Looks like I have to use the blog to post a question:

by DonTH B (modified: 2007 Sep 15)

Has anyone added a C-compiler to any Eiffel development environment to target a new platform? How hard is it to get the environment to generate different C-code than what the Eiffel environment usually generates?

I see that Eiffel Software claims support for embedded systems but I don't see specific platforms advertised on their web site.

I am new to Eiffel so any related information on this subject, such as how embedded systems development is done in Eiffel, would be extremely helpful. Even if it is just pointing me in the appropriate direction.

Comments
  • Manu (17 years ago 11/9/2007)

    Best place is

    For the moment, I believe it is best to subscribe to the Eiffel Software mailing list at http://groups.eiffel.com for such questions. The blog was not exactly designed for that purpose.

    Porting the Eiffel runtime to a new platform is usually relatively easy assuming that your platform has a decent C compiler (i.e. ANSI C) and that the platform provides some of the basic API that you can find on most operating systems, i.e:

    • malloc, free for memory allocation
    • read/write/fopen/... for file/network access
    • other APIs that the runtime may need can also be excluded

    Currently, Eiffel Software supports the VxWorks tool chain for embedded development. It has been successfully used on HPPA and PowerPC architecture.

    The way we do it is that you develop on either your platform of choice with EiffelStudio. Then you take the C generated code and compile it for your target platform. Debugging is somewhat limited to C debugging but the generated code is following pretty closely your Eiffel code. If you can define some macros with your debugger then it makes it even easier.

    Hope this helps,Manu

    • DonTH B (17 years ago 12/9/2007)

      Thanks Manu

      Looks like some of my questions have been answered over at http://groups.eiffel.com.

      Thanks again.