[Tinyos-help] Overview of nesC 1.2 and TOSSIM (included in TinyOS2.x)

[David Gay]

On 5/2/06, Philip Levis <pal at cs.stanford.edu> wrote:
> On Tue, 2006-05-02 at 19:06 +0300, Nick wrote:
> > Hey all,
> >
> >
> >
> >             Is there any documentation, or lets say overview of the
> > changes and advantages of 1.2 vs 1.1 and previews versions? Is there
> > any overview of TOSSIM and TinyViz included in the TinyOS 2.x version?
>
> The best resource for the 1.1 -> 1.2 differences is the TinyOS
> programming manual, particularly the chapter on generic components:

There is also the top-level README in nesC's repository (which is
alas, absent from the rpm - will be fixed in the next one... - the
referenced files are found in /usr/share/ncc/doc):

This is version 1.2.4 of the nesC compiler.

Installation instructions are in INSTALL. Note that nesC needs patched
versions of the GNU assemblers for the avr and msp430 architectures. For
more information, check the INSTALL file.

Changes in nesC 1.2.4
=====================
- bug fixes

Changes in nesC 1.2.3
=====================
- provide network type information in nesC dump output
- bug fixes

Changes in nesC 1.2.2
=====================
- nescc-wiring tool to check wiring constraints - see man page for details
- python mig, ncg support
- XML schema update (should now match nesC dump output)
- Java code now made available in compiled form as nesc.jar (rather than
  in source form)
- bug fixes

Changes in nesC 1.2.1
=====================
- external types (nx_...) can now be passed as parameters and returned as
  results
- updates to XML dump information to support nesdoc
  in particular, remember typedef names
- bug fixes

Changes in nesC 1.2
===================
- generic components and interfaces. See doc/user/generics-1.2.txt.
  nesdoc does not support generic components and interfaces (this should be
  supported in the next release).
- configuration implementations and component specifications can now
  include type and constant declarations; configuration implementations
  can refer to these types and constants. These changes are described
  alongside the generic component changes, in doc/user/generics-1.2.txt.
- attributes (Java 1.5-style). See doc/user/attributes.txt.
- binary components. See doc/user/binary-components.txt.
- external types, a revamp of nesC 1.1.3's network types. See
  doc/user/network-types.txt.
- "includes" is deprecated - use #include instead; note that you
  must use #ifndef/#define/#endif for #include'd files in the usual
  C style.
- macros in included files now work in ways that are similar to C
  (as long as you use #include instead of includes).
- support for compiling task/post into an interface + wiring: this
  allows the scheduler to be implemented as a component.
- return can be used in atomic statements (implicitly terminating
  the atomic statement).
- the patched AVR assembler has been unbundled from nesC.
- the ncc, mig and nesdoc scripts have been unbundled from nesC (they
  are now distributed with the other TinyOS tools).

David Gay