Building embedded applications is tricky in part because of the huge number of configuration settings necessary to get something that works. This example shows how to use the installed version of picolibc, and uses 'make' instead of 'meson' to try and make the operations as clear as possible. Here's our fine program:
#include <stdio.h>
int
main(void)
{
printf("hello, world\n");
return 0;
}
Picolibc provides a GCC '.specs' file (generated from picolibc.specs.in) which sets the search path for header files and picolibc libraries.
gcc -specs=picolibc.specs
Our example program wants to display a string to stdout; because there
aren't drivers for the serial ports emulated by qemu provided, the
example uses Picolibc's semihosting support (--oslib=semihost) to
direct stdout to the QEMU console:
gcc -specs=picolibc.specs --oslib=semihost
For ARM, QEMU emulates a "mps2-an385" board which has a Cortex-M3 processor:
arm-none-eabi-gcc -specs=picolibc.specs --oslib=semihost -mcpu=cortex-m3
64-bit ARM (aarch64) processors are pretty much the same, so the default target code will run fine on a cortex-a57 processor as supported by QEMU:
aarch64-linux-gnu-gcc -specs=picolibc.specs --oslib-semihost
For RISC-V, QEMU lets you specify which CPU core you want, so we'll use something that looks like a SiFive E31 chip. That's a 32-bit processor with the 'imac' options (integer, multiply, atomics, compressed) and uses the 'ilp32' ABI (32-bit integer, long and pointer)
riscv64-unknown-elf-gcc -specs=picolibc.specs
--oslib-semihost -march=rv32imac -mabi=ilp32
The application needs to be linked at addresses which correspond to
where the target memories are addressed. The default linker script
provided with picolibc, picolibc.ld, assumes that the target device
will have two kinds of memory, one for code and read-only data and
another kind for read-write data. However, the linker script has no
idea where those memories are placed in the address space. The example
specifies those by setting a few values before including
picolibc.ld.
The mps2-an385 has at least 16kB of flash starting at 0. Picolibc places a small interrupt vector there which points at the first instruction of _start. The mps2-an385 also has 64kB of RAM starting at 0x20000000, so arm.ld looks like this:
__flash = 0x00000000;
__flash_size = 0x00004000;
__ram = 0x20000000;
__ram_size = 0x00010000;
__stack_size = 1k;
INCLUDE picolibc.ld
The aarch64 virt model lets you define whatever memory spaces you like,so we'll just stick things at 0x40000000 (aarch64.ld):
__flash = 0x40000000;
__flash_size = 0x00400000;
__ram = 0x40400000;
__ram_size = 0x00200000;
__stack_size = 8k;
INCLUDE picolibc.ld
For the RISC-V 'spike' model, you can have as much memory as you like, but execution starts at 0x80000000 so the first instruction in the application needs to land there. Picolibc on RISC-V puts _start at the first location in read-only memory, so we set things up like this (this is riscv.ld):
__flash = 0x80000000;
__flash_size = 0x00080000;
__ram = 0x80080000;
__ram_size = 0x40000;
__stack_size = 1k;
INCLUDE picolibc.ld
The -T flag is used to specify the linker script in the compile
line:
arm-none-eabi-gcc -specs=picolibc.specs --oslib=semihost
-mcpu=cortex-m3 -Tarm.ld
aarch64-linux-gnu-gcc -specs=picolibc.specs --oslib=semihost
-Taarch64.ld
The rest of the command line tells GCC what file to compile (hello-world.c) and where to put the output (hello-world-riscv.elf and hello-world-arm.elf):
riscv64-unknown-elf-gcc --specs=picolibc.specs --oslib=semihost
-march=rv32imac -mabi=ilp32 -Thello-world-riscv.ld -o
hello-world-riscv.elf hello-world.c
arm-none-eabi-gcc --specs=picolibc.specs --oslib=semihost
-mcpu=cortex-m3 -Thello-world-arm.ld -o hello-world-arm.elf
hello-world.c
To run the hello-world example under qemu, we need to construct a
virtual machine suitable for this. That means enabling semihosting
(-semihosting-config enable=on), disabling the monitor interface
(-monitor none), the emulated UART (-serial none) and the graphical
interface (`-nographic).
For arm, we're using the mps2-an385
qemu-system-arm -semihosting-config enable=on -monitor none
-serial none -nographic
-machine mps2-an385,accel=tcg
-kernel hello-world-arm.elf
On aarch64, we use the 'virt' machine, which lets us plug in any processor we want. In this case, we'll use the cortex-a57:
qemu-system-aarch64 -semihosting-config enable=on -monitor none
-serial none -nographic
-machine virt -cpu cortex-a57
-kernel hello-world-aarch64.elf
Risc-V is similar to aarch64 in providing a virtual host into which you can install any virtual processor you want, in our case, an rv32:
qemu-system-riscv32 -semihosting-config enable=on -monitor none
-serial none -nographic
-machine virt,accel=tcg -cpu rv32 -bios none
-kernel hello-world-riscv.elf