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Using Picolibc in Embedded Systems

Picolibc is designed to be used in deeply embedded systems, those running either no operating system or a small RTOS. It is designed to be linked statically along with any operating system and application code.

Prerequisites

It is expected that the toolchain used for compilation of applicatons against Picolibc provides the following headers in its default search paths:

  • float.h
  • iso646.h
  • stdalign.h
  • stdarg.h
  • stdbool.h
  • stddef.h
  • tgmath.h

Vanilla GCC & Clang/LLVM toolchains take care of that so most of the users have everything in place. But some third-party toolchains may expect these headers to be provided by the C library. Unfortunately it is not possible as these headers have compiler-specific parts and so whatever version could be imported in the Picolibc, it won't work nicely with certain compilers. Moreover even different versions of the same compiler may not work well with the same version of one of the headers mentioned above.

Compiling with Picolibc

To compile source code to use Picolibc, you can use the GCC .specs file delivered with Picolibc. This will set the system header file path and the linker library path to point at Picolibc. For example, to compile a single file and generate a .o file:

$ gcc --specs=picolibc.specs -c foo.c

When installed directly into the system, picolibc.specs is placed in the gcc directory so that it will be found using just the base name of the file. If installed in a separate location, you will need to provide an absolute pathname to the picolibc.specs file:

$ gcc --specs=/usr/local/picolibc/picolibc.specs -c foo.c

When building for an embedded system, you'll probably need to use a longer name for the compiler, something like riscv-unknown-elf-gcc or arm-none-eabi-gcc.

Picolibc startup

Initializing an embedded system usually requires a combination of hardware, run-time, library and application setup. You may want to perform all of these in your own code, or you be able to use the Picolibc startup code. Either works fine, using the Picolibc code means writing less of your own.

Picocrt — Picolibc startup code

Picocrt is the crt0.o code provided by Picolibc. This is enabled by default when using -specs=picolibc.specs:

$ gcc -specs=picolibc.specs -o foo.elf foo.c

Picocrt goes through a sequence of initialization steps, many of which you can plug your own code into:

  1. Architecture-specific runtime initialization. For instance, RISC-V needs the gp register initialized for quick access to global variables while ARM with hardware floating point needs to have the FPSCR register set up to match C semantics for rounding.

  2. Data initialization. Here's the code inside Picocrt:

    memcpy(__data_start, __data_source, (uintptr_t) __data_size);

    For this to work, the linker script must assign correct values to each of these symbols:

    • __data_start points to the RAM location where the .data segment starts.
    • __data_source points to the Flash location where the .data segment initialization values are stored.
    • __data_size is an absolute symbol noting the size of the initialized data segment

  3. BSS initialization. Here's the code inside Picocrt:

    memset(__bss_start, '\0', (uintptr_t) __bss_size);

    Assign these symbols in the linker script as follows:

    • __bss_start points to the RAM location where the .bss segment starts.
    • __bss_size is an absolute symbol noting the size of the cleared data segment

  4. Optionally call constructors:

    • The default and hosted crt0 variants call initializers/constructors using __libc_init_array()

    • The minimal crt0 variant doesn't call any constructors

  5. Call main()

  6. After main returns:

    • The default and minimal crt0 variants run an infinite loop if main returns.

    • The hosted crt0 variant calls exit, passing it the value returned from main.

Linking

Picolibc provides two sample linker scripts: picolibc.ld for C applications and picolibcpp.ld for C++ applications. These are designed to be useful for fairly simple applications running on embedded hardware which need read-only code and data stored in flash and read-write data allocated in RAM and initialized by picolibc at boot time. You can read more about this on the linking page.

Semihosting

“Semihosting” is a mechanism used when the application is run under a debugger or emulation environment that provides access to some functionality of the OS running the debugger or emulator. Picolibc has semihosting support for console I/O and the exit() call.

One common use for semihosting is to generate debug messages before any of the target hardware has been set up.

Picolibc distributes the semihosting implementation as a separate library, libsemihost.a. Because it provides interfaces that are used by libc itself, it must be included in the linker command line after libc. You can do this by using the GCC --oslib=semihost command line flag defined by picolibc.specs:

$ gcc --specs=picolibc.specs --oslib=semihost -o program.elf program.o

You can also list libc and libsemihost in the correct order explicitly:

$ gcc --specs=picolibc.specs -o program.elf program.o -lc -lsemihost

Crt0 variants

The default crt0 version provided by Picolibc calls any constructors before it calls main and then goes into an infinite loop after main returns to avoid requiring an _exit function.

In an environment which provides a useful _exit implementation, applications may want to use the crt0-hosted variant that calls exit when main returns, resulting in a clean return to the hosting environment (this conforms to a hosted execution environment as per the C specification). Select this using the --crt0=hosted flag:

$ gcc --specs=picolibc.specs --crt0=hosted -o program.elf program.o

In a smaller environment which is not using any constructors (or any Picolibc code which requires constructors) may want to use the crt0-minimal variant that removes the call to __libc_init_array(). This variant also runs an infinite loop in case main returns. Select this using the --crt0=minimal flag:

$ gcc --specs=picolibc.specs --crt0=minimal -o program.elf program.o