Re: [RFA] Support for GDB on SGI Irix 6.x

[Eli Zaretskii <eliz@is.elta.co.il>]

> Date: Wed, 06 Jun 2001 12:43:30 -0400
> From: Andrew Cagney <ac131313@cygnus.com>
> X-Accept-Language: en
> Cc: gdb-patches@sources.redhat.com,
>         David B Anderson <davea@quasar.engr.sgi.com>
> 
> > This is a followup for
> > 
> >    http://sources.redhat.com/ml/gdb-patches/2001-05/msg00341.html
> > 
> > where I posted a set of patches to make GDB support n32 executables on
> > SGI Irix.  Since then, David Anderson reported that, with a minor
> > change in irix6.mh, GDB builds and works on SGI for him as well.
> > 
> > So I would like to commit these changes (reproduced below).  Any
> > objections?
[...]
> No.

Just to be sure I understand: is that a "No" to my question "Any
objections [to committing this]?", or do you mean you are rejecting
the patches?

> PS: For those that are wondering. Eli's code contains things like:
> 
> > +#undef  REGISTER_BYTES
> > +#define REGISTER_BYTES (MIPS_NUMREGS * 8 + (NUM_REGS - MIPS_NUMREGS) * MIPS_REGSIZE)
> > 
> 
> yet MIPS is ment to be multi-arch.  MIPS is actually multi-arch except 
> for the register buffer and a few other things.

Correction: quite a few of other things.  For example, the ABI type is
not automatically determined from the debuggee, AFAICS.  This is a major
roadblock for Irix, with its multitude of different ABIs.

> To safely fix this, I think remote.c would need to be changed so that it 
> allowed:
> 
> 	o	several different pre-defined G packet
> 		layouts for a single architecture
> 
> 	o	a CLI mechanism that allows the user
> 		to either select a pre-defiend G packet
> 		format _OR_ define their own custom
> 		G packet format.

I hope this isn't going to be a prerequisite for committing my
patches.  Right now, GDB is unusable on Irix 6.x, since it aborts at
startup due to use of incorrect layout of the register file.  The
patches I sent make it work for debugging n32 binaries, which I think
is a reason good enough to get it in, even though it isn't multi-arch.