Eclipse for native code debugging

When experimenting with extending Espruino using libs it is useful to have a proper debugging workflow for native code.

I don't have experience with high-end commercial IDEs but I found that Eclipse with GNU ARM Eclipse was usually good enough for ARM Cortex MCUs.

Does anyone use this kind of setup? If so, what advice can you share?

When debugging the Pico I connect to an STM32Discovery board and use that as a cheap/easy ST-Link. Connecting to the debug pads on the Pico is a bit fiddly though: http://www.espruino.com/AdvancedDebug

Getting that integrated into the IDE is something I found irritating and not really worth it (but that may have changed). If you just use the command-line GDB I've made a few macros (see .gdbinit) that make your life easier when debugging the interpreter.

I noticed that there are eclipse configuration files under targets/efm32/. They seem to do the job well and, when used with DEBUG=1, produce executables with proper debug info.

I am currently trying to replicate the setup for nRF chips since that is what I am using. My current attempts are falling short since I can't properly link source files to the executables and have to fall back to the eclipse disassembler.

Ideally, I would like to get to a point where I can hit a breakpoint anywhere in the Espruino C code (including generated files).

Ahh, you may be disappointed then. You can't debug nRF chips while bluetooth is enabled, because that enables a hardware watchdog which reboots the chip the second you hit the breakpoint.

There may be some solutions to that, but it'll definitely make your life a bit harder :)

Thank you for clarifying that: I bumped into that exact behaviour today. That said, stepping into the init routines seems to work fine. No luck debugging BLE advertising and services of course...

I am still trying to figure out how to get around the limitation because it would make adding new Bluetooth and NRF-related JS functions easier.
Eclipse is a heavy and complex beast but it is free and the ARM support keeps getting better. With a properly configured "debug perspective" you can get a lot done.