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Eclipse TCF (Target Communication Framework)

TCF is a lightweight, extensible network protocol for driving embedded systems (targets).

On top of the protocol, TCF provides a complete modern debugger for C/C++ and Ada, as well as the "Target Explorer" for system management. TCF works out of the box for Intel, PPC and ARM Linux targets including the Raspberry Pi. It supports Proxying and Tunneling for IoT devices, and is particularly strong for multi-process debugging even with slow communication links.

TCF Target Explorer on Raspberry Pi

The TCF Framework makes it very easy to build your own tools using the components provided:

  • The lightweight agent under EDL / BSD license is written in C, and very easy to port or embed in custom OS's or "bare metal"" hardware debuggers and simulators.
  • DWARF reader and Symbol Services are written in C and can be used independent of the debugger.
  • TCF Language Bindings for C, Java, Python and Lua allow driving your tools from scripts.

See the TCF Wiki for details.

News

Jun 24, 2015: TCF 1.3 is released with Eclipse Mars

TCF Terminals

April 25, 2014 -TCF Terminals has been restructured and is now on the Marketplace.

TCF Debug supports ARM

March 25, 2013 -Initial ARM debugging support has been added to TCF. Look at the Raspberry Pi HOWTO.

TCF Testimonials

By replacing a gdb based debugger with TCF, Xilinx has increased the performance of basic debugger commands up to 50 times, while providing a much more stable product.
The modular and asynchronous approach of TCF is so compelling that we are moving over our JTAG tools to use the same framework.

— Tomas Evensen, Chief Scientist Embedded Software, Xilinx

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