HAL diagnostic I/O

This first form is polled mode HAL diagnostic output, intended primarily for use during debug and development. Operations are usually performed with global interrupts disabled, and thus this mode is not usually suitable for deployed systems. This can operate on any port, according to the configuration settings.

There are several configuration options usually found within a platform HAL which affect the use of this support in the AT91 processor HAL. The CDL option CYGNUM_HAL_VIRTUAL_VECTOR_CONSOLE_CHANNEL selects the serial port channel to use as the console at startup time. This will be the channel that receives output from, for example, diag_printf(). The CDL option CYGNUM_HAL_VIRTUAL_VECTOR_DEBUG_CHANNEL selects the serial port channel to use for GDB communication by default. Note that when using RedBoot, these options are usually inactive as it is RedBoot that decides which channels are used. Applications may override RedBoot's selections by enabling the CYGSEM_HAL_VIRTUAL_VECTOR_CLAIM_COMMS CDL option in the HAL. Baud rates for each channel are set with the CYGNUM_HAL_VIRTUAL_VECTOR_CONSOLE_CHANNEL_BAUD and CYGNUM_HAL_VIRTUAL_VECTOR_DEBUG_CHANNEL_BAUD options.

Interrupt-driven serial driver

The second form of support is an interrupt-driven serial driver, which is integrated into the eCos standard serial I/O infrastructure (CYGPKG_IO_SERIAL). This support can be enabled on any port.

Note that it is not recommended to share this driver when using the HAL diagnostic I/O on the same port. If the driver is shared with the GDB debugging port, it will prevent ctrl-c operation when debugging.

This driver is contained in the CYGPKG_IO_SERIAL_ARM_AT91 package. That driver package should also be consulted for documentation and configuration options. The driver is not active until the CYGPKG_IO_SERIAL_DEVICES configuration option within the generic serial driver support package CYGPKG_IO_SERIAL is enabled in the configuration.

The USARTs are named "/dev/ser0", "/dev/ser1" and so on. The DEBUG serial port is given the name "/dev/dbg". These names are all configurable.

Note that unlike the USART devices, the serial debug port does not support modem control signals such as those used for hardware flow control. In addition, USART devices for a particular platform may also not have these control signals brought out to the physical serial port.