Using LEDs, LCDs and GLCDs in Microcontroller Projects

3.7 Using the mikroC Pro for PIC Simulator

mikroC Pro for PIC IDE includes a powerful and easy-to-use simulator that can be extremely useful during program development and testing. The simulator is a program and does not need any hardware for its operation. Using the simulator we can step through a program, observe and, if required, change the values of variables as the program is running, insert break-points in the program and run the program until the break-point is hit, and so on.

An example use of the simulator is given below, step by step, by considering the program developed in Example 3.12.

Step 1: Compile the program by making sure that the Build Type is set to Release and the Debugger is set to Software in the Project Settings window.

Step 2: From the drop-down menu select Run -> Start Debugger, or press the F9 function key. You will now see the simulator window on the right-hand side. A blue bar across the screen on the left-hand side points to the first executable statement in our program.

Step 3: Select the variables to be monitored using the simulator window. In this example, we wish to monitor the values of variable Squares and PORTC.

Click to open the list box Select variable from list: under Watch Values in the simulator window. Select variable Squares from the list box. Then click Add under Watch Values to add this variable to the monitor list. Repeat for the PORTC. You should now have the simulator window, as in Figure 3.30.

Step 4: We are now ready to single-step ...