From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (qmail 20296 invoked by alias); 27 Feb 2002 10:18:23 -0000 Mailing-List: contact gdb-help@sources.redhat.com; run by ezmlm Precedence: bulk List-Subscribe: List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: , Sender: gdb-owner@sources.redhat.com Received: (qmail 20196 invoked from network); 27 Feb 2002 10:18:15 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO mailout06.sul.t-online.com) (194.25.134.19) by sources.redhat.com with SMTP; 27 Feb 2002 10:18:15 -0000 Received: from fwd07.sul.t-online.de by mailout06.sul.t-online.com with smtp id 16g1A6-0002Ik-04; Wed, 27 Feb 2002 11:18:14 +0100 Received: from athlon600 (520013042968-0001@[217.228.16.37]) by fwd07.sul.t-online.com with smtp id 16g19u-09Lf60C; Wed, 27 Feb 2002 11:18:02 +0100 Message-ID: <000901c1bf78$0e2b3d20$a49afea9@athlon600> Reply-To: "Stefan Heinzmann" From: stefan_heinzmann@t-online.de (Stefan Heinzmann) To: Subject: Porting GDB to a new target processor architecture -- what's involved? Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2002 02:18:00 -0000 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.50.4807.1700 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.50.4910.0300 X-Sender: 520013042968-0001@t-dialin.net X-SW-Source: 2002-02/txt/msg00319.txt.bz2 Hello, a potential customer wants me to port GDB to a new processor architecture (a 32-bit RISC processor) used in embedded systems. As I'm unfamiliar with the GDB internals, I have difficulties estimating the time needed to do this. What do I need to know? Has anyone got a reading list? The GCC (2.95.3) and binutils apparently have been ported already. To which extent can I reuse code from those? I remember having read somewhere that gas and gdb use common target definition files, is that true? The GDB internals document is quite helpful, but it appears to be incomplete (stack frame interpretation, compiler characteristics). Is there additional information available (other than the source code itself)? How does the development process work assuming that the new target is contributed back to the community? Do I have to follow the most up-to-date CVS tree closely or is it more useful to work "off-line"? Is it reasonable to assume that the general gdb code can be used unchanged and only a few target-specific files need to be provided, or is it common that such a porting effort brings up issues with gdb in general (or even with a graphical frontend) that will have to be addressed, too? Thanks for your help Cheers Stefan