Product category: Embedded Software and Operating Systems
News Release from: Express Logic | Subject: ThreadX
Edited by the Electronicstalk Editorial Team on 8 March 2005

Debugger looks into TCP/IP stack

Express Logic is claiming an industry first with the addition of TCP/IP stack and file system awareness to the ARM RealView debugger's already robust RTOS kernel awareness for ThreadX

Express Logic's NetX TCP/IP stack for embedded applications, commonly used with the ThreadX RTOS, now can be viewed at the data structure level from the RealView debugger, much like the ThreadX RTOS kernel data structures. Developers gain unprecedented visibility into the TCP/IP stack's data structures and the behaviour of applications using the stack.

Similar visibility is also achieved with Express Logic's FileX embedded file system.

Key file system data structures are exposed for easy viewing through the RealView debugger.

'The first benefit to such system visibility is that - just as with ThreadX debugger kernel awareness - all the stack and file system resources are one click away', commented William E Lamie, President of Express Logic.

'We have shortened the development time yet again'.

'To dig into the data structures by hand would be much more difficult and time consuming'.

'This extension to the ARM RealView Developer Suite is built on our industry-leading halted and running system debug technology, which enables developers to visualise and interact with abstract system data structures while the target system is running or halted', said Rod Crawford, RealView US Marketing Manager for ARM.

'This capability empowers developers to rapidly tune and deploy complete system platforms'.

The new stack and file system awareness provides several key benefits to developers.

Views in the Express Logic's NetX TCP/IP stack provide the following visibility.

IP exposes each IP instance in the application.

Developers can use it to check for I/O by watching 'bytes sent' or 'bytes received' fields.

Pktpool gives valuable insight into packet availability in a given pool.

If available packets is not zero, then the next allocation will be successful.

Another interesting field is the empty requests field.

Each time an allocation request is made on an empty packet pool, this number is incremented.

A user might see this and realise that this pool needs to be larger to avoid thread blocking.

Udp reveals UDP socket information.

The user can see which UDP sockets are actively sending/receiving data.

Tcp examines all TCP socket information.

A user would use this to see what connections are established (connect IP and connect port) and the state of those connections.

Similarly, Express Logic's FileX embedded file system provides easy vantages.

Media indicates the file system's 'cache size'.

This tells the developer how many logical sectors can be cached by FileX.

File displays standard file information.

'Available size' is the number of bytes allocated to the file before FileX must get more clusters (allocations blocks in FAT).

NetX stack and FileX file system awareness for ARM's RealView debugger is available immediately as a free plug-in from Express Logic. Request a free brochure from Express Logic....

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