This was originally used for non-event based REPL processing. Then it
was unused when event-based processing was activated. But now that event
based is disabled, and non-event based is back, there has been new ring
buffer code to process the chars.
Event-driven loop (push-style) is still supported and default (controlled
by MICROPY_REPL_EVENT_DRIVEN setting, as expected).
Dedicated loop worked even without adding ets_loop_iter(), though that
needs to be revisited later.
Before this change, if REPL blocked executing some code, it was possible
to still input new statememts and excuting them, all leading to weird,
and portentially dangerous interaction.
TODO: Current implementation may have issues processing input accumulated
while REPL was blocked.
But now it's generic ring buffer implemented via ringbuf.h, and is intended
for any type of input, including dupterm's, not just UART. The general
process work like this: an interrupt-driven input source puts data into
input_buf, and then signals new data available via call to
mp_hal_signal_input().
Pasting more or less sizable text into ESP8266 REPL leads to random chars
missing in the received input. Apparent cause is that using RTOS messages
to pass individual chars one by one is to slow and leads to UART FIFO
overflow. So, instead of passing chars one by one, use RTOS msg to signal
that input data is available in FIFO, and then let task handler to read
data directly from FIFO.
With this change, lost chars problem is gone, but the pasted text is
truncated after some position. At least 500 chars can be pasted reliably
(at 115200 baud), but 1K never pastes completely.
esp8266 port now has working raw and friendly REPL, as well as working
soft reset (CTRL-D at REPL, or raise SystemExit).
tools/pyboard.py now works with esp8266 port.
This enables proper interfacing with underlying OS - MicroPython doesn't
run the main loop, OS does, MicroPython just gets called when some event
takes place.
Paul Sokolovsky