How do I generate a binary file of the stm32 code?

Question

I am building a firmware updater for an STM32 MCU. I have so far programmed bootloader software on the device, separate from the main application in FLASH.

What I need to do is generate a binary file which will be the replacement code for the main application in FLASH. This means I can transfer the file over UART and overwrite the main application. How do I go about producing such a file?

The code was programmed using the stm32CubeIDE which generates an .elf file after building. I will add a header to this binary code before transmitting over UART.

Thank you very much in advance for your help,

Harry

Answer 1

You will want to use the objcopy.exe that comes with your IDE. The following works with Atollic TrueStudio, the predecessor to STM32CubeIDE. This step is usually added as a post build step

arm-atollic-eabi-objcopy.exe -O ihex "${BuildArtifactFileBaseName}.elf" "${BuildArtifactFileBaseName}.hex"

For more info on objcopy: https://sourceware.org/binutils/docs/binutils/objcopy.html

Answer 2

In CubeIDE go to Project Settings -> "C/C++ Build" group -> Settings -> "Tool Settings" tab -> MCU Post build outputs -> "Convert to Intel Hex file" check box (If you do not see those options, you may need to restart the IDE - such a bug still exists)

This will make the IDE convert the output into HEX-file, which is easily parsable. You can find the format description in Wikipedia . You can parse it before sending to the bootloader.

Or, you can set the checkbox "Convert to binary file", which will make a raw binary file. But it may give some troubles if your code starts not from zero address.

Answer 3

对于 STM32CubeIDE 的内部构建器，这工作得很好（作为构建后步骤）：

arm-none-eabi-objcopy -O ihex ${ProjName}.elf ${ProjName}.hex