Refactoring Tools

To do what?

Probably refactor source code, i.e. nothing to do with simulation/emulation of hardware or peripherials.

To do what?

Probably refactor source code, i.e. nothing to do with simulation/emulation of hardware or peripherials.

Yes, exactly I want to refactor the source code [preferably from within the IDE] by use of some tools.

As an example : some other IDEs (eg: Visual Studio 2003) support 3rd party plug-ins (eg: Visual AssistX) that you install and allow you to perform standard refactoring jobs such as enabling you to rename a variable and all of its references at the same time inside all your project files with a simple right-click on one of the references or instances.

[Currently the available way to do the above operation in Keil IDE is:
1-do a "Find in files..." to see all of the codes containing the specified name

2-Check one-by-one whether the name is of the same scope and type that you want to refactor

As you see this way is more error-prone and more time consuming than with a refactoring tool]

I am very interested to know if Keil IDE supports such plug-ins and if so, how can I obtain them [I really need such tools now].

Many thanks for your information

I'm still not entirely sure what you're trying to do, but it sounds to me like this is purely a source-code exercise?
If that is the case, then you don't really need the Keil tools at all, do you?

You could do this "refactoring" exercise in Visual Studio (or whatever) - you don't need the Keil tools until it comes to actually building the "refactored" project for the target, and simulating and/or debugging it...

You could take it a step further, and use VS as your IDE for the Keil compiler, linker, etc - instead of uVision...

Yes you are absolutely right, the total job is a source-code matter only. But as you know it would be great if after any refactoring I could instantly rebuild the project to ensure the changes were safely performed.(A refactoring tools embedded in Keil IDE would be ideal, however external refactoring tools will be still useful)

>> You could take it a step further, and use VS as your IDE for the Keil compiler, linker, etc - instead of uVision...

Wow, thanks for the suggestion, I didn't even think that is possible. It would be great if I could do the job this way [is there any instructions available on this?]

Many Thanks

"is there any instructions available on this?"

That would be in the Visual Studio documentaion, surely?

I am currently working on a project that uses MSVS with the GNU tools, so it is certainly possible...

Thanks, you helped me a lot.

Now this seems that calling my C51 compiler, linker and assembler from MSVS should be the solution to my problem. This way I will be able to use my Refactoring tools as before from within the MSVS IDE. [I hope my refactoring tools will support ANSI-C]

Thanks again.

Unless your refactoring tools relies on the browser database created when using the original M$ compiler to build the project.

It's not difficult to make your embedded code compilable with the MS (or any other) compiler - in fact, it's often beneficial to do so!

Of course, you're unlikely to get it to run meaningfully on a PC - but that's not the point.

See: www.8052.com/.../read.phtml