Eclipse Study Project - Target Management and Device Debugging

Requirements

One of our Japanese customers required a detailed study about the following sub-projects of Eclipse - Device Software Development Platform (DSDP)

• Target Management (TM)
• Device Debugging (DD)

Since the Japanese customer did not have enough engineer for the study, they intent to utilize Acme Technologies Pvt. Ltd. (acmet) as consultant. acmet had to study and document the above Eclipse sub-projects. acmet had to deliver the documentation on fort-nightly basis. The deliverable should be understandable to Japanese engineers.

The following were the study tasks to be performed:

• Study and explain the following Eclipse sub-projects
  • Target Management (TM)
  • Device Debugging (DD)
  • C/C++ Development Tooling (CDT)
• Study the details about the API and Extension point for Target Management

Note:

C/C++ Development Tooling (CDT) is a sub-project of Eclipse - Tools project. C/C++ Development Tooling (CDT) was studied additionally as it was required by Target Management (TM).

Challenges

• Lack of experience in Eclipse
• Understand Eclipse without adequate documentation
• Understand about Plug-ins and its terminologies
• Prepare the document such that Japanese engineer can able to easily understand

Solution

• Environment

  OS	Windows Linux
  Language/Platform	Eclipse Europa
  Development model	Incremental development model

• Description

  The customer requirement was elaborated and detailed plan was sent to customer regarding the study of the Eclipse. After getting approval from customer, we had started the Eclipse study on the sub-projects.

  Target Management (TM)

  Main purpose of TM is to configure and manage remote system, their connection and their services. Using TM one or more client system can interact with multiple target systems.

  We connected Windows/ Linux systems remotely by using TM and created a detailed document about the following:

  • Connecting Windows/ Linux systems remotely using FTP/ SSH/ DStore (protocols)
  • Edit and Compile remote files
  • Transfer files between hosts
  • Do remote search for text or files
  • Open Linux shells and execute commands on remote systems

  API and Extension points of TM were studied and documentation was done for the following:

  • API interfaces
  • API classes and its methods
  • Extension points

  Device Debugging (DD)

  The purpose of DD is to improve the software debugging. The existing Eclipse debugger has the following complexities while debugging:

  • Poor performance while debugging remote target
  • Hardware model for processors are different
  • Complex memory models, memory is shared between multi cores and it is limited
  • Difficulty in deeper visibility of hardware including access to on-chip peripherals

  Main goal of DD is to address the above complexities.
  
  Studied and documented about how to add Debugger Services Framework (DSF) configuration in Debug perspective and how to debug using DSF.

  C/C++ Development Tooling (CDT)

  The CDT (C/C++ Development Tools) Project provides a fully functional C and C++ Integrated Development Environment (IDE) for the Eclipse platform. The following subjects on CDT were studied and documented:

  • How to install CDT in Eclipse
  • How to create and execute C/C++ standard and managed projects by using various Toolchain
  • Console and GUI debugging a C/C++ project for Windows and Linux
  • Console level Remote debugging in Linux

• Documents sent to the Japanese customer

  • Executive summary of Eclipse
  • Installing Cygwin
  • Installing Eclipse
  • Details about Target Management
  • Target Management API interfaces and extension points
  • Target Management API class and methods
  • Details about Device Debugging
  • How to install C/C++ Development Tooling (CDT)
  • How to execute/ debug C/C++ projects in CDT
  • Remote debugging using CDT

  All the deliveries were completed in the planned schedule and the documents was delivered in time and to the satisfaction of the customer.