{"id":4086,"date":"2018-07-18T14:14:48","date_gmt":"2018-07-18T21:14:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/visualgdb.com\/w\/?p=4086"},"modified":"2025-09-09T19:29:28","modified_gmt":"2025-09-10T02:29:28","slug":"using-esp32-application-trace-with-visualgdb","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/visualgdb.com\/tutorials\/esp32\/apptrace\/","title":{"rendered":"Using ESP32 Application Trace with VisualGDB"},"content":{"rendered":"

This tutorial shows how to use the ESP-IDF Application Trace feature (apptrace) to route the\u00a0debug output from your program into Visual Studio.\u00a0In this\u00a0tutorial we will create a basic “Blinking LED” project, extend it\u00a0to produce debug output and show how to view this output with VisualGDB. Before you begin, install VisualGDB 5.4 Preview 3 or later.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Start Visual Studio and open the VisualGDB ESP-IDF Project Wizard:\"01-project\"<\/a><\/li>\n
  2. Proceed with the default “Create a new project based on a sample project” setting:\"02-newproject\"<\/a><\/li>\n
  3. On the next page select your ESP32 toolchain and the ESP-IDF checkout:
    \n    \"03-toolchain\"<\/a>Update:<\/strong> For better compatibility with the latest ESP32 tools, we recommend selecting the consolidated toolchain<\/a> instead.<\/li>\n
  4. Then select a sample you would like to\u00a0use to create your project.\u00a0In this tutorial we will use the simplest “blink” sample:
    \n    \"04-blink\"<\/a><\/li>\n
  5. Connect your\u00a0debug adapter to\u00a0the board and plug it into the USB port. VisualGDB will automatically detect it and pick the correct OpenOCD settings. Click “Test” to verify the connection:\"05-devkit\"<\/a><\/li>\n
  6. Press “Finish” to create the project. Initially\u00a0the IntelliSense will show several errors due to missing sdkconfig and other files. Build the project to generate all\u00a0necessary files and resolve IntelliSense errors:\"06-created\"<\/a><\/li>\n
  7. Now we will demonstrate how to modify the project to produce debug output. First, include the <esp_app_trace.h> and <string.h> files. Then modify the main program loop to have a counter and add the following code inside\u00a0it:\n
     char buffer[128];\r\n sprintf(buffer, \"Iteration %d\\n\", i);\r\n esp_apptrace_write(ESP_APPTRACE_DEST_TRAX, buffer, strlen(buffer), ESP_APPTRACE_TMO_INFINITE);\r\n esp_apptrace_flush(ESP_APPTRACE_DEST_TRAX, ESP_APPTRACE_TMO_INFINITE);<\/pre>\n
    Note that\u00a0unless you\u00a0explicitly call esp_apptrace_flush() after\u00a0writing the debug output, it won’t be immediately sent to VisualGDB.<\/li>\n
  8. If you\u00a0try building the project now, it\u00a0will fail due to missing implementations of the esp_apptrace_write()<\/strong> function:\"07-missing\"<\/a><\/li>\n
  9. In order to fix this, open VisualGDB Project Properties and set the “Data Destination<\/strong>” under “ESP-IDF Project -> ESP-IDF Configuration -> Component Config -> Application Level Tracing<\/strong>” to “Trace memory<\/strong>” (ESP-IDF 4.x) or “Data Destination 1<\/strong>” to “JTAG<\/strong>” (ESP-IDF 5.x) :
    \n    \"08-tracemem\"<\/a>
    \n<\/a>This will enable the apptrace mechanism – any data\u00a0stored via esp_apptrace_write()<\/strong> function will be placed into a special trace buffer that could be read by VisualGDB without stopping your program.<\/li>\n
  10. In order to view the debug output in VisualGDB, enable it via Embedded Debug Tweaking ->\u00a0ESP32 Application Trace -> Semihosting Console Support:
    \n    \"09-semihost\"<\/a><\/li>\n
  11. Now you can build and start debugging your project. The output sent via the esp_apptrace_write()<\/strong> function will appear in the Debug->Windows->VisualGDB Output->ESP32 Semihosting <\/strong>window inside Visual Studio:\"\"<\/a>
    \n<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
    This tutorial shows how to use the ESP-IDF Application Trace feature (apptrace) to route the\u00a0debug output from your program into<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[142],"tags":[138,168],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/visualgdb.com\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4086"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/visualgdb.com\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/visualgdb.com\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/visualgdb.com\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/visualgdb.com\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4086"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/visualgdb.com\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4086\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9044,"href":"https:\/\/visualgdb.com\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4086\/revisions\/9044"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/visualgdb.com\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4086"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/visualgdb.com\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4086"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/visualgdb.com\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4086"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}