UnoArduSim FullHelp
UnoArduSim FullHelp
3 Help
Overview
Program Code Pane (and View/Edit)
Code Pane
View/Edit
Variables Pane
Lab Bench Pane
The Uno
I/O Devices
Serial Monitor (SERIAL)
Software Serial (SFTSER)
Servo Motor (SERVO)
Stepper Motor (STEPR)
DC Motor (MOTOR)
Digital Pulser (PULSER)
Analog Function Generator (FUNCGEN)
Analog Slider
Shift Register Slave (SRSLV)
Configurable SPI Slave (SPISLV)
SD Disk Drive(SD_DRV)
Two-Wire I2C Slave (I2CSLV)
Push Button (PUSH)
Slide Switch Resistor (R=1K)
Piezoelectric Speaker (PIEZO)
Coloured LED (LED)
Menus
File menu commands:
Prompt
Find Next Function/Var
I/O Devices
Preferences
VarUpdates menu commands:
Allow Reduction
Minimal Updates
HighLight Updates
Windows menu commands:
Serial Monitor
Restore All
Prompt
Pin Digital Waveforms
Pin Analog Waveform
Help menu commands:
Modelling
Intro
Timing
I/O Devices
Sounds
Limitations and Unsupported Elements
Included Files
Dynamic Memory allocations and RAM
Flash Memory Allocations
Strings
Arudino Libraries
Pointers
Classes and Structs
Scope
Const, Volatile, Static
Compiler Directives
Arduino-language elements
C/C++-language elements
Function Templates
Real-Time Emulation
Release Notes
Bug Fixes
V1.4.3 Apr. 2016
V1.4.2 Mar. 2016
V1.4.1 Jan. 2016
V1.4 Dec. 2015
V1.3 Oct. 2015
V1.2 Jun 2015
V1.1 Mar 2015
V1.0.2 Aug 2014
V1.0.1 June 2014
V1.0 -- first release May 2014
Changes/Improvements
V1.4.2 Mar 2016
V1.4 Dec 2015
V1.3 Oct 2015
V1.2 Jun 2015
V1.1 Mar 2015
V1.0.1 June 2014
V1.0 -- first release May 2014
_________________________
Overview
UnoArduSim is a freeware real-time (see Modelling for Timing restrictions) simulator tool that I
have developed for the student and Arduino enthusiast. It is designed to allow you to experiment
with, and to easily debug, Arduino programs without the need for any actual hardware. It is
targeted to the Arduino Uno board, and allows you to choose from a set of virtual I/O devices, and
to configure and connect these devices to your virtual Uno in the LabBench Pane. -- you don't
need to worry about wiring errors, broken/loose connections, or faulty devices messing up your
program development and testing.
UnoArduSim provides simple error messages for any parse or execution errors it encounters, and
allows debugging with Reset, Run, Run-To, Halt, and flexible Stepping in the Code Pane, with a
simultaneous view of all global and currently-active local variables, arrays, and objects in the
Variables Pane. Run-time array-bounds checking is provided, and ATmega RAM overflow will be
detected (and the culprit program line highlighted!). Any electrical conflicts with attached I/O devices
are flagged and reported as they occur.
When an INO or PDE program file is opened, it is loaded into the program Code Pane. The
program is then parsed, and "compiled" into a tokenized executable which is then ready for
simulated execution (unlike Arduino.exe, a standalone binary executable is not created) Any
parse error is detected and flagged by highlighting the line that failed to parse, and reporting the
error on the Status Bar at the very bottom of the UnoArduSim application window. An Edit/View
window can be opened to allow you to see and edit a syntax-highlighted version of your user
program. Errors during simulated execution (such as mis-matched baud rates) are reported on the
Status bar, and via a pop-up MessageBox.
UnoArduSim V1.4 is a substantially complete implementation of the Arduino Programming
Language V1.0.6 (and virtually all of V1.6.6) as documented at arduino.cc.'s Language
Reference web page, and with additions as noted in the version's Download page Release Notes.
Although UnoArduSim does not support the full C++ implementation that Arduino.exe's underlying
GNU compiler does, it is likely that only the most advanced programmers would find that some
C/C++ element they wish to use is missing (and of course there are always simple coding workarounds for such missing features). In general, I have supported only what I feel are the most useful
C/C++ features for Arduino hobbyists and students -- for example, enum's and #define's are
supported, but function-pointers are not. Even though user-defined objects (classes and structs)
and (most) operator-overloads are supported, multiple-inheritance is not.
Because UnoArduSim is a high-level-language simulator, only C/C++ statements are supported,
assembly language statements are not. Similarly, because it is not a low-level machine simulation,
ATmega328 registers are not accessible to your program for either reading or writing, although
register-allocation, passing and return are emulated (it you choose that under the Options menu).
As of V1.4, UnoArduSim has built-in automatic support for a limited subset of the Arduino provided
libraries, these being: Stepper.h, SD.h, Servo.h, SoftwareSerial.h, SPI.h, Wire.h, and EEPROM.h.
For any #include'd user-created libraries, UnoArduSim will not search the usual Arduino
installation directory structure to locate the library; instead you need to copy the corresponding
header (.h) and source (.cpp) file to the same directory as the program file that your are working on
(subject of course to the limitation that the contents of any #include'd file(s) must be fully
understandable to UnoArduSim's parser).
I developed UnoArduSIm in Microsoft Visual C++, and it is currently only available for WindowsTM.
Porting to Linux or MacOS, or to Java, is a project for the future.!
UnoArduSim grew out of simulators I had developed over the years for courses I taught at Queen's
University, and it has been tested reasonably extensively, but there are bound to be a few bugs still
hiding in there. If you would like to report a bug, please describe it (briefly) in an email to
[email protected] and be sure to attach your full-bug-causing-program Arduino source
code so I can replicate the bug and fix it. I will not be replying to individual bug reports, and I have
no guaranteed timelines for fixes in a subsequent release (remember there are almost always
workarounds!).
Cheers,
Stan Simmons, Ph.D, P.Eng.
Associate Professor (retired)
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Queen's University
Kingston, Ontario, Canada
December 2015
Code Pane
The Code Pane displays your user program, and highlighting tracks its execution.
After a loaded program is successfully parsed, the first line in main( ) is highlighted, and the program is ready
for execution. Note that main( ) is implicitly added by Arduino (and by UnoArduSim) and you do not include it
as part of your user program file. Execution is under control of the Execute menu and associated toolbar icons
and keyboard shortcuts.
After stepping execution by one (or more)
instructions, the next-to-be executed program
line is then highlighted (the highlighted line is
always the next line ready to be executed
).
using , , , or
Similarly, when a running program hits a
(temporary Run-To) breakpoint, execution is
halted and the breakpoint line is highlighted
(and is then ready for execution). When a
program is running, UnoArduSim periodically
highlights the current program line so you can
see that some activity is happening. This
highlighting will cause the Code Pane window
contents to scroll to the keep highlighted line
visible.
If program execution is currently halted, and
you click in the Code Pane window, the line you
just clicked becomes highlighted. This does not,
however, change the current program line as far
as program execution is concerned. But you
can cause execution to progress up to the line
you just highlighted by then clicking the RunTo
toolbar button. This feature allows you to
quickly and easily reach specific lines in a
program so that you could subsequently step
line-by-line over a program portion of interest.
If your loaded program has #include'd files, you can move between them using the File menu items
FilePrev File and File Next File for this, or by using the associated left and right blue arrow toolbar buttons
,
.
and
) allows you to quickly jump between functions
The Find menu (with shortcuts PgDn and PgUp or
in the Code Pane (but you must first click a ine inside the Code Pane to give it focus). Or you can jump to
) with the menu's text-search commands, or, more
specified text (after first using Find->Set Search text, or
simply, the
and toolbar icons.
View/Edit
By double-clicking on any line in the Code Pane (or using the File menu), a View/Edit window is opened to
allow changes to your program file, with the Code Pane's currently selected line highlighted..
This window has full edit capability with dynamic syntax-highlighting (different highlight colours for C++
keywords, comments, etc.), optional bold syntax highlighting, and automatic indent-level formatting (assuming
you have selected that using the ConfigPreferences dialog). You can also conveniently select built-in
function calls (or #define'd constants) to be added into your program from the provided ListBox (just doubleclick on the desired ListBox item to add it to your program at the current caret position function-call variable
types are just for information and are stripped out (leaving dummy placeholders) when added to your program).
The window has Find capability (use ctrl-F), and Find/Replace capability (use ctrl-H). The Edit/View window
has an UnDo button (or use ctrl-Z) so you can sequentially undo any changes you have made since opening
the Edit/View window (but there is no ReDo provided). All changes made on the same program line count as a
single undo, as do any Replace-All operations. To discard all changes you made since you first opened the
program for editing, hit the Cancel button. To adopt all changes, click the Adopt button and the program is
automatically re-parsed, and the new status appears in the Status Bar.
On either Cancel or Adopt with no edits made, the Code Pane current line changes to become the last
View/Edit caret position, and you can use that feature to jump the Code Pane to a specific line (possibly to
prepare to do a Run-To), You can also use CTRL-PgDn and CTRLPgUp to jump to the next (or previous)
empty-line break in your program this is useful for quickly navigating up or down to significant locations (like
empty lines between functions). To avoid jumping to blank lines inside functions (or elsewhere), you can simply
place a double-slash // empty-comment there so that the line is no longer "empty". You can use CTRL-Home
and CTRL-End to jump to the program start, and end, respectively.
Tab-level auto-format is done when the window opens if you have selected that from the Options menu. You
can also add or delete tabs yourself to a group of consecutive lines using right-arrow or left-arrrow (after first
selecting that group of 2 or more consecutive lines) but autoformat must be off to avoid losing your tab levels.
And to help you better keep track of your contexts and bracing, clicking on a '{' or '}' brace highlights all
text between that brace and its matching partner.
Variables Pane
The Variables pane is located just below the Code Pane. It shows the current values for every user-global and
active (in-scope) local variable/array/object in the loaded program. As your program execution moves between
functions, the contents change to reflect only those local variables accessible to the current
function/scope, plus any user-declared globals. Any variables declared as 'const' or as PROGMEM
(allocated to flash memory) have values that cannot change, and to save space these are therefore not
displayed. Servo and SoftwareSerial object instances contain no useful values so are also not displayed.
The Find menu (with shortcuts PgDn and
PgUp or
and
) allows you to quickly
jump between variables in the variables
Pane (but you must first click a line inside the
Pane to give it focus). Or you can jump to
specified text (after first using FindSet
) with the menu's textSearch text or
search commands, or, more simply, the
and toolbar icons.
Arrays and objects are shown in either unexpanded or expanded format, with either a trailing plus (+) or
minus(-) sign, respectively. The expanded/unexpanded symbol for an array x shows as x[]. To expand it to
show all elements of the array, just single-click on x[](+) in the Variables pane. To collapse back to an
unexpanded view, click on the x[](-). The unexpanded default for an object p1 shows as p1(+). To expand
it to show all members of that class or struct instance, single-click on p1(+). in the Variables pane. To collapse
back to an unexpanded view, single click on p1(-).
When Step-ping or Animate-ing a program, changes to the value of a variable cause its displayed value in the
Variables Pane to be updated immediately and it becomes highlighted-- this will cause the Variable pane to
scroll (if needed) to the line that holds that variable. When Run-ning, variables updates are made according to
user settings made under the VarUpdates menu this allows a full range of behaviour from minmal periodic
updates to full immediate updates reduced or minimal updates are useful to reduce CPU load and may be
needed to keep execution tracking real-time under what would otherwise be excessive window-update loads.
And when Run-ning, highlighting is only done if that VarUpdates menu option was selected.
This window also gives you the ability to change any variable to a new value in the middle of (halted)
program execution to test what would be the
effect of continuing on ahead with that new value.
Halt execution first, then left-double-click on the
variable whose value you wish to change; fill in
the Edit box, and close to adopt the new value.
Resume program execution (Step or Run) to use
the new value from that point forward.
On program Load or Reset all un-initialized value-variables are reset to value 0, and all un-initialized pointers
to 0x0000.
The Uno
This is a depiction of the Uno board and its onboard LEDs. When you load a new program into UnoArduSim, if
it successfully parses it undergoes a "simulated download" to the Uno that mimics the way an actual Uno board
behaves you will see the serial RX and TX LED's flashing (along with activity on pins 1 and 0 which are hardwired for serial communication with a host computer). This is immediately followed by a pin 13 LED flash that
signifies board reset and (and UnoArduSim automatic halt at) the beginning of your loaded program's
execution. You can avoid this display and associated loading lag by deselecting Show DownLoad form the
Options menu.
ASIDE: Digital pins 0-13 appear as simulator pins 0-13, and analog pins 0-5 appear as A0-A5 . To access an
analog pin in your program, you can refer to the pin number by one of two equivalent sets of numbers: 14-19;
or A0-A5 (A0-A5 are built-in-in const variables having values 14-19). And only when using analogRead( ), a
third option is made available you can, for this one instruction, drop the 'A' prefix from the pin number and
simply use 0-5.To access pins 14-19 in your program using digitalRead( ) or digitalWrite( ), you
can simply refer to that pin number, or you may instead use the A0-A5 aliases.
Clicking on any of the Uno's pins can de done to either open (or add to) a Pin Digital Waveforms window or
bring up a Pin Analog Waveform window both display the past one-second's worth of activity on that pin,
as described next.
Left-clicking on any Uno pin will open a Pin Digital Waveforms window that displays the past one-second's
worth of digital-level activity on that pin. You can click on other pins to add these to the Pin Digital Waveforms
display (to a maximum of 4 waveforms at any one time).
To ZOOM IN and ZOOM OUT (zoom is always centered on the ACTIVE cursor), use the mouse wheel, or
keyboard shortcuts CTRL-up_arrow and CTRL-down_arrow.
activate wave
delete wave
activate BLUE
cursor
activate
RED cursor
sense rising
edges
sense falling
edges
click to page view left or right, or
use keys Home, PgUp, PgDn, End
One of the displayed waveforms will be the active pin waveform, indicated by its "Pin number" button being
shown as depressed (for example Pin 6 is active in the above Pin Digital Waveforms screen capture). You can
select a waveform by clicking its Pin number button, and then select the edge-polarity of interest by clicking the
, or
, or by using the shortcut keys uparrow and
appropriate rising/falling edge-polarity selection button,
downarrow.You can then jump-position the active cursor (either blue or red cursor lines with their delta time
shown) backward or forward to the chosen-polarity digital edge of this active pin waveform by using the
and
,
depending on activated cursor), or the keyboard
forward/backward-to-edge arrow buttons ( ,
shortcuts leftarrow and rightarrow.
To activate a cursor, click its coloured activation button as shown above this also jump-scrolls the view to that
cursor's current location. Alternatively, you can quickly alternate activation between cursors (with their
respectively-centred views) using the shortcut TAB key.
You can jump-position the currently activated cursor by left-clicking anywhere in the on-screen waveform
view region. Alternatively, you can select either the red or blue cursor line by clicking right on top of it (to
activate it), then drag it to a new location, and release. When a desired cursor is currently somewhere offscreen, you can right-click anywhere in the view to jump it to that new on-screen location. If both cursors are
already on-screen, right-clicking simply alternates between activated cursor.
Doing instead a right-click on any Uno pin opens a Pin Analog Waveform window that displays the past
one-second's worth of analog-level activity on that pin. Unlike the Pin Digital Waveforms window, you can
only display one pin's worth of analog activity at any one time.
You can jump-position blue or red cursor lines to the next rising or falling "slope point" by using the
forward/backward arrow buttons (
,
or
,
, again depending on activated cursor, or leftarrow or
rightarrow) in concert with the rising/falling slope selection buttons ,
(the "slope point" occurs where the
analog voltage passes through the ATmega pin's high-digital-logic-level threshold). Alternatively, you can again
click-to-jump, or drag these cursor lines similar to their behaviour in the Pin Digital Waveforms window
I/O Devices
A number of different devices surround the Uno on the perimeter of the Lab Bench Pane. "Small" I/O devices
(of which you are allowed up to 16 in total) reside along the left and right sides of the pane. "Large" I/O devices
(of which you are allowed up to 8 in total) have "active" elements and reside along the top and bottom of the
pane. The desired number of each type of available I/O device can be set using the Config I/O Devices
menu selection.
Each IO device has one or more pin attachments shown as a two-digit pin number (00, 01, 02, 10,11,12, 13
and either A0-A5, or 14-19, after that) in a corresponding edit box.. For pin numbers 2 through 9 you can
simply enter the single digit the leading 0 will be automatically provided, but for pins 0 and 1 you must first
enter the leading 0. Inputs are normally on the left side of an I/O device, and outputs are normally on the right
(space permitting). All I/O devices will respond directly to pin levels and pin-level changes, so will respond to
either library functions targeted to their attached pins, or to programmed digitalWrite( )'s (for "bitbanged" operation)
.
You can connect multiple devices to the same ATmega pin as long as this does not create an electrical
conflict. Such a conflict can be created either by an Uno OUTPUT pin driving against a high-drive (lowimpedance) connected device (for example, driving against a FUNCGEN output, or a DCMOTOR encoder
output), or by two connected devices competing with each other (for example both a PULSER and a PUSHbutton attached to the same pin). Any such conflicts would be disastrous in a real hardware implementation
and so are disallowed, and will be flagged to the user via a pop-up message box)
The OptionsConfig menu can be used to open a dialog to allow the user to choose the type(s), and
numbers, of desired I/O devices. From this dialog you can also Save I/O devices to a text file, and/or Load I/O
devices from a previously saved (or edited) text file (including all pin connections and clickable settings
and typed-in values).
The remainder of this section provides descriptions for each type of device.
Also, as with the hardware based Serial, a larger window for TX and RX
setting/viewing can be opened by double-clicking on the SFTSER device.
Note that unlike Serial's hardware implementation, there are no provided TX or RX
buffers supported by internal ATmega interrupt operations, so that read( )'s and write( )'s
are blocking (that is, your program will not proceed until they are completed).
DC Motor (MOTOR)
This I/O device emulates a 6-volt-supply 100:1 geared DC motor with an integrated driver controller driven by a
pulse-width-modulation signal (on its Pwm input), and a direction control signal (on its Dir input). The motor
also has a wheel encoder output which drives its Enc output pin. You can use analogWrite( ) to drive the
Pwm pin with a 490 Hz (on pins 3,9,10,11) or 980 Hz (on pins 5,6) PWM waveform of duty cycle between 0.0
and 1.0 (analogWrite values 0 to 255). Alternatively, DCMOTOR will also respond to your own
digitalWrite( )-created bit-banged drive signals.
The motor is accurately modeled both mechanically and electrically. Accounting for
motor-driver transistor voltage drops and realistic no-load gear torque gives a full speed
of approximately 2 revs per second, and stall torque of just over 5 kg-cm (occurring at a
steady PWM duty cycle of 1.0), with a total motor-plus-load moment of inertia of 2.5 kgcm. The motor rotor winding has a modeled resistance of R=2 ohms, and an inductance
of L=300 micro-Henries which creates an electrical time constant of 150 microseconds.
Because of the realistic modeling you will notice that very narrow PWM pulses do not get
the motor to turn both due to the finite current rise time, and the significant off-time after
each narrow pulse. These combine to cause insufficient rotor momentum to overcome
the gearbox's spring-like lashback under static-friction. The consequence is when using analogWrite( ), a
duty cycle below about 0.125 will not cause the motor to budge this agrees with what is observed when
driving a real gear-motor from an Uno with, of course, an appropriate (and required) motor driver module in
between the motor and the Uno!.
The emulated motor encoder is a shaft-mounted optical-interruption sensor that produces a 50% duty cycle
waveform having 8 complete high-low periods per wheel revolution (so your program can sense wheel
rotational changes to a resolution of 22.5 degrees).
Analog Slider
A slider-controlled 0-5V potentiometer can be connected to any chosen Uno pin to produce a
static (or slowly changing) analog voltage level which would be read by analogRead( ) as a
value from 0 to 1023. Use the mouse to drag, or click to jump, the analog slider.
SD Disk Drive(SD_DRV)
This I/O device allows for library software-mediated (but not "bit-banged") file input and output operations on
the Uno SPI pins (you can choose which CS* pin you will use). Your program can simply #include <SD.h>
line near the top, and you can use <SD.h> functions OR directly call SdFile functions yourself.
A larger window displaying directories and files (and content) can be opened by
double-clicking on the SD_DRV device. All drive content is loaded from an SD subdirectory in the loaded program's directory (if it exists) at SdVolume init(), and is
mirrored to that same SD sub-directory on file close(), remove(), and on
makeDir() and rmDir().
A yellow LED flashes during SPI transfers, and DATA shows the last SD_DRV response
byte. All SPI signals are accurate and can be viewed in a WavePane.
Your program must have an #include <Wire.h> line if you wish to use the
functionality of the TwoWire library to interact with this device. Alternatively, you may
choose to create your own bit-banged data and clock signals to drive this slave device.
A single byte for transmission back to the Uno master can be set into the Send edit box,
and a single (most-recently-received) byte can be viewed in its (read-only) Recv edit box.
By double-clicking on the device you can open a larger companion window that instead allows you to fill
in a 32-byte-maximum FIFO buffer (so as to emulate TWI devices with such functionality), and to view (up to a
maximum of 32) bytes of the most recently received data (as a two-hex-digit display of 8 bytes per line). The
number of lines in these two edit boxes corresponds to the chosen TWI buffer size (which can be selected
using the Config->Preferences menu dialog). This has been added as an option since the Arduino Wire.h
library uses five such RAM buffers in its implementation code, which is RAM memory expensive. By editing the
Arduino installation Wire.h file to change defined constant BUFFER_LENGTH (and also editing the companion
utility/twi.h file to change TWI_BUFFERLENGTH ) both to be instead either 16 or 8, a user could
significantly reduce the RAM memory overhead of the Uno in a targeted hardware implementation --.
UnoArduSim therefore mirrors this real-world possibility through a Preferences menu option.
Menus
File menu commands:
Load INO or PDE Prog
View/Edit
Save
Save As
Previous
Exit
Exits UnoArduSim.
Find Previous
Function/Var
Click in either the Code Pane or the variables Pane to give it the
active focus for this menu's commands.
Jump to the next Function in the Code Pane (if it has the active
focus), or to the next variable in the Variables Pane (if instead it has
the active focus).
Jump to the previous Function in the Code Pane (if it has the active
focus), or to the previous variable in the Variables Pane (if instead it
has the active focus).
Jump to the next Text occurrence in the Code Pane (if it has the
active focus), or to the next Text occurrence in the Variables Pane (if
instead it has the active focus).
Jump to the previous Text occurence in the Code Pane (if it has the
active focus), or to the previous Text occurrence in the Variables
Pane (if instead it has the active focus).
Step Out Of
Run To
Run
Halt
Reset
Animate
Slow Motion
Register-Allocation Modelling
Error on Uninitialized
Bigger Font
Use the next larger font size for the Code Pane, Variables
Pane, and View/Edit window.
Bold Font
Use bold font for the Code Pane and Variables Pane for
improved visibility.
Opens a dialog to allow the user to choose the type(s), and numbers,
of desired I/O devices. From this dialog you can also Save I/O
devices to a text file, and/or Load I/O devices from a previously
saved (or edited) text file (including all pin cpnnections and clickable
settings and typed-in values
Preferences
Opens a dialog to allow the user to set preferences including autoformatting of source program, allowing Expert syntax, enforcing of
array bounds, permitting logical operator keywords, showing
program download, Uno board version, and TWI buffer length (for
I2C devices).
Minimal Updates
HighLight Updates
Restore All
Prompt
Bug Fixes
Change/Improvements
About
Modelling
Intro
The Uno and attached I/O devices are all modelled electrically, and you will be able to get a good
idea at home of how your programs will behave with the actual hardware.
.
Timing
UnoArduSim executes rapidly enough on a PC or tablet that it can (in the majority of cases) model
program actions in real-time, but only if your program incorporates at least some small delay()
calls or other calls that will naturally keep it sync'd to real time (see below).
To accomplish this, UnoArduSim makes use of a Windows callback timer function, which allows it to
keep accurate track of real-time. The execution of a number of program instructions is simulated
during one timer slice, and instructions that require longer execution (like calls to delay( ) ) may
need to use multiple timer slices. Each iteration of the callback timer function corrects system time
using the system hardware clock so that program execution is constantly adjusted to keep in lockstep with real-time. The only times execution rate must fall behind real-time is when the user has
tight loops with no added delay, or IO devices configured for operation with very-high IO device
frequencies (and/or baud rate) which would generate an excessive number of pin-level-change
events and associated processing overload. This overload is avoided by skipping some timer
intervals to compensate, and this would slow down program progression to below real-time.
In addition, programs with large arrays being displayed, or again having tight loops with no added
delay can cause a high function call frequency and generate a high Variables Pane display update
load causing it to fall behind real-time this can be circumvented by allowing update reduction s in
the VarUpdates menu, or by selecting Minimal Updates there when necessary.
Accurately modelling the sub-millisecond execution time for each program instruction or operation
is not done only very rough estimates for most have been adopted for simulation purposes.
However, the timing of delay( ), and delayMicroseconds( ) functions, and functions
millis( ) and micros( ) are all perfectly accurate, and as long as you use at least one of
the delay functions in a loop somewhere in your program, or you use a function that naturally ties
itself to real-time operation (like print( ) which is tied to the chosen baud rate), then your
program's simulated performance will be very close to real-time (again, barring blatantly excessive
high-frequency pin-level-change events or excessive user-allowed Variables updates which could
slow it down).
In order to see the effect of individual program instructions when running, it may be desirable to be
able to slow things down. A time-slowdown factor of 10 can be set by the user under the Options
menu.
I/O Devices
These virtual devices receive real-time signaling of changes that occur on their input pins, and
produce corresponding outputs on their output pins which can then be sensed by the Uno -- they
are therefore inherently synchronized to program execution. Internal I/O device timing is set by the
user (for example through baud rate selection or Clock frequency), and simulator events are set up
to track real-time internal operation.
Sounds
Each PIEZO device produces sound corresponding to the electrical level changes occurring on the
attached pin, regardless of the source of such changes. UnoArduSim starts and stops an
associated sound buffer as execution is started/halted to keep the sound buffer synchronized to
program execution. Multiple PIEZO's are accommodated, and the DirectSoundTM API is used to
look after all sound mixing.
buffer address into a "const char * strptr" by assigning to it the returned value of the
c_str( ).member function you could then use strptr[ ] for array-style (but read-only)
access to the String's characters.
The String operators supported are +, +=, <, <=, >, >= , == and != . Note that:
concat( ) takes a single argument which is the String, char, or int to be appended to the
original String object, not two arguments as is mistakenly stated on the Arduino Reference web
pages).
Arudino Libraries
Only Stepper.h, SD.h, Servo.h, SoftwareSerial.h, SPI.h, Wire.h, and EEPROM.h for
the Arduino V1.06 release currently have built-in support
Pointers
Pointers to simple types, arrays, or objects are all supported. A pointer may be equated to an array
of the same type (e.g. iptr = intarray), but then there would be no subsequent arrays bounds
checking on an expression like iptr[index].
Functions can return pointers, or 'const' pointers, but any subsequent level of 'const' on the
returned pointer is ignored.
There is no support for function calls being made through user-declared function-pointers.
Classes and Structs
Although polymorphism, and inheritance (to any depth), is supported, classes and structs can only
be defined to have at most one base class (i.e. multiple- inheritance is not supported). Base-class
constructor initialization calls (via colon notation) in constructor declaration lines are supported, but
not member-initializations using that same colon notation. This means that objects that contain nonstatic 'const' or reference-type variables are not supported (those are only possible with specified
construction-time member-initializations)
Copy-assignment operator overloads are supported along with move-constructors and moveassignments, but user-defined object-'conversion' ("cast-like") functions are not supported.
Scope
There is no support for the 'using' keyword, or for namespaces, or for 'file' scope. All non-local
declarations are by implementation assumed to be global.
All typedef's, and all named struct's and class'es (i.e. that may be used for future
declarations), must be declared at global scope (local declarations of such items inside a function
are not supported).
Const, Volatile, Static
The 'const' keyword, when used, must precede the variable name or function name or typedef
name that is being declared -- placing it after the name will cause a parse error. Only pointer-
C/C++-language elements
Bit-saving "bit-field qualifiers" for members in structure definitions are not supported.
Union's are not yet supported
The oddball "comma operator" is not supported (so you cannot perform several expressions
separated by commas when only a single expression is normally expected, for example in while(
) and for( ; ; ) constructs).
Function Templates
User-defined functions that use the keyword "template" to allow it to accept arguments of "generic"
type are not supported.
Real-Time Emulation
As noted above, execution times of the many different individual possible Arduino program
instructions are not modelled accurately, so that in order to run at a real-time rate your program will
need some sort of dominating delay( ) instruction (at least once per loop( ) ), or an instruction
that is naturally synchronized to real-time pin-level changes (such as, pulseIn( ), shiftIn( ),
Serial.read( ), Serial.print( ), Serial.flush( ) etc.)
See Modelling above for more detail on limitations.
Release Notes
Bug Fixes
2) Fixed SoftwareSerial (which was inadvertently broken by an added Class member validation
check in V1.3 releases).
3) End-of-line function calls with a missing semicolon were not caught, and caused the Parse to
skip the next line.
4) A badly formatted IOdevs text file gave an improper error message.
5) Parse Error highlighting of the incorrect (adjacent) line in multi-line expressions and
statements has been fixed
6) Logical testing of pointers using the 'not' ( ! ) operator was inverted.
1) The very simplest of user functions that made calls to either digitalRead() or to
analogRead() or bit() could have corrupted their (very first) declared local variable (if
any) due to insufficient allocated function scratchpad space (if only two scratchpad bytes
got allocated at the very start of the function's stack) . Any numeric expression at all inside
a function is sufficient to cause a 4-byte scratchpad allocation, and so avoids this issue.
This unfortunate bug has been around since the original release V1.0.
2) Void functions with an early explicit return, and non-void functions with more than one
return statement, would see execution fall-through at the closing brace (if it was
reached).
3) Return statements in un-braced if( ) contexts led to a faulty return-to-caller target.
4) Pulser and FuncGen pulsewidths/periods of 0 could cause a crash (0 is now disallowed).
5) 'else' continuations after an if() did not work following unbraced 'break', 'continue',
or 'return's.
6) When multiple user enum's were declared, only constants defined in the very first enum did
not generate faulty "enum mismatch" Parse errors (the bug got introduced in V1.1).
7) A null identifier for the very last parameter of a function prototype caused a Parse error.
8) Run-To breakpoints set on complex lines were not always handled properly (and so could
be missed).
9) HardwareSerial and SoftwareSerial used a private implementation TXPending buffer that
did not get cleaned out on Reset's (so leftover characters from last time could appear).
10) Parse failed to check for illegal bit-flipping of float's, and pointer arithmetic attempted with
illegal operators.
V1.1 Mar 2015
1) Array indices that were byte or char sized variables caused incorrect array offsets (if an
adjacent variable contained a non-0 high-byte).
2) Logical testing of pointers tested the pointed-to value for non-zero rather than the pointer
value itself.
3) Return statements embedded inside for() or while() loops were mishandled.
4) Aggregate-initialization lists for arrays of objects, or objects containing other objects/arrays,
or completely empty initialization lists, were not being handled properly.
5) Access of enum member values using an " enumname." prefix was not supported.
6) Declaration-line initialization of a char[ ] array with a quoted string literal was not
working.
7) An array being passed to a function without prior initialization was improperly flagged with a
"used but not initialized" error.
10) The Pin Analog Waveform window did not display PWM signals (servo.write() and
analogWrite()).
11) Member functions accessed through an object-pointer gave faulty member accesses.
12) Waveforms were not being updated when a RunTo breakpoint was reached.
13) Register allocation modelling could fail when a function parameter was hen used directly as
an argument to another function call.
Changes/Improvements
V1.4.2 Mar 2016
1) Forward-defined functions (i.e. those with no prototype declaration before their first call)
now only generate warnings (not parse errors) when the later function definition return-type
mismatches the type inferred from their first use.
2) Arrays having a dimension equal to 1 are no longer rejected (in order to agree with
standard C++ rules)..
3) Edit boxes ae no longer set to black on white background they now adopt the palette set
by the Windows OS theme in use.
4) Serial, SoftSerial, SPI Slave, and I2C Slave expanded Monitor windows now adopt the
background colour of their parent IO Device.
V1.4 Dec 2015
1) Stepper.h library functionality and associated I/O devices have now been added..
2) All IO Device settings and values (in addition to its selected pins) are now also saved as
part of the chosen user IODevs text file for later reload.
3) LED I/O device colour can now be set as either red, yellow or green using an edit box on
the device.
4) .Variable declaration initializers are now allowed to span multiple lines.
5) Array indices are now allowed to themselves be array elements.
6) The ConfigPreferences dialog now includes a checkbox to permit 'and','or','not'
keywords to be used in place of the C-standard &&, ||, and ! logical operators.
7) 'Show Program Download' has been moved to the ConfigPreferences dialog
V1.3 Oct 2015
1) PushButton's now have a push-like checkbox labeled "latch" to make them 'latching'
(instead of 'momentary'), that is, they will latch in the closed position (and change colour)
when pressed until pressed again to release them.
2) Full capability SPI Slave devices (SPISLV) have been added with node selection (MODE0,
MODE1, MODE2, or MODE3). Double-clicking opens a TX/RX buffers window where
upcoming REPLY (TX) bytes may be defined, and for viewing of past received (RX) bytes.
The previous version's simple-shift-register slave device has been renamed to become an
'SRSLV' device.
3) Bold typeface can now be chosen for the CodePane and Variables Pane (from the
Options menu), and bold highlighting of keywords and operators can now be toggled
on/off in View/Edit.
4) UnoArduSim now allows bool as a synonym for boolean .
5) For clarity in error reporting, variable declarations are no longer allowed to span multiple
lines (except for arrays having initializer lists).
6) Syntax colourization speed in View/Edit has been improved (this will be noticeable with
larger programs)
7) An optional 200 microsecond overhead (Options menu)has been added to each call of
loop() this is to try to avoid falling too far behind real-time in the case where the user
program has no added delay() anywhere (see Timing discussion under Modelling).
V1.2 Jun 2015
1) The SD library is now fully implemented and a (small) 8Mbyte SD Disk I/O device has been
added (and functionality tested against all Arduino sample SD programs).
2) Like Arduino, UnoArduSim will now automatically convert a function argument to its address