Any hope for f-strings on SAMD21 processors?

[rickrump]

Could someone explain what is special about the SAMD21 chip that prevents CircuitPython from supporting f-strings on it?

Any hope for the future?

Thanks,

Rick

[mikeysklar]

Rick,

I don't know why the SAMD21 has been excluded from CircuitPython f-strings.

Would it be an option for your to utilize an nRF52840 or ESP32* based board where it is supported?

https://github.com/adafruit/circuitpython/issues/4723

[alpierce]

I have been able to use fstrings on a Feather M0 Express. Maybe not available on non Express boards due to memory limitations?

[tannewt]

The SAMD21 has limited flash space for including new features in CircuitPython. The non-Express versions are extra crunched because 64k of the flash is used for the file system.

[rickrump]

Thank you all for your comments. Time to move away from SAMD21 processors for future projects. But I have three FeatherWings in the Feather M0 based project I have been refining for several years. I was hoping to migrate from Arduino code to CircuitPython, but based on your comments I will keep that project as is and suffer with Arduino code. Any new projects I will source a processor with much more flash for hopefully be more future-proof to run CircuitPython.

Thanks again!

Rick

[tannewt]

If you really really need f-strings, then you could build your own CircuitPython with it included. You will have to turn off other features that you aren't using though.

Build instructions are here: https://learn.adafruit.com/building-circuitpython

[rickrump]

Thanks! Good idea!