http://www.tinyos.net/dist-2.0.0/tinyos-2.x/doc/html/tutorial/lesson13.html
This lesson describes the details of the TinyOS toolchain, includingthe build system, how to create your own Makefile, and how to find outmore information on the various tools included with TinyOS.
TinyOS Build System
As you saw in Lesson 1, TinyOS applicationsare built using a somewhat unconventional application of the make tool. For instance, in theapps/Blink
directory,
$ make mica2compiles Blink for the mica2 platform,
$ make mica2 installcompiles and installs (using the default parallel port programmer) Blinkfor the mica2, and
$ make mica2 reinstall mib510,/dev/ttyS0installs the previously compiled mica2 version of Blink using the MIB510serial port programmer connected to serial port /dev/ttyS0.
As these examples show, the TinyOS build system is controlled by passingarguments to make that specify the target platform, the desired action, and various options. These arguments can be categorised as follows:
- Target platform: one of the supported TinyOS platforms, e.g., mica2,telosb, tinynode. A target platform is always required,except when using the clean action.
- Action: the action to perform. By default, the action is to compilethe application in the current directory, but you can also specify:
- help: display a help message for the target platform.
- install,N: compile and install. The N argument is optional and specifies the mote id (default 1).
- reinstall,N: install only (fails if the application wasn't previously compiled). N is as for install.
- clean: remove compiled application for all platforms.
- sim: compile for the simulation environment for the specified platform (see Lesson 11 for details).
$ make micaz sim
- Compilation option: you can change the way compilation proceeds byspecifying:
- debug: compile for debugging. This enables debugging, and turns off optimisations (e.g., inlining) that make debugging difficult.
- debugopt: compile for debugging, but leave optimisations enabled. This can be necessary if compiling with debug gives code that is too slow, or if the bug only shows up when optimisation is enabled.
- verbose: enable a lot of extra output, showing all commands executed by make and the details of the nesC compilation including the full path of all files loaded. This can be helpful in tracking down problems (e.g., when the wrong version of a component is loaded).
- wiring, nowiring: enable or disable the use of the nescc-wiring to check the wiring annotations in a nesC program. See the nescc-wiring man page for more details.
$ make debug verbose telosb
Additionally, you can pass additional compilation options by setting the CFLAGS environment variable when you invoke make. For instance, to compile
apps/RadioCountoToLeds
for a mica2 with a 900MHz radio set to ~916.5MHz, you would do:$ env CFLAGS="-DCC1K_DEF_FREQ=916534800" make mica2
Note that this will not work with applications whose Makefile defines CFLAGS (but this practice is discouraged, see the section on writing Makefiles below). - Installation option: some platforms have multiple programmers, andsome programmers require options (e.g., to specify which serial portto use). The programmer is specified by including its name amongst themake arguments. Known programmers include bsl formsp430-based platforms and avrisp (STK500), dapa (MIB500and earlier), mib510 (MIB510) and eprb (MIB600) for micafamily motes.
Arguments to the programmer are specified with a comma after theprogrammer name, e.g.,
$ make mica2dot reinstall mib510,/dev/ttyUSB1
$ make telosb reinstall bsl,/dev/ttyUSB1
to specify that the programmer is connected to serial port /dev/ttyUSB1.More details on the programmers and their options can be found inyour mote documentation.
Customising the Build System
You may find that you are often specifying the same options, e.g., thatyour mib510 programmer is always connected to /dev/ttyS1 or that youwant to use channel 12 of the CC2420 radio rather than the defaultTinyOS 2 channel (26). To do this, put the following linesMIB510 ?= /dev/ttyS1 PFLAGS = -DCC2420_DEF_CHANNEL=12in a file called
Makelocal
in the
support/make
directory. If you now compile in
apps/RadioCountToLeds
, youwill see:
$ make micaz install mib510 compiling RadioCountToLedsAppC to a micaz binary ncc -o build/micaz/main.exe -Os -DCC2420_DEF_CHANNEL=12 ... RadioCountToLedsAppC.nc -lm compiled RadioCountToLedsAppC to build/micaz/main.exe ... installing micaz binary using mib510 uisp -dprog=mib510 -dserial=/dev/ttyS1 ...The definition of
PFLAGS
passes an option to the nesCcompiler telling it to define the C preprocessor symbol
CC2420_DEF_CHANNEL
to 12. The CC2420 radio stack checksthe value of this symbol when setting its default channel.
The definition of MIB510
sets the value of theargument to the mib510 installation option, i.e.,
$ make micaz install mib510is now equivalent to
$ make micaz install mib510,/dev/ttyS1Note that the assignment to MIB510 was written using the
?=
operator. If you just use regular assignment (
=
), then thevalue in
Makelocal
will override any value you specifyon the command line (which is probably not what you want...).
Makelocal
can contain definitions for any makevariables used by the build system. Unless you understand the details ofhow this works, we recommend you restrict yourselves to defining:
PFLAGS
: extra options to pass to the nesC compiler. Most often used to define preprocessor symbols as seen above.X
: set the argument for make argument x, e.g.,MIB510
as seen above. You can, e.g., set the default mote id to 12 by addingINSTALL ?= 12
andREINSTALL ?= 12
toMakelocal
.
Some useful preprocessor symbols that you can define with PFLAGS
include:
- DEFINED_TOS_AM_ADDRESS: the motes group id (default is 0x22).
- CC2420_DEF_CHANNEL: CC2420 channel (default is 26).
- CC1K_DEF_FREQ: CC1000 frequency (default is 434.845MHz).
- TOSH_DATA_LENGTH: radio packet payload length (default 28).
Application Makefiles
To use the build system with your application, you must create a makefile(a file calledMakefile
) which contains at the minimum:
COMPONENT=TopLevelComponent include $(MAKERULES)where TopLevelComponent is the name of the top-level componentof your application.
TinyOS applications commonly also need to specify some options to thenesC compiler, and build some extra files alongside the TinyOSapplication. We will see examples of both, by looking at, and making asmall change to, the apps/RadioCountToLeds
application.
The RadioCountToLeds Makefile uses mig
(see Lesson 4) to build files describing the layoutof its messages, for use with python and Java tools:
COMPONENT=RadioCountToLedsAppC BUILD_EXTRA_DEPS = RadioCountMsg.py RadioCountMsg.class RadioCountMsg.py: RadioCountToLeds.h mig python -target=$(PLATFORM) $(CFLAGS) -python-classname=RadioCountMsg RadioCountToLeds.h RadioCountMsg -o $@ RadioCountMsg.class: RadioCountMsg.java javac RadioCountMsg.java RadioCountMsg.java: RadioCountToLeds.h mig java -target=$(PLATFORM) $(CFLAGS) -java-classname=RadioCountMsg RadioCountToLeds.h RadioCountMsg -o $@ include $(MAKERULES)The first and last line of this Makefile are the basic lines present inall TinyOS Makefiles; the line in bold defining BUILD_EXTRA_DEPSspecifies some additional make targets to build alongside themain TinyOS application (if you are not familiar with make, this may be agood time to read a make tutorial, e.g., thisone).
When you compile RadioCountToLeds for the first time, you will see thatthe two extra targets, RadioCountMsg.py
and RadioCountMsg.class
, are automatically created:
$ make mica2 mkdir -p build/mica2 mig python -target=mica2 -python-classname=RadioCountMsg RadioCountToLeds.h RadioCountMsg -o RadioCountMsg.py mig java -target=mica2 -java-classname=RadioCountMsg RadioCountToLeds.h RadioCountMsg -o RadioCountMsg.java javac RadioCountMsg.java compiling RadioCountToLedsAppC to a mica2 binary ...As this Makefile is written, these generated files are not deleted whenyou execute
make clean
. Fix this by adding the following line:
CLEAN_EXTRA = $(BUILD_EXTRA_DEPS) RadioCountMsg.javato
apps/RadioCountToLeds/Makefile
. This defines the CLEAN_EXTRAmake variable to be the same as BUILD_EXTRA_DEPS, with RadioCountMsg.javaadded to the end. The build system's
clean target deletes all filesin CLEAN_EXTRA:
$ make clean rm -rf build RadioCountMsg.py RadioCountMsg.class RadioCountMsg.java rm -rf _TOSSIMmodule.so TOSSIM.pyc TOSSIM.pyFinally, to see how to pass options to the nesC compiler, we will changeRadioCountToLeds's source code to set the message sending period basedon the preprocessor symbol
SEND_PERIOD
. Change the line in
RadioCountToLedsC.nc
that reads
call MilliTimer.startPeriodic(1000);to
call MilliTimer.startPeriodic(SEND_PERIOD);and add the following line to RadioCountToLeds's Makefile:
CFLAGS += -DSEND_PERIOD=2000Note the use of
+=
when defining CFLAGS: this allows the userto also pass options to nesC when invoking make as we saw above (
env CFLAGS=x make ...
).
Now compiling RadioCountToLeds gives:
$ make mica2 ... compiling RadioCountToLedsAppC to a mica2 binary ncc -o build/mica2/main.exe ... -DSEND_PERIOD=2000 ... RadioCountToLedsAppC.nc -lm compiled RadioCountToLedsAppC to build/mica2/main.exe ...
TinyOS Tools
The TinyOS build system is designed to make it easier to write Makefilesfor applications that support multiple platforms, programmers, etc ina uniform way. However, it's use is not compulsory, and all the tools itis built on can be used in your own build system (e.g., your own Makefileor simple build script). Below we show how to build and install theRadioCountToLeds application for a micaz with the mib510 programmerusing just a few commands.First, we compile RadioCountToLedsAppC.nc (the main component ofthe application) using the nesC compiler, ncc:
$ ncc -target=micaz -o rcl.exe -Os -finline-limit=100000 -Wnesc-all -Wall RadioCountToLedsAppC.ncThis generates an executable file,
rcl.exe
. Next, we wantto install this program on a mote with mote id 15. First, we create anew executable,
rcl.exe-15
, where the variables storing themote's identity are changed to 15, using the
tos-set-symbols
command:
$ tos-set-symbols rcl.exe rcl.exe-15 TOS_NODE_ID=15 ActiveMessageAddressC\$addr=15Finally, we install this executable on the micaz using
uisp
, to a mib510 programmer connected to port /dev/ttyUSB1:
$ uisp -dpart=ATmega128 -dprog=mib510 -dserial=/dev/ttyUSB1 --erase --upload if=rcl.exe-15 Firmware Version: 2.1 Atmel AVR ATmega128 is found. Uploading: flashIf you wish to follow this route, note two things: first, you can find outwhat commands the build system is executing by passing the
-n
option to make, which tells it to print rather than execute commands:
$ make -n micaz install.15 mib510 mkdir -p build/micaz echo " compiling RadioCountToLedsAppC to a micaz binary" ncc -o build/micaz/main.exe -Os -finline-limit=100000 -Wall -Wshadow -Wnesc-all -target=micaz -fnesc-cfile=build/micaz/app.c -board=micasb -fnesc-dump=wiring -fnesc-dump='interfaces(!abstract())' -fnesc-dump='referenced(interfacedefs, components)' -fnesc-dumpfile=build/micaz/wiring-check.xml RadioCountToLedsAppC.nc -lm nescc-wiring build/micaz/wiring-check.xml ...Second, all the commands invoked by the build system should have man pagesdescribing their behaviour and options. For instance, try the followingcommands:
$ man tos-set-symbols $ man ncc $ man nescc
Related Documentation
- mica mote Getting Started Guide at Crossbow
- telos mote Getting Started Guide for Moteiv
- Lesson 1 introduced the build system.
- Lesson 10 describes how to add a new platformto the build system.
- GNU make man page.
- man pages for the nesC compiler (man ncc, man nescc) and the variousTinyOS tools.
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