UART usage - I cannot see the light in the SDK

RE: UART usage - I cannot see the light in the SDK

Nguyen Hoan Hoang — Wed, 16 Oct 2019 20:06:24 GMT

I used it with the SDK no problem. uart interrupt is independent. It should not interfere with i2c. Only i2c & spi have shared interrupt. Just make sure you disable uart in the sdk_config.h

I looked at the nrf_prs.c, not really useful. You can just disable it and everything still work fine. embedded system is not a PC. We know what are the io map we use. There no sharing switch between them and the firmware is not an App that you load at runtime neither. I really don't see the usefulness of that file.

RE: UART usage - I cannot see the light in the SDK

Thomas — Wed, 16 Oct 2019 20:00:44 GMT

Unfortunately it is not really an option for me at this point. There seems to be conflicts with the nRF SDK code and I am unable to take the time to solve it. (the uart code looks really effective though).

Removing all nRF uart stuff will still give linking problems because of nrfx_prc.c doing the interrupt handling. I cannot remove it as it also handles twi that I am using.

So it more a matter of resources right now, and existing codebase.

So struck back to start again :-(

RE: UART usage - I cannot see the light in the SDK

Nguyen Hoan Hoang — Wed, 16 Oct 2019 02:56:12 GMT

I just committed fixes for some compile issue with Keil CLANG 6. I use uVision5 and select compiler version 6.

I finally figured out how uVision5 works. Can create library project now.

So far used CrossWorks, SES, IAR, uVision and still find Eclipse is the best and most flexible and above all totally free. SES is worst, not recommended for real serious work.

RE: UART usage - I cannot see the light in the SDK

Nguyen Hoan Hoang — Tue, 15 Oct 2019 19:16:06 GMT

It is fixed, thanks for reporting.

RE: UART usage - I cannot see the light in the SDK

Thomas — Tue, 15 Oct 2019 19:02:26 GMT

Looking into the problems.

I found a bug in uart_nrf5x.cpp code. Line 434 array index is out of bounds. Array has 16 elements 0..15 and the index used is 16 (the count).

(hope it ok i just report it here)

RE: UART usage - I cannot see the light in the SDK

Thomas — Tue, 15 Oct 2019 18:47:56 GMT

Maybe it is solvable, I just tried another project, quite few error so maybe, There are some static assert things and maybe worse some macro problems that can be tricky.

RE: UART usage - I cannot see the light in the SDK

Thomas — Tue, 15 Oct 2019 18:44:46 GMT

Have never tried it without, so I do not know...

It seems to me that there are a lot of good ideas, both in libraries and setup, but there is too much cross dependencies and absolutely no real documentation... The real important documentation is the overview and descriptions on high level that can get you started and make good choices.

RE: UART usage - I cannot see the light in the SDK

Nguyen Hoan Hoang — Tue, 15 Oct 2019 18:42:49 GMT

Why wouldn't the nRF stuff compatible with 6 ? I'll recheck later what I was able to compile.

RE: UART usage - I cannot see the light in the SDK

Nguyen Hoan Hoang — Tue, 15 Oct 2019 18:40:07 GMT

Oh, that is not all. They change API at every SDK version I worked with since 6 and they API is getting worst every time. Can't understand why they introduce to sdk_config.h mess. It was much better before that.

RE: UART usage - I cannot see the light in the SDK

Thomas — Tue, 15 Oct 2019 18:39:47 GMT

Yes, C11/C++11 is only available with ARM Compiler 6.

Since nRF stuff is only compatible with version 5, the highest compiler feature I have is C99.

So bad luck.

RE: UART usage - I cannot see the light in the SDK

Thomas — Tue, 15 Oct 2019 18:35:31 GMT

Sorry for being so harsh, but I am sooooo frustrated.

I already used really long time to get the uart running the first time around, that's when I only needed uart 0, I through that when I needed the second uart, it would be a simple copy paste of the basics. But no way, and now I have used 3 days without any progress.

Maybe the fastest route is to use the HAL layer and write all the glue myself. But WHY, with 6 different API's to choose from.

RE: UART usage - I cannot see the light in the SDK

Nguyen Hoan Hoang — Tue, 15 Oct 2019 18:35:04 GMT

I haven't got around playing with uVision. There are some issue for creating a lib project. I tried adding files to the project directly and seems to compile, not sure if it was v5 or v6. The GCC settings is C11/C++11 though.

RE: UART usage - I cannot see the light in the SDK

Thomas — Tue, 15 Oct 2019 18:27:23 GMT

Thank you very much for the suggestion.

I have downloaded the library and made a fast try. I run into some rather difficult things that does not seem easily solvable. I am using Keil uVision.

The library looks quite promising but also has a lot of dependencies. It seems to be depending on GCC that was easily fixed by a pragma (Keil or ARM compiler does not allow anonymous structures).

Secondly it uses some features that are later than C99, not exactly sure. But I am stuck with ARM compiler version 5 that does not support it (atomic). ARM compiler 6 has been around for a long time but seems the rest of the nRF SDK is not compatible with that, so I need to stay on version 5.

RE: UART usage - I cannot see the light in the SDK

Thomas — Tue, 15 Oct 2019 16:57:39 GMT

Aaaaahhhhh enabling legacy layer made i build....

So a missing NRFX_... define can be enabled by enabling legacy layer. I do not get it - it's a mess.

RE: UART usage - I cannot see the light in the SDK

Thomas — Tue, 15 Oct 2019 16:55:51 GMT

So one idea could be to enable NRFX_UART_ENABLED for 0 and 1 in the sdk_config.h

But no change. Still missing NRFX_UARTE1_INST_IDX

RE: UART usage - I cannot see the light in the SDK

Thomas — Tue, 15 Oct 2019 16:54:32 GMT

Still wondering..

If I define my interface uart as index 0 i can build application,

if I define my interface uart as index 1 I cannot build application. ("NRFX_UARTE1_INST_IDX" is undefined)

Why????

In sdk_config none of the index are enabled (as in example). No consistency

And I can see that it is using UARTE driver, but how it was selected ?????

RE: UART usage - I cannot see the light in the SDK

Nguyen Hoan Hoang — Tue, 15 Oct 2019 15:50:59 GMT

Try this library instead. It's a lot easier to use and more performance.

https://github.com/IOsonata/IOsonata/blob/master/ARM/Nordic/src/uart_nrf5x.cpp

usage example

https://github.com/IOsonata/IOsonata/tree/master/exemples/uart

performance comparaison from this post : https://devzone.nordicsemi.com/f/nordic-q-a/53106/uart-communication-fifo-error/214454#214454

blog post using uart over BLE the easy way.

embeddedsoftdev.blogspot.com/.../bluetooth-le-with-nordic-nrf51-nrf52.html

RE: UART usage - I cannot see the light in the SDK

Thomas — Tue, 15 Oct 2019 15:26:24 GMT

And of course - disabled both log backends.

Application linked, but when starting serial crashes in error handler. (best guess is memory, so i'll try to increase).

RE: UART usage - I cannot see the light in the SDK

Thomas — Tue, 15 Oct 2019 15:19:53 GMT

Has been caught by this problem before.

NRF_QUEUE_ENABLED was defined at two locations in the sdk_config.h

So template compiled and linked.

RE: UART usage - I cannot see the light in the SDK

Thomas — Tue, 15 Oct 2019 15:16:44 GMT

Back to using BOARD_PCA10056 to see if it was something from my custom board file.

No same error.

RE: UART usage - I cannot see the light in the SDK

Thomas — Tue, 15 Oct 2019 15:13:55 GMT

Starting from scratch again to see if I can find something workable.

Decided to start with ble_app_template as basis as I have done this before.!

1 Add a module to run a serial protocol (reduced) using nrf_serial API.

2 Add nrf_serial.c library

3 Add nrf_queue.c library

4 Add include serial directory to compiler path.

5 To get correct I/O for my board, modified project to use custom_board.h by removing project define BOARD_PCA10056 and replacing it with BOARD_CUSTOM.

6 Added NRF_SERIAL_ENABLED and NRF_QUEUE_ENABLED to sdk_config.h file and enabled them.

7 Linker error undefined symbol for all nrf_queue_xxx function….. no clue why… NRF_QUEUE_ENABLED is checked in sdk_config.h and nrf_queue.c is included in the project……

Stuck again.

RE: UART usage - I cannot see the light in the SDK

Thomas — Tue, 15 Oct 2019 14:31:21 GMT

Unchecking NRFX_UART_ENABLE in the sdk_config does not help either..... I'm lost.

RE: UART usage - I cannot see the light in the SDK

Thomas — Tue, 15 Oct 2019 14:25:04 GMT

Trying to remove nrtx_uart.c or nrfx_uarte.c from the build will just give a number of unresolved refs. for the rx, tx etc. functions (referred from nrf_serial).

How do I prevent one of the modules from creating interrupt handler...

RE: UART usage - I cannot see the light in the SDK

Thomas — Tue, 15 Oct 2019 14:10:19 GMT

Still havent figured out how to select if nrf_serial is using uart or uarte.... (actually how to control if nrf_drv_uart is using uart or uarte).

RE: UART usage - I cannot see the light in the SDK

Thomas — Tue, 15 Oct 2019 14:07:13 GMT

Hmmm - tried to copy configuration into my main project.

Added serial to the sdk_config and included nrfx_uarte and also the queue library module that I as not previously using.

Linker error:

Symbol UARTE0_UART0_IRQHandler multiply defined (by nrfx_uarte.o and nrfx_uart.o).

Not really understand as I was thinking I had same configuration as in test, but of course with all the macroes it is difficult to verify.

In the test project both modules are linked without causing this problem, so it must be #define macros causing this.