Re: [avrdude-dev] AVRDude port to Win2K using MSVC

[Russell Shaw]

Jack Zkcmbcyk wrote:

> Hello!
>
> For the past few days, I've been trying to re-compile AVRDude using MS VC++
> 6.0 on my Win 2K machine.

Windoze tools are only useful for windoze progs. Best to lose M$
if ya wanna do any serious stuff.

> I am using AVRDude that I got with a copy of
> WinAVR I downloaded last week and I've been using with success so far. The
> board I'm using is a prototype board on which I use an Atmel 1200
> (implementing a variant of App Note 910) to ultimately program an ATmega128
> part.
>
> I want to modify the 910 code so I can use it to also download FPGA
> configuration data to the ATmega128. I've worked out how I can do the
> modifications for the code running on the 1200, but I'm now trying to
> change the AVRDude code and that's where I'm in trouble.
>
> I have so far been able to get to code to compile using MSVC++.
> I've used the debugging to try and understand where things go
> wrong, but anytime I get in the area having to do with the
> "Bison/Yacc" files, all hell breaks loose.
>
> I whish I could skip over that entire area of code, but it
> seems to be where the code currently breaks. Not that I am a
> super coder by any means, but I find that "Yacc/Bsion" stuff to
> be really hard to follow.
> It's got "goto" statements all over the place and because of the usage of
> "# line ..." in multiple places allong with parell code files, the
> MSVisual C debug step through mode doesn't work when I get to that code
> area.

No one follows the bison code unless they're debugging bison itself.

You just need to read and understand the bison input grammer files.

You can put breakpoints or printfs() in there to see what's happening.

Suggest you read the oreilly lex and yacc book and maybe a compiler
book or two.

> My first question is: has anyone ever compiled AVRDude using MSVC++ 6.0?
>
> Second, is there another approach that exists to constructing a list of
> items that represent the configuration file? Because that seems to be the
> reason for the usage of the Bison/Yacc code is it?
>
> Any help would be appreciated.

One you get the hang of writing BNF grammer descriptions, you can easily
hand-code the token lexer and top-down parser for most configuration file
formats anyway.