Summary of differences between FSF GDB and ST's Micro Connect version

Summary of differences between FSF GDB and ST's Micro Connect version

[Alex Bennee]

Hi,

In a naieve attempt to get my Micro Connect ICE to talk to the latest
gdb I thought I'd better have a look at the diff's between the two
sources and inquire to the list if its worth forward porting any of the
changes into the latest gdb source tree. I'm unsure if some of the arch
specific stuff had been covered in later versions.

The version of gdb that I was supplied is quite old 20020211 and has had
patches made to it by both by SuperH, Inc and ST. I've only skimmed
through the diffs (~6000 lines) so the comments are brief.

BFD Changes (bfd/)

bfd/bfd-in2.h - Added addtional SH relocation types

GDB Changes (gdb/)

Various SH specific changes to deal with breakpoints, frame handling etc
Changes to handle SH virtual registers
Changes to dwarf handling
Some code #if 0'd out to either bypass "bugs" or hardwire things for SH
cases
gdbarch updated
A fair number of explicit variable initialisations and single line
changes.

GDB CLI (gdb/cli)

New functions added:
	sleep_escape (seems to sleep for a bit)
	fork_escape (forks external process setting up some pipes) - this is
used to lauch the external gdbserver in my setup

Command file tracing added (-v).

So I guess my question is will any of these patches of been forward
ported into 5.3 or submitted by SuperH for inclusion? I know the cli
changes have not but I fear these in themselves may not be enough to get
the latest gdb working with the gdb server.

-- 
Alex, homepage: http://www.bennee.com/~alex/

SCCS, the source motel!  Programs check in and never check out!
		-- Ken Thompson

Re: Summary of differences between FSF GDB and ST's Micro Connect version

[Andrew Cagney]

> Hi,
> 
> In a naieve attempt to get my Micro Connect ICE to talk to the latest
> gdb I thought I'd better have a look at the diff's between the two
> sources and inquire to the list if its worth forward porting any of the
> changes into the latest gdb source tree. I'm unsure if some of the arch
> specific stuff had been covered in later versions.
> 
> The version of gdb that I was supplied is quite old 20020211 and has had
> patches made to it by both by SuperH, Inc and ST. I've only skimmed
> through the diffs (~6000 lines) so the comments are brief.

Please don't forward the diffs to this list.  Since the ownership of the 
code is unclear, the last thing GDB want is contamination :-(

> BFD Changes (bfd/)
> 
> bfd/bfd-in2.h - Added addtional SH relocation types
> 
> GDB Changes (gdb/)
> 
> Various SH specific changes to deal with breakpoints, frame handling etc
> Changes to handle SH virtual registers
> Changes to dwarf handling
> Some code #if 0'd out to either bypass "bugs" or hardwire things for SH
> cases
> gdbarch updated
> A fair number of explicit variable initialisations and single line
> changes.

Sounds like someone has been pulling some nasty hacks :-(

> GDB CLI (gdb/cli)
> 
> New functions added:
> 	sleep_escape (seems to sleep for a bit)
> 	fork_escape (forks external process setting up some pipes) - this is
> used to lauch the external gdbserver in my setup

GDB supports the feature:

	target remote |program

> Command file tracing added (-v).
> 
> So I guess my question is will any of these patches of been forward
> ported into 5.3 or submitted by SuperH for inclusion? I know the cli
> changes have not but I fear these in themselves may not be enough to get
> the latest gdb working with the gdb server.

I don't know.

Are there ChangeLog's?  Might help with figuring out where the changes 
came from.

Andrew