BL51: HOW DOES OVERLAY ANALYSIS WORK?

Information in this article applies to:

• C51 Version 5.50a
• C51 Version 6.10a

QUESTION

How does overlay analysis work in the C51 tools?

ANSWER

The C51 tools are designed to make optimal use of the limited memory resources of the 8051 microcontroller.

To provide the most efficient use of memory, automatic variables and function arguments are overlaid in memory according to a well-defined procedure.

First, the linker builds a call tree of your program. For example:

OVERLAY MAP OF MODULE:   SAMPLE (SAMPLE)

SEGMENT                          DATA_GROUP
  +--> CALLED SEGMENT          START    LENGTH
----------------------------------------------
?C_C51STARTUP                  -----    -----
  +--> ?PR?MAIN?SAMPLE

?PR?MAIN?SAMPLE                0009H    0001H
  +--> ?PR?GETCHAR?GETCHAR
  +--> ?PR?_TOUPPER?TOUPPER
  +--> ?PR?PUTCHAR?PUTCHAR

?PR?GETCHAR?GETCHAR            -----    -----
  +--> ?PR?_GETKEY?_GETKEY
  +--> ?PR?PUTCHAR?PUTCHAR

This table is built by analyzing the references within a function to program segments (?PR?) and constant code segments (?CO?).

In this example, you can see that ?C_C51STARTUP references (calls) the MAIN function. The MAIN function references (calls) GETCHAR, TOUPPER, and PUTCHAR. And GETCHAR references (calls) GETKEY and PUTCHAR.

By building a call tree, the linker can figure out which data segments for which functions are mutually exclusive and can overlay them.

For example, suppose that the MAIN C function calls function A, function B, and function C. Function A uses 10 bytes of automatic variables. Function B uses 20 bytes of automatic variables. And, function C uses 16 bytes of automatic variables. Assuming that functions A, B, and C do not call each other, the memory they use may be overlaid. So, rather than taking 46 bytes of data memory (10 for A + 20 for B + 16 for C) only 20 bytes of data memory are consumed.

The overlaid memory is called DATA_GROUP (for the DATA space variables that are overlaid), BIT_GROUP (for the BIT space variables that are overlaid), and XDATA_GROUP (for the XDATA space variables that are overlaid).

MORE INFORMATION

• Refer to OVERLAY in the LX51 User's Guide.
• Refer to Listing (MAP) File in the LX51 User's Guide.

SEE ALSO

• BL51: WHAT ARE _DATA_GROUP_ AND _BIT_GROUP_?
• BL51: WHAT IS THE _XDATA_GROUP?
• BL51: WARNING 15 (MULTIPLE CALL TO SEGMENT)
• C51: PROBLEMS WITH FUNCTION POINTERS OVERWRITING VARIABLES
• BL51: WARNING 11 (CANNOT FIND SEGMENT OR FUNCTION NAME)

FORUM THREADS

The following Discussion Forum threads may provide information related to this topic.

• Can you specify using the stack for local variable

Last Reviewed: Friday, July 15, 2005