Re: gcc for embedded: Worth it?

[Ken <shiva at compuserve dot com>]

Martin Boyer wrote:
> 
> "Martin Weiss" <martin.weiss@datentechnik.com> writes:
> 
> > Who has ever tried to compile a crosscompiler under linux to run
> > under win32 and to target 68k? Experiences with c++ for embedded?
> 
> I didn't have time to built the crosscompiler myself, so I had my
> company purchase GNUPro, from Cygnus Solutions.  This is for an Intel
> i960 target on a Windows NT 4.0 host.
> 
> After a few weeks of early problems, caused mainly by problems with
> segmentation faults from an older version of cygwin32, I can say this
> was a very good decision.  The folks at Cygnus are very competent and
> diligent.  The tools are good and easy to use (I'm a Unix old-timer).
> 
> As for C++ for embedded, we had a protocol library that was using
> templates and the Standard Template Library.  That never worked, most
> probably due to problems with constructors or structure
> initialization.  I can't blame anyone; the protocol code was developed
> on Visual C++ 5.0 and used extensions that weren't in the C++ draft
> standard.  To make a long story short, the parts that used templates
> were re-implemented without templates, and that worked.  We have since
> added code which used templates in a limited way, and that worked as
> well.  Go figure.
> 
> Overall, I'd say that GNUPro can generate useful, embeddable, code
> from C++ sources, using inherited classes, constructors, templates (to
> some extent), etc.  I would say that using C++ allowed for a very
> generic protocol library to be created (the same code runs in Visual
> C++ on the control station, and in GNUPro's C++ in the embedded
> system), at the cost of at least double the ROM and RAM requirements
> over a "low-tech" C implementation.  That is a lot when you have 512k
> of each.
> 
> Martin

What accounted for the doubling in size going from C to C++?

[I'm cc'ing this to the new c++-embedded list hosted at Cygnus. Send
subscription requests to mailto:c++-embedded-request@cygnus.com.]

-- 
Ken
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