Arm Processors support

[skinkairewalker]

Hi ! A Purebasic arm compiler is very usefull to use with Internet Of things , have a possibilities to purebasic work in ARM in future ?

Arm devices like : BeagleBone , BananaPi , raspberryPi , OrangePi and others ...

[Keya]

thats been requested since 2005, but it would be a massive undertaking for one developer who's already fulltime busy with existing projects! its not a feature request its a product request
hrmm the forum wont let me make the following a URL because of the [] chars:

Code: Select all

http://purebasic.fr/english/search.php?keywords=arm&terms=all&author=&fid[]=3&sc=1&sf=titleonly&sk=t&sd=d&sr=topics&st=0&ch=300&t=0&submit=Search

[User_Russian]

and others ...

And STM32.

[langinagel]

Nice to see that there are still supporters of the idea out there.
...again: the idea..

A wide discussion could be found under the title: "Support for ARM-Linux" in this Feature request Forum.

Greetings
LN

[Andre]

Here is what Fred and freak said one year ago in my interview made for http://www.PureArea.net

Fred: I see ARM support like a possible enhancement, would be cool to have a build for ARM Linux for example. About new functions, it's hard to tell, as it's not yet decided !

Timo: ARM support is on my personal wishlist. However, it is one of those large long-term things that we really cannot put any timeframe on it. So don’t hold your breath.

So it's possible, but not very realistic in the near future.

In the meantime you can also take a look at PB's sister-product on http://www.SpiderBasic.com

[Keya]

So it's possible

Part of me says "Fred only has 24hrs in a day and already has commitments with Purebasic and Spiderbasic so it can't be possible!" - development on ARM etc would come at the cost of fixing PB/SB bugs and adding features etc. One man can only do so much.

The other part of me says "Fred is the only human in history to every make a production-quality basic-syntax compiler on not just Windows, but also Linux and Mac OSX ... and if that's not enough then *POLITE PUNCH* he's also done it on Amiga for crying out loud!!!"

Most people can't figure out the differences between USING Windows/Linux/Mac, but Fred's somehow made a COMPILER for all three OS??? And when there was virtually no other example to go by? That's some extraordinary work It's pretty hard to RTFM when there's no F'M.

So it's without a doubt if anyone could, FRED COULD™! (I think it's clear at this stage that there's zero doubts in that respect)

but, seriously ... the law of time * existing products * complexity of new technologies?
Anyway I wish nothing but the best for Fred and his family in 2017, I have a feeling it'll be a cracker for them with PB so advanced + matured now!

[User_Russian]

I think that if the PB, broadcast code, not in FASM assembler, but in C/C++ (such as GCC), then it would be easier to add new platforms, such as ARM. After all GCC supports many platforms, including ARM STM32.
Need a full featured translator from PB in the GCC. Then the community will be able to add new platforms.

[langinagel]

I don't know about the quality of it, but there is already a FASM-ARM compiler.

But.... there might be some differences in the assembler code due to different processor design.

Indeed is the cross-compilation of the pbcompiler not the task to be done in just a weekend....


But - guys - ....the statement that it is possible is a little bit more than the NEVER-statement traded before.

Greetings
LN

[skinkairewalker]

thanks everybody by your answers .
PureBasic is Awesome !

Thanks everybody !

[Tenaja]

I don't know about the quality of it, but there is already a FASM-ARM compiler.

But.... there might be some differences in the assembler code due to different processor design.

They are NOT the same language. Sure, they are both ASM, but that is where the similarity ends. That's like saying the library in France has a Shakespeare book, so I'm going to read it, without considering you cannot read French! But it's Shakespeare (Fasm), you say...I say no, it's French (ARM), not English (x86).

[Mistrel]

The unfortunate truth is that PureBasic is not simply a language definition but a language with a set of standard libraries which implement a subset of platform features. This means that Fred et al. would have to target a particular platform (Andrioid) which is built for ARM and update all of the platform-specific libraries appropriately.

PureBasic and its IDE is designed to run, compile, and test on the same platform. For mobile Android development with PureBasic we would really need a cross-compiler to be productive; something which is not currently supported.

Simply, it's a lot more work than just targeting a particular architecture.

Also of note, PureBasic historically made use of a lot of hand-rolled x86 assembly in its libraries. If this is still true today, that would make things even more difficult.

[fsw]

and others ...

And STM32.

IMHO
For micro controllers like STM32 nothing beats pure C...

[fsw]

Arm Processors support:
Fred would have to learn the ARM instruction set...

The only reasonable way to get ARM as a PureBasic target is if Fred uses LLVM as PureBasic's output.
And then get PureBasic preinstalled on Raspbian

[Mistrel]

Although I am very partial to PureBasic's syntax, it's usefulness comes from its bundled libraries and the ability to easily call upon the platform API. There isn't a whole lot of value in the product without either of these things.

Even if we were to have some bare bones release, there wouldn't be a whole lot you could do with it.

[fsw]

PureBasic's ... usefulness comes from its bundled libraries and the ability to easily call upon the platform API. There isn't a whole lot of value in the product without either of these things.

Agreed.

However, sometimes I find myself writing Go code to do certain things and package them as executables that I call from PureBasic GUI apps.
(like writing my own ReceiveHTTPFile implementation, because as soon as I add the #PB_HTTP_Asynchronous flag the PureBasic program crashes [on macOS] while downloading a 20MB file; KB sized files seem to work though...)

Even if we were to have some bare bones release, there wouldn't be a whole lot you could do with it.

Agreed as well.

But it would still be a lot of fun.