Here’s my experiment with the MPLAB’s C30 source code. The original site for the patches (for C30 v3.00) can be viewed from Peter-Jan Randewijk page and piklab wiki.

System Prequisities

You will need GCC, Bison, Flex, and Tofrodos/Dos2unix utility. For Ubuntu users, just do:

# sudo apt-get install build-essential bison flex tofrodos

The autoconf of the MPLAB package seems like doesn’t check the bison and flex availability, causing the compilation failure at certain point. If the compilation failure due to *.y and/or *.l file, make sure your bison (yacc) and flex in on the system path.

Getting The Source Code

Download:

• PIC30-Binutis (mplabalc30_v3_11B.tar.gz from Microchip’s site)
• PIC30-GCC (mplabc30_v3_11B.tar.gz from Microchip’s site)

You need to register yourself before you can download it from Microchip.

Compiling PIC30-Binutils

Untar mplabalc30_v3_11B.tar.gz

# tar xvzf mplabalc30_v3_11B.tar.gz

You’ll find two directories extracted: acme/ and c30_resource/. Since Microchip is using Windows, you need to convert the files into Unix files (ie. replace Windows newline with Unix’s).

# find . -type f -exec dos2unix '{}' ';'

Then apply modified John Steele Scott’s patch (here)

# tar xvjf pic30-binutils-3.11b.tar.bz2
# patch -p0 < pic30-binutils-3.11b/patches/allow-empty-device-info-file.diff
# patch -p0 < pic30-binutils-3.11b/patches/binutils-makefile_in.diff
# patch -p0 < pic30-binutils-3.11b/patches/search-path-fix.diff

Configure the package, make, and make install

# cd acme/
# CFLAGS=-DMCHP_VERSION="v3.11b-Debian" ./configure --prefix=/usr/local/pic --target=pic30-coff
# make
# sudo make install

The binary that you’ve just compiled can only produces/modify COFF executables. You might need the ELF one too.

# make distclean
# CFLAGS=-DMCHP_VERSION="v3.11b-Debian" ./configure --prefix=/usr/local/pic --target=pic30-elf
# make
# sudo make install

And that’s the end for the PIC30-Binutils. Note: Under Ubuntu 8.10, if the compilation complaints about “ylwrap : line xx -d not found“, install bison first (eg. “sudo apt-get install bison”), before you configure the package.

Compiling PIC30-GCC

Untar mplabc30_v3_11B.tar.gz

# tar xvzf mplabc30_v3_11B.tar.gz

It will extract two subdirs: gcc-4.0.2/ and c30_resource/. The next step is similar with PIC30-Binutils, replace the Windows newline with Unix’s.

# find . -type f -exec dos2unix '{}' ';'

Then apply John Steele Scott’s patch and mine into the GCC source.

# tar xvjf pic30-gcc-3.11b.tar.bz2
# patch -p0 < pic30-gcc-3.11b/patches/libiberty-testsuite.diff
# patch -p0 < pic30-gcc-3.11b/patches/pic30-standard-prefix.diff
# patch -p0 < pic30-gcc-3.11b/patches/search-path-fix.diff
# patch -p0 < pic30-gcc-3.11b/patches/make-relative-prefix.diff
# patch -p0 < pic30-gcc-3.11b/patches/resource-path.diff
# patch -p0 < pic30-gcc-3.11b/patches/t-pic30.diff

Now, the PIC30-GCC doesn’t like you to build the source code inside the directory itself. Create different directory to configure and compile the PIC30-GCC, then install it.

# mkdir gcc-build
# cd gcc-build
# CFLAGS=-DMCHP_VERSION="v3.11b-Debian" ../gcc-4.0.2/gcc-4.0.2/configure --prefix=/usr/local/pic --target=pic30-coff --enable-languages=c

Additional note from Michal Demin:

The semantic analyzer in gcc package (c-parse.c file) is not generated correctly. Therefore the pic30-gcc will not recognize standard C keywords (void, return..etc). You have to force the Makefile to regenerate it by

touch ../gcc-4.0.2/gcc-4.0.2/gcc/c-parse.y

before executing the make.

# make
# sudo make install

Note: Under Ubuntu 8.10, install flex if the compilation is error due to “gcc: gengtype-lex.c: No such file or directory”.

Now, due to my time limitation, I cannot fix the default path for the binutils directory (I hope someday someone will..It’s pretty easy). Therefore, you will need to copy binutils’ assembler (pic30-coff-as) and linker (pic30-coff-ld) into PIC30-GCC’s default program path ($PREFIX/libexec/gcc/pic30-coff/$GCC-VERSION). Like this:

# sudo cp /usr/local/pic/bin/pic30-coff-as /usr/local/pic/libexec/gcc/pic30-coff/4.0.3/
# sudo cp /usr/local/pic/bin/pic30-coff-ld /usr/local/pic/libexec/gcc/pic30-coff/4.0.3/

That’s it. Your PIC30-GCC is ready. But suppose you want to build ELF executable (instead of COFF), do it again with –target=pic30-elf

# cd .. && rm -fdr gcc-build && mkdir gcc-build && cd gcc-build
# CFLAGS=-DMCHP_VERSION="v3.11b-Debian" ../gcc-4.0.2/gcc-4.0.2/configure --prefix=/usr/local/pic --target=pic30-elf --enable-languages=c
# touch ../gcc-4.0.2/gcc-4.0.2/gcc/c-parse.y
# make
# sudo make install

Don’t forget to copy the pic30-elf-as and pic30-elf-ld.

# sudo cp /usr/local/pic/bin/pic30-elf-as /usr/local/pic/libexec/gcc/pic30-elf/4.0.3/
# sudo cp /usr/local/pic/bin/pic30-elf-ld /usr/local/pic/libexec/gcc/pic30-elf/4.0.3/

Simple Test for The Compiler

Here’s some simple test for the newly built compiler:

# echo "int main(void) { return 0; }" > test.c
# /usr/local/pic/bin/pic30-coff-gcc-4.0.3 -c test.c

You cannot link the program without the linker files (*.gld files from Microchip’s libc). But you can check the compilation result by:

# /usr/local/pic/bin/pic30-coff-objdump -S test.o
test.o:     file format coff-pic30

Disassembly of section .text:

00000000 :
   0:	00 00 fa    	lnk       #0x0
   2:	00 00 eb    	clr.w     w0
   4:	00 80 fa    	ulnk
   6:	00 00 06    	return

Adding Microchip’s Library
Here’s the hint. Issue this command to get the PIC30-GCC’s default library path:

# /usr/local/bin/pic30-coff-gcc-4.0.3 -print-search-dirs

By looking the default library path, you should know which directory in Microchip’s “Program Files/Microchip” that needs to be copied. Also, you will know where to put it (Hint: $prefix/pic30-nonfree or /usr/local/pic/pic30-nonfree if you follow this guide).

Does It Realy Work ?

You tell me. I’m newbies in PIC MCUs, and I haven’t got any Microchip’s libc so far. Microchip said that the libc (and C start-up anf linker files) are belong to them. So, they are not the part of the GPL-ed code.

Anyway, if you find this build guide works, please post me the sample code that you are using. I can use it to learn PIC24