Overlay and manual initialization example

Introduction

The overlay functionality described in the “IAR C/C++ Development Guide for ARM”, chapter “Manual initialization” can be difficult to understand, so this Tech Note aims to describe it in more detail using a simple example.

Example

Download and open the example project from the link: Overlay example project.zip.

Description:

Two functions, test1() and test2() are initialized manually from two sections in ROM (MYOVERLAY1_init and MYOVERLAY2_init). The ICF file contains the following:

define overlay MyOverlay { section MYOVERLAY1 };
define overlay MyOverlay { section MYOVERLAY2 };
initialize manually { section MYOVERLAY1, section MYOVERLAY2 };

The main function first initializes the MyOverlay section in RAM (by using memcpy) with data from MYOVERLAY1_init - i.e. the test1()-function. Then, main calls the function at address "MyOverlay". The test1() function returns the value 1.

After this, the main-function initializes the MyOverlay section in RAM with data from MYOVERLAY2_init - i.e. the test2()-function. Then main calls the test2() function (at the same address as where the function test1() did execute). The test2() function returns the value 2.

Notice that in the file “overlay_test.map”, you will find that both functions are linked to the same address.

The above example shows the basics of overlays, and can be executed using the C-SPY simulator.

NOTE!

When executing code from RAM, one must take care not to access ROM data and functions. As a contrast, when using the “__ramfunc” keyword, the compiler will check that all accesses are ok, and possibly issue this warning:

"Warning[Ta022]: Possible rom access (romvar) from within a __ramfunc function".

This checking is not possible when functions are manually put in RAM (for example when using the overlay method).

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