Upgrade guide

Newer BlocksDS versions occasionally introduce breaking changes which require developer action, as well as non-breaking changes which developers are encouraged to implement. These are documented here.

Please refer to the changelog for a full list of changes, including additions and enhancements to the SDK which are not listed here.

Upgrading to BlocksDS 1.2.0

The SOUND_FREQ (ARM7) and TIMER_FREQ macros have been reworked to provide the nearest frequency to the one requested by the user, rounded. This changes their returned values in some cases; you may want to validate your uses of these macros.
In gl2d.h, glLoadSpriteSet now expects an array of uint16_t integers for texture coordinates, rather than 32-bit unsigned ints. This has been done to reduce memory waste, as the coordinates always fit in a 16-bit integer.

Upgrading to BlocksDS 1.0.0

In nds/bios.h, the PUnpackStruct alias for TUnpackStruct* has been deprecated.
In nds/ndstypes.h, the fp function pointer type has been deprecated.

Upgrading to BlocksDS 0.14.0

The nds/arm9/grf.h GRF file loading functions introduced in BlocksDS 0.13.0 have been replaced.
The libxm7 library now uses timer 0, matching maxmod.

Upgrading to BlocksDS 0.13.0

Users are encouraged to use the new function isHwDebugger() over swiIsDebugger() to more accurately detect debug units.
The GRF format used by Grit has been adjusted to properly follow the RIFF standard. As such, if your project relies on pre-generated GRF files, they may need to be regenerated.
The Slot-2 tilt API introduced in BlocksDS 0.11.0 has been replaced.

libnds touch screen and keyboard handling

scanKeys() updates the internal state of the key handling code. This is then used by keysHeld() and keysDown().

However, BlocksDS also requires the user to call scanKeys() before any of the following functions: touchRead(), keyboardGetChar(), keyboardUpdate() and the deprecated touchReadXY().

This is unlikely to be a problem in most projects, as the normal thing to do is to both scan the keys and read the touchscreen status, not just read the touchscreen.

The reason is that the functions scanKeys() and touchRead() aren’t synchronized in any way, which creates a race condition. Consider this code:

while (1)
{
    scanKeys();
    if (keysHeld() & KEY_TOUCH)
    {
        touchPosition touchPos;
        touchRead(&touchPos);
        printf("%d, %d\n", touchPos.px, touchPos.py);
    }
    swiWaitForVBlank();
}

The state of the X and Y buttons, as well as the state of the touch screen, is passed from the ARM7 with a FIFO message. This message can technically happen in between scanKeys() and touchRead(), which means that it’s possible that keysHeld() & KEY_TOUCH is true, but the coordinates read by touchRead() are (0, 0) because the user has stopped pressing the screen right at that point, and scanKeys() read the outdated values while touchRead() read the updated values.

In BlocksDS, scanKeys() is used to latch the current state of the keys and the touch screen. This forces the developer to call scanKeys(), but it also ensures that there are no race conditions, as scanKeys() will read all the state atomically.

Upgrading to BlocksDS 0.12.0

In readdir(), . and .. filesystem entries are now returned, both on FAT and NitroFS filesystems.

Upgrading to BlocksDS 0.11.3

If you were using the ndstool feature of adding alternate language banner text (added in BlocksDS 0.6), the argument syntax has changed from -bt5 "Text" to -bt 5 "Text".