Re: [ECOS] eCos API

["Lewin A.R.W. Edwards" <larwe at larwe dot com>]

>      Hi, many RTOS e.g. WinCE, Paml, etc. allow user to use it's API to
>develop applications and download it to it's system. Now I want to support

eCos does not support user-installable applications. It is a monolithic, 
statically-linked OS+application.

There are various proprietary ways to solve this, depending on your needs. 
For instance, we have developed a _very_ simple executable file format for 
our platform to allow third parties to develop "plugins" for the OS. 
However these plugins have no access to the eCos APIs and in fact the same 
plugin API is implemented both on the eCos and non-eCos products. We have a 
jump table at a known location in ROM, and a few system variables at known 
locations in RAM, and that's how "plugins" access APIs (filesystem stuff 
mostly) in our application. It is all very modal - our application runs 
entirely in a single thread, and when a "plugin" is executed, control of 
the system is surrendered entirely to that plugin - i.e. the application 
jumps into the plugin.

=== Lewin A.R.W. Edwards (Embedded Engineer)
Work: http://www.digi-frame.com/
Personal: http://www.zws.com/ and http://www.larwe.com/

"... a man who is endowed with real qualities of leadership will be tempted 
to refrain from taking part in political life; because [...] the situation 
does not call for a man who has a capacity for constructive statesmanship 
but rather for a man who is capable of bargaining for the favour of the 
majority. Thus the situation will appeal to small minds and will attract 
them accordingly."