Hi UEFI community,

I’d like to introduce the CdePkg to edk2-staging.


Some time ago I decided to write my own ANSI C Library for UEFI Shell and POST.



The UEFI Shell library (“Torito C Library”) has been production-ready for more than one year.

The POST version of the library (“CdeLib”) is not yet fully tested.



I will be demonstrating my verification procedure in the upcoming weeks on EDK2 STAGING  https://github.com/tianocore/edk2-staging/tree/CdePkg



Currently there are 3 examples implemented:

  1.  argvc: https://github.com/tianocore/edk2-staging/blob/CdePkg/CdeValidationPkg/HOSTED_ENV/argcv/main.c#L57

argc/argv handling according to https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/a1y7w461.aspx

  1.  systeminterfacePEI: https://github.com/tianocore/edk2-staging/blob/CdePkg/CdeValidationPkg/SYSTEM_IF/systeminterfacePEI/main.c#L57

demonstration, how PeiServices and FileHandle are passed into main()

  1.  systeminterfaceDXE: https://github.com/tianocore/edk2-staging/blob/CdePkg/CdeValidationPkg/SYSTEM_IF/systeminterfaceDXE/main.c#L57

demonstration, how SystemTable and ImageHandle are passed into main()



Upcoming next demonstration will be the clock() function end of this week



The idea is to bring the ANSI C Library interface into POST drivers.

This will:

  1.  ease porting tasks
  2.  allow cross development
  3.  allow developers to focus on their aims, because they aren’t forced to keep in mind a lot of additional info (e.g. RShiftU64)
  4.  provide all intrisics to allow the compiler to be a “C compiler”

(e.g. char buffer[256] = { 1 };)



What is CdePkg and Torito C Library?

  *   CdePkg and Torito C Library are a one man show / after work party, that is owned and written solely by myself
  *   CdePkg is a reference implementation only for Microsoft C compiler
  *   CdePkg is a feasibility study
  *   CdePkg is the successor of Torito C, based on the same source code
  *   CdePkg C Development Environment is similar to  MdePkg Module Development Environment

but guarantees  that the C compiler is always fully usable (all intrinsics available) and the C90/C95 standard library is always available



What are the design goals?

  *   to rewrite the whole thing from scratch, without using any public source code from GNU, BSD, Watcom
  *   completeness: full blown C90 + C95 support, as lowest common denominator
  *   tailored for UEFI: small code size, for UEFI-POST-driver uses a C-Library-Driver, that contains core/worker functions for realloc() ==  malloc() and free(),

entire printf()-family, entire scanf()-family.

UEFI-POST-driver just uses small wrapper functions to run the C-Library-Driver code.

  *   stable, exact, chipset independent TSC based clock() with CLOCKS_PER_SEC == 1000
  *   complete set of the Microsoft C-compiler intrinsic functions
  *   ROM-able! Runs with stack but w/o any static storage duration in .data segment, e.g. for rand(), strtok(), tmpfile()

This is required for early PEI before memory sizing, when PEI-images run directly out of flash

  *   Microsoft (bug) compatible (as far as possible)

     *   use original Microsoft header files for UEFI Shell Apps created in VS2019
     *   allow expensive debugging tasks of ANSI C .EFI applications in Visual Studio in its Windows NT counter part
     *   to save my lifetime writing a documentation https://github.com/tianocore/edk2-staging/tree/CdePkg/implemented.md#validation-status

  *   all the above in one single C-Library CdeLib.lib


CdePkg shall be adjusted to other compilers/tool chains too, once it is feature-complete and accepted by the UEFI community.
As long as it is for Microsoft VS2019 only.

CdePkg README.md is here:  <https://github.com/MinnowWare/CdePkg#cdepkg>  https://github.com/tianocore/edk2-staging/tree/CdePkg#cdepkg
CdePkg HOWTO is here: https://github.com/tianocore/edk2-staging/blob/CdePkg/README.md#howto
CdeValidationPkg README.md is here: https://github.com/tianocore/edk2-staging/blob/CdePkg/CdeValidationPkg/README.md<https://github.com/tianocore/edk2-staging/blob/CdePkg/CdeValidationPkg/README.md#cdevalidationpkg>
CdeValidationPkg HOWTO is here: https://github.com/tianocore/edk2-staging/blob/CdePkg/CdeValidationPkg/README.md<https://github.com/tianocore/edk2-staging/blob/CdePkg/CdeValidationPkg/README.md#howto>


HOWTO:

  1.  clone the edk2-staging repository
  2.  checkout CdePkg
  3.  run LAUNCH.BAT
  4.  run build -p EmulatorPkg\EmulatorPkg.dsc -t VS2015x86 -a IA32
  5.  run DBGEMU.BAT to start emulation (EmulatorPkg)
  6.  run build -a IA32 -a X64 -n 5 -t VS2015x86 -b DEBUG -p Vlv2TbltDevicePkg\PlatformPkgX64.dsc
  7.  update MinnowBoard with Build/Vlv2TbltDevicePkgX64\DEBUG_VS2015x86\FV\VLV.fd



Best regards,

Kilian Kegel