stick to it. The main reason is the very good PIC extensions it provides. More or less it takes care of all the PIC specific details and provide an high level abstraction of the PIC configuration, interrupts and I/O operations. Generated code seems to pretey good with various PIC specific optimization such minimization of stack nesting level. As far as I know they don't have a trial version. Tal > {Original Message removed}

You'll likely get a lot of argument about your opinion of what makes for the best/fastest development... but that's pretty much the same thing I based my decision on. CCS has a very active forum on their web site. Library support for all functions as well as i2c EEPROM, keypad, LCD, ADC, lots of other stuff. I like it. Of course some will also point out that it's not true, pure, 100% ANSI C, and they're quite right. If you're looking for something ANSI compliant, I think Hi-Tech or IAR are closer. I have not tried PICBasic or Hi-Tech, only CCS, several other C compilers and of course very early on a BASIC Stamp. Just my own personal opinions, which is what you were asking for. Dale -- "Curiosity is the very basis of education and if you tell me that curiosity killed the cat, I say only the cat died nobly." - Arnold Edinborough On Sat, 27 Jul 2002, Derek Cowburn wrote: > Opinions Wanted! > My criteria for the "best" development system is the one with the most > inclusive library of examples. I find a good discussion group and BIG > libraries is the fastest way to achieve rapid development. -- http://www.piclist.com hint: The PICList is archived three different ways. See http://www.piclist.com/#archives for details.

HI,DEREK I like picbasic pro. easy to use -support is great from melabs-also there is the picbasic list which is great.-lots of examples all over the web.-supports many chips-and upgrades are only $10 there are several ide front ends for it the most popular being microcode studio by mecanique micro code studio also comes with an icd you get to see you code running on your pc and in basic. so for the support,the $$$,the ease of use,pic basicpro takes my vote. check out some of these links and you may want to look at the picbasic list archives at the melabs site and do a search on you question or ask the list. http://www.rentron.com http://www.melabs.com http://www.melabs.com/resources/index.htm microengineeringlabs.com/resources/cgi-bin/board-search.cgi hope this helps Victor Faria {Original Message removed}

My vote is for PicBasic-Pro. PicBasic-Pro from melabs is working great on both the 16f877 the 18f452. I haven't seen any other tools that are as easy to use as this product. If you want to add an IDE, look at microcode studio. The Pic-Basic list is also a very active and useful plus. When I first purchased PicBasic-Pro it was on a trial basis just to get used to the pic architecture. I assumed that I would need to update to a more expensive c-compiler later, but that day has never come for over two years. The other advantage for me is that non-c users can easily follow the code, and that helps me a lot when dealing with my boss who is brilliant at power hardware design but does like c. John Markland {Quote hidden}> > Opinions Wanted! > > > > Please share your opinions on the following development tools... > > > > A. CCS C > > B. HI-TECH C > > C. PicBasic Pro > > D. other > > > > ...with respect to... > > 1. Most inclusive library of examples. > > 2. Most PIC hardware support (ie hardware PWM, I2C, etc) > > > > My criteria for the "best" development system is the one with the most > > inclusive library of examples. I find a good discussion group and BIG > > libraries is the fastest way to achieve rapid development. > > > > Thanks! > > > > Derek Cowburn > > dcowburnKILLspamibtcorp.com > > > > -- > > http://www.piclist.com hint: The list server can filter out subtopics > > (like ads or off topics) for you. See http://www.piclist.com/#topics > > > > > > -- > http://www.piclist.com hint: The PICList is archived three different > ways. See http://www.piclist.com/#archives for details. > > -- http://www.piclist.com hint: The PICList is archived three different ways. See http://www.piclist.com/#archives for details.

> Of course some will also point out that > it's not true, pure, 100% ANSI C, and they're quite right. The main point is not it is not a pure ANSI C but that it lakes elementary features that are available in most commercial C compilers written in the last 10 years or more. For example, generating an error when a function that is declared as 'int foo()' does not return any value. Or, that it does not complain when you call a function with a pointer instead of a structure. Tal > {Original Message removed}

On Sun, 28 Jul 2002, Tal Dayan wrote: >> Of course some will also point out that >> it's not true, pure, 100% ANSI C, and they're quite right. > >The main point is not it is not a pure ANSI C but that it lakes >elementary features that are available in most commercial C compilers >written in the last 10 years or more. > >For example, generating an error when a function that is declared as 'int >foo()' does not return any value. Or, that it does not complain when you >call a function with a pointer instead of a structure. imho the compiler's job is to compile whatever the programmer throws at it. Syntax checking is another tool's job, for example (c)lint and many others. I have not so fond memories of jumping through hoops on fire to make a Microsoft compiler and assembler do what I wanted (non-standard boot code for embedded). It insisted on 'strong typing' in assembler and used segment registers that did not exist in my environment. Yeah, right. The Borland toolchains dealt with it directly without trying hard. I don't want the compiler to check what I pass it as a structure ... Peter -- http://www.piclist.com hint: The PICList is archived three different ways. See http://www.piclist.com/#archives for details.

On Sat, 27 Jul 2002, Derek Cowburn wrote: > Opinions Wanted! > > Please share your opinions on the following development tools... > > A. CCS C > B. HI-TECH C > C. PicBasic Pro > D. other SDCC http://sdcc.sourceforge.net/ SDCC is a GPL'd C compiler that supports several microcontrollers - including the midrange PIC's. > > ...with respect to... > 1. Most inclusive library of examples. > 2. Most PIC hardware support (ie hardware PWM, I2C, etc) > > My criteria for the "best" development system is the one with the most > inclusive library of examples. I find a good discussion group and BIG > libraries is the fastest way to achieve rapid development. SDCC has very little in the way of examples. I do have this http://www.dattalo.com/gnupic/ledREADME http://www.dattalo.com/gnupic/led-1.tar.gz And a screen shot of gpsim simulating the code from this project: http://www.dattalo.com/gnupic/led-1.jpg Terry Porter also has a screen shot of his sample SDCC program: http://w3w.arafuraconnect.com.au/~tp/electronics/micro/gpsim.png I also "ported" Bob Blick's LCD driver to SDCC. Here's a screen shot: http://www.dattalo.com/bblick_lcd.jpg At some point Bob was going to release this code under GPL. When he does, I'll submit an SDCC patch. Incidently, it was trivial to "port" Bob's code since it was written originally for HiTech. Going from one ANSI C compiler to another is straight forward (all I had to do was change the non-ansi bit declaration). As more people use SDCC, I expect more sample projects to come into existance. At the moment there are just a handful of us. Scott -- http://www.piclist.com hint: The PICList is archived three different ways. See http://www.piclist.com/#archives for details.

Peter, if I understand your point, you don't want any error or warning messages from the compiler. If the program is valid, it should generate correct code. If it is not, it should just go on silently and produce unexpected results. What about referring to an non existing variable, should it just pick an arbitrary value ? How about calling a function with one argument missing, should it just use an arbitrary value instead ? Correct me if I wrong but I have hard time to believe that the Borland C compiler would not flag out this kind of basic errors. Tal > {Original Message removed}

You lie to your computer? Bill ----- Original Message ----- From: "Peter L. Peres" <.....plpKILLspam.....ACTCOM.CO.IL> To: <EraseMEPICLISTspam_OUTTakeThisOuTMITVMA.MIT.EDU> Sent: Sunday, July 28, 2002 3:17 PM Subject: Re: [PIC] Compiler recommendations snip..... > I don't > want the compiler to check what I pass it as a structure ... > > Peter > > -- > http://www.piclist.com hint: The PICList is archived three different > ways. See http://www.piclist.com/#archives for details. > > -- http://www.piclist.com hint: The PICList is archived three different ways. See http://www.piclist.com/#archives for details.

I see... those things haven't been a problem for me so far, I just keep in mind what the function is supposed to be doing and write the code accordingly. I'm not a C programmer by trade, and in fact have only used CCS extensively, so those are features I don't miss. The other C compilers I tried for the PIC sucked far worse, lacking even the rudimentary capabilities required of simple programs. I didn't try the ones out of the price range of the average hobbyist. So CCS may not be ideal, but at $99 for the 14-bit compiler or I think $250 for the complete IDE and 12- and 14-bit compilers, it seemed to be the clear winner for my needs at the time. And in regards to the OP's criteria, it dos have the most extensive collection of built-in functions, libraries and examples I saw out of the compilers I looked at. Dale -- "Curiosity is the very basis of education and if you tell me that curiosity killed the cat, I say only the cat died nobly." - Arnold Edinborough On Sun, 28 Jul 2002, Tal Dayan wrote: {Quote hidden}> > Of course some will also point out that > > it's not true, pure, 100% ANSI C, and they're quite right. > > The main point is not it is not a pure ANSI C but that it lakes > elementary features that are available in most commercial C compilers > written > in the last 10 years or more. > > For example, generating an error when a function that is declared as 'int > foo()' > does not return any value. Or, that it does not complain when you call a > function > with a pointer instead of a structure. -- http://www.piclist.com hint: The PICList is archived three different ways. See http://www.piclist.com/#archives for details.

At 05:11 29/07/2002, Tal Dayan wrote: > We are using CCS C (PCM version) for 16F876. > As a C compiler, it is pretty poor. It missed > errors that any decent ANSI C compiler that was > written in the last 10 years would catch easily. > ... CCS C is not ANSI-compliant. CCS make no claim of any kind about ANSI (that I'm aware of). IMO anyone who uses CCS C expecting it to be "real" C is making a big mistake. What CCS provide (IMO) is a relatively cheap and extremely useful way of writing code for micros which is a LOT more readable and (at source level) a LOT more compact than assembler. Simply being able to use "printf()" is surely a BIG bonus? OK, there's lots of things you can't do with CCS C. (And I can never understand why the intermediate assembler it generates uses purely numerical and absolute labels rather than useful mnemonics.) But it's still extremely useful. > Nevertheless, we are going to stick to it. The main > reason is the very good PIC extensions it provides. > More or less it takes care of all the PIC specific > details ... Which is probably more important to many users than it being an ANSI compiler? > ... Generated code seems to pretey > good with various PIC specific optimization such > minimization of stack nesting level. Given that many PICs have (in C terms) nearly zero resources for stacks, this is quite an achievement! I often recommend <http://www.embedded.com/98/9811/9811fe3.htm> to those intrigued by issues of ANSI C and tiny micros. > As far as I know they don't have a trial version. I'm sure they used to do this, but it certainly isn't mentioned on the Website anymore. HTH, Tim Forcer tmfspam_OUTecs.soton.ac.uk Department of Electronics & Computer Science The University of Southampton, UK The University is not responsible for my opinions -- http://www.piclist.com#nomail Going offline? Don't AutoReply us! email @spam@listservKILLspammitvma.mit.edu with SET PICList DIGEST in the body

Seemed like PicBasicPro had more examples and active users. IMHO of course. {Quote hidden}> -----Original Message----- > From: Cristian [spamBeGonebipspamBeGoneFX.RO] > Sent: Tuesday, July 30, 2002 4:16 PM > To: TakeThisOuTPICLISTEraseMEspam_OUTMITVMA.MIT.EDU > Subject: Re: [PIC] Compiler recommendations > > > Is that better than LET PIC BASIC from Crownhill Associates Ltd > http://www.letbasic.com? > > >I decided on the PicBasic Pro for fastest development with > good libraries > >and PIC support. > > > >Anyone who recommended otherwise may now openly ridicule me. ;-) > > > >-Derek > > -- > http://www.piclist.com hint: To leave the PICList > RemoveMEpiclist-unsubscribe-requestTakeThisOuTmitvma.mit.edu > > -- http://www.piclist.com hint: PICList Posts must start with ONE topic: [PIC]:,[SX]:,[AVR]: ->uP ONLY! [EE]:,[OT]: ->Other [BUY]:,[AD]: ->Ads

Derek, please take it like a question, like your question. Your experience will allow me to spend my money for the best product. Cristian At 00:20 31/07/02 -0400, you wrote: >Seemed like PicBasicPro had more examples and active users. IMHO of course. > >> Is that better than LET PIC BASIC from Crownhill Associates Ltd >> http://www.letbasic.com? >> >> >I decided on the PicBasic Pro for fastest development with >> good libraries >> >and PIC support. >> >-Derek -- http://www.piclist.com hint: PICList Posts must start with ONE topic: [PIC]:,[SX]:,[AVR]: ->uP ONLY! [EE]:,[OT]: ->Other [BUY]:,[AD]: ->Ads