ARMv7 compatibility and weird issues

[chiveicrook2]

Hello,
I've been trying to use TcUnit in my CX8180 project. Unfortunately, I've run into some weird issues and started to wonder if TcUnit is compatible with ARMv7 targets at all. I'm a twincat newbie so I'm not really sure whether the problem is in my libraries, settings or elsewhere and I'm at a loss as to why referencing a library which uses TcUnit causes all kinds of issues - unit testing code shouldn't even execute in such case, right?

At first, I developed and tested 2 libraries on local x64 twincat runtime and everything seemed ok. The moment I reference my libraries in CX8180 project (even if nothing uses them!) I lose ability to set breakpoints, value forcing is unreliable and PLC seems to randomly skip instructions.

To troubleshoot the issue I've tried the SequentialTestSuitesAndTests example project which when compiled and activated on CX8180 causes the same issue - even though the tests execute properly it is impossible to set a breakpoint anywhere and flow control doesn't work.

What am I doing wrong?

[sagatowski]

Hi!

Which version of TwinCAT are you using?
Which version of TcUnit? Make sure you run a formal release.

That's right, if you don't execute TcUnit (by TcUnit.RUN()) the unit test code won't be executed).

Can you try with the simple example project?

Edit: I really can't see how TcUnit (which is just a library) can affect your ability to set the breakpoints. If you remove TcUnit from your libraries, does it work fine then?

[chiveicrook2]

@chiveicrook2 I just realized one thing. Can you try to build the library yourself for ArmV7 using the sourcecode? Just clone the latest version and see if it makes any difference.

Actually that's how I started: Just cloned the repo and built it for ARM. Builds just fine, still doesnt work. Even tried to build for ARM and save as compiled library, no difference. I'll try to backtrack to previous versions, maybe one of them will work.

[chiveicrook2]

@sagatowski I think I've pinpointed the problem to commit c067847. Commit 5db7b40 is the last one which I can use without any immediate problems. Didn't have time for more thorough tests but with 5db7b40 I can set breakpoints and with c067847 I can't. I tried to apply changes from c067847 to 5db7b40 and ended up with a functional, yet seemingly identical to c067847 project. It's a hefty commit so either I missed something or there is something git doesn't track properly between these two.

[sagatowski]

@chiveicrook2 Fantastic detective work! Highly appreciated. I think this should be a "real" issue, so I've created a new issue out from this #148 and we can continue the discussion there.

[sagatowski]

@chiveicrook2 I just want to make sure.... it is still possible to run TcUnit with the CX8180, right? You still get all results and everything. It's just that you can't debug your code for some reason?

[chiveicrook2]

@sagatowski That's right, tests execute properly and display expected results despite aforementioned issues (at least in my test suites which aren't particularly complex)

[sagatowski]

Answer for this discussion is provided in the issue that now is closed.