TABLE OF CONTENTS Learning to write code for the IXP2XXX microengines can be challenging, as learning to program on any new platform can be challenging. We ll take the typical approach to getting started by showing you a very simple IXP2XXX microengine program, similar in purpose to the Hello World programs written on other platforms. This chapter shows how a simple application is written using the IXP2XXX Workbench, an integrated development environment (IDE) for writing, building, and debugging microengine code.You could write microengine code without this IDE, using the command line tools alone, but the workbench is a great timesaving tool for developers. This chapter takes you through the process of installing the Workbench and the other tools needed to start writing code for the microengines. Then, we ll show you how to write a simple microengine program in microengine C and again in microengine assembly. Finally, we ll add some optimizations to the microengine assembly version to get some performance increases.
| IXP1200 Note | If you are familiar with our XP1200 Programming book, this chapter will look very similar to Chapter 3 from that book. The only material difference is the coverage of microengine assembly versions of the same Hello World. |
| Note | This chapter is not a complete reference for the syntax of microengine assembly or microengine C. The Intel IXP2400/IXP2800 Network Processor Programmer s Reference Manual (Intel PRM 2002) and Intel IXP2400/IXP2800 Network Processors Microengine C Compiler Language Support Reference Manual (Intel MCRM 2002), both in the References section of this book, are complete... |
