C51: Long Pointer Arithmetic

Information in this article applies to:

• C51 Version 7.00 and later
• CX51 Version 7.00 and later

QUESTION

Is it possible to use long pointer arithmetic with the far memory support in Cx51? I'm using a device has a extended XDATA address space. I know that a far object can only be up to 64KB in size and resides within a 64KB segment, but I need to generic pointer access to the whole memory for FLASH programming. Is this possible directly in C?

ANSWER

Yes. In C51 Version 7 we have introduced long pointer arithmetic on far variables for exactly this purpose. For example,

#include

bit verify (void)  {
  unsigned long addr;

  for (addr = 0; addr < 0x40000; addr++)  {
    if (FVAR (unsigned char, addr) != FCVAR (unsigned char, addr + 0x10000L))  {
      return (0);
    }
  }
}

This program compares the XDATA RAM starting at address 0 with the CODE ROM starting at address 0x10000. You may use similar functions to check that the FLASH was programmed correctly.

MORE INFORMATION

• Refer to Absolute Memory Locations in the Cx51 User's Guide.

SEE ALSO

• CX51: Using 24-bit Math With Far Pointers

Last Reviewed: Thursday, February 25, 2021