User`s manual

Simulators
Motorola Selecting Tools 1-9
The Motorola DSP Simulator Reference Manual documents options available for both
interfaces of the simulator. In this manual, the answer to a frequently asked question offers
guidelines for customizing your interface to a Suite56 simulator (Section 5.1, "How do I
customize Suite56 tools for my tasks?," on page 5-1).
1.4.3 Debugging with the Simulator
The Suite56 simulator is well adapted to debug application code aimed at a digital signal
processor. To do so, you load object code—whether compiled C code or assembly
code—into the memory map of the simulated device. (The memory map of each simulated
device is documented in the memory map chapters of the device family manual (e.g.,
DSP56300 Family Manual) and device user’s manual (e.g., DSP56307 User’s Manual).)
The simulator then executes that code as the target device would do, displaying the
contents of device registers and memory locations, so you can see what is happening as
your application executes on your virtual device.
Besides seeing the contents of registers and memory locations, you can also change the
contents interactively through the simulator. Likewise, you can set both unconditional and
conditional breakpoints in code, at registers, and at memory locations. As a further aid to
debugging, the simulator also provides a single-line assembler. With the ASM command,
you can enter individual assembly instructions, which the simulator then executes. In other
words, using the ASM command, Suite56 simulators let you patch code as you are
debugging.
For details about displaying register contents, setting breakpoints, and using the single line
assembler, see the Motorola DSP Simulator Reference Manual and the online help
available with the simulator.
1.4.4 Online Help for the Simulator
Whether you are using the graphic or text-based interface, there is online help for each
command. Through the graphic user interface, of course, online help is available from the
Help menu on the menubar of the main window, as in Figure 1-6 on page 1-8.
In the text-based, command-line interface (as in Figure 1-7), when you type a command
on the command line, then the syntax of that command appears automatically on the help
line. If you type a question mark after a command on the command line, then more help, in
addition to the command syntax, appears in the window.