TM4C129EKCPDT: Merge bin files for Application and Bootloader code.

Hello Charles,

Going through 1st post it looks I need to install Arm assembly tool. 

But i have never used this tool before, Can you share any document which can help me understand about this tool. Is this a plugin I need to add on CCS or use Command prompt to access all commands. 

Regards,

Jayesh

Hi,

  All the ARM tools can be found in your respective CCS installation. See below for example. You may have different CCS version and compiler version from mine. Please go to section 12.2 in the TI Arm assembler user's guide https://www.ti.com/litv/SPNU118U for details on the command. You can invoke armhex on the command line. 

Hi Charles, 

Thanks for quick response, I went through the document you suggested. 

When i go to my respective CCS installation I am only seeing following option in compiler, 

When i went further in arm_5.1.6 folder and tried to execute merge command i got following error, 

Hence I tried going to c2000_6.2.7 folder but there its not recognizing my armhex commands as shown below,

Note: I also tries installing code ARM code generation installer for following link but no luck,

https://www.ti.com/tool/download/ARM-CGT/20.2.6.LTS

I am not sure what I am missing here.

Kind Regards,

Jayesh

Jayesh Patel said:

I am trying to merge bin files for our Application code and bootloader code to one bin file

When you say "bin file", I presume you mean a binary file as described in the article An Introduction to Binary Files.  I suppose it is possible to combine 2 bin files somehow, but I'm not aware of any tools or methods for doing it.  

I suggest you go back to the executable files that were used to create the bin files.  These files are the final output created by the linker.  They usually have the file extension .out.  It is possible to combine executable files together, then create a binary from that one combined executable file.

ARM compiler tools version 5.1.6 are about 8 years old.  Is it practical to use more up-to-date tools, such as version 20.2.6.LTS?  The methods for combining executable files do not work with the old tools.

Thanks and regards,

-George

Hello George,

I need to use CCS version 6 for my existing project but is there a way where I can update ARM compiler tool to latest (20.2.6)  and use that ?

Currently  I am trying to merge .out file only and later will convert to .bin file type. 

Kind Regards,

Jayesh

Jayesh Patel said:

is there a way where I can update ARM compiler tool to latest (20.2.6)  and use that ?

I have to let you know that CCSv6 was not tested with the TI ARM compiler version 20.2.6.LTS.  That said, many customers have similarly combined newer compilers with older CCS and had no problems.  For details on the process, please see the article Updating the Compiler.

Thanks and regards,

-George

Hello George, 

I installed latest version of CCS11  to another laptop and tried "./armhex boot.out app.out --load_image -o jpmerge.out" command but i am getting error attached in below image,

When i try going to "ti-cgt-c2000_21.6.0.LTS" folder as shown in below image i am error, Please find both images below, 

Am i putting wrong command ?

Kind Regards,

Jayesh

According to the thread title, you are using a TM4C device, which has all ARM CPU cores.  But your app.out file is for a C28x CPU core.  That is not expected.  What device do you use?

Thanks and regards,

-George

Hello George,

You where right actually I was using wrong application output file. Sorry for that but when I used the correct app.out file I was able to successfully create merge.out file.

I also tried flashing the newly created merge.out file to our device and it works good.

Now once merge.out file is created what commands should i use to convert it to binary (.bin) file ?

Thanks,

Jayesh

Jayesh Patel said:

what commands should i use to convert it to binary (.bin) file ?

How do you create a binary file now?  It should work the same way.

Thanks and regards,

-George

Hello George,

George Mock said:

It should work the same way.

I didn't understand what you are trying to say. 

I need to convert .out file to .bin file, Can you suggest what method I should use ?

Reason I want .bin file type for this newly created merge.out file is because our 3rd party app uses binary file for Firmware upgrade.

Thanks,

Jayesh

Jayesh,

George is out today but he is likely assuming that you already have a method to convert to .bin as in the initial post it mentions that you are trying to merge binary files.  A lot of the TM4C examples will use tiobj2bin to create binary files from .out files.  The example projects will have a post build step that looks like this: 

"${CCE_INSTALL_ROOT}/utils/tiobj2bin/tiobj2bin" "${BuildArtifactFileName}" "${BuildArtifactFileBaseName}.bin" "${CG_TOOL_ROOT}/bin/armofd" "${CG_TOOL_ROOT}/bin/armhex" "${CCE_INSTALL_ROOT}/utils/tiobj2bin/mkhex4bin"

Basically it is passing the .out file, the name of the .bin to create and the locations of the armofd armhex and mkhex4bin utilities.

Regards,

John

JohnS said:

but he is likely assuming that you already have a method to convert to .bin

John,

The bin file I have gets created when i compile my CCS6 project along with .out and .hex files. Using that .out file from my Apllication and Bootloader project folder I create merge.out file. Now my end goal is to use converted .out file and make .bin file. But here the difference will be its has both Application and bootloader code in it. Hope this help you understand what I want to achieve. 

 I need to know how i can use tiobj2bin utility to convert my .out file to .bin. I went to following location on my PC,

"C:\ti\ccsv6\utils\tiobj2bin" 

But not sure what to do. Can you help me with this ?

Regards,

Jayesh

Jayesh,

If you were to run tiobj2bin from the folder where it is located your command would be something like this:

tiobj2bin "path to .out file" "path to .bin file to generate" "C:\ti\ccs1120\ccs\tools\compiler\ti-cgt-c2000_21.6.0.LTS\bin\armofd.exe"  "C:\ti\ccs1120\ccs\tools\compiler\ti-cgt-c2000_21.6.0.LTS\bin\armhex.exe" mkhex4bin

Regards,

John

Hello John,

The .bat file which is there in this location "C:\ti\ccsv6\utils\tiobj2bin" has bunch of comments and commands in it. 

So I created a new .bat file with the text you mentioned above with correct paths as shown below 

But when I ran this file from command prompt following error was seen,

Can you help me with this as I am completely newbie with this environment. 

Note: jp1.out is my merged output file I want to convert to .bin from above image. 

Kind Regards,

Jayesh 

Let's back the discussion up to an earlier point.

Jayesh Patel said:

once merge.out file is created what commands should i use to convert it to binary (.bin) file ?

There are two methods to consider.

One ... This documentation of post and pre build steps in CCS uses tiobj2bin.bat as an example.  Please use it exactly as shown.

Two ... Use the utility armobjcopy.  It is only available in the latest releases of the TI ARM compiler.  To avoid the issue EXT_EP-10558, please use version 20.2.6.LTS of later.  Note it is okay to use a utility, such as armobjcopy, on executable files created with an earlier version of the tools.  The command to use is similar to ...

armobjcopy -O binary file.out file.bin

Thanks and regards,

-George