# Tips & tricks

## Generics

Resources shared between two or more tasks implement the `Mutex` trait in *all*
contexts, even on those where a critical section is not required to access the
data. This lets you easily write generic code that operates on resources and can
be called from different tasks. Here's one such example:

``` rust
{{#include ../../../../examples/generics.rs}}
```

``` console
$ cargo run --example generics
{{#include ../../../../ci/expected/generics.run}}```

This also lets you change the static priorities of tasks without having to
rewrite code. If you consistently use `lock`s to access the data behind shared
resources then your code will continue to compile when you change the priority
of tasks.

## Conditional compilation

You can use conditional compilation (`#[cfg]`) on resources (`static [mut]`
items) and tasks (`fn` items). The effect of using `#[cfg]` attributes is that
the resource / task will *not* be available through the corresponding `Context`
`struct` if the condition doesn't hold.

The example below logs a message whenever the `foo` task is spawned, but only if
the program has been compiled using the `dev` profile.

``` rust
{{#include ../../../../examples/cfg.rs}}
```

## Running tasks from RAM

The main goal of moving the specification of RTFM applications to attributes in
RTFM v0.4.0 was to allow inter-operation with other attributes. For example, the
`link_section` attribute can be applied to tasks to place them in RAM; this can
improve performance in some cases.

> **IMPORTANT**: In general, the `link_section`, `export_name` and `no_mangle`
> attributes are very powerful but also easy to misuse. Incorrectly using any of
> these attributes can cause undefined behavior; you should always prefer to use
> safe, higher level attributes around them like `cortex-m-rt`'s `interrupt` and
> `exception` attributes.
>
> In the particular case of RAM functions there's no
> safe abstraction for it in `cortex-m-rt` v0.6.5 but there's an [RFC] for
> adding a `ramfunc` attribute in a future release.

[RFC]: https://github.com/rust-embedded/cortex-m-rt/pull/100

The example below shows how to place the higher priority task, `bar`, in RAM.

``` rust
{{#include ../../../../examples/ramfunc.rs}}
```

Running this program produces the expected output.

``` console
$ cargo run --example ramfunc
{{#include ../../../../ci/expected/ramfunc.run}}```

One can look at the output of `cargo-nm` to confirm that `bar` ended in RAM
(`0x2000_0000`), whereas `foo` ended in Flash (`0x0000_0000`).

``` console
$ cargo nm --example ramfunc --release | grep ' foo::'
{{#include ../../../../ci/expected/ramfunc.grep.foo}}```

``` console
$ cargo nm --example ramfunc --release | grep ' bar::'
{{#include ../../../../ci/expected/ramfunc.grep.bar}}```

## `binds`

You can give hardware tasks more task-like names using the `binds` argument: you
name the function as you wish and specify the name of the interrupt / exception
in the `binds` argument. Types like `Spawn` will be placed in a module named
after the function, not the interrupt / exception. Example below:

``` rust
{{#include ../../../../examples/binds.rs}}
```
``` console
$ cargo run --example binds
{{#include ../../../../ci/expected/binds.run}}```

## Indirection for faster message passing

Message passing always involves copying the payload from the sender into a
static variable and then from the static variable into the receiver. Thus
sending a large buffer, like a `[u8; 128]`, as a message involves two expensive
`memcpy`s. To minimize the message passing overhead one can use indirection:
instead of sending the buffer by value, one can send an owning pointer into the
buffer.

One can use a global allocator to achieve indirection (`alloc::Box`,
`alloc::Rc`, etc.), which requires using the nightly channel as of Rust v1.34.0,
or one can use a statically allocated memory pool like [`heapless::Pool`].

[`heapless::Pool`]: https://docs.rs/heapless/0.4.3/heapless/pool/index.html

Here's an example where `heapless::Pool` is used to "box" buffers of 128 bytes.

``` rust
{{#include ../../../../examples/pool.rs}}
```
``` console
$ cargo run --example binds
{{#include ../../../../ci/expected/pool.run}}```