Compiling FreeRTOS With C++

This page contains helpful advice for people wanting to use FreeRTOS on a C++ application designed for a embedded system (e.g. a microcontroller).

General Compatibility

In general, FreeRTOS can work within/alongside a C++ embedded application. All of the FreeRTOS headers are wrapped in extern "C" { } blocks to ensure correct linkage in a C++ application.

Because of this, is usually doesn’t take much to get FreeRTOS working with C++ code. That said, you have to make sure your tool chain supports C++ compilation (most compilers for ARM microcontrollers do, e.g g++ can be used instead of gcc).

Task Functions

Traditionally, the task function needs to be a function with C linkage, and takes 1 void * parameter (for the pvParameters variable). Unfortunately, this means you cannot use a C++ member function (a.k.a method, a function which belongs to a class and is not static).

There are a few ways to solve this problem:

1. Define the task function as static, or put the function outside of a class altogether (so it is just like a regular C function).
2. Pass in the object as part of the pvParameters variable, and then create a wrapper function which casts this variable back into a function pointer.

Wrapping FreeRTOS Primitives

FreeRTOS primitives, such as mutexes, semaphores, queues, delays e.t.c can be called directly from C++ code. However, you may decide that more OO-friendly primitives are required.

This can be done by wrapping the FreeRTOS primitives in a object-orientated C++ layer. For instance, you could create a C++ mutex class which then calls the FreeRTOS APIs.

Alternatives

A alternative to modifying/wrapping FreeRTOS for a C++ environment is to use a RTOS which is explicitly designed for C++. distortos is one such promising example. As of Dec 2016, it is not as well supported as FreeRTOS, but has active development.