Codewarrior MCU and latest Eclipse release

[Lorenzo_Mch_IT]

Is it possible to  "upgrade" Codewarrior MCU to the latest Eclipse version or to configure CW MCU external tools and toolchains to work with MCUXpresso ?

I've noticed that Codewarrior MCU is still using old Eclipse 4.2 (2012) while for example MCUXpresso is using Eclipse 4.12 (2019).

The newer Eclipse releases have lots of bug fixes, new features, updated plugins, etc. and IIRC it just take an update of the CDT interface/configuration to use CW MCU external tools and toolchains with newer Ecplise releases.

Are there some technical issue or is it just a matter of outsourced closed-source plugins/tools not updated to support latest Eclipse releases ?

[ErichStyger]

Hi Lorenzo,

for which processor family are you using CodeWarrior for MCU? Is it about Processor Expert or anything else?

If it is for Kinetis, it should be a no-brainer to switch to the MCUXpresso IDE which is state-of-art and the latest.

Otherwise: *technically* speaking it should be possible to move the CW plugins to a newer eclipse (say into MCUXpresso IDE). It would be only possible if you have a deep knowlege with knowing what plugin is doing what and which files belong to what. But it is very likely that things will be broken or strange bugs could appear due incompatibilities. So I think it is not worth the efforts and the risks. And you won't get any support for it. I would not do it. 

I hope this helps,

Erich

[Lorenzo_Mch_IT]

Hello Erich,

thank you for your answers.

I'm developing for DSCs based on 56800EX cores and what I would like to use NXP's (formerly Metrowerks) DSC toolchain  and debugger with the latest Eclipse IDE+CDT release.

CDT supports GCC-based, Clang-based and (at least some older versions of ) Microsoft toolchains but I have no idea where to find documentation about adding support for "generic" toolchains and debuggers to CDT, or information about adding another toolchain to MCUXpresso.

Lorenzo

[ErichStyger]

Hi Lorenzo,

I have DSC left behind for years, so won't be a big help on that architecture.

Basically there are several approaches:

- build your own DIY toolchain/IDE. I wrote a tutorial on this a while back: Constructing a Classroom IDE with Eclipse for ARM | MCU on Eclipse  which is for ARM but could be applied to any other architecture

- have a look at the great GNU ARM Eclipse project: GNU ARM → GNU MCU Eclipse! 

- start developing your own plugins. Check Home · eclipse-cdt/cdt-infra Wiki · GitHub . There is  Your First Plug-In  and Vogel has great tutorials on the general topic: Eclipse IDE Plug-in Development: Plug-ins, Features, Update Sites and IDE Extensions

I'm not up-to-date with the DSC any more, but I think the debugger engine is not standard GDB. Integration with the debugger would be the most challenging part.

Again: I doubt this is really worth trying.

I hope this helps,

Erich

[Lorenzo_Mch_IT]

Hi Erich,

thank you again, especially for the links.

I agree with you that the debugger engine will be quite difficult to integrate, I will give it a try anyway, maybe just for the sake of understanding what is missing and how much difficult it would be to develop a plugin for the debugger.

Best regards

Lorenzo