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XDCtools 3.15.01.59 GA Release Notes

June 11, 2009

Introduction, Documentation, License, What's New, Upgrade & Compatibility Information, Host Support, Dependencies, Device Support, Validation Info, Known Issues, Version Information, Technical Support.


Introduction

RTSC / XDC (eXpanDed C) is a standard for reusable software components, optimized for real-time embedded systems. RTSC components have hardware-neutral formal interfaces, are configurable offline to optimize memory and performance, and support custom automation in the development environment via a scripting language.

XDCtools 3.15.01.59 is the General Availability release of XDCtools 3.15.01

The XDCtools product includes the following sets of packages:

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Documentation

The product documentation for this release is available in two formats:

Both formats are delivered with the product in the docs subdirectory. The most up-to-date docs can also be viewed on-line at:

Release notes from previous product releases are available in the relnotes_archive directory.

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License

XDCtools contains elements released under the Eclipse Public License v1.0 and a number of other open-source licenses, detailed here.


What's New

The following significant changes are included in 3.15.01.59:

The following significant changes were included in 3.15.00.50:

Fully open source licensing

XDCtools is now a fully open source product. Most of the product is released under the Eclipse Public License v1.0, though elements released under other open source licenses are also included. Full details are available here.

New platforms

Includes RTSC platforms for new devices:

Device Platform Package Catalog Package and Module
TMS320C5505 ti.platforms.dsk5505,
ti.platforms.evm5505
ti.catalog.c5500.TMS320C5505
TMS320DM357 ti.platforms.evmDM357 ti.catalog.arm.TMS320DM357,
ti.catalog.c6000.TMS320DM357

Flash video tutorials

Product documentation now includes Flash video tutorials demonstrating features of the integration with Code Composer Studio v4. The tutorials can be viewed online or in the help bundle under XDCtools User's Guide / Using RTSC with CCStudio v4.

Integration with Code Composer Studio v4

XDCtools now integrates with Code Composer Studio v4 (CCSv4) IDE and is bundled with the CCSv4 product. Users can build and run applications that use RTSC content in an integrated graphical environment.

The integration features include:

RTSC platform wizard

CCSv4 now includes a graphical wizard for creating RTSC platforms. This allows users who have their own hardware to generate a RTSC platform package that fully supports all RTSC command-line and graphical features.

Graphical configuration

CCSv4 now includes a graphical editor for RTSC configuration (.cfg) files. Features of the Graphical configuration editor include:

The graphical editor has beta status.

Improved error messages and trace support

Error messages printed by XDCtools are now more concise, and stack backtraces are no longer printed by default. A new Trace facility lets package writers output debug information, and lets users filter the trace output according to producer and verbosity.

The trace support is documented on the web here.

XDC Runtime support for OS-related primitives

XDCtools now includes runtime support for OS-related primitives, delivered as a standard part of the XDC Runtime in package xdc.runtime.knl.

Warning: Package xdc.runtime.knl is experimental in this release, and its interfaces can be expected to change in an incompatible way in upcoming releases.

Closure tool for creating stand-alone bundles

A command line tool that creates a RTSC bundle containing all packages loaded in the process of configuring an application. The resulting bundle can be distributed and consumed without installing any additional products, including XDCtools itself.

The tool is available in package xdc.tools.closure. Documentation is available on the web here.

Warning: Package xdc.tools.closure is experimental in this release, and can be expected to change in an incompatible way in upcoming releases.


Defect history for 3.15.01.59 (This Release)

XDCtools bugs are filed at bugs.eclipse.org.

The following defects were resolved in this release:

ID Headline
ECL266215 Path tool should display/output .repo.xml info for a package
ECL266716 Provide support for integrating RTSC content in Eclipse
ECL266718 Integrate XGCONF in CCS4
ECL269109 xdc.tools.cdoc -Pr not working
ECL270851 configuro documentation errors
ECL272579 XDCtools hardcode absolute path to __ASM__ symbol
ECL274449 Pkg.generatedFiles does not prevent files from being added to a release
ECL274594 cdoc icons must be EPL
ECL275041 xdc.platform.generic is not available from CCS4
ECL275994 two different xcconf perspectives
ECL276149 add fill to Program.SectionSpec
ECL276789 ti.platforms.evmOMAPL137 should have explicit dependency on ti.catalog.arm
ECL277228 configuro should perform path checks on failures
ECL277233 path tool does does not always warn about "empty" repositories
ECL277969 Platform dm357 missing in XDCtools 3.15.00.50
ECL278477 please make and provide ti.platforms.evm5505 and dsk5505 with XDC 3.15
ECL278696 fix link to licences in xdc.shelf
ECL279338 LoggerBuf incorrectly restricts numEntries to be ^2
ECL279528 configuro package path does not seem to make it to cfg package build

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Upgrade and Compatibility Information

Warning:Starting with XDCtool 2.95, RTSC packages with target content are incompatible with target content from previous releases. Compatibility of meta only content is not affected. Packages with target content would require a recompile. Starting with XDCtool 3.00 release both backward and forward compatibility is maintained for all content.

Package Compatibility Keys

The packages comprising the XDCtools release are uniquely identified by a compatibility key defined in the package.xdc file of a package. Please note that the package compatibility keys are independent of XDC product release numbers.

Package compatibility keys are intended to:

  1. Enable tooling to identify incompatibilities between components, and
  2. Convey a level of compatibility between different releases to set end user expectations.

Package compatibility keys are composed of 4 comma-delimited numbers - M, S, R, P - where:



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Host Support

This release supports the following hosts:

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Dependencies

This release requires the following other software components and tools versions to successfully function:

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Device Support

This release supports the following device families:

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Validation Information

This release was built and validated against using the following components:

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Known Issues

The following major issues are known to exist in this release.

XDC spec file import statement resolution

XDCtools now correctly interprets the "imports" statement used in module .xdc files. Previously the import statement incorrectly imported all modules in the same package in addition to the one named. These extra modules are no longer imported, and content packages that incorrectly relied on this bug now correctly fail with an error message when used or built. This can affect users how unknowingly use content that has this issue.

The most common symptom is the error message "can't resolve name" when configuring an executable. The solution is to update the content that relies on the bug. The content producer should add import statements to the .xdc files for the missing modules.

CCSv4 IDE integration not supported on Linux

Command-line operation on Linux is fully supported.

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Version Information

All releases have 4 digits (M.mm.pp.bb). This includes GA and pre-releases (engineering, EA, beta, etc.). Pre-releases are denoted with a suffix (e.g. 3.15.01.51-eng or 3.15.01.58-beta).

This product's version follows a version format, M.mm.pp.bb, where M is a single digit Major number, mm is 2 digit minor number, pp is a 2 digit patch number, and b is an unrestricted set of digits used as an incrementing build counter.

To support multiple side-by-side installations of the product, the product version is encoded in the top level directory, ex. xdctools_3_15_00_50.

Subsequent releases of patch upgrades will be identified by the patch number, ex. XDCtools 3.15.01.67 with directory xdctools_3_15_01_67. Typically, these patches only include critical bug fixes.

Please note that version numbers and compatibility keys are NOT the same. For an explanation of compatibility keys, please refer to the 'Upgrade and Compatibility Information' section.

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Technical Support

For technical support, contact rtsc_champs@list.ti.com

Please view and file bugs against this product at rtsc.eclipse.org.

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Last updated: June 11, 2009 Build Ver: 3.15.01.59 Rev: k59