1 // This file is part of the Doyxgen Developer Manual
2 /** @page tasks Pending and Open Tasks
4 This page lists pending and open tasks being considered or worked upon
5 by the OpenOCD community.
7 @section thelist The List
9 Most items are open for the taking, but please post to the mailing list
10 before spending much time working on anything lists here. The community
11 may have evolved an idea since it was added here.
13 Feel free to send patches to add or clarify items on this list, too.
15 @section thelisttcl TCL
17 This section provides possible things to improve with OpenOCD's TCL support.
19 - Fix problem with incorrect line numbers reported for a syntax
20 error in a reset init event.
22 - organize the TCL configurations:
23 - provide more directory structure for boards/targets?
24 - factor configurations into layers (encapsulation and re-use)
26 - Fix handling of variables between multiple command line "-c" and "-f"
27 parameters. Currently variables assigned through one such parameter
28 command/script are unset before the next one is invoked.
30 - Isolate all TCL command support:
31 - Pure C CLI implementations using --disable-builtin-tcl.
32 - Allow developers to build new dongles using OpenOCD's JTAG core.
33 - At first, provide only low-level JTAG support; target layer and
34 above rely heavily on scripting event mechanisms.
35 - Allow full TCL support? add --with-tcl=/path/to/installed/tcl
36 - Move TCL support out of foo.[ch] and into foo_tcl.[ch] (other ideas?)
37 - See src/jtag/core.c and src/jtag/tcl.c for an example.
38 - allow some of these TCL command modules to be dynamically loadable?
40 @section thelistjtag JTAG
42 This section list issues that need to be resolved in the JTAG layer.
44 @subsection thelistjtagcore JTAG Core
46 The following tasks have been suggested for cleaning up the JTAG layer:
48 - use tap_set_state everywhere to allow logging TAP state transitions
49 - Encapsulate cmd_queue_cur_state and related varaible handling.
50 - add slick 32 bit versions of jtag_add_xxx_scan() that avoids
51 buf_set_u32() calls and other evidence of poor impedance match between
52 API and calling code. New API should cut down # of lines in calling
53 code by 100's and make things clearer. Also potentially be supported
54 directly in minidriver API for better embedded host performance.
56 The following tasks have been suggested for adding new core JTAG support:
58 - Improve autodetection of TAPs by supporting tcl escape procedures that
59 can configure discovered TAPs based on IDCODE value ... they could:
60 - Remove guessing for irlen
61 - Allow non-default irmask/ircapture values
63 - (ab)use bit-banging JTAG interfaces to emulate SPI/UART
64 - allow SPI to program flash, MCUs, etc.
66 @subsection thelistjtaginterfaces JTAG Interfaces
68 There are some known bugs to fix in JTAG adapter drivers:
70 - For JTAG_STATEMOVE to TAP_RESET, all drivers must ignore the current
71 recorded state. The tap_get_state() call won't necessarily return
72 the correct value, especially at server startup. Fix is easy: in
73 that case, always issue five clocks with TMS high.
83 - bug: USBprog is broken with new tms sequence; it needs 7-clock cycles.
84 Fix promised from Peter Denison openwrt at marshadder.org
85 Workaround: use "tms_sequence long" @par
86 https://lists.berlios.de/pipermail/openocd-development/2009-July/009426.html
88 The following tasks have been suggeted for improving OpenOCD's JTAG
91 - rework USB communication to be more robust. Two possible options are:
92 -# use libusb-1.0.1 with libusb-compat-0.1.1 (non-blocking I/O wrapper)
93 -# rewrite implementation to use non-blocking I/O
95 - fix to work with long scan chains, such as R.Doss's svf test.
97 - make performance comparable to alternatives (on Win32, D2XX is faster)
98 - make usability comparable to alternatives
99 - Autodetect USB based adapters; this should be easy on Linux. If there's
100 more than one, list the options; otherwise, just select that one.
102 The following tasks have been suggested for adding new JTAG interfaces:
104 - TCP driver: allow client/server for remote JTAG interface control.
105 This requires a client and a server. The server is built into the
106 normal OpenOCD and takes commands from the client and executes
107 them on the interface returning the result of TCP/IP. The client
108 is an OpenOCD which is built with a TCP/IP minidriver. The use
109 of a minidriver is required to capture all the jtag_add_xxx()
110 fn's at a high enough level and repackage these cmd's as
111 TCP/IP packets handled by the server.
113 @section thelistswd Serial Wire Debug
115 - implement Serial Wire Debug interface
117 @section thelistbs Boundary Scan Support
122 A few possible options for the above:
123 -# Fake a TCL equivalent?
124 -# Integrate an existing library?
125 -# Write a new C implementation a la Jim?
127 Once the above are completed:
128 - add support for programming flash using boundary scan techniques
129 - add integration with a modified gerber view program:
130 - provide means to view the PCB and select pins and traces
131 - allow use-cases such as the following:
133 -# Double-click on a pin (or trace) with the mouse.
135 -# The trace starts blinking, and
136 -# OpenOCD toggles the pin(s) 0/1.
138 @section thelisttargets Target Support
140 - Many common ARM cores could be autodetected using IDCODE
141 - general layer cleanup: @par
142 https://lists.berlios.de/pipermail/openocd-development/2009-May/006590.html
143 - regression: "reset halt" between 729(works) and 788(fails): @par
144 https://lists.berlios.de/pipermail/openocd-development/2009-July/009206.html
145 - mcr/mrc target->type support
146 - missing from ARM920t, ARM966e, XScale.
147 It's possible that the current syntax is unable to support read-modify-write
148 operations(see arm966e).
149 - mcr/mrc - retire cp15 commands when there the mrc/mrc commands have been
150 tested from: arm926ejs, arm720t, cortex_a8
152 - clean up "arm9tdmi vector_catch". Available for some arm7 cores? @par
153 https://lists.berlios.de/pipermail/openocd-development/2009-October/011488.html
154 https://lists.berlios.de/pipermail/openocd-development/2009-October/011506.html
155 - add reset option to allow programming embedded ice while srst is asserted.
156 Some CPUs will gate the JTAG clock when srst is asserted and in this case,
157 it is necessary to program embedded ice and then assert srst afterwards.
159 - reset run/halt/step is not robust; needs testing to map out problems.
160 - ARM11 improvements (MB?)
161 - add support for asserting srst to reset the core.
162 - Single stepping works, but should automatically
163 use hardware stepping if available.
164 - mdb can return garbage data if read byte operation fails for
165 a memory region(16 & 32 byte access modes may be supported). Is this
166 a bug in the .MX31 PDK init script? Try on i.MX31 PDK:
167 mdw 0xb80005f0 0x8, mdh 0xb80005f0 0x10, mdb 0xb80005f0 0x20. mdb returns
169 - implement missing functionality (grep FNC_INFO_NOTIMPLEMENTED ...)
170 - thumb support is missing: ISTR ARMv6 requires Thumb.
171 ARM1156 has Thumb2; ARM1136 doesn't.
172 - Cortex A8 support (ML)
173 - add target implementation (ML)
174 - Generic ARM run_algorithm() interface
175 - tagged struct wrapping ARM instructions and metadata
176 - not revision-specific (current: ARMv4+ARMv5 -or- ARMv6 -or- ARMv7)
177 - usable with at least arm_nandwrite() and generic CFI drivers
178 - MC1322x support (JW/DE?)
179 - integrate and test support from JW (and DE?)
180 - get working with a known good interface (i.e. not today's jlink)
182 - improvements for unknown-board-atmel-at91sam9260.cfg (RD)
184 - improvements to str912.cfg to be more general purpose
186 - independently verify implementation
187 - incrementally improve working prototype in trunk. (SQ)
188 - work out how to debug this target
189 - AVR debugging protocol.
191 - Altera Nios Soft-CPU support
192 - Coldfire (suggested by NC)
193 - can we draw from the BDM project? @par
194 http://bdm.sourceforge.net/
196 or the OSBDM package @par
197 http://forums.freescale.com/freescale/board/message?board.id=OSBDM08&thread.id=422
199 @section thelistsvf SVF/XSVF
201 - develop SVF unit tests
202 - develop XSVF unit tests
204 @section thelistflash Flash Support
206 - finish documentation for the following flash drivers:
213 @subsection thelistflashcfi CFI
215 - finish implementing bus width/chip width handling (suggested by NC)
216 - factor vendor-specific code into separate source files
217 - add new callback interface for vendor-specific code
218 - investigate/implement "thin wrapper" to use eCos CFI drivers (ØH)
220 @section thelistdebug Debugger Support
222 - add support for masks in watchpoints? @par
223 https://lists.berlios.de/pipermail/openocd-development/2009-October/011507.html
224 - breakpoints can get lost in some circumstances: @par
225 https://lists.berlios.de/pipermail/openocd-development/2009-June/008853.html
226 - add support for masks in watchpoints. The trick is that GDB does not
227 support a breakpoint mask in the remote protocol. One way to work around
228 this is to add a separate command "watchpoint_mask add/rem <addr> <mask>", that
229 is run to register a list of masks that the gdb_server knows to use with
230 a particular watchpoint address.
231 - integrate Keil AGDI interface to OpenOCD? (submitted by Dario Vecchio)
233 @section thelisttesting Testing Suite
235 This section includes several related groups of ideas:
236 - @ref thelistunittests
237 - @ref thelistsmoketests
238 - @ref thelisttestreports
239 - @ref thelisttestgenerichw
241 @subsection thelistunittests Unit Tests
243 - add testing skeleton to provide frameworks for adding tests
244 - implement server unit tests
245 - implement JTAG core unit tests
246 - implement JTAG interface unit tests
247 - implement flash unit tests
248 - implement target unit tests
250 @subsection thelistsmoketests Smoke Test Tools
252 -# extend 'make check' with a smoketest app
253 - checks for OOCD_TEST_CONFIG, etc. in environment (or config file)
254 - if properly set, runs the smoke test with specified parameters
255 - openocd -f ${OOCD_TEST_CONFIG}
256 - implies a modular test suite (see below)
257 - should be able to run some minimal tests with dummy interface:
258 - compare results of baseline sanity checks with expected results
260 -# builds a more complete test suite:
261 - existing testing/examples/ look like a great start
262 - all targets should be tested fully and for all capabilities
263 - we do NOT want a "lowest common denominator" test suite
264 - ... but can we start with one to get going?
265 - probably requires one test configuration file per board/target
266 - modularization can occur here, just like with targets/boards/chips
267 - coverage can increase over time, building up bundles of tests
269 -# add new 'smoketest' Makefile target:
270 - calls 'make check' (and the smoketest app)
271 - gather inputs and output into a report file
273 @subsection thelisttestreports Test Feedback Tools
275 These ideas were first introduced here: @par
276 https://lists.berlios.de/pipermail/openocd-development/2009-May/006358.html
278 - provide report submission scripts for e-mail and web forms
279 - add new Makefile targets to post the report:
280 - 'checkreportsend' -- send to list via e-mail (via sendmail)
281 - 'checkreportpost' -- send web form (via curl or other script)
283 @subsection thelisttestgenerichw Generic Hardware Tester
285 - implement VHDL to use for FPGA-based JTAG TAP testing device
286 - develop test suite that utilizes this testing device
288 @section thelistautotools Autotools Build System
290 - make entire configure process require less user consideration:
291 - automatically detect the features that are available, unless
292 options were specifically provided to configure
293 - provide a report of the drivers that will be build at the end of
294 running configure, so the users can verify which driverswill be
295 built during 'make' (and their options) .
296 - eliminate sources of confusion in @c bootstrap script:
297 -# Make @c bootstrap call 'configure --enable-maintainer-mode \<opts\>'?
298 -# Add @c buildstrap script to assist with boostrap and configure steps.
299 - automatically build tool-chains required for cross-compiling
300 - produce mingw32, arm-elf, others using in-tree scripts
301 - build all required target code from sources
302 - make JTAG and USB debug output a run-time configuration option
304 @section thelistarchitecture Architectural Tasks
306 The following architectural tasks need to be accomplished and should be
307 fairly easy to complete:
310 - use dynamic allocations for working memory. Scan & fix code
311 for excessive stack allocations. take linux/scripts/checkpatch.pl and
312 see what the worst offenders are. Example, on amd64:
314 $ objdump -d | checkpatch.pl | head -10
315 0x004311e3 image_open [openocd]: 13464
316 0x00431301 image_open [openocd]: 13464
317 0x004237a4 target_array2mem [openocd]: 4376
318 0x0042382b target_array2mem [openocd]: 4376
319 0x00423e74 target_mem2array [openocd]: 4360
320 0x00423ef9 target_mem2array [openocd]: 4360
321 0x00404aed handle_svf_command [openocd]: 2248
322 0x00404b7e handle_svf_command [openocd]: 2248
323 0x00413581 handle_flash_fill_command [openocd]: 2200
324 0x004135fa handle_flash_fill_command [openocd]: 2200
325 - clean-up code to match style guides
326 - factor code to eliminate duplicated functionality
327 - rewrite code that uses casts to access 16-bit and larger types
328 from unaligned memory addresses
329 - libopenocd support: @par
330 https://lists.berlios.de/pipermail/openocd-development/2009-May/006405.html
331 - review and clean up interface/target/flash APIs
333 The following strategic tasks will require ambition, knowledge, and time
336 - overhaul use of types to improve 32/64-bit portability
337 - types for both host and target word sizes?
338 - can we use GDB's CORE_TYPE support?
339 - Allow N:M:P mapping of servers, targets, and interfaces
340 - loadable module support for interface/target/flash drivers and commands
341 - support both static and dynamic modules.
342 - should probably use libltdl for dynamic library handing.
344 @section thelistadmin Documentation Tasks
346 - Develop milestone and release guidelines, processes, and scripts.
347 - Develop "style" guidelines (and scripts) for maintainers:
349 - committing to Subversion
350 - Review The Guide for OpenOCD Users for documentation errors or omissions
351 - Update The Manual for OpenOCD Developerrs:
352 - Add documentation describing the architecture of each module
353 - Provide more Technical Primers to bootstrap contributor knowledge
357 This file contains the @ref thelist page.