Instrumenting with Segger SystemView

RE: Instrumenting with Segger SystemView

ColinC — Thu, 19 Jan 2023 16:55:57 GMT

Hello Everyone,

Is this feature also supported with the nRF Connect SDK? If yes, could you provide a guide as how to get the tracing going with an nRF board?

Many Thanks

Colin

RE: Instrumenting with Segger SystemView

Nicolas Tzovanis — Fri, 14 Oct 2016 20:16:19 GMT

Hi RK, what address are you using as SYSVIEW_RAM_BASE?

RE: Instrumenting with Segger SystemView

Susheel Nuguru — Tue, 30 Aug 2016 12:18:28 GMT

will take the conversation offline now, We can comeback and update this thread after we come to some conclusion.

RE: Instrumenting with Segger SystemView

RK — Mon, 29 Aug 2016 23:36:15 GMT

.. taking this conversation offline to figure this out .. will post if we get to some resolution which might be useful for others.

RE: Instrumenting with Segger SystemView

RK — Mon, 29 Aug 2016 13:01:24 GMT

I could do so - I hadn't done so because the assembler code uses various undocumented things I have learned about the softdevice over the last couple of years from inspecting it and or actually single stepping odd bits of it . eg it has some code to deal with sd_app_evt_wait() which only works because I figured out what it does, in the current softdevice at least.

Since the assembler is peppered with comments about all that I was a bit hesitant to share it and wasn't really sure Nordic would like my guesses about the softdevice internals to be posted.

RE: Instrumenting with Segger SystemView

Susheel Nuguru — Mon, 29 Aug 2016 12:22:43 GMT

Hi RK, Is it possible to share the assembler code? just curious to see how you hooked it up to the vector table.

RE: Instrumenting with Segger SystemView

RK — Mon, 29 Aug 2016 08:11:39 GMT

Happy you found it useful, it was quite a while ago I did this but it was easier than I initially expected. There's some vile assembler code in there to hook the vector table without the softdevice noticing, most of the rest of it was quite straightforward.

RE: Instrumenting with Segger SystemView

Christopher — Mon, 29 Aug 2016 08:03:52 GMT

Great work, thanks for your post @rols !

Nordic, it would be great if you could officially support the Segger SystemView and for instance provide a modified version of the SoftDevice with instrumentation code ;)

RE: Instrumenting with Segger SystemView

Susheel Nuguru — Mon, 29 Aug 2016 07:47:25 GMT

OK, seems that you have added this, also looks like you have experimented quite much. Amazing article.

RE: Instrumenting with Segger SystemView

Susheel Nuguru — Mon, 29 Aug 2016 07:28:50 GMT

nice work RK I did not know that segger have API like this

sysview_irq_log( RADIO_IRQn, true );

Was this added in the latest version or did i just missed to see it?

RE: Instrumenting with Segger SystemView

wslkh — Wed, 22 Jun 2016 01:04:29 GMT

Really love the tool by looking into its features. Hope Nordic could give some official examples ASAP in the SDK, or github. Could not wait to use it.

RE: Instrumenting with Segger SystemView

WestCoastDaz — Sat, 11 Jun 2016 05:43:46 GMT

RK,

Thanks for the inspiration! I have added this to my project and it is working great. I was considering investing in FreeRTOS+Trace but this is free and has almost exactly the same functionality minus the many views that come with FreeRTOS+Trace.

Cheers, Darren

RE: Instrumenting with Segger SystemView

RK — Fri, 10 Jun 2016 05:29:32 GMT

No if you're instrumenting app-level code no need for any assembler, just compile the SYSVIEW and RTT sources, include the header and call the SEGGER_SYSVIEW_Record ... () functions. The event id goes in your mapping txt file so you can map to an API call. You can get fancy and call task start and other stuff but if you just want a list of called functions, that's enough. You have a choice whether to start with their NoOS example which is a OS-style instrumentation or use the 'module' instrumentation one. They're both in the manual, I'd use the noOS one myself, gives you more flexibility.

The assembler is only there to intercept all the IRQs and SVC calls as it has to do a load of stack and LR manipulation to interpose itself before and after the softdevice handlers whilst appearing not to be there at all. So API level, no need for that.

RE: Instrumenting with Segger SystemView

WestCoastDaz — Fri, 10 Jun 2016 05:20:15 GMT

RK,

This is really impressive. I was actually looking at FreeRTOS+Trace to do some better debugging but I like this more since it doesn't require a license. Do you still need the assembly shim if you are planning on instrumenting application level code?

Thanks, Darren

RE: Instrumenting with Segger SystemView

Adrian Eggenberger — Thu, 09 Jun 2016 12:29:02 GMT

Impressive work!