---
title:  "Restricted Memory & Data Framing Tricks"
pubDate:   2022-07-16 13:51:00 -0500
tags:   ["c", "memory", "embedded", "ti", "msp430", "union"]
description: "Tips and tricks I learned about handling restricted memory while working on microcontrollers at my first internship"
---

Working on microcontrollers is a far cry from the essentially unlimited memory and floating point operations available
in _Python_ and other high level languages. Here's what I have been learning at my _first_ internship...

## Restricted Memory

While working there, I was assigned to a project that required usage of a Texas Instruments MSP430 microcontroller.
While there were many quirks with working on MCUs like this (like having to ditch JetBrains & VSCode altogether!), the
biggest quirk isn't working with C: it's working without `malloc` altogether.

On low memory devices like this, memory is extremely limited and there is no certainty that your code will not leak memory.
Usage of `malloc` and other dynamic memory allocation methods are considered innately dangerous - while there is a chance
you will write perfect code that will properly allocate/deallocate, you can't be certain that your complex program
won't run out of memory on such a small footprint to work with.

Instead, variables are assigned either inside methods for short periods (and passed around), or they are assigned statically and globally.
It appears that the libraries I use personally prefer globally accessible variables, which 99% of the time, is very wrong - but in
Microcontroller land, global variables are your friend.

```c
#include <stdint.h>

uint8_t uid[4];  // A unique identifier

int main(void) {
    UID_generate(uid, 4); // Pass the pointer, the function writes to it (and does not return it)
    UART_putUid(uid, 4); // Write the UID to UART
}
```
```c
void UID_generate(uint8_t uid, int length) {
    uint8_t i = 0;
    while(i < length)
        uid[i++] = RANDOM_char();
}

void UART_putUid(uint8_t* uid, int length) {
    uint8_t i = 0;
    while(i < length)
        UART_putChar(uid[i++]);
}

void UART_putChar(uint8_t value) {
    while(!(UCB0IFG & 0x1));
	    UCB0TXBUF = value;
}
```

<center>
    <i>
        <small>
            UART is a serial communication technology we use to send characters & text to the COM terminal.
            For more information, click <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBRUyLcqXV4">here</a>.
        </small>
    </i>
</center>

There's not much more to this - don't use `malloc`, stick to the _stack_ for actively executing methods and use _global variables_
when you need to go into low power mode while maintaining state.

Overall, this doesn't hinder ones ability to write working code - the features are still there, but the way you access
methods, store data & manipulate is re-organized - sometimes at the detriment to quality  & refactoring efforts.

## Data Framing Tricks

While at my internship, I used my MSP430 microcontroller to communicate with various devices over UART and SPI. I also sent
commands to a ISO15693 NFC wafers. All of these interfaces are extremely low level and the best documentation I have
is often just a PDF and some random code scattered across the internet. There is no library to speak of, usually.

Communicating at a low level like this requires reading and writing individual bytes of data into _frames_, or arrays
of bytes with a well-defined structure.

<center>
    <b>ISO15693 Write Single Block (Addressed)</b> <a href="http://www.ti.com/lit/an/sloa141/sloa141.pdf" style="color: #90bcff">source</a>
</center>

[![ISO15693 Write Single Block Diagram][iso15693-diagram]][iso15693-diagram-edn]

Traditionally, commands are built statically all at once in a mostly hardcoded manner:

```c
uint8_t offset = 0;
ui8TRFBuffer[offset++] = 0x61;
ui8TRFBuffer[offset++] = 0x21;
ui8TRFBuffer[offset++] = 0xA7;
ui8TRFBuffer[offset++] = 0x3E;
ui8TRFBuffer[offset++] = 0xFF;
ui8TRFBuffer[offset++] = 0x58;
// ... You get the idea
```

Instead, what if we could format this into a `struct` that we could pass around on the stack with a pointer?

```c
struct AddressedSingleBlockWrite {
    uint8_t Flag;
    uint8_t Command;
    uint8_t Address[8];
    uint8_t Block;
    uint8_t Data[4];
};

int main() {
    struct AddressedSingleBlockWrite command;
    command.Flag = 0x20 | 0x40;
    command.Command = 0x21;
    uint8_t address[8] = {0xA7, 0x3E, 0xFF, 0x58, 0x21, 0x32, 0x10, 0xFE};
    memcpy(&command.Address, &address, sizeof(command.Address));
    command.Block = 0x05;
    uint8_t data[4] = {0x11, 0x22, 0x33, 0x44};
    memcpy(&command.Data, &data, sizeof(command.Data));
}
```


Now we have a defined structure in our source code and we can move and manipulate various parts of our command
structures without having to deal with hardcoded offsets. Still though, if we want to copy this command structure into
the buffer, we have to individually copy each part of the command - which will break the second we modify its structure.

There's a fantastic solution for it: **Unions**.

```c
union ASBWUnion {
    uint8_t data[15];
    struct AddressedSingleBlockWrite marshalled;
};
```

```c
union ASBWUnion demarshalled;
demarshalled.marshalled = command;

for (int i = 0; i < 15; i++)
    printf("%x ", demarshalled.data[i]);
```

```sass
60 21 a7 3e ff 58 21 32 10 fe 5 11 22 33 44
```

`union`s are special datatypes that share a single memory footprint (equal to it's largest member) starting at the exact same point memory.
They combine neatly with `struct`s to allow us to represent the `AddressedSingleBlockWrite` as a single byte array.

<center>
<b>Note</b>: When implementing this, I do recommend that you create macro definitions for the length of the final command structure.
This will help greatly when it comes to refactoring or making adjustments to your command structure.
</center>

#### Reversing Endianness

If you check out TI's [sloa141][sloa141] PDF on ISO 15693 commands, you'll notice that many of the examples have
sections of their bytes reversed - sections like the _Address_ and _Data_ sections, but not the entire compiled command.

One such example, `60 21 9080C2E5D2C407E0 06 55443322`, has the _Flag_, _Command_,
_Address_, _Block_ and _Data_ in that order.
But for this particular example, how could the address be `E007C4D2E5C28090`?
How could the data be `22334455`? This odd ordering has a name - Endianness - the order of bytes as the underlying architecture understands it.

While for my particular usage, reversing endianness was not needed, it's an interesting problem that can  be solved 
quite easily with our new data structure.

```c
void ReverseEndianness(struct AddressedSingleBlockWrite asbw) {
    uint8_t temp;
    int i = 0;
    
    for (; i < 4; i++) {
        temp = command.Address[i];
        command.Address[i] = command.Address[8 - i - 1];
        command.Address[8 - i - 1] = temp;
    }
    
    for (i = 0; i < 2; i++) {
        uint8_t temp = command.Data[4 - i - 1];
        command.Data[4 - i - 1] = command.Data[i];
        command.Data[i] = temp;
    }
}
```

### Conclusion

Working in a restricted memory space is not that hard once you get used to the lack of normal functions such as `malloc`
and `printf`, but balancing performance, power consumption, memory allocation and code quality gets harder the more
complex your program gets.

[iso15693-diagram]: /img/iso15693_diagram.png
[iso15693-diagram-edn]: /iso15693_diagram.edn
[sloa141]: http://www.ti.com/lit/an/sloa141/sloa141.pdf