Re: Restarting

[Gene Smith <gds at chartertn dot net>]

geneSmith wrote, On 10/13/2004 07:15 PM:
> Keith Seitz wrote, On 10/13/2004 3:40 PM:
>
> > On Wed, 2004-10-13 at 12:27, geneSmith wrote:
> >
> > > When I start gdb, I connect to the target and download to it as 
> > > specifed in .gdbinit and then I can debug. Is there a way to restart 
> > > this without exiting gdb, ie, force a re-run of .gdbinit and 
> > > optionally preserve previously set BPs?
> >
> >
> >
> > I hate to say this, but I cringe everytime I hear about someone
> > connecting to a target in .gdbinit. It can really screw up insight.
>
>
> Have not observed any obvious problems. What should I look out for?
>
> > Nonetheless, there are options:
> > 1) Put all your target commands in .gdbinit into a user-defined command.
> > Then just run that command (via the console window).
> >
> > 2) Use target settings dialog. Click Run button.
> >
> > Keith
>
> When looking up "user-defined" command in manual saw "source" command. 
> This seems to do exactly what I want, i.e., I type
>
> so .gdbinit
>
> and it all starts over and preserves the old breakpoints.
>
> Thanks for the help.
>
> -gene

To follow-up on this, "so .gdbinit" is ok (usually, but sometimes 
crashes insight) for small programs. However for large/huge programs 
that must download to the embedded target, even via ethernet, using jtag 
it can take quite a while to re-download and when insight crashes you 
have to start over anyhow. I found the best way is just set the pc back 
to the reset vector and run from there, e.g.,
"mon reg pc=0x2010; continue" using my Macraigor mpDemon debugger.
However, you have to make sure .data section is re-initialized properly 
in the startup code and .bss is zero'd. This gives you a virtually 
instant restart and preserved breakpoints and insight does not crash.