Using NRF_LOG_BACKEND_UART with OpenThread

[Dnil]

Hi everyone,

I'm currently working on my bachelor thesis and need some LOG ouput from my application.

I'm using the Development Board from Makerdiary and the nRF5_SDK_for_Thread_and_Zigbee_v1.0.0 - SDK.

I also followed the this thread to deactivate the CLI from Thread and started working from "ble_thread_dyn_template but when enabling the NRF_LOG_BACKEND_UART in the sdk_config and compile the project i get the following errors

In file included from /home/Dnil/Nordic/nrf52840-mdk/nrf_sdks/nRF5_SDK_for_Thread_and_Zigbee_v1.0.0/modules/nrfx/nrfx.h:45,
                 from /home/Dnil/Nordic/nrf52840-mdk/nrf_sdks/nRF5_SDK_for_Thread_and_Zigbee_v1.0.0/integration/nrfx/legacy/nrf_drv_uart.h:44,
                 from /home/Dnil/Nordic/nrf52840-mdk/nrf_sdks/nRF5_SDK_for_Thread_and_Zigbee_v1.0.0/components/libraries/experimental_log/src/nrf_log_backend_uart.c:45:
/home/Dnil/Nordic/nrf52840-mdk/nrf_sdks/nRF5_SDK_for_Thread_and_Zigbee_v1.0.0/modules/nrfx/drivers/include/nrfx_uarte.h:83:35: error: 'NRFX_UARTE0_INST_IDX' undeclared here (not in a function); did you mean 'NRFX_UARTE1_INST_IDX'?
   83 |     .drv_inst_idx = NRFX_CONCAT_3(NRFX_UARTE, id, _INST_IDX), \
      |                                   ^~~~~~~~~~
/home/Dnil/Nordic/nrf52840-mdk/nrf_sdks/nRF5_SDK_for_Thread_and_Zigbee_v1.0.0/modules/nrfx/drivers/nrfx_common.h:117:37: note: in definition of macro 'NRFX_CONCAT_3_'
  117 | #define NRFX_CONCAT_3_(p1, p2, p3)  p1 ## p2 ## p3
      |                                     ^~
/home/Dnil/Nordic/nrf52840-mdk/nrf_sdks/nRF5_SDK_for_Thread_and_Zigbee_v1.0.0/modules/nrfx/drivers/include/nrfx_uarte.h:83:21: note: in expansion of macro 'NRFX_CONCAT_3'
   83 |     .drv_inst_idx = NRFX_CONCAT_3(NRFX_UARTE, id, _INST_IDX), \
      |                     ^~~~~~~~~~~~~
/home/Dnil/Nordic/nrf52840-mdk/nrf_sdks/nRF5_SDK_for_Thread_and_Zigbee_v1.0.0/integration/nrfx/legacy/nrf_drv_uart.h:56:18: note: in expansion of macro 'NRFX_UARTE_INSTANCE'
   56 |         .uarte = NRFX_UARTE_INSTANCE(id),
      |                  ^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
/home/Dnil/Nordic/nrf52840-mdk/nrf_sdks/nRF5_SDK_for_Thread_and_Zigbee_v1.0.0/integration/nrfx/legacy/nrf_drv_uart.h:165:5: note: in expansion of macro 'NRF_DRV_UART_CREATE_UARTE'
  165 |     NRF_DRV_UART_CREATE_UARTE(id) \
      |     ^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
/home/Dnil/Nordic/nrf52840-mdk/nrf_sdks/nRF5_SDK_for_Thread_and_Zigbee_v1.0.0/components/libraries/experimental_log/src/nrf_log_backend_uart.c:48:25: note: in expansion of macro 'NRF_DRV_UART_INSTANCE'
   48 | nrf_drv_uart_t m_uart = NRF_DRV_UART_INSTANCE(0);
      |                         ^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
/home/Dnil/Nordic/nrf52840-mdk/nrf_sdks/nRF5_SDK_for_Thread_and_Zigbee_v1.0.0/components/toolchain/gcc/Makefile.common:272: recipe for target '_build/nrf52840_xxaa/nrf_log_backend_uart.c.o' failed
make: *** [_build/nrf52840_xxaa/nrf_log_backend_uart.c.o] Error 1

[Dnil]

I started a new test project.

I included the follwoing files to the Makefile

$(SDK_ROOT)/modules/nrfx/drivers/src/nrfx_uart.c \

$(SDK_ROOT)/modules/nrfx/drivers/src/nrfx_uarte.c \

$(SDK_ROOT)/integration/nrfx/legacy/nrf_drv_uart.c \

$(SDK_ROOT)/components/libraries/log/src/nrf_log_backend_uart.c \

and only truned on the switches you told me. I did not define the NRFX_UARTE0_ENABLED but still get this issue

[Edvin]

Ok. Is NRFX_UARTE0_INST_IDX defined/declared in your project?

I suspect that NRFX_UARTE0_ENABLED is not defined because of the file "apply_old_config.h". Please check out this file.

UART_ENABLED, UART_EASY_DMA_SUPPORT and UART0_ENABLED must be defined as well.

[Dnil]

Hi,

in the last week i played around with the all the advices and think it fits my needs if i print the the debug output to the CLI, as  mentioned above.

Is there any example from your site to using the otPlatLog() function?

[Edvin]

No, there is not, unfortunately. Not from our SDK.

You can look at how it is implemented, if you are interrested:

https://github.com/openthread/openthread/blob/2dedd82ef39d67a80817e60fdbf281ca23856afc/examples/platforms/nrf528xx/src/logging.c

The openthread source code is opensource on Openthread's Github.

It probably won't do much magic. If it is implemented correctly for the nRF52840, I would guess it use the same backend as the NRF_LOG (RTT by default, unless something else is specified in the sdk_config.h file).