Marlin fork questions

[antiklesys 3]

Hi,

I'm working on a fork for Marlin and I'm currently in need to make major changes to the configuration.h file.

The issue I'm running into is that i need to remove some of the defined constants in configuration.h and have the system use them as variables.

Of course if I even try to change:

#define Z_HOME_DIR -1

into:

int Z_HOME_DIR = -1;

I will get loads of compilation erros.

Any hints on how to proceed further?

My programming skills are a bit rusty, but I'm working on removing some dust from them

 

[Daid 306]

Those defines, if you go and change them into variables, all hell breaks lose because the code is filled with #ifdef and #if statements.

You have a long way ahead if you want to change that particular one into a variable, not to mention you will lose performance in critical code.

 

[antiklesys 3]

Hi Daid,

Why would be there a performance loss?

For instance, X & Y default steps are defined in configuration.h, but then Marlin stores them in the eeprom and allows you to change them from the lcd menu. You actually go only back to the default values if you need to do a restore of the settings.

Shouldn't it be possible to achieve a similar behavior for the Z_HOME_DIR without having a performace loss?

 

[antiklesys 3]

I tried with pointers as a viable solution, but I'm still getting loads of errors.

 

[Daid 306]

Hi Daid,

Why would be there a performance loss?

For instance, X & Y default steps are defined in configuration.h, but then Marlin stores them in the eeprom and allows you to change them from the lcd menu. You actually go only back to the default values if you need to do a restore of the settings.

Shouldn't it be possible to achieve a similar behavior for the Z_HOME_DIR without having a performace loss?

 

Because defines are evaluated at compile time, while variable happen at runtime. (which is also why you get these errors)

Some of this #ifdef stuff is found at timing critical code, which is why it is done this way.

 

[woofy 12]

Why would be there a performance loss?

 

Because if you define it as a variable, it is stored in memory. The processor has to go and fetch that value before it can use it. That's another instruction cycle which takes time. Not much extra time, but in critical code - it matters.

When it is a #define, the value is known at compile time. The compiler can build the value into the instruction so it does not need a separate fetch cycle.

 

[gr5 2,172]

For yes/no flags (or "direction" in this case) you can do an IFDEF and have it compile one set of code versus another. So there is a decent performance improvement with this kind of thing. It eliminates an entire section of code and an extra "if" statement.

For "steps_per_mm" kind of variables you aren't going to have any IFDEF statements so the performance difference is small if any (fetching value from code memory versus fetching from ram).

 

[gr5 2,172]

To answer your question - in the "h" file you can do:

external int my_variable;

And in *one* of the c files do:

int my_variable = -1;

But this only works if there are no IFDEF or IFNDEF statements accessing that variable.

 

[nallath 1,120]

Converting it to a variable only makes sense if you want to change the variable at runtime (eg; Do you want your user to be able to change the direction of the Z without recompiling the firmware?)