Whats the word on SDK compatibility with esp8266 code

[mmiscool]

Hello,

Whats it looking like for compatibility for code written for the esp8266. Will there need to be many modification or will most of it just work after being compiled for the new chip?

[johnlee]

We try to be compatible with ESP8266 as much as possible. (RTOS version of SDK)
But there are way more features in ESP32; that means that we have to expand upon the API. This is a work in progress and more and more features will be release as the SDK matures.

[DAFlippers]

I guess the question should be 'will the ESP32 be compatible with the existing SDK and code base?' We understand the additional features wouldn't be available however it would be great if the existing ESP8266 was a subset of the ESP32 - that is we could treat the ESP32 as an ESP8266.

David

[johnlee]

yes, it would be ideal, but i think, we can't do this in C without imposing a great deal of limitations on the new API. It's possible if we had done this in C++ though.

[ESP_Sprite]

I think what daflippers means is binary compatibility, that is, you can use the ESP8266 SDK to build programs for the ESP32. That, unfortunately, is not possible because the hardware is pretty different: we have a different CPU core, address map, changed peripherals etc. Code that is written for the FreeRTOS SDK of the ESP8266 will be mostly compatible with the ESP32 core, but you will need to switch toolchain/SDKs and recompile.

[DAFlippers]

Exactly. As I hoped but as I expected.

David