Eclipse Target Communication Framework 1.2.0

Release Date
Deliverables
  • TCF Source Code, tagged TCF_1_2 in the project's "agent" and "main" git repositories.
  • TCF Update Site at http://download.eclipse.org/tools/tcf/releases/1.2
  • Zipped p2 repository of TCF Eclipse plug-ins (downloadable)
  • TCF also feeds its Eclipse plugins to the Luna simultaneous release.

 

Compatibility
  • TCF Protocol Compatibility: The TCF 1.2 protocol is binary compatible on the wire with previous releases. New features have been added in a discoverable fashion, extending older versions of the protocol.
  • API Compatibility: The TCF-Core 1.2 release is fully compatible with TCF 1.1 and older.
  • Binary (plug-in) Compatibility: We have no binary compatibility issues to discuss for 1.2.
  • Source Compatibility: We have no source compatibility issues to discuss for 1.2.
Internationalization
  • The TCF Agent (C code), Services API, and Python and Lua bindings use plain English messages that do not support internationalization.
  • The Eclipse plugins leverage Eclipse mechanisms for internationalization. All messages are externalized, and have been submitted to the Babel project for translation.
  • No formal testing for internationalization is performed though.

 

Target Environments
  • The TCF C Agent is being tested routinely on Linux (gcc), Windows (Microsoft, Cygwin and MinGW compilers) and VxWorks. Compilation on MacOS X Darwin, FreeBSD and other POSIX compliant systems should work without problems for the TCF Core. Services can be disabled on a case-by-case basis. Frequent unit and stress tests are run on various Linux distributions.
  • The Java and Eclipse clients are tested with Oracle Java 6 and 7 on Eclipse 3.8 Juno, Eclipse 4.3 Kepler and 4.4 Luna on Windows, Linux and MaxOS X 32-bit and 64-bit respectively.
  • The Python binding requires Python 2.6 or newer (does not work with Python 3.x due to language incompatibilities).
  • The Lua binding is tested with Lua 5.2.1 on Linux.

 

Themes

Robustness and Matrix Coverage

We will continue making TCF a rock-solid commercial-grade debug solution and increase its coverage of target architectures and compilers. Increase coverage of supported ELF tags and ELF format variants in the symbol and DWARF readers. Fix defects and increase test coverage

Improve Unittest coverage at Eclipse.org

By leveraging the Eclipse.org HIPP instance, test automation of the TCF C Agent build and run-time behavior will be done on Eclipse.org servers. We'll strive for an automated integration test of the Python API's.

Providing a Local Terminal View on Windows

For the longest time, the Eclipse Community has desired an Eclipse View that provides access to the local Windows command-line. The TCF project is now in a position where we can offer this based on collaborations with winpty (Github), CDT (PTY/Spawner) and the TM Project (VT100 Terminal).

Add PowerPC Debug Support for Linux ptrace

Having PPC debug support in addtion to Intel and ARM would likely further help adoption with embedded distros.
  • Add support for PowerPC [417126] (target milestone: 1.2)
  • Add support for PowerPC floating point registers [417363] (target milestone: 1.2)

Improve Documentation and Contributor Guides

We plan to improve the TCF documentation, particularly related to out-of-box experience and Getting Started guides. Improve TCF Protocol documentation as the de-facto standard of TCF API. Contributor Guides shall be improved to ease new adopter's ramp-up time and increase TCF adoption in the industry.
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This release is part of Luna