IAR Embedded Workbench for NEC 78K

Release notes for the IAR C/C++ Compiler for NEC 78K V4.62.3 (update)

The IAR C/C++ Compiler for NEC 78K can be run as part of the IAR Embedded Workbench IDE or as a stand-alone command line tool. The following compilers are available:

ICC78K - Provides the 78K0 and 78K0S compiler support
ICC78K0R - Provides the 78K0R compiler support

Important information
New features
Known problems
Program corrections
User guide corrections and updates
Miscellaneous
Release history

Important information

A new version of the DLIB runtime library is used in version 4.61A and onwards. This means that object modules produced with earlier versions of the compiler cannot be linked together with modules produced with the new version.

Please refer to the IAR C/C++ Compilers Reference Guide for 78K for detailed information about this product part. New features and last minute updates to the reference guide can be found in the User guide corrections and updates.

New features (4.62.1)

Code segment name option introduced
A new compiler option, --code_segment, has been added to make it possible to override the default code segment name.

Known problems

The CLIB version of sscanf is not as accurate as the DLIB version when handling char-to-float operations with values close to the maximum value that a 32-bit float can handle. [EW19268]
The compiler discards any variable info for variables not referenced before the inline assembler is invoked, meaning that the inline assembler does not have symbolic information of a variable or function defined in C, if they are not used in a C-statement.
Workaround:
1. Use #pragma required
#pragma required = var
2. Use a dummy function that accesses the variables. It will be removed by the linker if it is never called. [EW16519]
Using inline assembler with a function or variable that is not referenced from C earlier, causes the error message: Error[Og005]: Unknown symbol in inline assembly.
Workaround:
1. Use #pragma required = var
2. Use a dummy function that accesses the variables. It will be removed by the linker if it is never called. [EW10146]
The 78K preprocessor sometimes recognizes other symbols than pre-processor symbols, which is wrong. [EW20043]
The compiler sometimes fails to recognize cases where the warning Pa084 "Pointless integer comparison" should be emitted. [EW21048]

Program corrections

Packed structs could cause misaligned access error. This has been corrected. [EW21422]

Miscellaneous

Nothing

Release history

2009-07-01 V4.62.1

The compiler now generates a remark when a hexadecimal or octal constant is implicitly cast in a way that it changes the sign of the constant. [EW21004]
Some code parts could be scheduled past a DI instruction for 78K0R. This has been corrected. [EW21002]
Initializing a global __far pointer with the address of a __near object in the ROM0/ROM1 area no longer causes the far pointer to point into the ROM0/ROM1 area instead of the ROM-window in the __near area. [EW20770]
Functions containing a so called diamond construction that uses different amounts of stack and is immediately followed by a while(1); construction no longer generates an internal error. [EW20744]
Comparing an external union element with an immediate value does no longer cause an error when the medium or lower optimization level is used and the union is located in __saddr memory. [EW20740]
Structs that contained only char elements could be accessed using a MOVW instruction, causing an alignment error. [EW20722]
78K0R now initializes the stack to avoid accessing uninitialized RAM. This could occur when a returning function cleaned the stack of pushed parameters. [EW20669]
Misaligned word-accesses could occur in 78K0R even if --disable_data_alignment was on. This typically occured for assignment operations on short variables. [EW21050]

2008-12-15 V4.61A

The floating-point routines used for 78K0R and DLIB were not interrupt-safe if an interrupt routine updated a variable located in the short address area 0xFFE20-0xFFE27. This has been corrected. [EW20661]
Long compares with an immediate could generate faulty code for 78K0/78K0S. [EW20553], [EW20432]
For 78K0/78K0S, banked function calls could fail on high optimization levels if several calls were made within the same function and the passing of parameters and return values in registers differed between the calls. [EW20475]
The MISRA-C:2004 rule 10.6 ("use the 'U' suffix") could sometimes trigger for enum constants. [EW20443]
The MISRA-C:2004 rule 17.4 would incorrectly trigger for arrays embedded in structures. [EW20395]
Using float and long operations in 78K0R could fail with a read from un-initialized RAM. This has been corrected. [EW20302]
The compiler could erroneously emit warning Pa084, "Pointless integer comparison", in cases involving the greater than or equal (>=) operator. [EW20559]

2008-07-02 V4.60A

Using the compiler option -s9 in combination with --workseg_area can no longer cause the compiler to hang. [EW19810]
Using ~ on a char bitfield that was cast to an int no longer causes an internal error for 78K0/78K0S. [EW19662]
The compiler no longer generates an incorrect assembler instruction for 78K0/78K0S, that cannot distinguish between two symbol names that are identical apart from upper-/lower-case. [EW19636]
The compiler no longer reports an incorrect size on DBNZ for 78K0/78K0S causing an internal error if scr was a saddr type. [EW19632]
An optimization peephole rule that generated an internal error for certain code constructions has been corrected. [EW19547], [EW19186]
Casts between function and data pointers of the same size no longer causes an internal error for 78K0R. [EW19515]
Mixing unsigned and signed bitfields in the same struct no longer causes a crash for 78K0R. [EW19514]
Assigning a float variable to a signed int bitfield no longer causes the compiler to fail with an internal error for 78K0R. [EW19513]
Long arithmetic and logical operations no longer corrupt the stack for 78K0R. [EW19512]
Speed optimizing C switches could result in an internal error for 78K0R. [EW19511]
For 78K0R, C switches with test cases that take care of every possible option no longer generate incorrect code if all cases use the same code. [EW19510]
A problem with the 78K0R compiler that sometimes generated an internal error for pointer arithmetics has been corrected. [EW19509]
Deeply nested loops could cause incorrect code to be generated for 78K0R. [EW19343]
Tests where an expression containing a left shift is compared to a constant are now optimized correctly for 78K0R. [EW19307]
If the auto area of a function is an even multiple of 256, the 78K0R compiler now works correctly. [EW19279]
Accessing multi-dimensional arrays now generates correct code for 78K0R. [EW19278]
A loop that contains multiple integer expressions on the form constant_scale_factor * i + constant_offset and sizeof(constant_offset) and differed between the expressions, is now optimized correctly. [EW19271]
For 78K0R, casts from float to long no longer differ if the 'from' value is a constant or a variable. [EW19267]
The strrchr() function now returns the correct result when the second parameter is '\0'. [EW19266]
C case statements that should not be executed, were sometimes executed for 78K0R. [EW19265]
In some rare cases the optimizer failed to take into account that a function call could change the contents of a memory cell that a pointer variable (p) pointed to and assumed that *p had the same value as before the call. [EW19262]
The 78K0R compiler could rewrite code to bit operations that used bit offsets outside the size of the integral type. This has been corrected. [EW19261]
Negating a long variable no longer generates a 'coloring failed' error. [EW19212]
Partial assignments to a variable where the address of the variable was cast to another pointer type should no longer cause an internal error. [EW18959]
Using a for loop with a locally declared static variable could crash the compiler. [EW18872]
The warning Pe177 could be issued even if the keyword __root was used, which implied that a variable might not be used in the module. [EW18508]
The MISRA C diagnostics that should be issued when compiling with IAR extensions turned on, will now be issued. [EW18086]
The following Internal error should no longer appear when using the command line option --mfc:
Internal error: [CoreUtil/General]: OgModuleLabels -- label already defined
[EW18571] , [EW18048]
Instantiating a template class like vector on a function type no longer results in an internal error after several error messages. [EW19668]
The following code generated an internal error: [EW19964]
#define interrupt __interrupt
#define __interrupt interrupt
__interrupt void foo(void){}
The 78K0/78K0S compiler could hoist a MOV A,PSW past a DI instruction. [EW20059]
Function pointers as numeric constants no longer cause an internal error for 78K0R. [EW20067]
The compiler could in some cases emit incorrect debug information for typedef types. When linking with XLINK, this could result in spurious type conflict warnings. [EW19822]

2007-10-09 V4.50C

Using the __non_banked keyword together with the pragma directive forward_attribute caused an internal error. [EW19215]
A memory aliasing problem could occur in far data model on high optimization levels. [EW19259]
Accessing the last member of a struct with 128 short member via a pointer could result in a corrupt pointer. [EW19260]
Assigning a value to a bit in a bitfield, part of an array of structs, could go wrong. [EW19272]
Taking the address of an object in an array and passing it as the first parameter to a function could sometimes generate faulty code. [EW19263], [EW19264]
Code that resulted in a MOV A, [HL+B/C] instruction could destroy the B/C register before accessing the memory. [EW19312]
The SEL RB instruction could be optimized away on higher optimization levels if the interrupt function was big enough to use all 4 register pairs. [EW19342]
Character division could generate faulty code under some circumstances. [EW19546]
In some rare cases, a series of assignments could be incorrectly optimized away. Example: [EW19495]
x = ...;
y = x;
x = !z;
...
use(y);

2007-07-06 V4.50B

Casts from __near to __far_func caused an illegal state internal error, and casts between __far and __far_func caused an internal error "casts to same size". [EW19206]
Using #pragma pack with 78K0R on __far objects in the near data model could generate faulty access code. [EW19177]
Placing variables in a reserved segment could cause an internal error. [EW19166]
Pointer/array expressions that resulted in a bit test instruction caused an internal error for 78K0S. [EW19137]
An unhandled exception could occur on medium and high optimization levels. [EW19083]

2007-05-11 V4.50A

Post increment/decrement on absolute variables caused an internal error for the 78K0R compiler. [EW18462]
For certain code, the linker generated a range error message for near constants if the compiler option -z3 was used with the 78K0R compiler. [EW18557]
Adding a variable to an array placed in SFR memory could result in wrong code for 78K0. [EW18807]
For low optimization levels, comparing two 1-bit bitfields could generate faulty code. [EW18863]
The CS and ES registers were not saved in interrupt routines for 78K0R. [EW18873]

2006-10-05 V4.40B

Using #pragma location to set segments to static banked functions could cause the compiler to generate wrong code. [EW18290]
Range checks caused a linker error for constants located in the mirror 0 and mirror 1 area. [EW18390]
Bit tests against the short address area could generate faulty code for 78K0R. [EW18450]
A 16-bit access to an SFR outside the short address area could generate an illegal instruction. [EW18455]
Tests directly against the return value of a function could be optimized away in rare circumstances. [EW18241]
Complex logical operations resulted in an illegal state if the right operand was a complex expression resulting in a carry operand. [EW18249]
Bit tests in an if statement could cause an internal error. [EW18306]
The label for interrupt vectors were of the wrong kind and could generate link errors if MISRA C was enabled. [EW18449]

2006-07-07 V4.40A

Including an I/O definition header and referencing more than one SFR from C++ code will no longer result in incorrect warnings when linking. [EW17929]
The library function vswitch for integers only supported up to 127 cases. [EW17863]
Interrupt functions that had an auto area size that was odd could potentially destroy registers in other register banks at exit. [EW17787]
A construction of type:
char var;
if ( var-- )
{ ... }
where var was located in workseg, could generate faulty code. [EW17706]
At optimization level high, incorrect code could be generated if a loop had an unsigned loop counter, the loop counter was decremented, and the loop contained a test (besides the loop exit test) where the loop counter was compared to an immediate. [EW17705]
Some violations of MISRA C rule 83 (implicit conversion of return value) were only detected if rule 77 (implicit conversion of function parameter) was also turned on. [EW17277]
A reference to a static symbol with file scope from an inline assembler statement no longer generates an error. [EW17193]

2005-09-05 V4.30C (patch release)

Between version 4.20A and 4.30A a bug related to interrupt vectors were fixed. This caused an incompatibility between object files created with different versions of the compiler. Now, a linker error is generated if you try to link an object file produced with an earlier compiler version with a file produced with version 4.30C. This also means that libraries have to be rebuilt to be compatible with the new version of the compiler. [EW17188]
The option --disable_data_alignment could cause illegal byte accesses to word SFR's. [EW17169]
Using the __banked keyword or the banked code model, it was possible to place interrupt functions in banked memory. [EW17082]
Using tiny calls could cause the compiler to make false assumptions about memory contents which lead to too aggressive optimization. [EW17014]
Alignment of linked variables could cause unnecessary holes in memory. [EW17069]
The compiler generated a non-banked call if a non-banked function called a static banked function. [EW17240]

2005-07-15 V4.30A

The compiler generated wrong code for assignment of a bitfield element using logical operators. Example:
Bits1.bit0 = ~FBits0.bit7; [EW17029]
Assigning a 1-bit bitfield to another 1-bit bitfield, where the destination address must be calculated at runtime, could generate faulty code. [EW16862]
The compiler could erroneously hoist (move) code past a register bank select instruction. [EW16846]
Writing to a 1-bit bitfield could fail if the compiler had to use the [HL] address mode. [EW16813]
For high optimization levels, the compiler sometimes used wrong access order for a sequence of multiple accesses to the same bitfield. [EW16739]
Comparisons on a volatile char could be optimized away if the variable was set immediately before the comparison. [EW16683]
Constructions like a[i] = i; where i was a register variable could cause the compiler to generate in-correct code. [EW16554]
The call chain information got corrupted if both non-banked and banked functions were mixed. [EW16403]
A re-definition of a symbol using __no_init, now generates an error. [EW16202]
The compiler now emitts a warning if a reserved segment name is used as location for variables and functions. [EW16143]
Using the --diagnostic_tables option caused an internal error. [EW16130]
The compiler now generates re-locatable instead of absolute entries for interrupt vectors. [EW16067]
Note: If user has overridden the CSTARTUP.S26 then the INTVEC segment definition must be changed from absolute to relative.
The optimizer emitted the following internal error for a specific piece of code:
[CoreUtil/General]: Const_Folding - Internal error. [EW16876]
Blocks that ended in bit stores and were merged by the optimizer could generate wrong code if the bits where located in the same byte. [EW16870]

2004-10-26 V4.20A

Located structs declared const caused an internal error. [EW15885]
It is now possible to change or delete the default compiler include path. [EW15717]
Certain code constructs could generate an internal error if high speed optimization was selected. [EW15607]
A volatile declared load of a short variable on an absolute address could be optimized away. [EW15585], [EW15587]
The __callf keyword was in-correctly enabled for the 78K0S core option. [EW15549]

2004-05-14 V4.11A

First release of V4.xx