TrueSTUDIO - Eclipse-based IDE
TrueINSPECTOR - source code inspection
TrueANALYZER - code coverage
TueVERIFIER - test automation
Eclipse is an open source IDE that has been adopted by a very wide range of vendors as the basis for their toolset. IBM started this by donating the original base of Eclipse that has since grown into a significant number of projects that are associated with Eclipse. You can download Eclipse and use many of these tools for free and many developers take advantage of this.
Still, configuring and maintaining Eclipse is not easy if you move past the basics. There are options like bug tracking and version control that can be added and then need to be set up. Many organizations would rather have their developers concentrating on other things like application design and development.
This is where platforms like Atollic's TrueSTUDIO for Arm (Fig. 1) comes into play. It targets Arm processors. It is based on Eclipse and works with any Eclipse plug ins. In fact, it comes with quite a few installed and configured so C and C++ developers can just install TrueSTUDIO and get to work.
The base version includes a number of standard plug ins that you could install yourself including support for bug databases and source code version control. It also has source code review and collaboration tools that are usually needed by development groups but, again, not in the stock Eclipse. It also includes the Object Management Group's UML plug in for object-based design methodologies. Atollic users can take advantage of some or all of the built-in tools. Most take advantage of most of the tools.
TrueSTUDIO for Arm adds a few things that a typical Arm distribution does not. For example it includes the x86 C/C++ compiler in addition to ARM compiler. Many developers want to test an app on their development machine that is typically running Windows or Linux. Likewise, client/server applications often have the server component running on this type of operating system.
Not all plug-ins are full open source. Some have been enhanced by Atollic. Some proprietary additions include a Serial Wire Viewer (SWV) and real time logging for Arm targets. Atollic also has printf redirection for debugging applications on an Arm target that often lacks a display or where the display is not used for debugging.
Atollic also has a trio of proprietary Eclipse plug-ins. These include TrueINSPECTOR (Fig. 2), TrueANALYZER (Fig. 3), and TueVERIFIER (Fig. 4). TrueINSPECTOR is a source code inspection tool that also generates software metrics and provides code complexity measurements. It supports standards such as MISRA-C:2004. TueVERIFIER is a test automation tool. It compiles test cases that are downloaded using JTAG. TrueANALYZER is a quality measurement tool. It provides code coverage support up to MC/DC-level. This is required for RTCA DO-178B (Level A).
