Introduction

POCO C++ Libraries VxWorks Platform Notes

Introduction

Starting with release 1.4.1 the POCO C++ Libraries can be used on VxWorks 5.5.1 and newer. Project files for Tornado are provided that support debug and release builds using the Diab C++ compiler.

Requirements

Compiling the POCO C++ Libraries

When compiling the POCO C++ Libraries for a VxWorks target, as well as when including POCO C++ Libraries headers in a project for a VxWorks target, the preprocessor macro POCO_VXWORKS must be defined. This is because the Diab C++ compiler does not provide a predefined macro that allows for reliable detection of a VxWorks target.

VxWorks OS Libraries

The following VxWorks OS libraries are required and must be available on the target:

Some OS libraries can be omitted if the POCO class requiring it (given in parenthesis) is not used.

Restrictions

Poco::Environment

Date/Time Support

Poco::File

Poco::Path

Poco::Path::home() returns the value of environment variable HOME, if defined, or else the root directory path ("/").

Poco::FPEnvironment

The Poco::FPEnvironment class is not available on VxWorks and cannot be used.

Poco::Process, Poco::Pipe, Poco::SharedMemory, Poco::NamedEvent, Poco::NamedMutex

VxWorks does not support processes and POCO makes no attempt to hide this fact. Poco::Process, Poco::Pipe (and related stream classes), Poco::SharedMemory, Poco::NamedEvent and Poco::NamedMutex are not available on VxWorks.

Poco::RWLock

On VxWorks, Poco::RWLock is an ordinary mutex.

Poco::SharedLibrary

Symbol lookup (Poco::SharedLibrary::hasSymbol() and Poco::SharedLibrary::getSymbol()) is slow, as the entire symbol table has to be searched sequentially (using symEach()) to find a symbol defined in a specific module.

Poco::UnicodeConverter

Poco::UnicodeConverter is not available on VxWorks because VxWorks does not support std::wstring.

Poco::Util::Application

The macro POCO_APP_MAIN defines a function

int pocoAppMain(const char* appName, ...);

with a variable number of arguments. The first argument specifies the name of the application and is equivalent to argv[0]. The remaining arguments of type const char* specify command-line arguments. The list of command-line arguments must be terminated by a NULL argument.

Poco::Util::ServerApplication

An application waiting in Poco::Util::ServerApplication::waitForTerminationRequest() can be shut down by calling Poco::Util::ServerApplication::terminate().

The macro POCO_SERVER_MAIN defines a function

int pocoSrvMain(const char* appName, ...);

which works in the same way as pocoAppMain(), defined by POCO_APP_MAIN.

Crypto and NetSSL

Crypto and NetSSL_OpenSSL are currently not supported.

Data

Only the SQLite backend is currently supported. Before building Data/SQLite for a VxWorks 5.5.1 target, the patch in $POCO_BASE/patches/VxWorks/sqlite3.c.patch must be applied by executing

$ patch -p0 <patches/VxWorks/sqlite3.c.patch

in a Unix/Linux or Cygwin shell (from the $POCO_BASE directory). The patch is for SQLite 3.7.4 and may not work with other releases.

Build Notes

Generating Tornado 2.2 Project Files

The POCO C++ Libraries source code package does not contain project files for Tornado. However, a Bash shell script is provided that will generate the project files (.wpj). On Windows, a Cygwin installation is required to run this script. Project files are generated from VxWorks build description files (*.vxbuild), which are present in all library directories ($POCO_BASE/Foundation, $POCO_BASE/XML, etc.) of libraries that are available on VxWorks. Also required are build configuration files that specify the build settings for a specific target architecture. These are located in $POCO_BASE/build/vxconfig. To generate a Tornado project file, run the vxprogen script from the respective directory and pass the name(s) of the desired build configuration as argument(s), e.g.:

$ cd Foundation
$ ../build/script/vxprogen PPC440diab_release

A new directory named vx will be created, containing the generated Tornado project file. The project file can be opened in Tornado, and a build can be started.

Testing

Every testsuite exports a global function that runs the tests, similar to what the testrunner command does on Unix/Linux systems. For example, to invoke the Foundation testsuite on the target (using the host-based shell), first load the necessary modules:

=> ld <p:/poco-1.4/CppUnit/vx/PPC440diab_debug/cppUnit.out
Loading p:/poco-1.4/CppUnit/vx/PPC440diab_debug/cppUnit.out \
value = 13481712 = 0xcdb6f0
=> ld <p:/poco-1.4/Foundation/vx/PPC440diab_debug/pocoFoundation.out
Loading p:/poco-1.4/Foundation/vx/PPC440diab_debug/pocoFoundation.out -
value = 13294784 = 0xcadcc0
=> ld <p:/poco-1.4/Foundation/testsuite/vx/PPC440diab_debug/FoundationTestSuite.out
Loading p:/poco-1.4/Foundation/testsuite/vx/PPC440diab_debug/FoundationTestSuite.out -
value = 51068280 = 0x30b3d78

Then, if the testsuite does file I/O, set the target's current directory to the testsuite directory:

=> @cd "/tgtsvr/poco-1.4/Foundation/testsuite"

It's also a good ideal to redirect the standard output to the system console (serial port) with:

=> ?shConfig SH_GET_TASK_IO off

Then, the testsuite can be started:

=> FoundationTestSuiteRunner "-all"

The arguments passed to the FoundationTestSuiteRunner (or any other testsuite runner) function are the same as the ones passed to the testrunner command: one or more test/testsuite names, "-all" to run all tests, or "-print" to print all test/testsuite names.

Reference System

The reference system used for testing is an AMCC Canyonlands evaluation board (EV-460EX-KIT-05) running VxWorks 5.5.1.