Frequently asked questions¶
Developing blocks¶
How to use C++ for blocks¶
Checkout the example std_blocks/cppdemo.
Note
designated initializers, which are used to initialize
ubx_proto_ structures are only supported by g++ versions
8 and newer!
What the difference between block types and instances?¶
There are very few differences. A prototype block is added by module
init functions using ubx_block_register and must also be removed
by the corresponding module cleanup hook using
ubx_block_unregister. A prototype blocks prototype ptr is
NULL.
Block instances are cloned from existing blocks using
ubx_block_create and the instances block->prototype pointer is
set to the block is was cloned from. Normally blocks are cloned from
prototype blocks, but it is possible to clone any block (a warning is
issued currently).
That said, the above are internals and you should not rely on
them. Instead, use the predicates blk_is_proto and
blk_is_instance if you need to determine what is what.
Why do you cache port pointers in the block info structure?¶
For two reasons:
- it’s simpler to cache it once and then just use the pointer directly
- to a lesser degree: for performance. It avoids a repeated hash table
lookups in
step.
Note that the ubx-genblock script automatically takes care caching
ports of this.
Avoiding static¶
You can avoid cluttering block functions and globals with static,
by adding -fvisibility=hidden to CFLAGS.
Running microblx¶
luablock: “error object is not a string”¶
Note that this has been fixed in commit be63f6408bd4d.
This is most of the time happens when the strict module being loaded
(also indirectly, e.g. via ubx.lua) in a luablock. It is caused by the C
code looking up a non-existing global hook function. Solution: either
define all hooks or disable the strict module for the luablock.
Running with real-time priorities¶
To run with realtime priorities, give the luajit binary cap_sys_nice
capabilities, e.g:
$ sudo setcap cap_sys_nice+ep `which luajit`
Note that this will grant these capabilities to luajit binary in
PATH. If you don’t want to do this system-wide, you can do this for
a local luajit binary instead.
In addition, you should pass the command-line option -mlockall to
ubx-launch, to ensure memory is locked. For scripts, pass the
ND_MLOCK_ALL node attribute to ubx_node_init.
I’m not getting core dumps when running with real-time priorities¶
This is not a bug, but a safety mechanism to prevent potential leaking
of priviledged data from a setcap process. To override this, pass
the ubx-launch command-line arg -dumpable or the for scripts
the node attribute ND_DUMPABLE.
My script immedately crashes/finishes¶
This can have several reasons:
- You forgot the
-ioption toluajit: in that case the script is executed and once completed will immedately exit. The system will be shut down / cleaned up immediately. - You ran the wrong Lua executable (e.g. a standard Lua instead of
luajit).
If none of this works, see the following topic.
Debugging¶
Debugging segfaults¶
One of the best ways to debug crashes is using gdb and the core dump file:
# enable core dumps
$ ulimit -c unlimited
$ gdb luajit
...
(gdb) core-file core
...
(gdb) bt
Sometimes, running gdb directly on the processes produces better results than post-mortem coredumps. For example, to run the pid example with gdb attached:
$ cd /usr/local/share/ubx/examples/usc/pid
$ gdb luajit --args luajit `which ubx-launch` -c pid_test.usc,ptrig_nrt.usc
GNU gdb (Debian 9.1-2) 9.1
...
Reading symbols from luajit...
(No debugging symbols found in luajit)
(gdb) run
Starting program: /usr/bin/luajit /usr/local/bin/ubx-launch -c pid_test.usc,ptrig_nrt.usc
[Thread debugging using libthread_db enabled]
Using host libthread_db library "/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libthread_db.so.1".
merging ptrig_nrt.usc into pid_test.usc
core_prefix: /usr/local
prefixes: /usr, /usr/local
[New Thread 0x7ffff7871700 (LWP 2831757)]
...
Running valgrind¶
Valgrind is very useful to track down memory leaks or sporadic
segfaults. To run it on dynamically loaded modules, the
UBX_CONFIG_VALGRIND flag must be enabled in ubx.h. This flag
will pass the RTLD_NODELETE flag to dlopen(3), which causes
modules not really to be unloaded. This is essential for valgrind to
print meaningful traces in module code.
After that, you can run valgrind as follows on an usc file:
valgrind --leak-check=full \
--track-origins=yes \
luajit `which ubx-launch` -t 3 -c examples/usc/threshold.usc
...
This will run the demo for 3 seconds and then exit. Valgrind may print
warnings related to luajit like Conditional jump or move depends on
uninitialised value, which can be ignored (or silenced by building
luajit with valgrind support , see -DLUAJIT_USE_VALGRIND)
Running a script can be done likewise:
$ valgrind --leak-check=full \
--track-origins=yes \
luajit tests/test_ptrig.lua
...
meta-microblx¶
building luajit fails¶
luajit fails with the following message:
arm-poky-linux-gnueabi-gcc -mfpu=neon -mfloat-abi=hard -mcpu=cortex-a8 -fstack-protector-strong -D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=2 -Wformat -Wformat-security -Werror=format-security --sysroot=/build/bbblack-zeus/build/tmp/work/cortexa8hf-neon-poky-linux-gnueabi/luajit/2.0.5+gitAUTOINC+02b521981a-r0/recipe-sysroot -fPIC -Wall -D_FILE_OFFSET_BITS=64 -D_LARGEFILE_SOURCE -U_FORTIFY_SOURCE -DLUA_ROOT=\"/usr\" -DLUA_MULTILIB=\"lib\" -fno-stack-protector -O2 -pipe -g -feliminate-unused-debug-types -fmacro-prefix-map=/build/bbblack-zeus/build/tmp/work/cortexa8hf-neon-poky-linux-gnueabi/luajit/2.0.5+gitAUTOINC+02b521981a-r0=/usr/src/debug/luajit/2.0.5+gitAUTOINC+02b521981a-r0 -fdebug-prefix-map=/build/bbblack-zeus/build/tmp/work/cortexa8hf-neon-poky-linux-gnueabi/luajit/2.0.5+gitAUTOINC+02b521981a-r0=/usr/src/debug/luajit/2.0.5+gitAUTOINC+02b521981a-r0 -fdebug-prefix-map=/build/bbblack-zeus/build/tmp/work/cortexa8hf-neon-poky-linux-gnueabi/luajit/2.0.5+gitAUTOINC+02b521981a-r0/recipe-sysroot= -fdebug-prefix-map=/build/bbblack-zeus/build/tmp/work/cortexa8hf-neon-poky-linux-gnueabi/luajit/2.0.5+gitAUTOINC+02b521981a-r0/recipe-sysroot-native= -c -o lj_obj_dyn.o lj_obj.c
In file included from /usr/include/bits/errno.h:26,
from /usr/include/errno.h:28,
from host/buildvm.h:13,
from host/buildvm_fold.c:6:
/usr/include/linux/errno.h:1:10: fatal error: asm/errno.h: No such file or directory
1 | #include <asm/errno.h>
| ^~~~~~~~~~~~~
compilation terminated.
This solution is to install gcc-multilib on the build host.