How can I determine the code changes in an Atmel ASF update?

Question

Atmel's ASF (Atmel Software Framework) is periodically updated by Atmel. When an update is available, Atmel Studio notifies you and asks if you want to download the update. If I install the update, this does not update any code in my existing projects.

I want to determine what code changes have been made in the new ASF compared to what I previously used in a project. And ideally I'd like to be able to cherry-pick the changes that I want to incorporate (and exclude those I don't).

The only way I know to do this now is to create new project with the updated ASF (using the ASF Wizard to add all the drivers I used previously) and manually diff the files against my existing project. Then manually copy/paste from the files I want to include.

I thought I heard that Atmel uses an internal git repository for their ASF. Is there a way to get at this directly and view the changes? Or is there a better way?

It would also be nice to view the changes before installing the ASF update.

Answer 1

I think what you're looking for is the ASF Conversion Wizard. According to the linked page, this wizard is supposed to be launched whenever the ASF version changes. If is not launching for you, you can open the ASF Wizard in your existing project, and under the Version tab, you can change the ASF version for your current project. Make sure the "Trigger upgrade of modules" box is checked:

Image is from ASF Wizard documentation.

For viewing changes before you upgrade the ASF version, I think the release notes for a given ASF release are your only resource. They're admittedly not very complete, but I can't find any other documentation about them.

I don't know of any way to cherry-pick different sections of an ASF release. I don't think this is a great idea anyway, unless you're willing to wade through a lot of dependencies. Not all components of the ASF are direct windows between your software and the hardware; some of it is middleware that other components of the same ASF release may rely on. By picking and choosing which aspects of the ASF to update, you risks losing APIs, structure definitions, and other code that you may need in a non-obvious way.

Last note: the only ASF git repository I can find is here: https://spaces.atmel.com/gf/project/asf/scmgit/. Unfortunately, it doesn't appear to have been updated since 2012. I can't find any more up-to-date repositories.