Pigweed: What’s New in January 2022#

Pigweed AI summary: The Pigweed team has shared their updates for January 2022, including the introduction of the Pigweed framework, expanded support for Bazel and CMake build systems, and changes to the RPC ChannelOutput API. They also announced support for plugins in pw_console and updates to pw_assert and pw_build. The team welcomes contributions from the community and is seeking help with integrating TinyUSB, supporting the Raspberry Pi Pico, and evolving the Pigweed framework.

Happy new year from the Pigweed team! We’re excited to share what we’ve been up to this month and we’re really looking forward to what 2022 will bring to the Pigweed community.

Pigweed is a collection of libraries and tools for building robust embedded software, efficiently. Pigweed allows you to write code that runs transparently on both your host machine and tiny 32-bit microcontrollers like those in the STM32 and Arduino families, while giving you the comforts of modern software development traditionally lacking in embedded systems, like easy unit testing, powerful build systems, flexible logging, and reliable communication.

Note

Many Pigweed modules are already shipping in commercial products, but it is still an early access project. Find out if Pigweed is right for you.

Pigweed is a free and open source project and we welcome contributions! Join us on Discord to share feedback, ask questions, and get involved with the Pigweed community!

Experimental Pigweed framework#

Pigweed AI summary: The Pigweed framework is a highly modular tool for building robust and reliable embedded projects. It provides tools for hybrid host/target unit testing and RPC communication. The framework assembles an opinionated project structure, build system, and development environment that takes care of difficult project plumbing issues, configures Pigweed module backends, and sets up a productive development environment. The experimental configuration leverages FreeRTOS and runs on the STM32F429I Discovery board. However, the Pigweed framework is still in active

tl;dr

We’re starting the “whole OS” framework version of Pigweed! It’s not ready for use yet but you might want to take a peek.

Pigweed is designed to be highly modular—you can use as many or as few of the Pigweed modules as you need for your project, and those modules will work flexibly in any project structure. This works great when you want to add Pigweed super powers like hybrid host/target unit testing or RPC communication to an existing project. While Pigweed gives you nearly all of the tools you need to efficiently build a robust, reliable embedded project, until now we haven’t had a great solution for building a new project on Pigweed.

The Pigweed framework assembles an opinionated project structure, build system, and development environment that does three key things:

  • Takes care of difficult but unproductive project plumbing issues like setting up a target toolchain and providing support for OS abstractions.

  • Configures Pigweed module backends that give you logging, asserts, threads, dynamic memory allocation, and more, that work transparently both on host and on target

  • Sets up a productive development environment with rich code analysis and powerful device interaction tools

You can experiment with this right now by checking out the pw_system documentation. The experimental configuration leverages FreeRTOS and runs on the STM32F429I Discovery board. With a few simple commands, you can have a complete embedded development environment set up and focus on building your product.

Warning

The Pigweed framework is still in very active development and you should expect breaking changes in the future. If you’re experimenting with it, we would love to hear from you! Join us on Discord!

Support for plugins in pw_console#

Pigweed AI summary: The Pigweed console is an important tool for teams using Pigweed to interact with their devices via RPC. With the new plugin interface, users can customize the console to meet their project's specific needs by building their own menus, window panes, keybindings, and clickable buttons. Users are encouraged to share how they are using the Pigweed console in their projects on Discord.

Teams that use Pigweed quickly come to rely on the console as a vital tool for interacting with their devices via RPC. It’s now possible to tailor the console to meet your project’s specific needs through a new plugin interface. You can build your own menus, window panes, keybindings, and clickable buttons to truly make pw_console your own.

How are you using the Pigweed console in your project? Let us know on Discord!

Expanded support for Bazel and CMake#

Pigweed AI summary: Pigweed's primary build system is GN, but they are expanding support for Bazel and CMake to make it easier to use Pigweed modules in existing projects. To determine which build systems a module supports, look for BUILD.gn, BUILD.bazel, and CMakeLists.txt files in module directories. Check out the build system documentation for more information and join the Discord for support.

Pigweed’s primary build system is GN (Generate Ninja), but to make it easier to use Pigweed modules in existing projects, we have been expanding support for the Bazel and CMake build systems. Right now, the best way to determine which build systems a module supports is to look out for BUILD.gn, BUILD.bazel and CMakeLists.txt files (respectively) in module directories. While we work on improving build system support and documentation, check out the build system documentation for more detailed information and join us on Discord for support.

Changes to the RPC ChannelOutput API#

Pigweed AI summary: The RPC ChannelOutput API has undergone changes, with the removal of the AcquireBuffer and SendAndReleaseBuffer methods from its public API. Instead, users are now required to create their own buffer and use the ChannelOutput::Send method to send it. This change simplifies the API and avoids concurrency issues related to buffer lifetimes. It also allows for more flexible buffer management in projects. This is a breaking change that can be fixed quickly. The RPC API is being reviewed for further improvements, and

RPC endpoints use ChannelOutput instances to send packets encoding RPC data. To send an encoded RPC packet, we need a buffer containing the packet’s data. In the past, we could request a buffer by doing something like this:

auto buffer = pw::rpc::ChannelOutput::AcquireBuffer(buffer_size)
// fill in the buffer here
pw::rpc::ChannelOutput::SendAndReleaseBuffer(buffer)

The ChannelOutput::AcquireBuffer and ChannelOutput::SendAndReleaseBuffer methods are no longer part of ChannelOutput’s public API, making its internal buffer private. Now, we create our own buffer and ChannelOutput is simply responsible for sending it:

auto buffer = ... // create your own local buffer with RPC packet data
pw::rpc::ChannelOutput::Send(buffer)

This approach avoids several tricky concurrency issues related to buffer lifetimes, and simplifies the ChannelOutput API. It also opens up the possibility of projects managing RPC buffers in more flexible ways, e.g. via dynamically-allocated memory or separate shared memory mechanisms.

Warning

This is a breaking change if you update pw_rpc, but one that can be fixed quickly.

We’re actively reviewing the RPC API with a view towards significantly improving it in the future. Share your input with us on Discord!

More Updates#

Pigweed AI summary: Updates have been made to several tools in the project. pw_tokenizer can now generate a token database from a JSON file, pw_assert has a new backend called pw_assert_tokenized which is more space-efficient, CMake builds now support compile-time module configuration, pw_build now allows for setting a specific working directory for pw_exec actions, and pw_cpu_exception now supports the ARMv8M Mainline architecture in pw_cpu_exception_cortex_m.

  • It’s now possible to generate a token database from a list of strings in a JSON file for pw_tokenizer. This can be useful when you need to tokenize strings that can’t be parsed from compiled binaries.

  • pw_assert‘s new pw_assert_tokenized backend provides a much more space-efficient implementation compared to using pw_assert_log with pw_log_tokenized. However, there are trade offs to consider, so check out the documentation.

  • CMake builds now support compile-time module configuration similar to GN through the use of the pw_add_module_config and pw_set_module_config functions.

  • In pw_build, it is now possible to set a specific working directory for pw_exec actions.

  • pw_cpu_exception now supports the ARMv8M Mainline architecture in pw_cpu_exception_cortex_m. This allows us to take advantage of stack limit boundary features in microcontrollers using that architecture, like Cortex M33 and M35P.

Get Involved#

Pigweed AI summary: The "Get Involved" section of Pigweed welcomes contributions from the community, offering opportunities to help with projects such as adding interfaces between TinyUSB and Pigweed abstractions, supporting the Raspberry Pi Pico and RP2040 microcontroller ecosystem, and evolving Pigweed from an experimental state to a complete embedded project platform. The team encourages people to join their Discord channel to discuss and contribute to the development of Pigweed.

Tip

We welcome contributions from the community! Here are just a few opportunities to get involved.

  • Pigweed now includes GN build files for TinyUSB, a popular USB library for embedded systems. Projects can now include it by cloning the TinyUSB repository and configuring GN to build it. But right now, we lack interfaces between TinyUSB and Pigweed abstractions like pw_stream. This is a great opportunity to help get very useful functionality across the finish line.

  • We’re very interested in supporting the Raspberry Pi Pico and the ecosystem of devices using the RP2040 microcontroller. We will be working in earnest on this in the coming months and welcome anyone who wants to lend a helping hand!

  • Evolving the Pigweed framework from its current experimental state to a relatively complete embedded project platform is one of our major focuses this year, and we want your help. That help can range from providing input on what you’re looking for in a framework, to building small projects with it and providing feedback, up to contributing directly to its development. Join us to talk about it on Discord!