Often embedded systems have small amount of RAM and flash, so you could have the need of specifically written standard functions.


One of the most commonly used function is the printf because it can be used to debug your application, on the internet you can find a lot of implementation of the printf function, the one I prefer is the following:

 


/*
    Copyright 2001, 2002 Georges Menie (www.menie.org)
    stdarg version contributed by Christian Ettinger

    This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
    it under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License as published by
    the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
    (at your option) any later version.

    This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
    but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
    MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
    GNU Lesser General Public License for more details.

    You should have received a copy of the GNU Lesser General Public License
    along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
    Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA  02111-1307  USA
*/

/*
    putchar is the only external dependency for this file,
    if you have a working putchar, leave it commented out.
    If not, uncomment the define below and
    replace outbyte(c) by your own function call.

#define putchar(c) outbyte(c)
*/

#include <stdarg.h>

static void printchar(char **str, int c)
{
    extern int putchar(int c);
   
    if (str) {
        **str = c;
        ++(*str);
    }
    else (void)putchar(c);
}

#define PAD_RIGHT 1
#define PAD_ZERO 2

static int prints(char **out, const char *string, int width, int pad)
{
    register int pc = 0, padchar = ' ';

    if (width > 0) {
        register int len = 0;
        register const char *ptr;
        for (ptr = string; *ptr; ++ptr) ++len;
        if (len >= width) width = 0;
        else width -= len;
        if (pad & PAD_ZERO) padchar = '0';
    }
    if (!(pad & PAD_RIGHT)) {
        for ( ; width > 0; —width) {
            printchar (out, padchar);
            ++pc;
        }
    }
    for ( ; *string ; ++string) {
        printchar (out, *string);
        ++pc;
    }
    for ( ; width > 0; —width) {
        printchar (out, padchar);
        ++pc;
    }

    return pc;
}

/* the following should be enough for 32 bit int */
#define PRINT_BUF_LEN 12

static int printi(char **out, int i, int b, int sg, int width, int pad, int letbase)
{
    char print_buf[PRINT_BUF_LEN];
    register char *s;
    register int t, neg = 0, pc = 0;
    register unsigned int u = i;

    if (i == 0) {
        print_buf[0] = '0';
        print_buf[1] = '\0';
        return prints (out, print_buf, width, pad);
    }

    if (sg && b == 10 && i < 0) {
        neg = 1;
        u = –i;
    }

    s = print_buf + PRINT_BUF_LEN–1;
    *s = '\0';

    while (u) {
        t = u % b;
        if( t >= 10 )
            t += letbase – '0' – 10;
        *–s = t + '0';
        u /= b;
    }

    if (neg) {
        if( width && (pad & PAD_ZERO) ) {
            printchar (out, '-');
            ++pc;
            —width;
        }
        else {
            *–s = '-';
        }
    }

    return pc + prints (out, s, width, pad);
}

static int print(char **out, const char *format, va_list args )
{
    register int width, pad;
    register int pc = 0;
    char scr[2];

    for (; *format != 0; ++format) {
        if (*format == '%') {
            ++format;
            width = pad = 0;
            if (*format == '\0') break;
            if (*format == '%') goto out;
            if (*format == '-') {
                ++format;
                pad = PAD_RIGHT;
            }
            while (*format == '0') {
                ++format;
                pad |= PAD_ZERO;
            }
            for ( ; *format >= '0' && *format <= '9'; ++format) {
                width *= 10;
                width += *format – '0';
            }
            if( *format == 's' ) {
                register char *s = (char *)va_arg( args, int );
                pc += prints (out, s?s:"(null)", width, pad);
                continue;
            }
            if( *format == 'd' ) {
                pc += printi (out, va_arg( args, int ), 10, 1, width, pad, 'a');
                continue;
            }
            if( *format == 'x' ) {
                pc += printi (out, va_arg( args, int ), 16, 0, width, pad, 'a');
                continue;
            }
            if( *format == 'X' ) {
                pc += printi (out, va_arg( args, int ), 16, 0, width, pad, 'A');
                continue;
            }
            if( *format == 'u' ) {
                pc += printi (out, va_arg( args, int ), 10, 0, width, pad, 'a');
                continue;
            }
            if( *format == 'c' ) {
                /* char are converted to int then pushed on the stack */
                scr[0] = (char)va_arg( args, int );
                scr[1] = '\0';
                pc += prints (out, scr, width, pad);
                continue;
            }
        }
        else {
        out:
            printchar (out, *format);
            ++pc;
        }
    }
    if (out) **out = '\0';
    va_end( args );
    return pc;
}

int printf(const char *format, …)
{
        va_list args;
        
        va_start( args, format );
        return print( 0, format, args );
}

int sprintf(char *out, const char *format, …)
{
        va_list args;
        
        va_start( args, format );
        return print( &out, format, args );
}

 

You can find the full source (with an example of main) for this printf implementation at http://www.menie.org/georges/embedded/#printf

Here you can also find an implementation for architectures without stdarg.h


You can find another interesting implementation at http://www.sparetimelabs.com/tinyprintf/index.html

Both the implementations are distributed under the GPL license.

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