This can’t be a feature. I’m somewhat outraged.

kender · Joined: 09 Aug 2004 Posts: 768 Location: Silicon Valley

This can’t be a feature. This is either a bug or lack of feature.

I have a function with the following arguments:

MikeW · Joined: 15 Sep 2003 Posts: 184 Location: Warrington UK

I am not going to comment on the compiler not warning you.

I would merely say that you must be a very young man (I am 60).

You may have a reason to be disappointed, but keep your outrage for real problems in life, or you wont make it through to the other side.

Mike

FvM · Joined: 27 Aug 2008 Posts: 2337 Location: Germany

You are complaining about lack of type checking in CCS C?

According to most C-standards, type checking is optional, so missing type checking surely isn't a bug. I agree, that type checking can help to avoid some simple coding errors.

When using compilers that involve extensive type checking, e.g. embedded Visual C, I found, that the most nasty coding errors are not detected by type checking anyway...

I don't remember a particular coding error in CCS C work, that would have been avoided by more type checking, but there may be some. In my opinion, it's a less important in CCS C features.

Ttelmah · Guest

The key is to understand that C itself, is not a 'strong typed' language. It has built in, automatic casting of values to the required type, if possible, as they are passed to/from functions. This makes it perefectly possible, and acceptable, to pass an integer, to a function expecting a pointer, and the integer, will be used as a pointer when passed, without complaint. This behaviour, is potentially dangerous, _but is part of C_. I can do this, on an old Unix C, and it works fine...
It is a powerful ability, but also potentially dangerous.
This behaviour was changed, with latter variants, with ANSI C increasing the checking, and things like C++, making casts obligatory, to reduce the risks.
If you want stronger checking, then use a separate syntax checker. Many people here do exactly this, passing the code through third party checkers, before doing the final compilation.

Best Wishes

ckielstra · Joined: 18 Mar 2004 Posts: 3680 Location: The Netherlands

I do understand it is very annoying to waste time searching for a bug that the compiler could have easily warned you for. But, it is a missing feature, not a bug.

At my work we are using the same code base to compile for three different OS-es and it is surprising to see how each compiler warns against different bad coding practices. The IAR compiler might be better than CCS, but be assured you will find missing features here as well.

Send an email to CCS to ask for this missing feature to be added. Only features asked for by customers will be implemented. If you don't think it worth to send an email, than it is not worth complaining either.

MikeW · Joined: 15 Sep 2003 Posts: 184 Location: Warrington UK

OK, we have flamed him enough.

Finally, the other important point is the cost.

The CCS compiler is $250 or so.

The cheapest IAR for ARM is the one below, the most expensive being £3,000+

IAR Baseline Embedded Workbench for ARM - 256KB Code Limited

As for Embedded Workbench for ARM except MISRA C Checker, Design tools and Printed User Guides are not included. Support not included - support is charged at £300 for 12 months.
Price: £1,580.00 / €1,738.00

We accept the limitations and quirks with CCS for the low cost compiler, and this brilliant forum.

Mike

asmallri · Joined: 12 Aug 2004 Posts: 1634 Location: Perth, Australia

asmboy · Joined: 20 Nov 2007 Posts: 2128 Location: albany ny

back when i was using training wheels - i recall True Basic - which has
only two types to check - string or numeric - where ANY numeric is internally converted to whatever you need for a given calculation - integer to IEEE float - signed or unsigned - makes no never mind - and the first use of a data item initializes it.

strings were limited to 64Kb each - with no zero tag - - instead using an
unsigned int16 preceding the string data and if you are a primitive user you did not have to know about that either since the only access to the headers was through 808x ASM anyway.

i still use it when i want to prototype a hi level math intensive routine in a hurry - because it is SIMPLE ,accurate and foolproof - even for a 60++ year old.

of course , that required a heck of a lot of overhead such that hello world , when compiled - carried 100k of executive baggage.

too bad there is no PIC version
Laughing

bkamen · Posted: Wed Jul 22, 2009 9:01 pm