Starting a new project with Ceedling

WORK IN PROGRESS!!! Installing Ceedling and the AVR toolchain

THIS NEEDS A BETTER INTRO ABOUT UNITY AND THE TOOLCHAIN Ceedling is a build system for C projects that is something of an extension around Ruby’s Rake (make-ish) build system. Ceedling is primarily targeted at Test-Driven Development in C and is designed to pull together CMock, Unity, and CException -- three other awesome open-source projects you can’t live without if you're creating awesomeness in the C language. In order to spread the awesomeness around, Ceedling is an extensible contraption with a nice plugin mechanism.

Before we install Ceedling, let's start by installing a compiler for the AVR ATmega328P, the microcontroller onboard the Arduino Uno. I'm going to show the installation commands for a typical Linux system, but the instructions for Windows and OSX follow a similar pattern. Open a terminal and type the following command:

ngourlay@craxine:~$ sudo apt-get install binutils-avr avr-libc avrdude gcc-avr

After installing Ceedling and the avr tools create a new project and edit the generated rakefile using your favourite text editor:

ngourlay@craxine:~$ ceedling new 74HC595
      create  74HC595/vendor/ceedling/docs/CeedlingPacket.pdf
      create  74HC595/vendor/ceedling/docs/CExceptionSummary.pdf

... many other messages from Ceedling ...

      create  74HC595/project.yml
      create  74HC595/rakefile.rb

Project '74HC595' created!
 - Tool documentation is located in vendor/ceedling/docs
 - Execute 'rake -T' to view available test & build tasks

ngourlay@craxine:~$ cd 74HC595/
ngourlay@craxine:/74HC595~$ emacs rakefile.rb

You'll need to add a couple of targets ('convert' and 'program') , plus a dummy target ('serial_port') to ensure that the required environmental variable has been set. For most projects, the following rakefile will be sufficient:

	PROJECT_CEEDLING_ROOT = "vendor/ceedling"
	load "#{PROJECT_CEEDLING_ROOT}/lib/rakefile.rb"
	task :default => %w[ test:all release ]
	# Dummy task to ensure that the SERIAL_PORT environment variable is set.
	# It can be set on the command line as follows:
	# $ rake SERIAL_PORT=[serial port name]
	task :serial_port do
	unless ENV['SERIAL_PORT']
	raise "SERIAL_PORT is not defined in the environment!"
	end
	end
	desc "Convert the output binary to a hex file for programming to the Arduino"
	task :convert => :release do
	bin_file = "build/release/#{RELEASE_BUILD_OUTPUT}.bin"
	hex_file = "build/release/#{RELEASE_BUILD_OUTPUT}.hex"
	cmd = "#{ENV['OBJCOPY']} -O ihex -R .eeprom #{bin_file} #{hex_file}"
	puts cmd
	sh cmd
	end
	desc "Program the Arduino over the serial port."
	task :program => [:convert, :serial_port] do
	hex_file = "build/release/#{RELEASE_BUILD_OUTPUT}.hex"
	cmd = "avrdude -F -V -c arduino -p #{ENV['MCU']} -P #{ENV['SERIAL_PORT']} -b 115200 -U flash:w:#{hex_file}"
	puts cmd
	sh cmd
	end

view raw rakefile.rb hosted with ❤ by GitHub

Now edit the project.yml file. Uncomment the 'release_build' variables, and add some environmental variables. Changes to the standard boilerplate are marked in bold, below.

:project:
  :use_exceptions: FALSE
  :use_test_preprocessor: TRUE
  :use_auxiliary_dependencies: TRUE
  :build_root: build
  :release_build: TRUE
  :test_file_prefix: test_

:release_build:
  :output: 74HC595
#  :use_assembly: FALSE

:environment:
  - :mcu: atmega328p
  - :f_cpu: 16000000UL
  - :serial_port: /dev/ttyACM0  # change this to the correct port
  - :objcopy: avr-objcopy

:extension:
  :executable: .bin

:tools:
  :release_compiler:
    :executable: avr-gcc
    :arguments:
      - ${1}
      - -DTARGET
      - -DF_CPU=#{ENV['F_CPU']}
      - -mmcu=#{ENV['MCU']}
      - -Iinclude/
      - -Wall
      - -Os
      - -c
      - -o ${2}
  :release_linker:
    :executable: avr-gcc
    :arguments:
      - -mmcu=#{ENV['MCU']}
      - ${1}
      - -o ${2}.bin