S32CT Peripherals - Author .mex (from scratch)

Board-level driver <instance> authoring for the Peripherals tool of S32 Configuration Tools. Composes driver blocks (Spi / Uart / Can / Lin / Adc / Pwm / Wdg / ...) with per-controller configuration containers on top of a Pins-populated .mex. Encodes the trap that toolsc.exe exits 0 on 25 real validation errors.

When to use

• Use for: composing a Peripherals-tool block on top of a Pins-populated .mex; authoring drivers where no RTD example ships on disk; fine-grained per-setting control; recovering from a suspicious "validation passed" report from a lower-level wrapper.
• Do not use this skill for: drivers where an RTD example is available - prefer the faster sibling s32ct-peripherals-graft-mex (3-6 rounds instead of 25+); Pins / Clocks / DCD / IVT / eFUSE / GTM / QuadSPI / FFC tools (each has its own skill); generating driver C sources (use s32ct-generate-code after validation is clean); application-level containers (SpiChannel/Job/Sequence, CanHwFilter masks, AdcGroupDefinition) - project-specific; see s32ct-peripherals-info.

Available Capabilities

Capability	Notes
5-source authoring	Compose <instance> blocks from .component schema, resource tables, <quick_selection> defaults, RTD example .mex, and the target .mex. See references/authoring-procedure.md.
Per-driver programmatic emitters	scripts/build_peripherals.py - reference emitter for the six standard drivers with CommonPublishedInformation and correct enum casing.
Splice into target .mex	scripts/splice_peripherals.py - replaces any prior peripherals block.
Structural diagnostics	scripts/dump_resources.py, scripts/inspect_required.py, scripts/compare_children.py, scripts/find_bad_names.py.
Honest validation gate	scripts/check_problems.bat (Windows) / scripts/check_problems.sh (Linux/macOS) - runs the launcher with -Load ... -HeadlessTool Peripherals -Enable -ShowProblems, captures stderr to a file for the noise filter to consume.
Optional code generation	Run s32ct-generate-code Peripherals ExportSrc after validation is clean; verify each named controller appears in its .ecvd.

Quickstart

1. Confirm the .mex already has the Pins entries for the peripherals to configure (use s32ct-pins-author-mex first if not).
2. Resolve MCU / package / platform-SDK / RTD version; auto-discovery is available at MCP startup. See s32ct-distributions.
3. Follow the 7-step recipe:
   1. Inventory routed peripherals from the existing Pins entries.
   2. Per driver: look up schema (.component), enums (resource_tables/[RTD/]<Driver>.xml), defaults (<quick_selection>), shape (RTD example .mex).
   3. Programmatically emit one <instance> per driver into peripherals_block.xml (use scripts/build_peripherals.py as the template).
   4. Splice into the target .mex (scripts/splice_peripherals.py).
   5. Validate - stage the .mex, then run scripts/check_problems.bat <mex> Peripherals (Windows) or sh scripts/check_problems.sh <mex> Peripherals (Linux/macOS), and filter the noise.
   6. Iterate until the filtered stderr is empty (3-5 rounds is typical the first time).
   7. Optional: run s32ct-generate-code Peripherals ExportSrc.
4. Emit the Markdown report: driver instance table, validation result, code-generation result, known caveats. Full input/output schema and verification-scope caveats in references/authoring-procedure.md.

Full driver-specific edits (XML shapes, ModuleIds, enum casings, the 10 critical pitfalls) live in references/per-driver-reference.md. Read that file before writing the first <setting> for any driver you have not previously hand-authored.

Configuration

Placeholders resolved from the active MCP install:

• <MCU> - e.g. S32K312, S32G274A, S32M276.
• <PACKAGE> - e.g. S32K312_172HDQFP, S32G2_BGA257.
• <PLATFORM_SDK> - e.g. PlatformSDK_S32K3, PlatformSDK_S32G2.
• <RTD_VERSION> - e.g. TS_T40D34M70I1R0, TS_T40D11M40I0R0.
• <S32DS_INSTALL> / <S32CT_INSTALL> - auto-discovered by the MCP at startup (both desktop and integrated_s32ds distributions supported). See s32ct-distributions.

Data reachable on disk:

• <S32DS_INSTALL>/eclipse/mcu_data/components/<PLATFORM_SDK>/<driver_folder>/<driver_folder>.component
• <S32DS_INSTALL>/eclipse/mcu_data/processors/<MCU>/<PLATFORM_SDK>/<PACKAGE>/resource_tables/[RTD/]<Driver>.xml
• <S32DS_INSTALL>/S32DS/software/<PLATFORM_SDK>/RTD/<Driver>_<RTD_VERSION>/examples/S32DS/<MCU_FAMILY>/<Example>/<Example>.mex

Guardrails

• Scope. Read-only: signal_configuration.xml, .component files, resource_tables/*.xml, RTD example .mex, the <MCU>_default.mex template. Read-write: the user's .mex and any output folders named by the user. No network, no telemetry, no hardware, no registers.
• Destructive actions. Splice replaces any prior peripherals block in the target .mex - the user should have chosen an output_path deliberately. Freshly generate a UUID v4 for every new <instance>; the example's UUID collides otherwise.
• Refuse and escalate. If the requested driver has a shipped RTD example, prefer s32ct-peripherals-graft-mex and stop. If the Pins-tool entries are missing, hand off to s32ct-pins-author-mex first. Never report "validated" without having parsed the filtered stderr; the exit code lies.

Validation loop

-ShowProblems returns exit_code = 0 even when the Problems View contains 25 errors. The MCP wrapper's stderr_tail field is also truncated at ~3 KB. Trust the captured text, not the exit code, and not stderr_tail.

1. Windows only: copy the .mex to a no-space path. cmd's redirection parser fails on paths containing spaces inside quoted exe paths. POSIX shells quote correctly, so check_problems.sh accepts any path and stages under $PROBE_DIR (default ${TMPDIR:-/tmp}/s32ct_probe_out).

2. Run the launcher with explicit stderr capture via scripts/check_problems.bat (Windows) or scripts/check_problems.sh (Linux/macOS). See either script for the canonical invocation; both take the same arguments and write the same capture files. <LAUNCHER> is toolsc[.exe] on desktop and s32dsc[.exe] on integrated_s32ds - see s32ct-distributions.

3. Filter framework noise. A catalog of the ~7 SEVERE lines that appear on any clean project (Cannot get container for IPath ..., SerDes Config Tool script warning, derefAsr TypeErrors, Siul2_Port InfoSetting messages, Port_GetNumOfPinConfig / getTotalNumOfChans / getTotalNumOfGroups getChildren/ getChildById errors) lives in references/error-decision-tree.md. Drop those before interpreting the output.

4. Pass criterion. After filtering, the remaining SEVERE: [TOOL] and SEVERE: [Generation lines must be empty. Real problems look like:

   SEVERE: [TOOL] The resource "Can_43_FLEXCAN" from functional group
   "BOARD_InitPeripherals" has the following error: <human-readable text>.
   

5. Never report "validated" without executing step 4. When a real line survives, pattern-match against references/error-decision-tree.md before changing anything else.

Out of scope

• Pins, Clocks, DCD, IVT, eFUSE, GTM, QuadSPI, FFC tool authoring.
• Application-level containers (SpiChannel/Job/Sequence, CanHardwareObject filters, UartDma refs, LinClockRef alternates, AdcGroupDefinition cross-refs) - see s32ct-peripherals-info.
• Driver C-source generation - s32ct-generate-code Peripherals ExportSrc.
• Adding McuClockReferencePoint_* entries so LinClockRef/CanCpuClockRef refs resolve at runtime - hand off to s32ct-clocks-info.
• Using the MCP s32ct-peripherals-facade wrapper for -ShowProblems (its stderr_tail is truncated and hides errors).

See Also

• references/per-driver-reference.md - verified XML shapes for Spi, Uart, Can_43_FLEXCAN, Lin_43_LPUART_FLEXIO, Adc, Pwm; surprise enum strings; ModuleIds; the 10 critical pitfalls.
• references/error-decision-tree.md - SEVERE: [TOOL] / SEVERE: [Generation patterns mapped to fixes, plus the framework-noise catalog (Appendix) listing the ~7 SEVERE lines that appear on any clean project and must be filtered before interpreting output.
• references/authoring-procedure.md - the 5-source rule, 7-step recipe, inputs, outputs, verification scope, safety classification.
• s32ct-peripherals-graft-mex - faster sibling when an RTD example exists; prefer it whenever available.
• s32ct-peripherals-info - application-level container authoring.
• s32ct-pins-author-mex, s32ct-pins-info - Pins-tool skills.
• s32ct-clocks-info - clock reference points.
• s32ct-generate-mex-config - generic clone-and-patch operator.
• s32ct-generate-code - code generation after green validation.
• s32ct-cli - generic CLI wrapper.
• s32ct-distributions - launcher and prefix selection.