py/mphal.h contains declarations for generic mp_hal_XXX functions, such
as stdio and delay/ticks, which ports should provide definitions for. A
port will also provide mphalport.h with further HAL declarations.
Previous to this patch the printing mechanism was a bit of a tangled
mess. This patch attempts to consolidate printing into one interface.
All (non-debug) printing now uses the mp_print* family of functions,
mainly mp_printf. All these functions take an mp_print_t structure as
their first argument, and this structure defines the printing backend
through the "print_strn" function of said structure.
Printing from the uPy core can reach the platform-defined print code via
two paths: either through mp_sys_stdout_obj (defined pert port) in
conjunction with mp_stream_write; or through the mp_plat_print structure
which uses the MP_PLAT_PRINT_STRN macro to define how string are printed
on the platform. The former is only used when MICROPY_PY_IO is defined.
With this new scheme printing is generally more efficient (less layers
to go through, less arguments to pass), and, given an mp_print_t*
structure, one can call mp_print_str for efficiency instead of
mp_printf("%s", ...). Code size is also reduced by around 200 bytes on
Thumb2 archs.
Reference MCU is dsPIC33J256GP506 with 256k ROM and 8k RAM, on the dsPIC
DSC Starter Kit board. The REPL works, GC works, pyb module has LED and
Switch objects. It passes some tests from the test suite (most it can't
run because it doesn't have the Python features enabled).
Damien George