unsigned char on Tasking C for DSP563xx | Freescale DSPs

Question for C implementation experts: unsigned char cksm; cksm = 0xFF + 0xFF; if ( cksm != 0xFE ) { // this is a problem? } I am using the C tools from Tasking. Tasking's compiler documentation says that unsigned char is 8-bit, with a range of 0 to 255U. Now, I know enough to pay attention to this sort of thing because DSP563xx chip can only access 24-bit words in memory, but, my C-level debugger reports cksm=0xFE, yet my code functions as if cksm=0x1FE. Inspecting the asm produced by the compiler shows that indeed the 24-bit quantity cksm (not 8-bit) is used to compare to 0xFF. What should I expect the compiler to do here? Shouldn't I expect the debugger from the same vendor to be consistent? John Wygonski

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Although the char type is 8 bit, each char occupies one memory word, because the DSP56xxx has no instructions to access one byte efficiently. By default the compiler does not clear or extend the excess bits on a cast from a char or a short to an int or a long. For signed values, the ANSI specification does not prescribe such behavior, for unsigned values it requires overflow masking. By default the compiler avoids the overhead involved by code to prevent overflows. This is called 'Relaxed char/short arithmetic overflow masking'. You can add the compiler option -AE to select forced conversions. As you will see this will generate a lot of extra code. It is better to avoid types smaller than int whenever possible, as they need more instructions for conversions and do not save data space. CrossView only evaluates the lower 8 bits of a word to get a char value. To get the full 24 bits you can use the expression: *((unsigned int *) &cksm)/n Harrold -----Original Message----- From: John Wygonski [mailto:] Sent: Wednesday, February 05, 2003 19:38 To: Subject: [motoroladsp] unsigned char on Tasking C for DSP563xx Question for C implementation experts: unsigned char cksm; cksm = 0xFF + 0xFF; if ( cksm != 0xFE ) { // this is a problem? } I am using the C tools from Tasking. Tasking's compiler documentation says that unsigned char is 8-bit, with a range of 0 to 255U. Now, I know enough to pay attention to this sort of thing because DSP563xx chip can only access 24-bit words in memory, but, my C-level debugger reports cksm=0xFE, yet my code functions as if cksm=0x1FE. Inspecting the asm produced by the compiler shows that indeed the 24-bit quantity cksm (not 8-bit) is used to compare to 0xFF. What should I expect the compiler to do here? Shouldn't I expect the debugger from the same vendor to be consistent? John Wygonski _____________________________________ /groups.php3

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Discussion Groups | Freescale DSPs | unsigned char on Tasking C for DSP563xx

unsigned char on Tasking C for DSP563xx - John Wygonski - Feb 5 18:38:00 2003

RE: unsigned char on Tasking C for DSP563xx - Harrold Spier - Feb 6 8:27:00 2003