IDE for embedded development

Question

I am doing a lot of embedded development in C. I am looking for an IDE that can give me the same functions as Eclipse or Visual Studio. I used to use Vim, but I'm just not happy with what work it should use. I'm trying to use Eclipse right now, but I can't get it to tag the code correctly. I also have access to Visual Studio, and I could get a SlickEdit license.

Can anyone recommend an editor? I'm looking for something that

• Some type of code completion
• SVN support
• Indexing / tagging variables, function names, etc.
• Support for interpreting code that can be #ifed out
• 3rd party compiler support

Is there a way to generate code tags without creating make file or creating code with gcc?

Answer 1

I think you are going in the right direction (with Eclipse).

I think your question is why you cannot tag the code, however I know that Eclipse supports ctags (so this is by no means impossible).

Answer 2

I have widely used Code :: Blocks

code :: blocks

This thing is so amazing. If you have any binutils arm-elf, avr-elf, VC, mingw, you can use whatever you want, just select the toolbox in the project properties, add some libraries, etc.

I used to add other tools like flash2000 for LPC processors, objdump etc. as an external team.

There are many tools for this development environment that makes your cross-compilation faster and easier. And it is much better (read faster, less) than Eclipse + CDT and other things.

Answer 3

Eclipse is used as the basis for integrated IDE development by QNX Software Systems (which are also major contributors to CDT), WindRiver, Mentor Graphic and others, so it has some weight. Green-Hills has an Eclipse plugin for its toolchain.

Getting a seamless development environment from integrating your own tools is hard work, but more viable than with other text editors because of the open plug-in architecture. It depends on the level of integration you want. Editing and assembly are straightforward in most editors. Getting everyone, editing, building, assembling / managing dependencies (creating a makefile), version control, viewing the source code and debugging at a remote source level is a different task from a ready-made set from someone like one of the above providers.

Many proprietary IDEs other than Eclipse like Keil or IAR look a bit old-fashioned and rarely satisfy editors' requirements, although they often offer many low-level features in terms of target hardware and RTOS awareness and modeling.

Answer 4

http://mbeddr.com/

Just released an IDE for embedded systems

Answer 5

I have been working on embedded products for some time, I mainly use emacs with ctags (etags) and cscope. Recently, I started using SlickEdit, it works fine. Nevertheless, I personally recommend that you familiarize yourself with Vim / Emacs in any editor that suits you. The best thing about emacs / vim is the flexibility to extend functionality through the plugin / whatever you call. Many third-party plugins are available to expand these editors. Of course, you need to spend some time to get started.

Answer 6

I am currently using the IAR Workbench, which is good enough. I used Eclipse with the CDT plugin before (and probably will be back at some point), and its navigation system works very well. I don’t remember to make too much noise to index the code, but I used GCC (which may be a factor), and I remember that I had to restart Eclipse and / or manually tell it to retell from time to time when it is, It would seem to have some navigation issues.

However, although the IAR Workbench works well enough for most things, when I really want to have nice code navigation on hand, I just load Visual Studio with a makefile project that includes the source tree. Makefile commands simply invoke the IAR command-line utilities to complete the build. This works fantastically well, except for debugging - for this I have to go to the IAR Workbench. And when I'm in debug mode, it's just easier for me to stay in the IAR. But if I parse or shorten the code, I will go to VS for this.

Thus, basically you can use any IDE that you prefer for most of your development, if your target chain for the goal provides team management.

Answer 7

I used Microscope (Vex Platform), EVC ++, and Maemo + Nano compilers for embedded programming. Most of the other requests you request are often found outside of the IDE.

However, Netbeans can be configured to compile non-Java code. It is not just not so convenient. If you are developing C ++, you can change the compiler used, and you can easily use the C ++ plugin.

Answer 8

I think if the question is about choosing an IDE, then the answer will be Eclipse with CDT . Seasoned guys, like the author of " TDD with Built-in C, " James Granning loves and uses it. See the appendix to this book for more information.

Answer 9

If you are not developing a device, why not just use the IDE that you usually use? In any case, you will still be cross-compiled.

Answer 10

• I used vim, especially when working with Linux / unix systems with cscope (to cross reference the source). Vim has excellent versions that support code completion. Many plugins are available.
• Emacs is a powerful horse, a lot of customization support. It supports CVS / Clearcase AFAIK.

Answer 11

If you are willing to compromise on the built-in compiler and SVN support, I would say that Source Insight is the best tool for your everything else requirement.