Summary ver. 4.1

[OT]

I think it is remarkable that almost about all issues in 4.0beta was IDE related issues, very little with the compiler itself, in spite of about 2x the compiler speed. Either we beta testers are not doing our job well enough or we have gotten a stable, efficient and fast dsPIC pascal pro compiler.

The slugginess/exceptions of the editor with certain projects, bug in search and replace, the indent text issue all appear to have been fixed. One or two minor issues seems always to be forgotten though, and it seems it would have taken less time to fix than responding to posts though multiple versions and assuring it will be fixed.... It also seems that it is very hard to get the project groups right. And it is still not understandable why the text output speed of the USART terminal needs to remind of a session with a mainframe in the 70ties...
But none of these are show stoppers, and eventually it will probably be set right.

[JimKueneman]

I think it is remarkable that almost about all issues in 4.0beta was IDE related issues, very little with the compiler itself, in spite of about 2x the compiler speed. Either we beta testers are not doing our job well enough or we have gotten a stable, efficient and fast dsPIC pascal pro compiler.

I too have to chime in on this. I have not done much with the compiler since version 3.8. I have spent the last few days with 4.10 and I have to say this is the FIRST time I have spent my entire time with the MikroPascal compiler fixing bugs in my code rather than trying to decide if the problem was the compiler or my code. The only thing I see is the editor get sluggish and I got one exception during this time where it said the app had exhausted all the handles the OS was capable of (Vista 32 bit). Once it starts getting sluggish a restart seems to fix it. I am finally very happy with the dsPIC compiler, good work guys.

Jim

[zristic]

We solve the "sluggish" problem too, the beta release is scheduled for this week, so you can check it out as well.

[JimKueneman]

Spoke too soon

http://www.mustangpeak.net/CommandStation.zip

Compile it and look at the XpressNet.mpas file line 171. Run the debugger and break here:

Code: Select all

procedure WriteXpressNetByte(DataByte: Word; SetAddressBit: Boolean; TxReg: PWord; TxStaReg: PWord);
begin
  {$IFNDEF DEBUG_DISABLE_XPRESSNET_UART_WRITE}
  if SetAddressBit then
    DataByte := DataByte or $0100
  else
    DataByte := DataByte and $00FF;
    
  U2TXREG  := DataByte;
  TxReg^ := DataByte + 1;
  TxStaReg^ := DataByte - 1;

Notice in the watch variables that the parameter passed TxReg contains the value 0x0218 (which is the special register U2STA) and TxStaReg contains 0xFFF. What should have been passed is TxReg = 0x021A and TxStaReg = 0x218. Something is wrong in the parameter passing....

It looks like the last three parameters are mixed up.

Jim

Wow, I just tried swapping the parameter list around (the PWords the beginning) and it still compiled So a Word, Boolean, and PWord are all considered interchangeable types?

Can anyone reproduce this?

[JimKueneman]

Sorry I had a parameter reversed. But the last statement still holds how can I have a point to a Word and a Boolean interchanged without a compiler warning? That is way I use Pascal to keep myself from shooting my own foot!

Jim