Generate C/C++ code for ARM processor using Simulink Coder

Hello,

I see that there are several option for porting simulink code into c/c++ ARM for Altera.

In http://www.mathworks.com/help/supportpkg/alterasoc/ref/coder-target-pane-alterasoc-hardware.html#bujddtf-10 http://www.mathworks.com/help/supportpkg/alterasoc/ug/build-and-run-executable-on-ljklkjasdf-platform.html It is said "You can configure a Simulink® model to generate code, build an executable, and then run the executable on your Altera® SoC platform. The executable runs in the Linux® environment on the ARM® Cortex-A9 processor on the Altera SoC platform."

1. There is something basic that I don't understand here, c/c++ code is independent of architecture (ARM/Intel, etc.), therefore why is there is need to configure the generating code to one process of another, if the result is C/C++ independent source code, which is built somewhere else (not in Simulink).

2. Another thing - Why is it for Linux ? What can I do to make it OS independent (bare-metal - no OS) ?

Thank you,

Ran

Answer 1

[Walter Roberson]

C and C++ have never been independent of architecture. Especially C. C implementations have always had differences in matters such as word length, whether characters are signed or unsigned, whether "int" and "long" are the same type, which end of a byte that a bitfield starts packing from, and other issues.

Standard C by itself does not give device access. Standard C only supports buffered I/O such as fread() and fwrite(). These are, of course, inadequate for low-level control of devices such as you would like to do. The result of type-punning an integer into a pointer in order to point to an absolute address to do I/O is a common extension to C but is not part of C (and seldom works on systems that implement virtual memory.)