MQX Host Tools

Summary

The MQX Host Tools are a unique set of development and debug tools which work with the MQX RTOS and Freescale's CodeWarrior Development Studio to help speed software development work and improve developer productivity. These powerful tools run on Windows operating systems and are include at no extra charge with the MQX RTOS.

Key Features

MQXDesign | MQXDebug | MQXProfile | Compatible Products

MQXDesign

The MQXDesign tool is a rapid-prototyping tool that lets you graphically define applications based on the MQX RTOS and the and then generates commented application source code to define the data structures, tasks, and application layer interfaces to the MQX RTOS and the RTCS Embedded Internet stack. While designed to provide a quick and easy project start, The MQXDesign tool provides detailed controls and features including support for assigning tasks to specific processors in multiple-processor designs.

Designing real-time or embedded applications is complex enough without having to go through a new learning process. Although you’ll find the MQX
RTOS clean and easy to use, we’ve taken the next step toward making your job easier. You can use the MQXDesign Tool to graphically define an application and automatically generate the initialization structures, task templates, task code frames, and the function calls to the MQX RTOS and the RTCS Embedded Internet stack. All you have to do is add the code for the application tasks and compile, and you can start testing your application on your target. The MQXDesign Tool is easy to use. You click buttons from the toolbar to create RTOS objects such as tasks, semaphores, and message queues. Then you configure these objects by double-clicking the object to bring up a configuration window. You can use the window to set communication connections between tasks using message passing, semaphores, events, and mutexes.

MQXDesign Tool

Once you have laid out all your application in the MQXDebug Inter-Task View window, you can implement the behavior of a particular task by opening the Task View window for the task. Based on the design and interconnections that you created in the Inter-Task View window, the MQXDesign Tool automatically provides you the icons for the RTOS functions that you need to use. You can add other functions and C-like flow elements such as while loops, for loops, and if statement. The MQXDesign Tool also lets you generate icons for your own function calls.

When you finish defining your application tasks, with one button-click, you can generate the source code for your application. The source code includes all the header files, declares all the initialization structures, and even creates a make file that you can use to compile and build your application. The source code includes comments that document the MQX function calls and where you may want to add your own source code.

At this stage, you have the framework for your application. You can take this framework and proceed with implementing the high-level elements of your application or start to test your framework with a debugger or simulator.

MQXDebug

The MQXDebug family of MQX RTOS aware debugging extensions lets you see detailed information about the internal state of the MQX RTOS and the RTCS Embedded Internet stack.

When you use an RTOS, your application consists of multiple concurrent tasks. In addition to debugging the sequential logic of each task, you now must debug the interactions of tasks, resources, and the RTOS and networking stack. MQXDebug addresses these new challenges by providing a big picture point of view. Debugging a concurrent application is more productive when you look at the big picture before you zoom in on details of program execution. MQXDebug incorporates this debugging approach, whose objective is to decrease the time to identify a problem by letting you browse data before you look at the source code. When you look at the data first, it becomes easier to pinpoint a problem to a specific task, interaction between tasks, or interactions between tasks and resources. If you do this first, you minimize your need to set breakpoints and spend time single-stepping through code.

MQXDebug DLL for CodeWarrior
The MQXDebug DLL in the MQX Host Tools lets the developer browse and analyze data structures of the MQX RTOS and the RTCS Embedded Internet stack using Freescale's CodeWarrior Development Studio. Detailed information about MQX RTOS Tasks and Task Queues, Events, Semaphores, Memory blocks, Partitions, Stack Usage, Messages, Message Queues and Message Pools, Mutexes, Counters, Initializations, and Interrupts can all be examined within the debugger. MQXDebug data available for RTCS Embedded Internet Stack protocols include RTCS configuration, TCP, UDP and IP configuration parameters, ARP, ICMP, IGMP, IP, TCP and UCB statistics, as well as states of IP interface connections, sockets, and control blocks.

MQXDebug DLL for CodeWarrior

MQXDebug EDS Client
The EDS Client, a small, standalone application provides visibility into the MQXDebug data directly, without requiring a debugger. The EDS Client can work either from kernel logs or live connection with a target system. The EDS Client fully supports multiprocessor debugging on live targets. In addition, the EDS Client can be set up to automatically feed data into either Microsoft Excel or the MQXProfile Tool for further analysis.

MQXDebug EDS Client Tool

The EDS Client lets you debug your application while it’s running in ROM, which is how your finished product runs. When you debug like this, you can get information while you’re in the field without bringing special equipment or changing the configuration of the embedded target. Using TCP/IP for the EDS Client interface also lets you debug your application over the Internet.

MQXProfile

MQX Host Tools includes the MQXProfile tool, which works with log data captured via one of the above MQXDebug methods to provide a comprehensible graphical view of the performance and behavior of an MQX RTOS-based embedded application. Using the MQXProfile tool gives visibility to tasks, events, timelines, state transitions, stack usage, CPU usage, and MQX RTOS resource usage. Taking performance tuning a quantum leap past profiling subroutine-by-subroutine, MQXProfile Tool enables optimizing on a task basis.

MQXProfile Tool

The MQXProfile Tool provides a comprehensible interpretation of the MQX Kernel Log. The tool uses the raw data that’s collected by the log to display histograms and timeline diagrams that give you a comprehensive, graphical view of the performance and behavior of your embedded application.

Compatible Products from Embedded Access

The following Embedded Access products are compatible with the MQX Host Tools:

• MQX RTOS
• RTCS Embedded Internet Stack