Lingua Franca project template for the Zephyr RTOS and reactor-uc

This is a west-centric project template for Lingua Franca applications targeting the Zephyr RTOS using the micro-c (uc) target of Lingua Franca.

Prerequisites

• Linux or macOS operating system
• reactor-uc cloned to your system and REACTOR_UC_PATH environment variable pointing to it.

Getting started

Press Use template in the upper right corner and choose Create a new repository. Then clone this new repository to your machine. To start developing in your new repo, you must first install the Zephyr dependencies, toolchains and SDK. This requires you to follow selected parts of the Zephyr official Getting Started guide.

1. Install the dependencies used by Zephyr by following the steps in Install Dependencies

2. Then install the Zephyr toolchains and SDK by following the steps in Install the Zephyr SDK

Within your newly cloned project, create and activate a virtual environment for this project.

python3 -m venv ./venv
source ./venv/bin/activate

IMPORTANT: Remember to always activate the virtual environment before using the template.

Install the west, the Zephyr build tool

pip install west

Pull down the Zephyr RTOS sources using west (this can take a while)

west update

Install Python dependencies

pip install -r deps/zephyr/scripts/requirements.txt

Export a CMake package

west zephyr-export

HelloWorld

To build and emulate the provided HelloWorld.lf using the native_posix target, do:

west build -t run

Changing the target board

To build for a different board, e.g. the qemu_cortex_m3 emulation. Either change the BOARD variable in CMakeLists.txt, or using west:

west build -b qemu_cortex_m3 -p always -t run

Note the -p always which is a west option for cleaning the build directory. This must be used when changing the target board. Alternatively west clean can be run in between.

Changing the LF application

The LF_MAIN CMake variable decides which LF application to build. This can either be modified in CMakeLists.txt or from the command line. To build Blinky.lf for Adafruit Feather do:

west build -b adafruit_feather -p always -- -DLF_MAIN=Blinky

With west, CMake arguments are separated from west arguments with a --.

Log level

The log level of the LF app can be changed by setting the variable LOG_LEVEL in CMakeLists.txt or by modifying it on the command line:

west build -t run -p always -- -DLOG_LEVEL=LF_LOG_LEVEL_DEBUG

Cleaning all build artifacts

By passing -p always to west, the build folder is cleaned and the project is reconfigured by CMake. However, this does not clean the files generated by lfc. For this we provide a custom west command west clean defined in clean.py which also cleans the files generated by LFC. Use it to do a complete reset.

west clean

Flashing to a board

To flash an application onto a board, simply use west flash. This may require the installation of additional, vendor-specific tools. See the official docs for more information.

West-centric development

This template integrates the Lingua Franca compiler lfc into a west-based project. This requires that the user understands how to use west and zephyr. Please refer to the official docs for more information.

Troubleshooting

Command 'west' not found, did you mean:

or

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/home/erling/dev/lf-west-template/deps/zephyr/scripts/build/gen_kobject_list.py", line 62, in <module>
    import elftools
ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'elftools'

Activate the virtual environment where the Zephyr dependencies are installed.