p2bin(1)p2bin(1)NAMEp2bin - convert code files into hex files
SYNTAXp2bin [ option(s) ] <name(s)> [ further options/names ]
DESCRIPTION
P2BIN is a tool to convert the contents of one or several code files
generated by AS into binary files. A binary file is a 1:1 memory image
of the processor's memory and is especially suited for EPROM program‐
mers and emulators.
Arguments to P2BIN may be either command line parameters or file name
specifications. Any argument that starts with the charactes +, - or /
is regarded as a comand line parameter (which may take an additional
command line argument); any other argument is regarded as a file name.
Generally, P2BIN needs at least two file names: An input code file and
the name of the binary output file. If multiple file names are given,
P2BIN will always take the last name as the output file's name. If an
input file name does not have an extension, the extension '.p' is added
automatically. Similarly, the extension '.bin' is added automatically
to the target file's name. A special case occurs when only one file
name is given: P2BIN will then take its name as the source (possibly
extended with '.p'), and the same name as target (with '.bin' as addi‐
tional or replaced extension).
COMMAND-LINE PARAMETERS
If a command-line parameter starts with a slash(/) or minus sign(-), it
turns an option on; if a command-line parameter starts with a plus
sign(+), it turns a specific option off. Numeric arguments to parame‐
ters can be either written in decimal or hexadecimal notation. For
hexadecimal notation, prefix the number with a dollar($) sign. In the
following list, all options will be shown in the form that is needed to
change the default behaviour, which might be a plus or minus sign,
depening on wether the option is on or off by default.
p2bin accepts the following command-line parameters:
-f <number>[,<further numbers>]
Add <number> to the list of record header IDs that allow a
record from a source file to be written to the target file. A
certain header ID marks code for a certain target processor fam‐
ily; thus, this filter allows to distill code for a certain pro‐
cessor out of a source file that contains code for different
processor families. Negation of this parameter removes certain
header IDs from P2BIN's list. See the user manual of AS for a
list of all possible header ID values. If P2BIN's list of
header IDs is empty, no filtering will take place, i.e. all
records from a source file will make it into the target file.
-l <number>
Set the value that should be used to fill memory areas in the
binary image that are unused by the input code file(s). The
default for this is to fill unused areas with the value 255
(0xff), which is the best choice for EPROMs as erased EPROM
cells carry this value and an intelligent EPROM burner can skip
these cells, speeding up the programming process and reducing
stress for the EPROM. However, there are specialized EPROMs
that have zeros in their cells after erasure, and you might want
to fill unused areas with a code that executes as a NOP or BREAK
statement.
-m <all|even|odd|byte<0|1|2|3>|word<0|1>>
Set the mask of bytes to be filtered out. If your target pro‐
cessor has a 16- or 32-bit data path, but your EPROMs are only
8- or 16-bits wide, the code has to be spread over the EPROMs in
an alternating fashion. This option allows you to do the nece‐
sary splitting, however you have to run P2BIN two or four times
with different masks. The possible arguments have the following
meanings:
all does not do any filtering, i.e. all bytes of your code will
show up in the resulting image. This is the default.
even or odd will take only those bytes whose addresses are in
the form 2*n or 2*n+1. They are useful if you have a 16-bit
data path and two 8-bit EPROMs.
byte0, byte1, byte2 or byte3 will take only those bytes whose
addresses are in the form 4*n ... 4*n+3. They are useful if you
have a 32-bit data path and four 8-bit EPROMs.
word0 or word1 will take only those bytes whose addresses are in
the form 4*n+0 / 4*n+1 or 4*n+2 / 4*n+3. They are useful if you
have a 32-bit data path and two 16-bit EPROMs.
When using one of these filters, the resulting images will auto‐
matically become smaller by a factor of 2 or 4. Beware that
this does not influence address specifications given with the -r
command-line parameter! See also the examples section below for
correct usage.
-r < <start>-<stop> >
Set a certain address range to be filtered out of the input
file(s). Code that lies outside this range does not appear in
the output file. The default for the address filter is the
0-$7fff, which might create confusion in some cases. As a spe‐
cial option, <start> and <stop> may consist of just a single
dollar sign (escape this in UNIX shells!) to signify the lowest
resp. highest address that occurs in the input file(s). Using
this option will implicitly enable a second pass over all input
files to find the minimum and maximum values before conversion
starts, reducing the speed of P2BIN slightly.
-e <address>
Set an entry address or modify an existing one. P2BIN can
optionally prepend the start address to the binary image to tell
a program loader where to jump after the image has been loaded
(see the '-S' option). Normally, this address is generated by
AS if the program's END statement has a label as argument, but
this options allows to change the entry point or add one if it
was forgotten in the program itself.
-S [L|B]<n>
Instruct P2BIN to prepend the program entry address to the
image. 'n' is the length in bytes the address should have and
has an allowed range from 1 to 4. The number may be prefixed by
a 'L' or 'B' letter that sets the endianess of the address. If
no letter is used, little endian is assumed.
-s
Tell P2BIN to include a checksum into the image. A checksum is
a byte value entered into the image's last byte that is the
two's complement of the sum of all previous bytes. Therefore,
the sum of all bytes modulus 256 will become zero. This option
is useful if you want to check the ROM contents in your program
as part of a power-on self-test, but keep in mind that you must
not use the last byte for your own purposes any more!
-k
Instruct P2BIN to erase the program source files after conver‐
sion.
PRESETTING PARAMETERS
Parameters need not neccessarily be given in the command line itself.
Before processing of command line parameters starts, P2BIN will look if
the P2BINCMD environment variable is defined. If it exists, its con‐
tents will be treated as additional command line paramters whose syntax
is absolutely equal to normal command line parameters. As exception is
made if the variable's contents start with a '@' sign; in such a case,
the string after the '@' sign is treated as the name of a file that
contains the options. Such a file (also called a 'key file') has the
advantage that it allows the options to be written in different lines,
and it does not have a size limit. Some operating systems (like MS-
DOS) do have a length limit on command lines and environment variable
contents, so the key file may be your only option if you have a lot of
lengthy parameters for P2BIN.
RETURN CODESp2bin may return with the following codes:
0 no errors.
1 incorrect command line parameters.
2 I/O-error.
3 An input file had an incorrect format.
EXAMPLES
To convert a file file1.p fully into its binary representation, use
p2bin-r \$-\$ file1
If you have a processor with a 64 KByte address space and a 16-bit data
path and you want to assure that the memory image always starts at
address 0, regardless of address layout in the code file, use
p2bin-r 0-\$ffff -m even file1 evenfile
p2bin-r 0-\$ffff -m odd file1 oddfile
to get images for two 27256 EPROMs.
NATIONAL LANGUAGE SUPPORTp2bin supports national languages in the same way as AS. See the man‐
ual page for asl(1) for maore information about this.
TIPS
Calling P2BIN without any arguments will print a short help listing all
command line parameters.
SEE ALSOasl(1), plist(1), pbind(1), p2hex(1)HISTORY
P2BIN originally appeared as an AS tool in 1992, written in Borland-
Pascal, and was ported to C and UNIX in 1996.
BUGS
Command line interpreters of some operating systems reserve some char‐
acters for their own use, so it might be necessary to give command line
parameters with certain tricks (e.g., with the help of escape charac‐
ters).
P2BIN does not have so far an opportunity to filter records by target
segment. Instead, records that contain data for any other segment than
CODE are completely ignored.
AUTHOR(S)
Alfred Arnold (a.arnold@kfa-juelich.de)
p2bin(1)
