Compiler: Differences between TI Compiler and GCC

Which device(s) are you using, since support varies depending upon the device?

E.g. for ARM Cortex-A8 based devices SYS/BIOS supports either the TI or GCC ARM compilers.

Whereas for ARM Cortex-A9 or Cortex-A15 based devices SYS/BIOS only supports the GCC ARM compiler.

We're using a TM4C129x M4 device.

Kaveh Vaghefi said:

Is there a good resource for understanding what differences there are in hardware support, peripheral support, and RTOS support between the TI Compilers and the GCC compilers TI makes available through CCS?

In short, no.

Regarding hardware support and peripheral support, please name something specific.  It strikes me that those things are independent of which compiler you use.  But I am probably overlooking something obvious.

Chester already mentioned how SYS/BIOS only supports certain compilers on certain devices.

Thanks and regards,

-George

Kaveh Vaghefi said:

We're using a TM4C129x M4 device.

Looking at TI-RTOS TivaC 2.16.01.14, the driver examples are for both the TI and GNU compilers.

I guess what I'm looking for is insight from TI (since TI makes the TI compiler) regarding why one would choose a TI compiler over a GCC compiler.

If you have an existing code base that was developed using a GCC compiler, then you should probably stay with GCC when porting it to a TM4C system.  Otherwise, it is mostly a matter of preference.  Code size and performance are likely to be similar.  It is unlikely that the success of your project heavily depends on this choice.

Thanks and regards,

-George

Kaveh Vaghefi said:

I guess what I'm looking for is insight from TI (since TI makes the TI compiler) regarding why one would choose a TI compiler over a GCC compiler.

In case it helps you decide, one issue I have found when debugging Cortex-M or Cortex-A devices is that when the TI compiler is used the debugger and ROV exception view are displaying a complete stack backtrace. Whereas when the GCC compiler is used are getting incomplete backtraces. See CCS 6.2.0.00050 doesn't display complete stack backtrace when a Cortex-A15 SYS/BIOS program using the GNU compiler terminates due to an error or calling BIOS_exit() for details.

This doesn't affect the running code, and is only an issue when trying to debug a program.

[There is an accepted CCS bug CCBT-2049 which has a target release of CCS 7.2.0]