System Setup

System resources have properties which we can configure. For example, an accelerometer has an acceleration range, a filter bandwidth and some power modes which we can change. If we wanted to use Bluetooth for communication we would have to set up the GATT characteristics, device name and advertising interval. If we wanted to connect to a WLAN network, we would have to configure the network name and a preshared key.

System Resource Instantiability

Some system resources (e.g. an HTTP client) can even be used multiple times, others can exist exactly once. If you try and set up a system resource multiple times, and the resource can only be setup once, the compiler will tell you. Let’s look at the three different types of instantiability that exist in XDK LIVE.

Multiple

Software system resources (e.g. application level protocol implementations - think HTTP or MQTT) can exist multiple times, thus you can instantiate them multiple times using the setup keyword. Let’s look at an HTTP client:

package main;
import platforms.xdk110;

setup sensorBackend : HttpRestClient {
    ...
}

setup controlService : HttpRestClient {
    ...
}

The HttpRestClient can exist multiple times. To identify the instance of the system resource we want to use, we have to name that instance (here, sensorBackend and controlService). We will see in a moment what would be inside the setup blocks.

Once

Other system resources can only be set up once, but we want to give them a name so that we can refer to them later on. Connectivity is a prime example:

package main;
import platforms.xdk110;

setup devnet : WLAN {
    ...
}

setup sensorBackend : HttpRestClient {
    transport = devnet;
}

Here we configure the WLAN connectivity, and use it for HTTP client. For that to work we had to name the WLAN (devnet in this case). However, if we were to add a second WLAN setup block (e.g. setup production : WLAN { } the compiler would produce an error, as there can be only one WLAN configuration (there is only one WLAN chip on the device).

None

Uninstantiable system resources are things built into the platform which we can only configure, but we cannot name them. A typical example would be sensors. They are described by the platform, they can be configured, but renaming them does not make sense. For example:

package main;
import platforms.xdk110;

setup accelerometer {
    
}

Configuration Items

System resources can have properties which change their behavior and generally configure how they work. In XDK LIVE those things are called configuration items. Configuration items are defined by the platform and are there for you, the developer, to fill in if you need to. For example, a light sensor needs some time to “collect light”, i.e. to measure the current light intensity. In XDK LIVE that time becomes configurable through a configuration item:

package main;
import platforms.xdk110;

setup light {
    integration_time = MS_12_5;
}

Signal Instances

XDK LIVE uses the concept of signals and signal instances to model input and output of the device. Each system resource defines which signals it has available, and what attributes those signals have. To learn which signals you can use, have a look at the platform reference or use auto-complete within the setup block.

package main;
import platforms.xdk110;

setup phone : BLE {
    var ping = bool_characteristic(UUID=0xCAFE);
}

The example above configures the Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) system resource available on the XDK. This system resource sports - amonst others - a bool_characteristic signal. We instantiate this signal and thereby create a BLE GATT characteristic with the UUID ending in 0xCAFE. So that we can reference this signal instance in our code, we give it the name ping.

In our code we can use the signal instances to read and write from them (which in the example would send a Bluetooth notification):

every 1 second {
    phone.ping.write(true);
}