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I'm currently working on a project on STM32F4 and I'm using Eclipse. I've got some problems with the program - it seems to have a random behavior - sometimes it works fine, other times it has some errors. Sometimes when I try do debug with breakpoints I get the beautiful HardFault Handler and it really messes with my brains.

Sorry for the little off-topic paragraph, just wanted to let you know why I decided to use printing to a log file at some key moments in the program so I can see in which states and in which functions does the problem occur. I'm debugging through a JTAG interface with Eclipse (gdb) and I need to know if there is an easy method integrated in Eclipse that may help me use fprintf-like functions inside my program to write to a file on the disk.

If no, any other solutions?

Thanks

MaVRoSCy
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Bogdan Alexandru
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  • Have you tried just calling `printf` in your code? When debugging TI chips over JTAG, calling `printf` sends the message to the Code Composer console. Code Composer is based on Eclipse but I'm not sure what kind of extra mojo they've hacked in there. – embedded.kyle Oct 23 '12 at 13:08
  • You have to enable semihosting. I couldn't find anything explicitly stating how to do that in Eclipse. But see related: [here](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3224583/output-debug-via-printf-on-a-cortex-m3-cpu-stalls-at-bkpt-instruction-confusi) and [here](https://my.st.com/public/STe2ecommunities/mcu/Lists/STM32VLDiscovery/Flat.aspx?RootFolder=https%3a%2f%2fmy%2est%2ecom%2fpublic%2fSTe2ecommunities%2fmcu%2fLists%2fSTM32VLDiscovery%2fprintf&FolderCTID=0x01200200770978C69A1141439FE559EB459D758000491D59B8574F8049B5DFA3E8B21CBA51&currentviews=800). – embedded.kyle Oct 23 '12 at 19:49
  • And [here](https://my.st.com/public/STe2ecommunities/mcu/Lists/cortex_mx_stm32/Flat.aspx?RootFolder=%2Fpublic%2FSTe2ecommunities%2Fmcu%2FLists%2Fcortex_mx_stm32%2Fuse_no_semihosting_swi%20doesn%27t%20work&FolderCTID=0x01200200770978C69A1141439FE559EB459D7580009C4E14902C3CDE46A77F0FFD06506F5B&currentviews=603) and [here](http://www.segger2.com/index.php?page=Thread&threadID=1010). Or if you have access to a GDB console or the `.gdbinit` file, try `monitor semihosting enable`. Page 26 [here](http://www.segger.com/admin/uploads/productDocs/UM08005_JLinkGDBServer.pdf). – embedded.kyle Oct 23 '12 at 19:51

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I do not like to connect the debug output log to the Jtag communication port because the log will not be available after development.

I usually build an SystemLog library that can send the log messages through any medium that is available (UART, USB, Ethernet or SDCARD). That's what I'd recommend you to do. It will help you through the development, and the support team on the event of any failure on field.

If stdlib is available in your project you should use the snprintf family functions to build your SystemLog.

Also, you can integrate the log output to the eclipse console by calling a serial console communicator (if you use UART) on you makefile, in this case, your makefile will have to flash the target as well.

Felipe Lavratti
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