Documentation for integrating debuging into IDE 2

Development Tools IDE 2.x
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I developed a working debugging solution for almost all AVR chips speaking debugWIRE (https://github.com/felias-fogg/dw-link) that can be used with avr-gdb, GUIs using avr-gdb, or PlatformIO. Meanwhile, you can buy an accompanying hardware solution (if you need more than 20 mA for your target or if the target works with 3.3 V). However, I have not seen anything from the Arduino team to enable generic integration of debug solutions into the Arduino IDE 2 framework. Are there any plans to publish such an interface description?

It would be great to get something like that in order to enable people debugging classic ATtinys and ATmegaX8s (e.g., the UNO R3).

1 Like
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Hi @fogg. You can see here a platform that allows using the Arduino IDE 2.x integrated sketch debugger with an Arduino Uno board via a debugWIRE probe:

I noticed you were already aware of it and that the creator of that platform has already provided you with instructions:

Have you given that a try? If so, what was the result? If not, why not?

3

I have not tried out the new approach yet.

Well, the problem with Deqing's approach is that it based on guessing and then implementing hacks (such as renaming avr-gdb to arm-none-eabi-gdb). And then these may change behind my back and in the new version my approach won't work anymore.

I was hoping for an approach, where you specify the debug program and the debug server in the platform.txt file together with potential startup scripts, similar to what the PlatformIO people do. This would then also open up the possibility to integrate more debugging tools (such as a simulator or a debugging stub).

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That isn't strictly necessary. By default, the Cortex-Debug VS Code extension used by Arduino IDE does default to the arm-none-eabi- prefix:

https://github.com/Marus/cortex-debug/blob/v1.5.1/src/frontend/configprovider.ts#L142

if (!config.toolchainPrefix) {
    config.toolchainPrefix = configuration.armToolchainPrefix || 'arm-none-eabi';
}

However, this can be configured via the extension's toolchainPrefix configuration key:

https://github.com/Marus/cortex-debug/blob/v1.5.1/debug_attributes.md#:~:text=less%20than%20'numberOfProcessors'-,toolchainPrefix,-Common

That can be set in the debug_custom.json file in the sketch folder:

{
  "toolchainPrefix": "avr-"
}
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