This is the mail archive of the
gdb@sources.redhat.com
mailing list for the GDB project.
gdbserver version quandry
- From: John Williams <jwilliams at itee dot uq dot edu dot au>
- To: gdb at sources dot redhat dot com
- Date: Thu, 06 Nov 2003 10:50:00 +1000
- Subject: gdbserver version quandry
- Organization: ITEE, University of Queensland
- Reply-to: jwilliams at itee dot uq dot edu dot au
Hi folks,
I have recently completed a port of uClinux to the Xilinx Microblaze
soft-processor architecture.
http://www.itee.uq.edu.au/~jwilliams/mblaze-uclinux.
I am now investigating providing gdbserver support for this architecture.
Xilinx ported gcc 2.95 and gdb 5.0 (20010428-1) to support microblaze -
as I understand it they have no intention of moving forward to a newer
version of gdb.
So, I think I'm stuck with porting gdbserver from gdb5.0, right? I know
this is ancient history, but I don't think I'm about to undertake the
job of adding a new arch to gdb 6.0...
Some pertinent facts:
1- Miles Bader, who did the v850 port of uClinux and gdbserver, has a
nice clean script and patch to morph gdbserver 5.1 to support uClinux.
2 - The standard uClinux distribution supported by Snapgear, has a
hacked version of gdbserver 4.12.3 to support uClinux, but hard-coded
for m68k arch support only.
So, the question is: Would it be cleaner for me to
(a) Back-port gdbserver 5.1 to support the gdb 5.0 interface;
(b) Forward port and Clean up the m68k uClinux gdbserver 4.12.3 to
support the gdb5.0 and microblaze; or
(c) Start from scratch with gdbserver 5.0 and provide microblaze support
directly?
I'm thinking (a) or (c), depending on how much changed in the
gdb<->gdbserver communication protocol between 5.0 and 5.1. Is there
any online documentation on this - in particular regarding how it
changed from 5.0 to 5.1?
Superficially - Miles' scripts and patches don't apply cleanly to
gdbserver 5.0 - some file/directory structures have changed.
Any advice or pointers would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
John