GDB Internals

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Scope of this Document

This document documents the internals of the GNU debugger, GDB. It includes description of GDB's key algorithms and operations, as well as the mechanisms that adapt GDB to specific hosts and targets.


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Requirements

Before diving into the internals, you should understand the formal requirements and other expectations for GDB. Although some of these may seem obvious, there have been proposals for GDB that have run counter to these requirements.

First of all, GDB is a debugger. It's not designed to be a front panel for embedded systems. It's not a text editor. It's not a shell. It's not a programming environment. GDB is an interactive tool. Although a batch mode is available, GDB's primary role is to interact with a human programmer. GDB should be responsive to the user. A programmer hot on the trail of a nasty bug, and operating under a looming deadline, is going to be very impatient of everything, including the response time to debugger commands. GDB should be relatively permissive, such as for expressions. While the compiler should be picky (or have the option to be made picky), since source code lives for a long time usually, the programmer doing debugging shouldn't be spending time figuring out to mollify the debugger. GDB will be called upon to deal with really large programs. Executable sizes of 50 to 100 megabytes occur regularly, and we've heard reports of programs approaching 1 gigabyte in size. GDB should be able to run everywhere. No other debugger is available for even half as many configurations as GDB supports.


Node:Overall Structure, Next:, Previous:Requirements, Up:Top

Overall Structure

GDB consists of three major subsystems: user interface, symbol handling (the symbol side), and target system handling (the target side).

The user interface consists of several actual interfaces, plus supporting code.

The symbol side consists of object file readers, debugging info interpreters, symbol table management, source language expression parsing, type and value printing.

The target side consists of execution control, stack frame analysis, and physical target manipulation.

The target side/symbol side division is not formal, and there are a number of exceptions. For instance, core file support involves symbolic elements (the basic core file reader is in BFD) and target elements (it supplies the contents of memory and the values of registers). Instead, this division is useful for understanding how the minor subsystems should fit together.

The Symbol Side

The symbolic side of GDB can be thought of as "everything you can do in GDB without having a live program running". For instance, you can look at the types of variables, and evaluate many kinds of expressions.

The Target Side

The target side of GDB is the "bits and bytes manipulator". Although it may make reference to symbolic info here and there, most of the target side will run with only a stripped executable available--or even no executable at all, in remote debugging cases.

Operations such as disassembly, stack frame crawls, and register display, are able to work with no symbolic info at all. In some cases, such as disassembly, GDB will use symbolic info to present addresses relative to symbols rather than as raw numbers, but it will work either way.

Configurations

Host refers to attributes of the system where GDB runs. Target refers to the system where the program being debugged executes. In most cases they are the same machine, in which case a third type of Native attributes come into play.

Defines and include files needed to build on the host are host support. Examples are tty support, system defined types, host byte order, host float format.

Defines and information needed to handle the target format are target dependent. Examples are the stack frame format, instruction set, breakpoint instruction, registers, and how to set up and tear down the stack to call a function.

Information that is only needed when the host and target are the same, is native dependent. One example is Unix child process support; if the host and target are not the same, doing a fork to start the target process is a bad idea. The various macros needed for finding the registers in the upage, running ptrace, and such are all in the native-dependent files.

Another example of native-dependent code is support for features that are really part of the target environment, but which require #include files that are only available on the host system. Core file handling and setjmp handling are two common cases.

When you want to make GDB work "native" on a particular machine, you have to include all three kinds of information.


Node:Algorithms, Next:, Previous:Overall Structure, Up:Top

Algorithms

GDB uses a number of debugging-specific algorithms. They are often not very complicated, but get lost in the thicket of special cases and real-world issues. This chapter describes the basic algorithms and mentions some of the specific target definitions that they use.

Frames

A frame is a construct that GDB uses to keep track of calling and called functions.

FRAME_FP in the machine description has no meaning to the machine-independent part of GDB, except that it is used when setting up a new frame from scratch, as follows:

      create_new_frame (read_register (FP_REGNUM), read_pc ()));

Other than that, all the meaning imparted to FP_REGNUM is imparted by the machine-dependent code. So, FP_REGNUM can have any value that is convenient for the code that creates new frames. (create_new_frame calls INIT_EXTRA_FRAME_INFO if it is defined; that is where you should use the FP_REGNUM value, if your frames are nonstandard.)

Given a GDB frame, define FRAME_CHAIN to determine the address of the calling function's frame. This will be used to create a new GDB frame struct, and then INIT_EXTRA_FRAME_INFO and INIT_FRAME_PC will be called for the new frame.

Breakpoint Handling

In general, a breakpoint is a user-designated location in the program where the user wants to regain control if program execution ever reaches that location.

There are two main ways to implement breakpoints; either as "hardware" breakpoints or as "software" breakpoints.

Hardware breakpoints are sometimes available as a builtin debugging features with some chips. Typically these work by having dedicated register into which the breakpoint address may be stored. If the PC (shorthand for program counter) ever matches a value in a breakpoint registers, the CPU raises an exception and reports it to GDB.

Another possibility is when an emulator is in use; many emulators include circuitry that watches the address lines coming out from the processor, and force it to stop if the address matches a breakpoint's address.

A third possibility is that the target already has the ability to do breakpoints somehow; for instance, a ROM monitor may do its own software breakpoints. So although these are not literally "hardware breakpoints", from GDB's point of view they work the same; GDB need not do nothing more than set the breakpoint and wait for something to happen.

Since they depend on hardware resources, hardware breakpoints may be limited in number; when the user asks for more, GDB will start trying to set software breakpoints. (On some architectures, notably the 32-bit x86 platforms, GDB cannot alsways know whether there's enough hardware resources to insert all the hardware breakpoints and watchpoints. On those platforms, GDB prints an error message only when the program being debugged is continued.)

Software breakpoints require GDB to do somewhat more work. The basic theory is that GDB will replace a program instruction with a trap, illegal divide, or some other instruction that will cause an exception, and then when it's encountered, GDB will take the exception and stop the program. When the user says to continue, GDB will restore the original instruction, single-step, re-insert the trap, and continue on.

Since it literally overwrites the program being tested, the program area must be writable, so this technique won't work on programs in ROM. It can also distort the behavior of programs that examine themselves, although such a situation would be highly unusual.

Also, the software breakpoint instruction should be the smallest size of instruction, so it doesn't overwrite an instruction that might be a jump target, and cause disaster when the program jumps into the middle of the breakpoint instruction. (Strictly speaking, the breakpoint must be no larger than the smallest interval between instructions that may be jump targets; perhaps there is an architecture where only even-numbered instructions may jumped to.) Note that it's possible for an instruction set not to have any instructions usable for a software breakpoint, although in practice only the ARC has failed to define such an instruction.

The basic definition of the software breakpoint is the macro BREAKPOINT.

Basic breakpoint object handling is in breakpoint.c. However, much of the interesting breakpoint action is in infrun.c.

Single Stepping

Signal Handling

Thread Handling

Inferior Function Calls

Longjmp Support

GDB has support for figuring out that the target is doing a longjmp and for stopping at the target of the jump, if we are stepping. This is done with a few specialized internal breakpoints, which are visible in the output of the maint info breakpoint command.

To make this work, you need to define a macro called GET_LONGJMP_TARGET, which will examine the jmp_buf structure and extract the longjmp target address. Since jmp_buf is target specific, you will need to define it in the appropriate tm-target.h file. Look in tm-sun4os4.h and sparc-tdep.c for examples of how to do this.

Watchpoints

Watchpoints are a special kind of breakpoints (see breakpoints) which break when data is accessed rather than when some instruction is executed. When you have data which changes without your knowing what code does that, watchpoints are the silver bullet to hunt down and kill such bugs.

Watchpoints can be either hardware-assisted or not; the latter type is known as "software watchpoints." GDB always uses hardware-assisted watchpoints if they are available, and falls back on software watchpoints otherwise. Typical situations where GDB will use software watchpoints are:

Software watchpoints are very slow, since GDB needs to single-step the program being debugged and test the value of the watched expression(s) after each instruction. The rest of this section is mostly irrelevant for software watchpoints. GDB uses several macros and primitives to support hardware watchpoints:

TARGET_HAS_HARDWARE_WATCHPOINTS
If defined, the target supports hardware watchpoints.
TARGET_CAN_USE_HARDWARE_WATCHPOINT (type, count, other)
Return the number of hardware watchpoints of type type that are possible to be set. The value is positive if count watchpoints of this type can be set, zero if setting watchpoints of this type is not supported, and negative if count is more than the maximum number of watchpoints of type type that can be set. other is non-zero if other types of watchpoints are currently enabled (there are architectures which cannot set watchpoints of different types at the same time).
TARGET_REGION_OK_FOR_HW_WATCHPOINT (addr, len)
Return non-zero if hardware watchpoints can be used to watch a region whose address is addr and whose length in bytes is len.
TARGET_REGION_SIZE_OK_FOR_HW_WATCHPOINT (size)
Return non-zero if hardware watchpoints can be used to watch a region whose size is size. GDB only uses this macro as a fall-back, in case TARGET_REGION_OK_FOR_HW_WATCHPOINT is not defined.
TARGET_DISABLE_HW_WATCHPOINTS (pid)
Disables watchpoints in the process identified by pid. This is used, e.g., on HP-UX which provides operations to disable and enable the page-level memory protection that implements hardware watchpoints on that platform.
TARGET_ENABLE_HW_WATCHPOINTS (pid)
Enables watchpoints in the process identified by pid. This is used, e.g., on HP-UX which provides operations to disable and enable the page-level memory protection that implements hardware watchpoints on that platform.
target_insert_watchpoint (addr, len, type)
target_remove_watchpoint (addr, len, type)
Insert or remove a hardware watchpoint starting at addr, for len bytes. type is the watchpoint type, one of the possible values of the enumerated data type target_hw_bp_type, defined by breakpoint.h as follows:
 enum target_hw_bp_type
   {
     hw_write   = 0, /* Common (write) HW watchpoint */
     hw_read    = 1, /* Read    HW watchpoint */
     hw_access  = 2, /* Access (read or write) HW watchpoint */
     hw_execute = 3  /* Execute HW breakpoint */
   };

These two macros should return 0 for success, non-zero for failure.

target_remove_hw_breakpoint (addr, shadow)
target_insert_hw_breakpoint (addr, shadow)
Insert or remove a hardware-assisted breakpoint at address addr. Returns zero for success, non-zero for failure. shadow is the real contents of the byte where the breakpoint has been inserted; it is generally not valid when hardware breakpoints are used, but since no other code touches these values, the implementations of the above two macros can use them for their internal purposes.
target_stopped_data_address ()
If the inferior has some watchpoint that triggered, return the address associated with that watchpoint. Otherwise, return zero.
DECR_PC_AFTER_HW_BREAK
If defined, GDB decrements the program counter by the value of DECR_PC_AFTER_HW_BREAK after a hardware break-point. This overrides the value of DECR_PC_AFTER_BREAK when a breakpoint that breaks is a hardware-assisted breakpoint.
HAVE_STEPPABLE_WATCHPOINT
If defined to a non-zero value, it is not necessary to disable a watchpoint to step over it.
HAVE_NONSTEPPABLE_WATCHPOINT
If defined to a non-zero value, GDB should disable a watchpoint to step the inferior over it.
HAVE_CONTINUABLE_WATCHPOINT
If defined to a non-zero value, it is possible to continue the inferior after a watchpoint has been hit.
CANNOT_STEP_HW_WATCHPOINTS
If this is defined to a non-zero value, GDB will remove all watchpoints before stepping the inferior.
STOPPED_BY_WATCHPOINT (wait_status)
Return non-zero if stopped by a watchpoint. wait_status is of the type struct target_waitstatus, defined by target.h.

x86 Watchpoints

The 32-bit Intel x86 (a.k.a. ia32) processors feature special debug registers designed to facilitate debugging. GDB provides a generic library of functions that x86-based ports can use to implement support for watchpoints and hardware-assisted breakpoints. This subsection documents the x86 watchpoint facilities in GDB.

To use the generic x86 watchpoint support, a port should do the following:

The x86 watchpoint support works by maintaining mirror images of the debug registers. Values are copied between the mirror images and the real debug registers via a set of macros which each target needs to provide:

I386_DR_LOW_SET_CONTROL (val)
Set the Debug Control (DR7) register to the value val.
I386_DR_LOW_SET_ADDR (idx, addr)
Put the address addr into the debug register number idx.
I386_DR_LOW_RESET_ADDR (idx)
Reset (i.e. zero out) the address stored in the debug register number idx.
I386_DR_LOW_GET_STATUS
Return the value of the Debug Status (DR6) register. This value is used immediately after it is returned by I386_DR_LOW_GET_STATUS, so as to support per-thread status register values.

For each one of the 4 debug registers (whose indices are from 0 to 3) that store addresses, a reference count is maintained by GDB, to allow sharing of debug registers by several watchpoints. This allows users to define several watchpoints that watch the same expression, but with different conditions and/or commands, without wasting debug registers which are in short supply. GDB maintains the reference counts internally, targets don't have to do anything to use this feature.

The x86 debug registers can each watch a region that is 1, 2, or 4 bytes long. The ia32 architecture requires that each watched region be appropriately aligned: 2-byte region on 2-byte boundary, 4-byte region on 4-byte boundary. However, the x86 watchpoint support in GDB can watch unaligned regions and regions larger than 4 bytes (up to 16 bytes) by allocating several debug registers to watch a single region. This allocation of several registers per a watched region is also done automatically without target code intervention.

The generic x86 watchpoint support provides the following API for the GDB's application code:

i386_region_ok_for_watchpoint (addr, len)
The macro TARGET_REGION_OK_FOR_HW_WATCHPOINT is set to call this function. It counts the number of debug registers required to watch a given region, and returns a non-zero value if that number is less than 4, the number of debug registers available to x86 processors.
i386_stopped_data_address (void)
The macros STOPPED_BY_WATCHPOINT and target_stopped_data_address are set to call this function. The argument passed to STOPPED_BY_WATCHPOINT is ignored. This function examines the breakpoint condition bits in the DR6 Debug Status register, as returned by the I386_DR_LOW_GET_STATUS macro, and returns the address associated with the first bit that is set in DR6.
i386_insert_watchpoint (addr, len, type)
i386_remove_watchpoint (addr, len, type)
Insert or remove a watchpoint. The macros target_insert_watchpoint and target_remove_watchpoint are set to call these functions. i386_insert_watchpoint first looks for a debug register which is already set to watch the same region for the same access types; if found, it just increments the reference count of that debug register, thus implementing debug register sharing between watchpoints. If no such register is found, the function looks for a vacant debug register, sets its mirrorred value to addr, sets the mirrorred value of DR7 Debug Control register as appropriate for the len and type parameters, and then passes the new values of the debug register and DR7 to the inferior by calling I386_DR_LOW_SET_ADDR and I386_DR_LOW_SET_CONTROL. If more than one debug register is required to cover the given region, the above process is repeated for each debug register.

i386_remove_watchpoint does the opposite: it resets the address in the mirrorred value of the debug register and its read/write and length bits in the mirrorred value of DR7, then passes these new values to the inferior via I386_DR_LOW_RESET_ADDR and I386_DR_LOW_SET_CONTROL. If a register is shared by several watchpoints, each time a i386_remove_watchpoint is called, it decrements the reference count, and only calls I386_DR_LOW_RESET_ADDR and I386_DR_LOW_SET_CONTROL when the count goes to zero.

i386_insert_hw_breakpoint (addr, shadow
i386_remove_hw_breakpoint (addr, shadow)
These functions insert and remove hardware-assisted breakpoints. The macros target_insert_hw_breakpoint and target_remove_hw_breakpoint are set to call these functions. These functions work like i386_insert_watchpoint and i386_remove_watchpoint, respectively, except that they set up the debug registers to watch instruction execution, and each hardware-assisted breakpoint always requires exactly one debug register.
i386_stopped_by_hwbp (void)
This function returns non-zero if the inferior has some watchpoint or hardware breakpoint that triggered. It works like i386_stopped_data_address, except that it doesn't return the address whose watchpoint triggered.
i386_cleanup_dregs (void)
This function clears all the reference counts, addresses, and control bits in the mirror images of the debug registers. It doesn't affect the actual debug registers in the inferior process.

Notes:

  1. x86 processors support setting watchpoints on I/O reads or writes. However, since no target supports this (as of March 2001), and since enum target_hw_bp_type doesn't even have an enumeration for I/O watchpoints, this feature is not yet available to GDB running on x86.
  2. x86 processors can enable watchpoints locally, for the current task only, or globally, for all the tasks. For each debug register, there's a bit in the DR7 Debug Control register that determines whether the associated address is watched locally or globally. The current implementation of x86 watchpoint support in GDB always sets watchpoints to be locally enabled, since global watchpoints might interfere with the underlying OS and are probably unavailable in many platforms.


Node:User Interface, Next:, Previous:Algorithms, Up:Top

User Interface

GDB has several user interfaces. Although the command-line interface is the most common and most familiar, there are others.

Command Interpreter

The command interpreter in GDB is fairly simple. It is designed to allow for the set of commands to be augmented dynamically, and also has a recursive subcommand capability, where the first argument to a command may itself direct a lookup on a different command list.

For instance, the set command just starts a lookup on the setlist command list, while set thread recurses to the set_thread_cmd_list.

To add commands in general, use add_cmd. add_com adds to the main command list, and should be used for those commands. The usual place to add commands is in the _initialize_xyz routines at the ends of most source files.

Before removing commands from the command set it is a good idea to deprecate them for some time. Use deprecate_cmd on commands or aliases to set the deprecated flag. deprecate_cmd takes a struct cmd_list_element as it's first argument. You can use the return value from add_com or add_cmd to deprecate the command immediately after it is created.

The first time a command is used the user will be warned and offered a replacement (if one exists). Note that the replacement string passed to deprecate_cmd should be the full name of the command, i.e. the entire string the user should type at the command line.

UI-Independent Output--the ui_out Functions

The ui_out functions present an abstraction level for the GDB output code. They hide the specifics of different user interfaces supported by GDB, and thus free the programmer from the need to write several versions of the same code, one each for every UI, to produce output.

Overview and Terminology

In general, execution of each GDB command produces some sort of output, and can even generate an input request.

Output can be generated for the following purposes:

This section mainly concentrates on how to build result output, although some of it also applies to other kinds of output.

Generation of output that displays the results of an operation involves one or more of the following:

The ui_out routines take care of the first three aspects. Annotations are provided by separate annotation routines. Note that use of annotations for an interface between a GUI and GDB is deprecated.

Output can be in the form of a single item, which we call a field; a list consisting of identical fields; a tuple consisting of non-identical fields; or a table, which is a tuple consisting of a header and a body. In a BNF-like form:

<table> ==>
<header> <body>
<header> ==>
{ <column> }
<column> ==>
<width> <alignment> <title>
<body> ==>
{<row>}

General Conventions

Most ui_out routines are of type void, the exceptions are ui_out_stream_new (which returns a pointer to the newly created object) and the make_cleanup routines.

The first parameter is always the ui_out vector object, a pointer to a struct ui_out.

The format parameter is like in printf family of functions. When it is present, there must also be a variable list of arguments sufficient used to satisfy the % specifiers in the supplied format.

When a character string argument is not used in a ui_out function call, a NULL pointer has to be supplied instead.

Table, Tuple and List Functions

This section introduces ui_out routines for building lists, tuples and tables. The routines to output the actual data items (fields) are presented in the next section.

To recap: A tuple is a sequence of fields, each field containing information about an object; a list is a sequence of fields where each field describes an identical object.

Use the table functions when your output consists of a list of rows (tuples) and the console output should include a heading. Use this even when you are listing just one object but you still want the header.

Tables can not be nested. Tuples and lists can be nested up to a maximum of five levels.

The overall structure of the table output code is something like this:

  ui_out_table_begin
    ui_out_table_header
    ...
    ui_out_table_body
      ui_out_tuple_begin
        ui_out_field_*
        ...
      ui_out_tuple_end
      ...
  ui_out_table_end

Here is the description of table-, tuple- and list-related ui_out functions:

void ui_out_table_begin (struct ui_out *uiout, int nbrofcols, int nr_rows, const char *tblid) Function
The function ui_out_table_begin marks the beginning of the output of a table. It should always be called before any other ui_out function for a given table. nbrofcols is the number of columns in the table. nr_rows is the number of rows in the table. tblid is an optional string identifying the table. The string pointed to by tblid is copied by the implementation of ui_out_table_begin, so the application can free the string if it was malloced.

The companion function ui_out_table_end, described below, marks the end of the table's output.

void ui_out_table_header (struct ui_out *uiout, int width, enum ui_align alignment, const char *colhdr) Function
ui_out_table_header provides the header information for a single table column. You call this function several times, one each for every column of the table, after ui_out_table_begin, but before ui_out_table_body.

The value of width gives the column width in characters. The value of alignment is one of left, center, and right, and it specifies how to align the header: left-justify, center, or right-justify it. colhdr points to a string that specifies the column header; the implementation copies that string, so column header strings in malloced storage can be freed after the call.

void ui_out_table_body (struct ui_out *uiout) Function
This function delimits the table header from the table body.

void ui_out_table_end (struct ui_out *uiout) Function
This function signals the end of a table's output. It should be called after the table body has been produced by the list and field output functions.

There should be exactly one call to ui_out_table_end for each call to ui_out_table_begin, otherwise the ui_out functions will signal an internal error.

The output of the tuples that represent the table rows must follow the call to ui_out_table_body and precede the call to ui_out_table_end. You build a tuple by calling ui_out_tuple_begin and ui_out_tuple_end, with suitable calls to functions which actually output fields between them.

void ui_out_tuple_begin (struct ui_out *uiout, const char *id) Function
This function marks the beginning of a tuple output. id points to an optional string that identifies the tuple; it is copied by the implementation, and so strings in malloced storage can be freed after the call.

void ui_out_tuple_end (struct ui_out *uiout) Function
This function signals an end of a tuple output. There should be exactly one call to ui_out_tuple_end for each call to ui_out_tuple_begin, otherwise an internal GDB error will be signaled.

struct cleanup *make_cleanup_ui_out_tuple_begin_end (struct ui_out *uiout, const char *id) Function
This function first opens the tuple and then establishes a cleanup (see Cleanups) to close the tuple. It provides a convenient and correct implementation of the non-portable1 code sequence:
struct cleanup *old_cleanup;
ui_out_tuple_begin (uiout, "...");
old_cleanup = make_cleanup ((void(*)(void *)) ui_out_tuple_end,
                            uiout);

void ui_out_list_begin (struct ui_out *uiout, const char *id) Function
This function marks the beginning of a list output. id points to an optional string that identifies the list; it is copied by the implementation, and so strings in malloced storage can be freed after the call.

void ui_out_list_end (struct ui_out *uiout) Function
This function signals an end of a list output. There should be exactly one call to ui_out_list_end for each call to ui_out_list_begin, otherwise an internal GDB error will be signaled.

struct cleanup *make_cleanup_ui_out_list_begin_end (struct ui_out *uiout, const char *id) Function
Similar to make_cleanup_ui_out_tuple_begin_end, this function opens a list and then establishes cleanup (see Cleanups) that will close the list.list.

Item Output Functions

The functions described below produce output for the actual data items, or fields, which contain information about the object.

Choose the appropriate function accordingly to your particular needs.

void ui_out_field_fmt (struct ui_out *uiout, char *fldname, char *format, ...) Function
This is the most general output function. It produces the representation of the data in the variable-length argument list according to formatting specifications in format, a printf-like format string. The optional argument fldname supplies the name of the field. The data items themselves are supplied as additional arguments after format.

This generic function should be used only when it is not possible to use one of the specialized versions (see below).

void ui_out_field_int (struct ui_out *uiout, const char *fldname, int value) Function
This function outputs a value of an int variable. It uses the "%d" output conversion specification. fldname specifies the name of the field.

void ui_out_field_core_addr (struct ui_out *uiout, const char *fldname, CORE_ADDR address) Function
This function outputs an address.

void ui_out_field_string (struct ui_out *uiout, const char *fldname, const char *string) Function
This function outputs a string using the "%s" conversion specification.

Sometimes, there's a need to compose your output piece by piece using functions that operate on a stream, such as value_print or fprintf_symbol_filtered. These functions accept an argument of the type struct ui_file *, a pointer to a ui_file object used to store the data stream used for the output. When you use one of these functions, you need a way to pass their results stored in a ui_file object to the ui_out functions. To this end, you first create a ui_stream object by calling ui_out_stream_new, pass the stream member of that ui_stream object to value_print and similar functions, and finally call ui_out_field_stream to output the field you constructed. When the ui_stream object is no longer needed, you should destroy it and free its memory by calling ui_out_stream_delete.

struct ui_stream *ui_out_stream_new (struct ui_out *uiout) Function
This function creates a new ui_stream object which uses the same output methods as the ui_out object whose pointer is passed in uiout. It returns a pointer to the newly created ui_stream object.

void ui_out_stream_delete (struct ui_stream *streambuf) Function
This functions destroys a ui_stream object specified by streambuf.

void ui_out_field_stream (struct ui_out *uiout, const char *fieldname, struct ui_stream *streambuf) Function
This function consumes all the data accumulated in streambuf->stream and outputs it like ui_out_field_string does. After a call to ui_out_field_stream, the accumulated data no longer exists, but the stream is still valid and may be used for producing more fields.

Important: If there is any chance that your code could bail out before completing output generation and reaching the point where ui_out_stream_delete is called, it is necessary to set up a cleanup, to avoid leaking memory and other resources. Here's a skeleton code to do that:

 struct ui_stream *mybuf = ui_out_stream_new (uiout);
 struct cleanup *old = make_cleanup (ui_out_stream_delete, mybuf);
 ...
 do_cleanups (old);

If the function already has the old cleanup chain set (for other kinds of cleanups), you just have to add your cleanup to it:

  mybuf = ui_out_stream_new (uiout);
  make_cleanup (ui_out_stream_delete, mybuf);

Note that with cleanups in place, you should not call ui_out_stream_delete directly, or you would attempt to free the same buffer twice.

Utility Output Functions

void ui_out_field_skip (struct ui_out *uiout, const char *fldname) Function
This function skips a field in a table. Use it if you have to leave an empty field without disrupting the table alignment. The argument fldname specifies a name for the (missing) filed.

void ui_out_text (struct ui_out *uiout, const char *string) Function
This function outputs the text in string in a way that makes it easy to be read by humans. For example, the console implementation of this method filters the text through a built-in pager, to prevent it from scrolling off the visible portion of the screen.

Use this function for printing relatively long chunks of text around the actual field data: the text it produces is not aligned according to the table's format. Use ui_out_field_string to output a string field, and use ui_out_message, described below, to output short messages.

void ui_out_spaces (struct ui_out *uiout, int nspaces) Function
This function outputs nspaces spaces. It is handy to align the text produced by ui_out_text with the rest of the table or list.

void ui_out_message (struct ui_out *uiout, int verbosity, const char *format, ...) Function
This function produces a formatted message, provided that the current verbosity level is at least as large as given by verbosity. The current verbosity level is specified by the user with the set verbositylevel command.2

void ui_out_wrap_hint (struct ui_out *uiout, char *indent) Function
This function gives the console output filter (a paging filter) a hint of where to break lines which are too long. Ignored for all other output consumers. indent, if non-NULL, is the string to be printed to indent the wrapped text on the next line; it must remain accessible until the next call to ui_out_wrap_hint, or until an explicit newline is produced by one of the other functions. If indent is NULL, the wrapped text will not be indented.

void ui_out_flush (struct ui_out *uiout) Function
This function flushes whatever output has been accumulated so far, if the UI buffers output.

Examples of Use of ui_out functions

This section gives some practical examples of using the ui_out functions to generalize the old console-oriented code in GDB. The examples all come from functions defined on the breakpoints.c file.

This example, from the breakpoint_1 function, shows how to produce a table.

The original code was:

 if (!found_a_breakpoint++)
   {
     annotate_breakpoints_headers ();

     annotate_field (0);
     printf_filtered ("Num ");
     annotate_field (1);
     printf_filtered ("Type           ");
     annotate_field (2);
     printf_filtered ("Disp ");
     annotate_field (3);
     printf_filtered ("Enb ");
     if (addressprint)
       {
         annotate_field (4);
         printf_filtered ("Address    ");
       }
     annotate_field (5);
     printf_filtered ("What\n");

     annotate_breakpoints_table ();
   }

Here's the new version:

  nr_printable_breakpoints = ...;

  if (addressprint)
    ui_out_table_begin (ui, 6, nr_printable_breakpoints, "BreakpointTable");
  else
    ui_out_table_begin (ui, 5, nr_printable_breakpoints, "BreakpointTable");

  if (nr_printable_breakpoints > 0)
    annotate_breakpoints_headers ();
  if (nr_printable_breakpoints > 0)
    annotate_field (0);
  ui_out_table_header (uiout, 3, ui_left, "number", "Num");		/* 1 */
  if (nr_printable_breakpoints > 0)
    annotate_field (1);
  ui_out_table_header (uiout, 14, ui_left, "type", "Type");		/* 2 */
  if (nr_printable_breakpoints > 0)
    annotate_field (2);
  ui_out_table_header (uiout, 4, ui_left, "disp", "Disp");		/* 3 */
  if (nr_printable_breakpoints > 0)
    annotate_field (3);
  ui_out_table_header (uiout, 3, ui_left, "enabled", "Enb");	/* 4 */
  if (addressprint)
    {
     if (nr_printable_breakpoints > 0)
       annotate_field (4);
     if (TARGET_ADDR_BIT <= 32)
       ui_out_table_header (uiout, 10, ui_left, "addr", "Address");/* 5 */
     else
       ui_out_table_header (uiout, 18, ui_left, "addr", "Address");/* 5 */
    }
  if (nr_printable_breakpoints > 0)
    annotate_field (5);
  ui_out_table_header (uiout, 40, ui_noalign, "what", "What");	/* 6 */
  ui_out_table_body (uiout);
  if (nr_printable_breakpoints > 0)
    annotate_breakpoints_table ();

This example, from the print_one_breakpoint function, shows how to produce the actual data for the table whose structure was defined in the above example. The original code was:

   annotate_record ();
   annotate_field (0);
   printf_filtered ("%-3d ", b->number);
   annotate_field (1);
   if ((int)b->type > (sizeof(bptypes)/sizeof(bptypes[0]))
       || ((int) b->type != bptypes[(int) b->type].type))
     internal_error ("bptypes table does not describe type #%d.",
                     (int)b->type);
   printf_filtered ("%-14s ", bptypes[(int)b->type].description);
   annotate_field (2);
   printf_filtered ("%-4s ", bpdisps[(int)b->disposition]);
   annotate_field (3);
   printf_filtered ("%-3c ", bpenables[(int)b->enable]);
   ...

This is the new version:

   annotate_record ();
   ui_out_tuple_begin (uiout, "bkpt");
   annotate_field (0);
   ui_out_field_int (uiout, "number", b->number);
   annotate_field (1);
   if (((int) b->type > (sizeof (bptypes) / sizeof (bptypes[0])))
       || ((int) b->type != bptypes[(int) b->type].type))
     internal_error ("bptypes table does not describe type #%d.",
                     (int) b->type);
   ui_out_field_string (uiout, "type", bptypes[(int)b->type].description);
   annotate_field (2);
   ui_out_field_string (uiout, "disp", bpdisps[(int)b->disposition]);
   annotate_field (3);
   ui_out_field_fmt (uiout, "enabled", "%c", bpenables[(int)b->enable]);
   ...

This example, also from print_one_breakpoint, shows how to produce a complicated output field using the print_expression functions which requires a stream to be passed. It also shows how to automate stream destruction with cleanups. The original code was:

    annotate_field (5);
    print_expression (b->exp, gdb_stdout);

The new version is:

  struct ui_stream *stb = ui_out_stream_new (uiout);
  struct cleanup *old_chain = make_cleanup_ui_out_stream_delete (stb);
  ...
  annotate_field (5);
  print_expression (b->exp, stb->stream);
  ui_out_field_stream (uiout, "what", local_stream);

This example, also from print_one_breakpoint, shows how to use ui_out_text and ui_out_field_string. The original code was:

  annotate_field (5);
  if (b->dll_pathname == NULL)
    printf_filtered ("<any library> ");
  else
    printf_filtered ("library \"%s\" ", b->dll_pathname);

It became:

  annotate_field (5);
  if (b->dll_pathname == NULL)
    {
      ui_out_field_string (uiout, "what", "<any library>");
      ui_out_spaces (uiout, 1);
    }
  else
    {
      ui_out_text (uiout, "library \"");
      ui_out_field_string (uiout, "what", b->dll_pathname);
      ui_out_text (uiout, "\" ");
    }

The following example from print_one_breakpoint shows how to use ui_out_field_int and ui_out_spaces. The original code was:

  annotate_field (5);
  if (b->forked_inferior_pid != 0)
    printf_filtered ("process %d ", b->forked_inferior_pid);

It became:

  annotate_field (5);
  if (b->forked_inferior_pid != 0)
    {
      ui_out_text (uiout, "process ");
      ui_out_field_int (uiout, "what", b->forked_inferior_pid);
      ui_out_spaces (uiout, 1);
    }

Here's an example of using ui_out_field_string. The original code was:

  annotate_field (5);
  if (b->exec_pathname != NULL)
    printf_filtered ("program \"%s\" ", b->exec_pathname);

It became:

  annotate_field (5);
  if (b->exec_pathname != NULL)
    {
      ui_out_text (uiout, "program \"");
      ui_out_field_string (uiout, "what", b->exec_pathname);
      ui_out_text (uiout, "\" ");
    }

Finally, here's an example of printing an address. The original code:

  annotate_field (4);
  printf_filtered ("%s ",
        local_hex_string_custom ((unsigned long) b->address, "08l"));

It became:

  annotate_field (4);
  ui_out_field_core_addr (uiout, "Address", b->address);

Console Printing

TUI


Node:libgdb, Next:, Previous:User Interface, Up:Top

libgdb

libgdb 1.0

libgdb 1.0 was an abortive project of years ago. The theory was to provide an API to GDB's functionality.

libgdb 2.0

libgdb 2.0 is an ongoing effort to update GDB so that is better able to support graphical and other environments.

Since libgdb development is on-going, its architecture is still evolving. The following components have so far been identified:

The model that ties these components together is described below.

The libgdb Model

A client of libgdb interacts with the library in two ways.

Since libgdb could have multiple clients (e.g. a GUI supporting the existing GDB CLI), those clients must co-operate when controlling libgdb. In particular, a client must ensure that libgdb is idle (i.e. no other client is using libgdb) before responding to a gdb-event by making a query.

CLI support

At present GDB's CLI is very much entangled in with the core of libgdb. Consequently, a client wishing to include the CLI in their interface needs to carefully co-ordinate its own and the CLI's requirements.

It is suggested that the client set libgdb up to be bi-modal (alternate between CLI and client query modes). The notes below sketch out the theory:

When the client receives input intended for the CLI, it simply passes it along. Since the cli-out builder is installed by default, all the CLI output in response to that command is routed (pronounced rooted) through to the client controlled gdb_stdout et. al. streams. At the same time, the client is kept abreast of internal changes by virtue of being a libgdb observer.

The only restriction on the client is that it must wait until libgdb becomes idle before initiating any queries (using the client's custom builder).

libgdb components

Observer - gdb-events.h

gdb-events provides the client with a very raw mechanism that can be used to implement an observer. At present it only allows for one observer and that observer must, internally, handle the need to delay the processing of any event notifications until after libgdb has finished the current command.

Builder - ui-out.h

ui-out provides the infrastructure necessary for a client to create a builder. That builder is then passed down to libgdb when doing any queries.

Event Loop - event-loop.h

event-loop, currently non-re-entrant, provides a simple event loop. A client would need to either plug its self into this loop or, implement a new event-loop that GDB would use.

The event-loop will eventually be made re-entrant. This is so that {No value for `GDB'} can better handle the problem of some commands blocking instead of returning.

Library - gdb.h

libgdb is the most obvious component of this system. It provides the query interface. Each function is parameterized by a ui-out builder. The result of the query is constructed using that builder before the query function returns.


Node:Symbol Handling, Next:, Previous:libgdb, Up:Top

Symbol Handling

Symbols are a key part of GDB's operation. Symbols include variables, functions, and types.

Symbol Reading

GDB reads symbols from symbol files. The usual symbol file is the file containing the program which GDB is debugging. GDB can be directed to use a different file for symbols (with the symbol-file command), and it can also read more symbols via the add-file and load commands, or while reading symbols from shared libraries.

Symbol files are initially opened by code in symfile.c using the BFD library (see Support Libraries). BFD identifies the type of the file by examining its header. find_sym_fns then uses this identification to locate a set of symbol-reading functions.

Symbol-reading modules identify themselves to GDB by calling add_symtab_fns during their module initialization. The argument to add_symtab_fns is a struct sym_fns which contains the name (or name prefix) of the symbol format, the length of the prefix, and pointers to four functions. These functions are called at various times to process symbol files whose identification matches the specified prefix.

The functions supplied by each module are:

xyz_symfile_init(struct sym_fns *sf)
Called from symbol_file_add when we are about to read a new symbol file. This function should clean up any internal state (possibly resulting from half-read previous files, for example) and prepare to read a new symbol file. Note that the symbol file which we are reading might be a new "main" symbol file, or might be a secondary symbol file whose symbols are being added to the existing symbol table.

The argument to xyz_symfile_init is a newly allocated struct sym_fns whose bfd field contains the BFD for the new symbol file being read. Its private field has been zeroed, and can be modified as desired. Typically, a struct of private information will be malloc'd, and a pointer to it will be placed in the private field.

There is no result from xyz_symfile_init, but it can call error if it detects an unavoidable problem.

xyz_new_init()
Called from symbol_file_add when discarding existing symbols. This function needs only handle the symbol-reading module's internal state; the symbol table data structures visible to the rest of GDB will be discarded by symbol_file_add. It has no arguments and no result. It may be called after xyz_symfile_init, if a new symbol table is being read, or may be called alone if all symbols are simply being discarded.
xyz_symfile_read(struct sym_fns *sf, CORE_ADDR addr, int mainline)
Called from symbol_file_add to actually read the symbols from a symbol-file into a set of psymtabs or symtabs.

sf points to the struct sym_fns originally passed to xyz_sym_init for possible initialization. addr is the offset between the file's specified start address and its true address in memory. mainline is 1 if this is the main symbol table being read, and 0 if a secondary symbol file (e.g. shared library or dynamically loaded file) is being read.

In addition, if a symbol-reading module creates psymtabs when xyz_symfile_read is called, these psymtabs will contain a pointer to a function xyz_psymtab_to_symtab, which can be called from any point in the GDB symbol-handling code.

xyz_psymtab_to_symtab (struct partial_symtab *pst)
Called from psymtab_to_symtab (or the PSYMTAB_TO_SYMTAB macro) if the psymtab has not already been read in and had its pst->symtab pointer set. The argument is the psymtab to be fleshed-out into a symtab. Upon return, pst->readin should have been set to 1, and pst->symtab should contain a pointer to the new corresponding symtab, or zero if there were no symbols in that part of the symbol file.

Partial Symbol Tables

GDB has three types of symbol tables:

This section describes partial symbol tables.

A psymtab is constructed by doing a very quick pass over an executable file's debugging information. Small amounts of information are extracted--enough to identify which parts of the symbol table will need to be re-read and fully digested later, when the user needs the information. The speed of this pass causes GDB to start up very quickly. Later, as the detailed rereading occurs, it occurs in small pieces, at various times, and the delay therefrom is mostly invisible to the user.

The symbols that show up in a file's psymtab should be, roughly, those visible to the debugger's user when the program is not running code from that file. These include external symbols and types, static symbols and types, and enum values declared at file scope.

The psymtab also contains the range of instruction addresses that the full symbol table would represent.

The idea is that there are only two ways for the user (or much of the code in the debugger) to reference a symbol:

The only reason that psymtabs exist is to cause a symtab to be read in at the right moment. Any symbol that can be elided from a psymtab, while still causing that to happen, should not appear in it. Since psymtabs don't have the idea of scope, you can't put local symbols in them anyway. Psymtabs don't have the idea of the type of a symbol, either, so types need not appear, unless they will be referenced by name.

It is a bug for GDB to behave one way when only a psymtab has been read, and another way if the corresponding symtab has been read in. Such bugs are typically caused by a psymtab that does not contain all the visible symbols, or which has the wrong instruction address ranges.

The psymtab for a particular section of a symbol file (objfile) could be thrown away after the symtab has been read in. The symtab should always be searched before the psymtab, so the psymtab will never be used (in a bug-free environment). Currently, psymtabs are allocated on an obstack, and all the psymbols themselves are allocated in a pair of large arrays on an obstack, so there is little to be gained by trying to free them unless you want to do a lot more work.

Types

Fundamental Types (e.g., FT_VOID, FT_BOOLEAN).

These are the fundamental types that GDB uses internally. Fundamental types from the various debugging formats (stabs, ELF, etc) are mapped into one of these. They are basically a union of all fundamental types that GDB knows about for all the languages that GDB knows about.

Type Codes (e.g., TYPE_CODE_PTR, TYPE_CODE_ARRAY).

Each time GDB builds an internal type, it marks it with one of these types. The type may be a fundamental type, such as TYPE_CODE_INT, or a derived type, such as TYPE_CODE_PTR which is a pointer to another type. Typically, several FT_* types map to one TYPE_CODE_* type, and are distinguished by other members of the type struct, such as whether the type is signed or unsigned, and how many bits it uses.

Builtin Types (e.g., builtin_type_void, builtin_type_char).

These are instances of type structs that roughly correspond to fundamental types and are created as global types for GDB to use for various ugly historical reasons. We eventually want to eliminate these. Note for example that builtin_type_int initialized in gdbtypes.c is basically the same as a TYPE_CODE_INT type that is initialized in c-lang.c for an FT_INTEGER fundamental type. The difference is that the builtin_type is not associated with any particular objfile, and only one instance exists, while c-lang.c builds as many TYPE_CODE_INT types as needed, with each one associated with some particular objfile.

Object File Formats

a.out

The a.out format is the original file format for Unix. It consists of three sections: text, data, and bss, which are for program code, initialized data, and uninitialized data, respectively.

The a.out format is so simple that it doesn't have any reserved place for debugging information. (Hey, the original Unix hackers used adb, which is a machine-language debugger!) The only debugging format for a.out is stabs, which is encoded as a set of normal symbols with distinctive attributes.

The basic a.out reader is in dbxread.c.

COFF

The COFF format was introduced with System V Release 3 (SVR3) Unix. COFF files may have multiple sections, each prefixed by a header. The number of sections is limited.

The COFF specification includes support for debugging. Although this was a step forward, the debugging information was woefully limited. For instance, it was not possible to represent code that came from an included file.

The COFF reader is in coffread.c.

ECOFF

ECOFF is an extended COFF originally introduced for Mips and Alpha workstations.

The basic ECOFF reader is in mipsread.c.

XCOFF

The IBM RS/6000 running AIX uses an object file format called XCOFF. The COFF sections, symbols, and line numbers are used, but debugging symbols are dbx-style stabs whose strings are located in the .debug section (rather than the string table). For more information, see Top.

The shared library scheme has a clean interface for figuring out what shared libraries are in use, but the catch is that everything which refers to addresses (symbol tables and breakpoints at least) needs to be relocated for both shared libraries and the main executable. At least using the standard mechanism this can only be done once the program has been run (or the core file has been read).

PE

Windows 95 and NT use the PE (Portable Executable) format for their executables. PE is basically COFF with additional headers.

While BFD includes special PE support, GDB needs only the basic COFF reader.

ELF

The ELF format came with System V Release 4 (SVR4) Unix. ELF is similar to COFF in being organized into a number of sections, but it removes many of COFF's limitations.

The basic ELF reader is in elfread.c.

SOM

SOM is HP's object file and debug format (not to be confused with IBM's SOM, which is a cross-language ABI).

The SOM reader is in hpread.c.

Other File Formats

Other file formats that have been supported by GDB include Netware Loadable Modules (nlmread.c).

Debugging File Formats

This section describes characteristics of debugging information that are independent of the object file format.

stabs

stabs started out as special symbols within the a.out format. Since then, it has been encapsulated into other file formats, such as COFF and ELF.

While dbxread.c does some of the basic stab processing, including for encapsulated versions, stabsread.c does the real work.

COFF

The basic COFF definition includes debugging information. The level of support is minimal and non-extensible, and is not often used.

Mips debug (Third Eye)

ECOFF includes a definition of a special debug format.

The file mdebugread.c implements reading for this format.

DWARF 1

DWARF 1 is a debugging format that was originally designed to be used with ELF in SVR4 systems.

The DWARF 1 reader is in dwarfread.c.

DWARF 2

DWARF 2 is an improved but incompatible version of DWARF 1.

The DWARF 2 reader is in dwarf2read.c.

SOM

Like COFF, the SOM definition includes debugging information.

Adding a New Symbol Reader to GDB

If you are using an existing object file format (a.out, COFF, ELF, etc), there is probably little to be done.

If you need to add a new object file format, you must first add it to BFD. This is beyond the scope of this document.

You must then arrange for the BFD code to provide access to the debugging symbols. Generally GDB will have to call swapping routines from BFD and a few other BFD internal routines to locate the debugging information. As much as possible, GDB should not depend on the BFD internal data structures.

For some targets (e.g., COFF), there is a special transfer vector used to call swapping routines, since the external data structures on various platforms have different sizes and layouts. Specialized routines that will only ever be implemented by one object file format may be called directly. This interface should be described in a file bfd/libxyz.h, which is included by GDB.


Node:Language Support, Next:, Previous:Symbol Handling, Up:Top

Language Support

GDB's language support is mainly driven by the symbol reader, although it is possible for the user to set the source language manually. GDB chooses the source language by looking at the extension of the file recorded in the debug info; .c means C, .f means Fortran, etc. It may also use a special-purpose language identifier if the debug format supports it, like with DWARF.

Adding a Source Language to GDB

To add other languages to GDB's expression parser, follow the following steps:

Create the expression parser.
This should reside in a file lang-exp.y. Routines for building parsed expressions into a union exp_element list are in parse.c.

Since we can't depend upon everyone having Bison, and YACC produces parsers that define a bunch of global names, the following lines must be included at the top of the YACC parser, to prevent the various parsers from defining the same global names:

#define yyparse         lang_parse
#define yylex           lang_lex
#define yyerror         lang_error
#define yylval          lang_lval
#define yychar          lang_char
#define yydebug         lang_debug
#define yypact          lang_pact
#define yyr1            lang_r1
#define yyr2            lang_r2
#define yydef           lang_def
#define yychk           lang_chk
#define yypgo           lang_pgo
#define yyact           lang_act
#define yyexca          lang_exca
#define yyerrflag       lang_errflag
#define yynerrs         lang_nerrs

At the bottom of your parser, define a struct language_defn and initialize it with the right values for your language. Define an initialize_lang routine and have it call add_language(lang_language_defn) to tell the rest of GDB that your language exists. You'll need some other supporting variables and functions, which will be used via pointers from your lang_language_defn. See the declaration of struct language_defn in language.h, and the other *-exp.y files, for more information.

Add any evaluation routines, if necessary
If you need new opcodes (that represent the operations of the language), add them to the enumerated type in expression.h. Add support code for these operations in the evaluate_subexp function defined in the file eval.c. Add cases for new opcodes in two functions from parse.c: prefixify_subexp and length_of_subexp. These compute the number of exp_elements that a given operation takes up.
Update some existing code
Add an enumerated identifier for your language to the enumerated type enum language in defs.h.

Update the routines in language.c so your language is included. These routines include type predicates and such, which (in some cases) are language dependent. If your language does not appear in the switch statement, an error is reported.

Also included in language.c is the code that updates the variable current_language, and the routines that translate the language_lang enumerated identifier into a printable string.

Update the function _initialize_language to include your language. This function picks the default language upon startup, so is dependent upon which languages that GDB is built for.

Update allocate_symtab in symfile.c and/or symbol-reading code so that the language of each symtab (source file) is set properly. This is used to determine the language to use at each stack frame level. Currently, the language is set based upon the extension of the source file. If the language can be better inferred from the symbol information, please set the language of the symtab in the symbol-reading code.

Add helper code to print_subexp (in expprint.c) to handle any new expression opcodes you have added to expression.h. Also, add the printed representations of your operators to op_print_tab.

Add a place of call
Add a call to lang_parse() and lang_error in parse_exp_1 (defined in parse.c).
Use macros to trim code
The user has the option of building GDB for some or all of the languages. If the user decides to build GDB for the language lang, then every file dependent on language.h will have the macro _LANG_lang defined in it. Use #ifdefs to leave out large routines that the user won't need if he or she is not using your language.

Note that you do not need to do this in your YACC parser, since if GDB is not build for lang, then lang-exp.tab.o (the compiled form of your parser) is not linked into GDB at all.

See the file configure.in for how GDB is configured for different languages.

Edit Makefile.in
Add dependencies in Makefile.in. Make sure you update the macro variables such as HFILES and OBJS, otherwise your code may not get linked in, or, worse yet, it may not get tarred into the distribution!


Node:Host Definition, Next:, Previous:Language Support, Up:Top

Host Definition

With the advent of Autoconf, it's rarely necessary to have host definition machinery anymore. The following information is provided, mainly, as an historical reference.

Adding a New Host

GDB's host configuration support normally happens via Autoconf. New host-specific definitions should not be needed. Older hosts GDB still use the host-specific definitions and files listed below, but these mostly exist for historical reasons, and will eventually disappear.
gdb/config/arch/xyz.mh
This file once contained both host and native configuration information (see Native Debugging) for the machine xyz. The host configuration information is now handed by Autoconf.

Host configuration information included a definition of XM_FILE=xm-xyz.h and possibly definitions for CC, SYSV_DEFINE, XM_CFLAGS, XM_ADD_FILES, XM_CLIBS, XM_CDEPS, etc.; see Makefile.in.

New host only configurations do not need this file.

gdb/config/arch/xm-xyz.h
This file once contained definitions and includes required when hosting gdb on machine xyz. Those definitions and includes are now handled by Autoconf.

New host and native configurations do not need this file.

Maintainer's note: Some hosts continue to use the xm-xyz.h file to define the macros HOST_FLOAT_FORMAT, HOST_DOUBLE_FORMAT and HOST_LONG_DOUBLE_FORMAT. That code also needs to be replaced with either an Autoconf or run-time test.

Generic Host Support Files

There are some "generic" versions of routines that can be used by various systems. These can be customized in various ways by macros defined in your xm-xyz.h file. If these routines work for the xyz host, you can just include the generic file's name (with .o, not .c) in XDEPFILES.

Otherwise, if your machine needs custom support routines, you will need to write routines that perform the same functions as the generic file. Put them into xyz-xdep.c, and put xyz-xdep.o into XDEPFILES.

ser-unix.c
This contains serial line support for Unix systems. This is always included, via the makefile variable SER_HARDWIRE; override this variable in the .mh file to avoid it.
ser-go32.c
This contains serial line support for 32-bit programs running under DOS, using the DJGPP (a.k.a. GO32) execution environment.
ser-tcp.c
This contains generic TCP support using sockets.

Host Conditionals

When GDB is configured and compiled, various macros are defined or left undefined, to control compilation based on the attributes of the host system. These macros and their meanings (or if the meaning is not documented here, then one of the source files where they are used is indicated) are:

GDBINIT_FILENAME
The default name of GDB's initialization file (normally .gdbinit).
NO_STD_REGS
This macro is deprecated.
NO_SYS_FILE
Define this if your system does not have a <sys/file.h>.
SIGWINCH_HANDLER
If your host defines SIGWINCH, you can define this to be the name of a function to be called if SIGWINCH is received.
SIGWINCH_HANDLER_BODY
Define this to expand into code that will define the function named by the expansion of SIGWINCH_HANDLER.
ALIGN_STACK_ON_STARTUP
Define this if your system is of a sort that will crash in tgetent if the stack happens not to be longword-aligned when main is called. This is a rare situation, but is known to occur on several different types of systems.
CRLF_SOURCE_FILES
Define this if host files use \r\n rather than \n as a line terminator. This will cause source file listings to omit \r characters when printing and it will allow \r\n line endings of files which are "sourced" by gdb. It must be possible to open files in binary mode using O_BINARY or, for fopen, "rb".
DEFAULT_PROMPT
The default value of the prompt string (normally "(gdb) ").
DEV_TTY
The name of the generic TTY device, defaults to "/dev/tty".
FCLOSE_PROVIDED
Define this if the system declares fclose in the headers included in defs.h. This isn't needed unless your compiler is unusually anal.
FOPEN_RB
Define this if binary files are opened the same way as text files.
GETENV_PROVIDED
Define this if the system declares getenv in its headers included in defs.h. This isn't needed unless your compiler is unusually anal.
HAVE_MMAP
In some cases, use the system call mmap for reading symbol tables. For some machines this allows for sharing and quick updates.
HAVE_TERMIO
Define this if the host system has termio.h.
INT_MAX
INT_MIN
LONG_MAX
UINT_MAX
ULONG_MAX
Values for host-side constants.
ISATTY
Substitute for isatty, if not available.
LONGEST
This is the longest integer type available on the host. If not defined, it will default to long long or long, depending on CC_HAS_LONG_LONG.
CC_HAS_LONG_LONG
Define this if the host C compiler supports long long. This is set by the configure script.
PRINTF_HAS_LONG_LONG
Define this if the host can handle printing of long long integers via the printf format conversion specifier ll. This is set by the configure script.
HAVE_LONG_DOUBLE
Define this if the host C compiler supports long double. This is set by the configure script.
PRINTF_HAS_LONG_DOUBLE
Define this if the host can handle printing of long double float-point numbers via the printf format conversion specifier Lg. This is set by the configure script.
SCANF_HAS_LONG_DOUBLE
Define this if the host can handle the parsing of long double float-point numbers via the scanf format conversion specifier Lg. This is set by the configure script.
LSEEK_NOT_LINEAR
Define this if lseek (n) does not necessarily move to byte number n in the file. This is only used when reading source files. It is normally faster to define CRLF_SOURCE_FILES when possible.
L_SET
This macro is used as the argument to lseek (or, most commonly, bfd_seek). FIXME, should be replaced by SEEK_SET instead, which is the POSIX equivalent.
MMAP_BASE_ADDRESS
When using HAVE_MMAP, the first mapping should go at this address.
MMAP_INCREMENT
when using HAVE_MMAP, this is the increment between mappings.
NORETURN
If defined, this should be one or more tokens, such as volatile, that can be used in both the declaration and definition of functions to indicate that they never return. The default is already set correctly if compiling with GCC. This will almost never need to be defined.
ATTR_NORETURN
If defined, this should be one or more tokens, such as __attribute__ ((noreturn)), that can be used in the declarations of functions to indicate that they never return. The default is already set correctly if compiling with GCC. This will almost never need to be defined.
USE_GENERIC_DUMMY_FRAMES
Define this to 1 if the target is using the generic inferior function call code. See blockframe.c for more information.
USE_MMALLOC
GDB will use the mmalloc library for memory allocation for symbol reading if this symbol is defined. Be careful defining it since there are systems on which mmalloc does not work for some reason. One example is the DECstation, where its RPC library can't cope with our redefinition of malloc to call mmalloc. When defining USE_MMALLOC, you will also have to set MMALLOC in the Makefile, to point to the mmalloc library. This define is set when you configure with --with-mmalloc.
NO_MMCHECK
Define this if you are using mmalloc, but don't want the overhead of checking the heap with mmcheck. Note that on some systems, the C runtime makes calls to malloc prior to calling main, and if free is ever called with these pointers after calling mmcheck to enable checking, a memory corruption abort is certain to occur. These systems can still use mmalloc, but must define NO_MMCHECK.
MMCHECK_FORCE
Define this to 1 if the C runtime allocates memory prior to mmcheck being called, but that memory is never freed so we don't have to worry about it triggering a memory corruption abort. The default is 0, which means that mmcheck will only install the heap checking functions if there has not yet been any memory allocation calls, and if it fails to install the functions, GDB will issue a warning. This is currently defined if you configure using --with-mmalloc.
NO_SIGINTERRUPT
Define this to indicate that siginterrupt is not available.
SEEK_CUR
SEEK_SET
Define these to appropriate value for the system lseek, if not already defined.
STOP_SIGNAL
This is the signal for stopping GDB. Defaults to SIGTSTP. (Only redefined for the Convex.)
USE_O_NOCTTY
Define this if the interior's tty should be opened with the O_NOCTTY flag. (FIXME: This should be a native-only flag, but inflow.c is always linked in.)
USG
Means that System V (prior to SVR4) include files are in use. (FIXME: This symbol is abused in infrun.c, regex.c, remote-nindy.c, and utils.c for other things, at the moment.)
lint
Define this to help placate lint in some situations.
volatile
Define this to override the defaults of __volatile__ or /**/.


Node:Target Architecture Definition, Next:, Previous:Host Definition, Up:Top

Target Architecture Definition

GDB's target architecture defines what sort of machine-language programs GDB can work with, and how it works with them.

The target architecture object is implemented as the C structure struct gdbarch *. The structure, and its methods, are generated using the Bourne shell script gdbarch.sh.

Registers and Memory

GDB's model of the target machine is rather simple. GDB assumes the machine includes a bank of registers and a block of memory. Each register may have a different size. GDB does not have a magical way to match up with the compiler's idea of which registers are which; however, it is critical that they do match up accurately. The only way to make this work is to get accurate information about the order that the compiler uses, and to reflect that in the REGISTER_NAME and related macros. GDB can handle big-endian, little-endian, and bi-endian architectures.

Pointers Are Not Always Addresses

On almost all 32-bit architectures, the representation of a pointer is indistinguishable from the representation of some fixed-length number whose value is the byte address of the object pointed to. On such machines, the words "pointer" and "address" can be used interchangeably. However, architectures with smaller word sizes are often cramped for address space, so they may choose a pointer representation that breaks this identity, and allows a larger code address space.

For example, the Mitsubishi D10V is a 16-bit VLIW processor whose instructions are 32 bits long3. If the D10V used ordinary byte addresses to refer to code locations, then the processor would only be able to address 64kb of instructions. However, since instructions must be aligned on four-byte boundaries, the low two bits of any valid instruction's byte address are always zero--byte addresses waste two bits. So instead of byte addresses, the D10V uses word addresses--byte addresses shifted right two bits--to refer to code. Thus, the D10V can use 16-bit words to address 256kb of code space.

However, this means that code pointers and data pointers have different forms on the D10V. The 16-bit word 0xC020 refers to byte address 0xC020 when used as a data address, but refers to byte address 0x30080 when used as a code address.

(The D10V also uses separate code and data address spaces, which also affects the correspondence between pointers and addresses, but we're going to ignore that here; this example is already too long.)

To cope with architectures like this--the D10V is not the only one!--GDB tries to distinguish between addresses, which are byte numbers, and pointers, which are the target's representation of an address of a particular type of data. In the example above, 0xC020 is the pointer, which refers to one of the addresses 0xC020 or 0x30080, depending on the type imposed upon it. GDB provides functions for turning a pointer into an address and vice versa, in the appropriate way for the current architecture.

Unfortunately, since addresses and pointers are identical on almost all processors, this distinction tends to bit-rot pretty quickly. Thus, each time you port GDB to an architecture which does distinguish between pointers and addresses, you'll probably need to clean up some architecture-independent code.

Here are functions which convert between pointers and addresses:

CORE_ADDR extract_typed_address (void *buf, struct type *type) Function
Treat the bytes at buf as a pointer or reference of type type, and return the address it represents, in a manner appropriate for the current architecture. This yields an address GDB can use to read target memory, disassemble, etc. Note that buf refers to a buffer in GDB's memory, not the inferior's.

For example, if the current architecture is the Intel x86, this function extracts a little-endian integer of the appropriate length from buf and returns it. However, if the current architecture is the D10V, this function will return a 16-bit integer extracted from buf, multiplied by four if type is a pointer to a function.

If type is not a pointer or reference type, then this function will signal an internal error.

CORE_ADDR store_typed_address (void *buf, struct type *type, CORE_ADDR addr) Function
Store the address addr in buf, in the proper format for a pointer of type type in the current architecture. Note that buf refers to a buffer in GDB's memory, not the inferior's.

For example, if the current architecture is the Intel x86, this function stores addr unmodified as a little-endian integer of the appropriate length in buf. However, if the current architecture is the D10V, this function divides addr by four if type is a pointer to a function, and then stores it in buf.

If type is not a pointer or reference type, then this function will signal an internal error.

CORE_ADDR value_as_address (struct value *val) Function
Assuming that val is a pointer, return the address it represents, as appropriate for the current architecture.

This function actually works on integral values, as well as pointers. For pointers, it performs architecture-specific conversions as described above for extract_typed_address.

CORE_ADDR value_from_pointer (struct type *type, CORE_ADDR addr) Function
Create and return a value representing a pointer of type type to the address addr, as appropriate for the current architecture. This function performs architecture-specific conversions as described above for store_typed_address.
GDB also provides functions that do the same tasks, but assume that pointers are simply byte addresses; they aren't sensitive to the current architecture, beyond knowing the appropriate endianness.

CORE_ADDR extract_address (void *addr, int len) Function
Extract a len-byte number from addr in the appropriate endianness for the current architecture, and return it. Note that addr refers to GDB's memory, not the inferior's.

This function should only be used in architecture-specific code; it doesn't have enough information to turn bits into a true address in the appropriate way for the current architecture. If you can, use extract_typed_address instead.

void store_address (void *addr, int len, LONGEST val) Function
Store val at addr as a len-byte integer, in the appropriate endianness for the current architecture. Note that addr refers to a buffer in GDB's memory, not the inferior's.

This function should only be used in architecture-specific code; it doesn't have enough information to turn a true address into bits in the appropriate way for the current architecture. If you can, use store_typed_address instead.

Here are some macros which architectures can define to indicate the relationship between pointers and addresses. These have default definitions, appropriate for architectures on which all pointers are simple unsigned byte addresses.

CORE_ADDR POINTER_TO_ADDRESS (struct type *type, char *buf) Target Macro
Assume that buf holds a pointer of type type, in the appropriate format for the current architecture. Return the byte address the pointer refers to.

This function may safely assume that type is either a pointer or a C++ reference type.

void ADDRESS_TO_POINTER (struct type *type, char *buf, CORE_ADDR addr) Target Macro
Store in buf a pointer of type type representing the address addr, in the appropriate format for the current architecture.

This function may safely assume that type is either a pointer or a C++ reference type.

Using Different Register and Memory Data Representations

Maintainer's note: The way GDB manipulates registers is undergoing significant change. Many of the macros and functions refered to in the sections below are likely to be made obsolete. See the file TODO for more up-to-date information.

Some architectures use one representation for a value when it lives in a register, but use a different representation when it lives in memory. In GDB's terminology, the raw representation is the one used in the target registers, and the virtual representation is the one used in memory, and within GDB struct value objects.

For almost all data types on almost all architectures, the virtual and raw representations are identical, and no special handling is needed. However, they do occasionally differ. For example:

In general, the raw representation is determined by the architecture, or GDB's interface to the architecture, while the virtual representation can be chosen for GDB's convenience. GDB's register file, registers, holds the register contents in raw format, and the GDB remote protocol transmits register values in raw format.

Your architecture may define the following macros to request conversions between the raw and virtual format:

int REGISTER_CONVERTIBLE (int reg) Target Macro
Return non-zero if register number reg's value needs different raw and virtual formats.

You should not use REGISTER_CONVERT_TO_VIRTUAL for a register unless this macro returns a non-zero value for that register.

int REGISTER_RAW_SIZE (int reg) Target Macro
The size of register number reg's raw value. This is the number of bytes the register will occupy in registers, or in a GDB remote protocol packet.

int REGISTER_VIRTUAL_SIZE (int reg) Target Macro
The size of register number reg's value, in its virtual format. This is the size a struct value's buffer will have, holding that register's value.

struct type *REGISTER_VIRTUAL_TYPE (int reg) Target Macro
This is the type of the virtual representation of register number reg. Note that there is no need for a macro giving a type for the register's raw form; once the register's value has been obtained, GDB always uses the virtual form.

void REGISTER_CONVERT_TO_VIRTUAL (int reg, struct type *type, char *from, char *to) Target Macro
Convert the value of register number reg to type, which should always be REGISTER_VIRTUAL_TYPE (reg). The buffer at from holds the register's value in raw format; the macro should convert the value to virtual format, and place it at to.

Note that REGISTER_CONVERT_TO_VIRTUAL and REGISTER_CONVERT_TO_RAW take their reg and type arguments in different orders.

You should only use REGISTER_CONVERT_TO_VIRTUAL with registers for which the REGISTER_CONVERTIBLE macro returns a non-zero value.

void REGISTER_CONVERT_TO_RAW (struct type *type, int reg, char *from, char *to) Target Macro
Convert the value of register number reg to type, which should always be REGISTER_VIRTUAL_TYPE (reg). The buffer at from holds the register's value in raw format; the macro should convert the value to virtual format, and place it at to.

Note that REGISTER_CONVERT_TO_VIRTUAL and REGISTER_CONVERT_TO_RAW take their reg and type arguments in different orders.

Frame Interpretation

Inferior Call Setup

Compiler Characteristics

Target Conditionals

This section describes the macros that you can use to define the target machine.


ADDITIONAL_OPTIONS
ADDITIONAL_OPTION_CASES
ADDITIONAL_OPTION_HANDLER
ADDITIONAL_OPTION_HELP
These are a set of macros that allow the addition of additional command line options to GDB. They are currently used only for the unsupported i960 Nindy target, and should not be used in any other configuration.
ADDR_BITS_REMOVE (addr)
If a raw machine instruction address includes any bits that are not really part of the address, then define this macro to expand into an expression that zeroes those bits in addr. This is only used for addresses of instructions, and even then not in all contexts.

For example, the two low-order bits of the PC on the Hewlett-Packard PA 2.0 architecture contain the privilege level of the corresponding instruction. Since instructions must always be aligned on four-byte boundaries, the processor masks out these bits to generate the actual address of the instruction. ADDR_BITS_REMOVE should filter out these bits with an expression such as ((addr) & ~3).

ADDRESS_TO_POINTER (type, buf, addr)
Store in buf a pointer of type type representing the address addr, in the appropriate format for the current architecture. This macro may safely assume that type is either a pointer or a C++ reference type. See Pointers Are Not Always Addresses.
BEFORE_MAIN_LOOP_HOOK
Define this to expand into any code that you want to execute before the main loop starts. Although this is not, strictly speaking, a target conditional, that is how it is currently being used. Note that if a configuration were to define it one way for a host and a different way for the target, GDB will probably not compile, let alone run correctly. This macro is currently used only for the unsupported i960 Nindy target, and should not be used in any other configuration.
BELIEVE_PCC_PROMOTION
Define if the compiler promotes a short or char parameter to an int, but still reports the parameter as its original type, rather than the promoted type.
BELIEVE_PCC_PROMOTION_TYPE
Define this if GDB should believe the type of a short argument when compiled by pcc, but look within a full int space to get its value. Only defined for Sun-3 at present.
BITS_BIG_ENDIAN
Define this if the numbering of bits in the targets does not match the endianness of the target byte order. A value of 1 means that the bits are numbered in a big-endian bit order, 0 means little-endian.
BREAKPOINT
This is the character array initializer for the bit pattern to put into memory where a breakpoint is set. Although it's common to use a trap instruction for a breakpoint, it's not required; for instance, the bit pattern could be an invalid instruction. The breakpoint must be no longer than the shortest instruction of the architecture.

BREAKPOINT has been deprecated in favor of BREAKPOINT_FROM_PC.

BIG_BREAKPOINT
LITTLE_BREAKPOINT
Similar to BREAKPOINT, but used for bi-endian targets.

BIG_BREAKPOINT and LITTLE_BREAKPOINT have been deprecated in favor of BREAKPOINT_FROM_PC.

REMOTE_BREAKPOINT
LITTLE_REMOTE_BREAKPOINT
BIG_REMOTE_BREAKPOINT
Similar to BREAKPOINT, but used for remote targets.

BIG_REMOTE_BREAKPOINT and LITTLE_REMOTE_BREAKPOINT have been deprecated in favor of BREAKPOINT_FROM_PC.

BREAKPOINT_FROM_PC (pcptr, lenptr)
Use the program counter to determine the contents and size of a breakpoint instruction. It returns a pointer to a string of bytes that encode a breakpoint instruction, stores the length of the string to *lenptr, and adjusts pc (if necessary) to point to the actual memory location where the breakpoint should be inserted.

Although it is common to use a trap instruction for a breakpoint, it's not required; for instance, the bit pattern could be an invalid instruction. The breakpoint must be no longer than the shortest instruction of the architecture.

Replaces all the other BREAKPOINT macros.

MEMORY_INSERT_BREAKPOINT (addr, contents_cache)
MEMORY_REMOVE_BREAKPOINT (addr, contents_cache)
Insert or remove memory based breakpoints. Reasonable defaults (default_memory_insert_breakpoint and default_memory_remove_breakpoint respectively) have been provided so that it is not necessary to define these for most architectures. Architectures which may want to define MEMORY_INSERT_BREAKPOINT and MEMORY_REMOVE_BREAKPOINT will likely have instructions that are oddly sized or are not stored in a conventional manner.

It may also be desirable (from an efficiency standpoint) to define custom breakpoint insertion and removal routines if BREAKPOINT_FROM_PC needs to read the target's memory for some reason.

CALL_DUMMY_P
A C expresson that is non-zero when the target suports inferior function calls.
CALL_DUMMY_WORDS
Pointer to an array of LONGEST words of data containing host-byte-ordered REGISTER_BYTES sized values that partially specify the sequence of instructions needed for an inferior function call.

Should be deprecated in favor of a macro that uses target-byte-ordered data.

SIZEOF_CALL_DUMMY_WORDS
The size of CALL_DUMMY_WORDS. When CALL_DUMMY_P this must return a positive value. See also CALL_DUMMY_LENGTH.
CALL_DUMMY
A static initializer for CALL_DUMMY_WORDS. Deprecated.
CALL_DUMMY_LOCATION
See the file inferior.h.
CALL_DUMMY_STACK_ADJUST
Stack adjustment needed when performing an inferior function call.

Should be deprecated in favor of something like STACK_ALIGN.

CALL_DUMMY_STACK_ADJUST_P
Predicate for use of CALL_DUMMY_STACK_ADJUST.

Should be deprecated in favor of something like STACK_ALIGN.

CANNOT_FETCH_REGISTER (regno)
A C expression that should be nonzero if regno cannot be fetched from an inferior process. This is only relevant if FETCH_INFERIOR_REGISTERS is not defined.
CANNOT_STORE_REGISTER (regno)
A C expression that should be nonzero if regno should not be written to the target. This is often the case for program counters, status words, and other special registers. If this is not defined, GDB will assume that all registers may be written.
DO_DEFERRED_STORES
CLEAR_DEFERRED_STORES
Define this to execute any deferred stores of registers into the inferior, and to cancel any deferred stores.

Currently only implemented correctly for native Sparc configurations?

COERCE_FLOAT_TO_DOUBLE (formal, actual)
Return non-zero if GDB should promote float values to double when calling a non-prototyped function. The argument actual is the type of the value we want to pass to the function. The argument formal is the type of this argument, as it appears in the function's definition. Note that formal may be zero if we have no debugging information for the function, or if we're passing more arguments than are officially declared (for example, varargs). This macro is never invoked if the function definitely has a prototype.

How you should pass arguments to a function depends on whether it was defined in K&R style or prototype style. If you define a function using the K&R syntax that takes a float argument, then callers must pass that argument as a double. If you define the function using the prototype syntax, then you must pass the argument as a float, with no promotion.

Unfortunately, on certain older platforms, the debug info doesn't indicate reliably how each function was defined. A function type's TYPE_FLAG_PROTOTYPED flag may be unset, even if the function was defined in prototype style. When calling a function whose TYPE_FLAG_PROTOTYPED flag is unset, GDB consults the COERCE_FLOAT_TO_DOUBLE macro to decide what to do.

For modern targets, it is proper to assume that, if the prototype flag is unset, that can be trusted: float arguments should be promoted to double. You should use the function standard_coerce_float_to_double to get this behavior.

For some older targets, if the prototype flag is unset, that doesn't tell us anything. So we guess that, if we don't have a type for the formal parameter (i.e., the first argument to COERCE_FLOAT_TO_DOUBLE is null), then we should promote it; otherwise, we should leave it alone. The function default_coerce_float_to_double provides this behavior; it is the default value, for compatibility with older configurations.

CPLUS_MARKER
Define this to expand into the character that G++ uses to distinguish compiler-generated identifiers from programmer-specified identifiers. By default, this expands into '$'. Most System V targets should define this to '.'.
DBX_PARM_SYMBOL_CLASS
Hook for the SYMBOL_CLASS of a parameter when decoding DBX symbol information. In the i960, parameters can be stored as locals or as args, depending on the type of the debug record.
DECR_PC_AFTER_BREAK
Define this to be the amount by which to decrement the PC after the program encounters a breakpoint. This is often the number of bytes in BREAKPOINT, though not always. For most targets this value will be 0.
DECR_PC_AFTER_HW_BREAK
Similarly, for hardware breakpoints.
DISABLE_UNSETTABLE_BREAK (addr)
If defined, this should evaluate to 1 if addr is in a shared library in which breakpoints cannot be set and so should be disabled.
DO_REGISTERS_INFO
If defined, use this to print the value of a register or all registers.
PRINT_FLOAT_INFO()
#findex PRINT_FLOAT_INFO If defined, then the info float command will print information about the processor's floating point unit.
DWARF_REG_TO_REGNUM
Convert DWARF register number into GDB regnum. If not defined, no conversion will be performed.
DWARF2_REG_TO_REGNUM
Convert DWARF2 register number into GDB regnum. If not defined, no conversion will be performed.
ECOFF_REG_TO_REGNUM
Convert ECOFF register number into GDB regnum. If not defined, no conversion will be performed.
END_OF_TEXT_DEFAULT
This is an expression that should designate the end of the text section.
EXTRACT_RETURN_VALUE(type, regbuf, valbuf)
Define this to extract a function's return value of type type from the raw register state regbuf and copy that, in virtual format, into valbuf.
EXTRACT_STRUCT_VALUE_ADDRESS(regbuf)
When defined, extract from the array regbuf (containing the raw register state) the CORE_ADDR at which a function should return its structure value.

If not defined, EXTRACT_RETURN_VALUE is used.

EXTRACT_STRUCT_VALUE_ADDRESS_P()
Predicate for EXTRACT_STRUCT_VALUE_ADDRESS.
FLOAT_INFO
Deprecated in favor of PRINT_FLOAT_INFO.
FP_REGNUM
If the virtual frame pointer is kept in a register, then define this macro to be the number (greater than or equal to zero) of that register.

This should only need to be defined if TARGET_READ_FP and TARGET_WRITE_FP are not defined.

FRAMELESS_FUNCTION_INVOCATION(fi)
Define this to an expression that returns 1 if the function invocation represented by fi does not have a stack frame associated with it. Otherwise return 0.
FRAME_ARGS_ADDRESS_CORRECT
See stack.c.
FRAME_CHAIN(frame)
Given frame, return a pointer to the calling frame.
FRAME_CHAIN_COMBINE(chain, frame)
Define this to take the frame chain pointer and the frame's nominal address and produce the nominal address of the caller's frame. Presently only defined for HP PA.
FRAME_CHAIN_VALID(chain, thisframe)
Define this to be an expression that returns zero if the given frame is an outermost frame, with no caller, and nonzero otherwise. Several common definitions are available:
FRAME_INIT_SAVED_REGS(frame)
See frame.h. Determines the address of all registers in the current stack frame storing each in frame->saved_regs. Space for frame->saved_regs shall be allocated by FRAME_INIT_SAVED_REGS using either frame_saved_regs_zalloc or frame_obstack_alloc.

FRAME_FIND_SAVED_REGS and EXTRA_FRAME_INFO are deprecated.

FRAME_NUM_ARGS (fi)
For the frame described by fi return the number of arguments that are being passed. If the number of arguments is not known, return -1.
FRAME_SAVED_PC(frame)
Given frame, return the pc saved there. This is the return address.
FUNCTION_EPILOGUE_SIZE
For some COFF targets, the x_sym.x_misc.x_fsize field of the function end symbol is 0. For such targets, you must define FUNCTION_EPILOGUE_SIZE to expand into the standard size of a function's epilogue.
FUNCTION_START_OFFSET
An integer, giving the offset in bytes from a function's address (as used in the values of symbols, function pointers, etc.), and the function's first genuine instruction.

This is zero on almost all machines: the function's address is usually the address of its first instruction. However, on the VAX, for example, each function starts with two bytes containing a bitmask indicating which registers to save upon entry to the function. The VAX call instructions check this value, and save the appropriate registers automatically. Thus, since the offset from the function's address to its first instruction is two bytes, FUNCTION_START_OFFSET would be 2 on the VAX.

GCC_COMPILED_FLAG_SYMBOL
GCC2_COMPILED_FLAG_SYMBOL
If defined, these are the names of the symbols that GDB will look for to detect that GCC compiled the file. The default symbols are gcc_compiled. and gcc2_compiled., respectively. (Currently only defined for the Delta 68.)
GDB_MULTI_ARCH
If defined and non-zero, enables suport for multiple architectures within GDB.

This support can be enabled at two levels. At level one, only definitions for previously undefined macros are provided; at level two, a multi-arch definition of all architecture dependant macros will be defined.

GDB_TARGET_IS_HPPA
This determines whether horrible kludge code in dbxread.c and partial-stab.h is used to mangle multiple-symbol-table files from HPPA's. This should all be ripped out, and a scheme like elfread.c used instead.
GET_LONGJMP_TARGET
For most machines, this is a target-dependent parameter. On the DECstation and the Iris, this is a native-dependent parameter, since trhe header file setjmp.h is needed to define it.

This macro determines the target PC address that longjmp will jump to, assuming that we have just stopped at a longjmp breakpoint. It takes a CORE_ADDR * as argument, and stores the target PC value through this pointer. It examines the current state of the machine as needed.

GET_SAVED_REGISTER
Define this if you need to supply your own definition for the function get_saved_register.
HAVE_REGISTER_WINDOWS
Define this if the target has register windows.
REGISTER_IN_WINDOW_P (regnum)
Define this to be an expression that is 1 if the given register is in the window.
IBM6000_TARGET
Shows that we are configured for an IBM RS/6000 target. This conditional should be eliminated (FIXME) and replaced by feature-specific macros. It was introduced in a haste and we are repenting at leisure.
I386_USE_GENERIC_WATCHPOINTS
An x86-based target can define this to use the generic x86 watchpoint support; see I386_USE_GENERIC_WATCHPOINTS.
SYMBOLS_CAN_START_WITH_DOLLAR
Some systems have routines whose names start with $. Giving this macro a non-zero value tells GDB's expression parser to check for such routines when parsing tokens that begin with $.

On HP-UX, certain system routines (millicode) have names beginning with $ or $$. For example, $$dyncall is a millicode routine that handles inter-space procedure calls on PA-RISC.

INIT_EXTRA_FRAME_INFO (fromleaf, frame)
If additional information about the frame is required this should be stored in frame->extra_info. Space for frame->extra_info is allocated using frame_obstack_alloc.
INIT_FRAME_PC (fromleaf, prev)
This is a C statement that sets the pc of the frame pointed to by prev. [By default...]
INNER_THAN (lhs, rhs)
Returns non-zero if stack address lhs is inner than (nearer to the stack top) stack address rhs. Define this as lhs < rhs if the target's stack grows downward in memory, or lhs > rsh if the stack grows upward.
gdbarch_in_function_epilogue_p (gdbarch, pc)
Returns non-zero if the given pc is in the epilogue of a function. The epilogue of a function is defined as the part of a function where the stack frame of the function already has been destroyed up to the final `return from function call' instruction.
IN_SIGTRAMP (pc, name)
Define this to return non-zero if the given pc and/or name indicates that the current function is a sigtramp.
SIGTRAMP_START (pc)
SIGTRAMP_END (pc)
Define these to be the start and end address of the sigtramp for the given pc. On machines where the address is just a compile time constant, the macro expansion will typically just ignore the supplied pc.
IN_SOLIB_CALL_TRAMPOLINE (pc, name)
Define this to evaluate to nonzero if the program is stopped in the trampoline that connects to a shared library.
IN_SOLIB_RETURN_TRAMPOLINE (pc, name)
Define this to evaluate to nonzero if the program is stopped in the trampoline that returns from a shared library.
IN_SOLIB_DYNSYM_RESOLVE_CODE (pc)
Define this to evaluate to nonzero if the program is stopped in the dynamic linker.
SKIP_SOLIB_RESOLVER (pc)
Define this to evaluate to the (nonzero) address at which execution should continue to get past the dynamic linker's symbol resolution function. A zero value indicates that it is not important or necessary to set a breakpoint to get through the dynamic linker and that single stepping will suffice.
INTEGER_TO_ADDRESS (type, buf)
Define this when the architecture needs to handle non-pointer to address conversions specially. Converts that value to an address according to the current architectures conventions.

Pragmatics: When the user copies a well defined expression from their source code and passes it, as a parameter, to GDB's print command, they should get the same value as would have been computed by the target program. Any deviation from this rule can cause major confusion and annoyance, and needs to be justified carefully. In other words, GDB doesn't really have the freedom to do these conversions in clever and useful ways. It has, however, been pointed out that users aren't complaining about how GDB casts integers to pointers; they are complaining that they can't take an address from a disassembly listing and give it to x/i. Adding an architecture method like INTEGER_TO_ADDRESS certainly makes it possible for GDB to "get it right" in all circumstances.

See Pointers Are Not Always Addresses.

IS_TRAPPED_INTERNALVAR (name)
This is an ugly hook to allow the specification of special actions that should occur as a side-effect of setting the value of a variable internal to GDB. Currently only used by the h8500. Note that this could be either a host or target conditional.
NEED_TEXT_START_END
Define this if GDB should determine the start and end addresses of the text section. (Seems dubious.)
NO_HIF_SUPPORT
(Specific to the a29k.)
POINTER_TO_ADDRESS (type, buf)
Assume that buf holds a pointer of type type, in the appropriate format for the current architecture. Return the byte address the pointer refers to. See Pointers Are Not Always Addresses.
REGISTER_CONVERTIBLE (reg)
Return non-zero if reg uses different raw and virtual formats. See Using Different Register and Memory Data Representations.
REGISTER_RAW_SIZE (reg)
Return the raw size of reg. See Using Different Register and Memory Data Representations.
REGISTER_VIRTUAL_SIZE (reg)
Return the virtual size of reg. See Using Different Register and Memory Data Representations.
REGISTER_VIRTUAL_TYPE (reg)
Return the virtual type of reg. See Using Different Register and Memory Data Representations.
REGISTER_CONVERT_TO_VIRTUAL(reg, type, from, to)
Convert the value of register reg from its raw form to its virtual form. See Using Different Register and Memory Data Representations.
REGISTER_CONVERT_TO_RAW(type, reg, from, to)
Convert the value of register reg from its virtual form to its raw form. See Using Different Register and Memory Data Representations.
RETURN_VALUE_ON_STACK(type)

Return non-zero if values of type TYPE are returned on the stack, using the "struct convention" (i.e., the caller provides a pointer to a buffer in which the callee should store the return value). This controls how the finish command finds a function's return value, and whether an inferior function call reserves space on the stack for the return value.

The full logic GDB uses here is kind of odd.

In other words, to indicate that a given type is returned by value using the struct convention, that type must be either a struct, union, array, or something RETURN_VALUE_ON_STACK likes, and something that USE_STRUCT_CONVENTION likes.

Note that, in C and C++, arrays are never returned by value. In those languages, these predicates will always see a pointer type, never an array type. All the references above to arrays being returned by value apply only to other languages.

SOFTWARE_SINGLE_STEP_P()
Define this as 1 if the target does not have a hardware single-step mechanism. The macro SOFTWARE_SINGLE_STEP must also be defined.
SOFTWARE_SINGLE_STEP(signal, insert_breapoints_p)
A function that inserts or removes (depending on insert_breapoints_p) breakpoints at each possible destinations of the next instruction. See sparc-tdep.c and rs6000-tdep.c for examples.
SOFUN_ADDRESS_MAYBE_MISSING
Somebody clever observed that, the more actual addresses you have in the debug information, the more time the linker has to spend relocating them. So whenever there's some other way the debugger could find the address it needs, you should omit it from the debug info, to make linking faster.

SOFUN_ADDRESS_MAYBE_MISSING indicates that a particular set of hacks of this sort are in use, affecting N_SO and N_FUN entries in stabs-format debugging information. N_SO stabs mark the beginning and ending addresses of compilation units in the text segment. N_FUN stabs mark the starts and ends of functions.

SOFUN_ADDRESS_MAYBE_MISSING means two things:


PCC_SOL_BROKEN
(Used only in the Convex target.)
PC_IN_CALL_DUMMY
See inferior.h.
PC_LOAD_SEGMENT
If defined, print information about the load segment for the program counter. (Defined only for the RS/6000.)
PC_REGNUM
If the program counter is kept in a register, then define this macro to be the number (greater than or equal to zero) of that register.

This should only need to be defined if TARGET_READ_PC and TARGET_WRITE_PC are not defined.

NPC_REGNUM
The number of the "next program counter" register, if defined.
NNPC_REGNUM
The number of the "next next program counter" register, if defined. Currently, this is only defined for the Motorola 88K.
PARM_BOUNDARY
If non-zero, round arguments to a boundary of this many bits before pushing them on the stack.
PRINT_REGISTER_HOOK (regno)
If defined, this must be a function that prints the contents of the given register to standard output.
PRINT_TYPELESS_INTEGER
This is an obscure substitute for print_longest that seems to have been defined for the Convex target.
PROCESS_LINENUMBER_HOOK
A hook defined for XCOFF reading.
PROLOGUE_FIRSTLINE_OVERLAP
(Only used in unsupported Convex configuration.)
PS_REGNUM
If defined, this is the number of the processor status register. (This definition is only used in generic code when parsing "$ps".)
POP_FRAME
Used in call_function_by_hand to remove an artificial stack frame and in return_command to remove a real stack frame.
PUSH_ARGUMENTS (nargs, args, sp, struct_return, struct_addr)
Define this to push arguments onto the stack for inferior function call. Returns the updated stack pointer value.
PUSH_DUMMY_FRAME
Used in call_function_by_hand to create an artificial stack frame.
REGISTER_BYTES
The total amount of space needed to store GDB's copy of the machine's register state.
REGISTER_NAME(i)
Return the name of register i as a string. May return NULL or NUL to indicate that register i is not valid.
REGISTER_NAMES
Deprecated in favor of REGISTER_NAME.
REG_STRUCT_HAS_ADDR (gcc_p, type)
Define this to return 1 if the given type will be passed by pointer rather than directly.
SAVE_DUMMY_FRAME_TOS (sp)
Used in call_function_by_hand to notify the target dependent code of the top-of-stack value that will be passed to the the inferior code. This is the value of the SP after both the dummy frame and space for parameters/results have been allocated on the stack.
SDB_REG_TO_REGNUM
Define this to convert sdb register numbers into GDB regnums. If not defined, no conversion will be done.
SHIFT_INST_REGS
(Only used for m88k targets.)
SKIP_PERMANENT_BREAKPOINT
Advance the inferior's PC past a permanent breakpoint. GDB normally steps over a breakpoint by removing it, stepping one instruction, and re-inserting the breakpoint. However, permanent breakpoints are hardwired into the inferior, and can't be removed, so this strategy doesn't work. Calling SKIP_PERMANENT_BREAKPOINT adjusts the processor's state so that execution will resume just after the breakpoint. This macro does the right thing even when the breakpoint is in the delay slot of a branch or jump.
SKIP_PROLOGUE (pc)
A C expression that returns the address of the "real" code beyond the function entry prologue found at pc.
SKIP_PROLOGUE_FRAMELESS_P
A C expression that should behave similarly, but that can stop as soon as the function is known to have a frame. If not defined, SKIP_PROLOGUE will be used instead.
SKIP_TRAMPOLINE_CODE (pc)
If the target machine has trampoline code that sits between callers and the functions being called, then define this macro to return a new PC that is at the start of the real function.
SP_REGNUM
If the stack-pointer is kept in a register, then define this macro to be the number (greater than or equal to zero) of that register.

This should only need to be defined if TARGET_WRITE_SP and TARGET_WRITE_SP are not defined.

STAB_REG_TO_REGNUM
Define this to convert stab register numbers (as gotten from `r' declarations) into GDB regnums. If not defined, no conversion will be done.
STACK_ALIGN (addr)
Define this to adjust the address to the alignment required for the processor's stack.
STEP_SKIPS_DELAY (addr)
Define this to return true if the address is of an instruction with a delay slot. If a breakpoint has been placed in the instruction's delay slot, GDB will single-step over that instruction before resuming normally. Currently only defined for the Mips.
STORE_RETURN_VALUE (type, valbuf)
A C expression that stores a function return value of type type, where valbuf is the address of the value to be stored.
SUN_FIXED_LBRAC_BUG
(Used only for Sun-3 and Sun-4 targets.)
SYMBOL_RELOADING_DEFAULT
The default value of the "symbol-reloading" variable. (Never defined in current sources.)
TARGET_CHAR_BIT
Number of bits in a char; defaults to 8.
TARGET_CHAR_SIGNED
Non-zero if char is normally signed on this architecture; zero if it should be unsigned.

The ISO C standard requires the compiler to treat char as equivalent to either signed char or unsigned char; any character in the standard execution set is supposed to be positive. Most compilers treat char as signed, but char is unsigned on the IBM S/390, RS6000, and PowerPC targets.

TARGET_COMPLEX_BIT
Number of bits in a complex number; defaults to 2 * TARGET_FLOAT_BIT.

At present this macro is not used.

TARGET_DOUBLE_BIT
Number of bits in a double float; defaults to 8 * TARGET_CHAR_BIT.
TARGET_DOUBLE_COMPLEX_BIT
Number of bits in a double complex; defaults to 2 * TARGET_DOUBLE_BIT.

At present this macro is not used.

TARGET_FLOAT_BIT
Number of bits in a float; defaults to 4 * TARGET_CHAR_BIT.
TARGET_INT_BIT
Number of bits in an integer; defaults to 4 * TARGET_CHAR_BIT.
TARGET_LONG_BIT
Number of bits in a long integer; defaults to 4 * TARGET_CHAR_BIT.
TARGET_LONG_DOUBLE_BIT
Number of bits in a long double float; defaults to 2 * TARGET_DOUBLE_BIT.
TARGET_LONG_LONG_BIT
Number of bits in a long long integer; defaults to 2 * TARGET_LONG_BIT.
TARGET_PTR_BIT
Number of bits in a pointer; defaults to TARGET_INT_BIT.
TARGET_SHORT_BIT
Number of bits in a short integer; defaults to 2 * TARGET_CHAR_BIT.
TARGET_READ_PC
TARGET_WRITE_PC (val, pid)
TARGET_READ_SP
TARGET_WRITE_SP
TARGET_READ_FP
TARGET_WRITE_FP
These change the behavior of read_pc, write_pc, read_sp, write_sp, read_fp and write_fp. For most targets, these may be left undefined. GDB will call the read and write register functions with the relevant _REGNUM argument.

These macros are useful when a target keeps one of these registers in a hard to get at place; for example, part in a segment register and part in an ordinary register.

TARGET_VIRTUAL_FRAME_POINTER(pc, regp, offsetp)
Returns a (register, offset) pair representing the virtual frame pointer in use at the code address pc. If virtual frame pointers are not used, a default definition simply returns FP_REGNUM, with an offset of zero.
TARGET_HAS_HARDWARE_WATCHPOINTS
If non-zero, the target has support for hardware-assisted watchpoints. See watchpoints, for more details and other related macros.
TARGET_PRINT_INSN (addr, info)
This is the function used by GDB to print an assembly instruction. It prints the instruction at address addr in debugged memory and returns the length of the instruction, in bytes. If a target doesn't define its own printing routine, it defaults to an accessor function for the global pointer tm_print_insn. This usually points to a function in the opcodes library (see Opcodes). info is a structure (of type disassemble_info) defined in include/dis-asm.h used to pass information to the instruction decoding routine.
USE_STRUCT_CONVENTION (gcc_p, type)
If defined, this must be an expression that is nonzero if a value of the given type being returned from a function must have space allocated for it on the stack. gcc_p is true if the function being considered is known to have been compiled by GCC; this is helpful for systems where GCC is known to use different calling convention than other compilers.
VARIABLES_INSIDE_BLOCK (desc, gcc_p)
For dbx-style debugging information, if the compiler puts variable declarations inside LBRAC/RBRAC blocks, this should be defined to be nonzero. desc is the value of n_desc from the N_RBRAC symbol, and gcc_p is true if GDB has noticed the presence of either the GCC_COMPILED_SYMBOL or the GCC2_COMPILED_SYMBOL. By default, this is 0.
OS9K_VARIABLES_INSIDE_BLOCK (desc, gcc_p)
Similarly, for OS/9000. Defaults to 1.

Motorola M68K target conditionals.

BPT_VECTOR
Define this to be the 4-bit location of the breakpoint trap vector. If not defined, it will default to 0xf.
REMOTE_BPT_VECTOR
Defaults to 1.

Adding a New Target

The following files add a target to GDB:

gdb/config/arch/ttt.mt
Contains a Makefile fragment specific to this target. Specifies what object files are needed for target ttt, by defining TDEPFILES=... and TDEPLIBS=.... Also specifies the header file which describes ttt, by defining TM_FILE= tm-ttt.h.

You can also define TM_CFLAGS, TM_CLIBS, TM_CDEPS, but these are now deprecated, replaced by autoconf, and may go away in future versions of GDB.

gdb/ttt-tdep.c
Contains any miscellaneous code required for this target machine. On some machines it doesn't exist at all. Sometimes the macros in tm-ttt.h become very complicated, so they are implemented as functions here instead, and the macro is simply defined to call the function. This is vastly preferable, since it is easier to understand and debug.
gdb/arch-tdep.c
gdb/arch-tdep.h
This often exists to describe the basic layout of the target machine's processor chip (registers, stack, etc.). If used, it is included by ttt-tdep.h. It can be shared among many targets that use the same processor.
gdb/config/arch/tm-ttt.h
(tm.h is a link to this file, created by configure). Contains macro definitions about the target machine's registers, stack frame format and instructions.

New targets do not need this file and should not create it.

gdb/config/arch/tm-arch.h
This often exists to describe the basic layout of the target machine's processor chip (registers, stack, etc.). If used, it is included by tm-ttt.h. It can be shared among many targets that use the same processor.

New targets do not need this file and should not create it.

If you are adding a new operating system for an existing CPU chip, add a config/tm-os.h file that describes the operating system facilities that are unusual (extra symbol table info; the breakpoint instruction needed; etc.). Then write a arch/tm-os.h that just #includes tm-arch.h and config/tm-os.h.


Node:Target Vector Definition, Next:, Previous:Target Architecture Definition, Up:Top

Target Vector Definition

The target vector defines the interface between GDB's abstract handling of target systems, and the nitty-gritty code that actually exercises control over a process or a serial port. GDB includes some 30-40 different target vectors; however, each configuration of GDB includes only a few of them.

File Targets

Both executables and core files have target vectors.

Standard Protocol and Remote Stubs

GDB's file remote.c talks a serial protocol to code that runs in the target system. GDB provides several sample stubs that can be integrated into target programs or operating systems for this purpose; they are named *-stub.c.

The GDB user's manual describes how to put such a stub into your target code. What follows is a discussion of integrating the SPARC stub into a complicated operating system (rather than a simple program), by Stu Grossman, the author of this stub.

The trap handling code in the stub assumes the following upon entry to trap_low:

  1. %l1 and %l2 contain pc and npc respectively at the time of the trap;
  2. traps are disabled;
  3. you are in the correct trap window.

As long as your trap handler can guarantee those conditions, then there is no reason why you shouldn't be able to "share" traps with the stub. The stub has no requirement that it be jumped to directly from the hardware trap vector. That is why it calls exceptionHandler(), which is provided by the external environment. For instance, this could set up the hardware traps to actually execute code which calls the stub first, and then transfers to its own trap handler.

For the most point, there probably won't be much of an issue with "sharing" traps, as the traps we use are usually not used by the kernel, and often indicate unrecoverable error conditions. Anyway, this is all controlled by a table, and is trivial to modify. The most important trap for us is for ta 1. Without that, we can't single step or do breakpoints. Everything else is unnecessary for the proper operation of the debugger/stub.

From reading the stub, it's probably not obvious how breakpoints work. They are simply done by deposit/examine operations from GDB.

ROM Monitor Interface

Custom Protocols

Transport Layer

Builtin Simulator


Node:Native Debugging, Next:, Previous:Target Vector Definition, Up:Top

Native Debugging

Several files control GDB's configuration for native support:

gdb/config/arch/xyz.mh
Specifies Makefile fragments needed by a native configuration on machine xyz. In particular, this lists the required native-dependent object files, by defining NATDEPFILES=.... Also specifies the header file which describes native support on xyz, by defining NAT_FILE= nm-xyz.h. You can also define NAT_CFLAGS, NAT_ADD_FILES, NAT_CLIBS, NAT_CDEPS, etc.; see Makefile.in.

Maintainer's note: The .mh suffix is because this file originally contained Makefile fragments for hosting GDB on machine xyz. While the file is no longer used for this purpose, the .mh suffix remains. Perhaphs someone will eventually rename these fragments so that they have a .mn suffix.

gdb/config/arch/nm-xyz.h
(nm.h is a link to this file, created by configure). Contains C macro definitions describing the native system environment, such as child process control and core file support.
gdb/xyz-nat.c
Contains any miscellaneous C code required for this native support of this machine. On some machines it doesn't exist at all.

There are some "generic" versions of routines that can be used by various systems. These can be customized in various ways by macros defined in your nm-xyz.h file. If these routines work for the xyz host, you can just include the generic file's name (with .o, not .c) in NATDEPFILES.

Otherwise, if your machine needs custom support routines, you will need to write routines that perform the same functions as the generic file. Put them into xyz-nat.c, and put xyz-nat.o into NATDEPFILES.

inftarg.c
This contains the target_ops vector that supports Unix child processes on systems which use ptrace and wait to control the child.
procfs.c
This contains the target_ops vector that supports Unix child processes on systems which use /proc to control the child.
fork-child.c
This does the low-level grunge that uses Unix system calls to do a "fork and exec" to start up a child process.
infptrace.c
This is the low level interface to inferior processes for systems using the Unix ptrace call in a vanilla way.

Native core file Support

core-aout.c::fetch_core_registers()
Support for reading registers out of a core file. This routine calls register_addr(), see below. Now that BFD is used to read core files, virtually all machines should use core-aout.c, and should just provide fetch_core_registers in xyz-nat.c (or REGISTER_U_ADDR in nm-xyz.h).
core-aout.c::register_addr()
If your nm-xyz.h file defines the macro REGISTER_U_ADDR(addr, blockend, regno), it should be defined to set addr to the offset within the user struct of GDB register number regno. blockend is the offset within the "upage" of u.u_ar0. If REGISTER_U_ADDR is defined, core-aout.c will define the register_addr() function and use the macro in it. If you do not define REGISTER_U_ADDR, but you are using the standard fetch_core_registers(), you will need to define your own version of register_addr(), put it into your xyz-nat.c file, and be sure xyz-nat.o is in the NATDEPFILES list. If you have your own fetch_core_registers(), you may not need a separate register_addr(). Many custom fetch_core_registers() implementations simply locate the registers themselves.

When making GDB run native on a new operating system, to make it possible to debug core files, you will need to either write specific code for parsing your OS's core files, or customize bfd/trad-core.c. First, use whatever #include files your machine uses to define the struct of registers that is accessible (possibly in the u-area) in a core file (rather than machine/reg.h), and an include file that defines whatever header exists on a core file (e.g. the u-area or a struct core). Then modify trad_unix_core_file_p to use these values to set up the section information for the data segment, stack segment, any other segments in the core file (perhaps shared library contents or control information), "registers" segment, and if there are two discontiguous sets of registers (e.g. integer and float), the "reg2" segment. This section information basically delimits areas in the core file in a standard way, which the section-reading routines in BFD know how to seek around in.

Then back in GDB, you need a matching routine called fetch_core_registers. If you can use the generic one, it's in core-aout.c; if not, it's in your xyz-nat.c file. It will be passed a char pointer to the entire "registers" segment, its length, and a zero; or a char pointer to the entire "regs2" segment, its length, and a 2. The routine should suck out the supplied register values and install them into GDB's "registers" array.

If your system uses /proc to control processes, and uses ELF format core files, then you may be able to use the same routines for reading the registers out of processes and out of core files.

ptrace

/proc

win32

shared libraries

Native Conditionals

When GDB is configured and compiled, various macros are defined or left undefined, to control compilation when the host and target systems are the same. These macros should be defined (or left undefined) in nm-system.h.

ATTACH_DETACH
If defined, then GDB will include support for the attach and detach commands.
CHILD_PREPARE_TO_STORE
If the machine stores all registers at once in the child process, then define this to ensure that all values are correct. This usually entails a read from the child.

[Note that this is incorrectly defined in xm-system.h files currently.]

FETCH_INFERIOR_REGISTERS
Define this if the native-dependent code will provide its own routines fetch_inferior_registers and store_inferior_registers in host-nat.c. If this symbol is not defined, and infptrace.c is included in this configuration, the default routines in infptrace.c are used for these functions.
FILES_INFO_HOOK
(Only defined for Convex.)
FP0_REGNUM
This macro is normally defined to be the number of the first floating point register, if the machine has such registers. As such, it would appear only in target-specific code. However, /proc support uses this to decide whether floats are in use on this target.
GET_LONGJMP_TARGET
For most machines, this is a target-dependent parameter. On the DECstation and the Iris, this is a native-dependent parameter, since setjmp.h is needed to define it.

This macro determines the target PC address that longjmp will jump to, assuming that we have just stopped at a longjmp breakpoint. It takes a CORE_ADDR * as argument, and stores the target PC value through this pointer. It examines the current state of the machine as needed.

I386_USE_GENERIC_WATCHPOINTS
An x86-based machine can define this to use the generic x86 watchpoint support; see I386_USE_GENERIC_WATCHPOINTS.
KERNEL_U_ADDR
Define this to the address of the u structure (the "user struct", also known as the "u-page") in kernel virtual memory. GDB needs to know this so that it can subtract this address from absolute addresses in the upage, that are obtained via ptrace or from core files. On systems that don't need this value, set it to zero.
KERNEL_U_ADDR_BSD
Define this to cause GDB to determine the address of u at runtime, by using Berkeley-style nlist on the kernel's image in the root directory.
KERNEL_U_ADDR_HPUX
Define this to cause GDB to determine the address of u at runtime, by using HP-style nlist on the kernel's image in the root directory.
ONE_PROCESS_WRITETEXT
Define this to be able to, when a breakpoint insertion fails, warn the user that another process may be running with the same executable.
PREPARE_TO_PROCEED (select_it)
This (ugly) macro allows a native configuration to customize the way the proceed function in infrun.c deals with switching between threads.

In a multi-threaded task we may select another thread and then continue or step. But if the old thread was stopped at a breakpoint, it will immediately cause another breakpoint stop without any execution (i.e. it will report a breakpoint hit incorrectly). So GDB must step over it first.

If defined, PREPARE_TO_PROCEED should check the current thread against the thread that reported the most recent event. If a step-over is required, it returns TRUE. If select_it is non-zero, it should reselect the old thread.

PROC_NAME_FMT
Defines the format for the name of a /proc device. Should be defined in nm.h only in order to override the default definition in procfs.c.
PTRACE_FP_BUG
See mach386-xdep.c.
PTRACE_ARG3_TYPE
The type of the third argument to the ptrace system call, if it exists and is different from int.
REGISTER_U_ADDR
Defines the offset of the registers in the "u area".
SHELL_COMMAND_CONCAT
If defined, is a string to prefix on the shell command used to start the inferior.
SHELL_FILE
If defined, this is the name of the shell to use to run the inferior. Defaults to "/bin/sh".
SOLIB_ADD (filename, from_tty, targ, readsyms)
Define this to expand into an expression that will cause the symbols in filename to be added to GDB's symbol table. If readsyms is zero symbols are not read but any necessary low level processing for filename is still done.
SOLIB_CREATE_INFERIOR_HOOK
Define this to expand into any shared-library-relocation code that you want to be run just after the child process has been forked.
START_INFERIOR_TRAPS_EXPECTED
When starting an inferior, GDB normally expects to trap twice; once when the shell execs, and once when the program itself execs. If the actual number of traps is something other than 2, then define this macro to expand into the number expected.
SVR4_SHARED_LIBS
Define this to indicate that SVR4-style shared libraries are in use.
USE_PROC_FS
This determines whether small routines in *-tdep.c, which translate register values between GDB's internal representation and the /proc representation, are compiled.
U_REGS_OFFSET
This is the offset of the registers in the upage. It need only be defined if the generic ptrace register access routines in infptrace.c are being used (that is, infptrace.c is configured in, and FETCH_INFERIOR_REGISTERS is not defined). If the default value from infptrace.c is good enough, leave it undefined.

The default value means that u.u_ar0 points to the location of the registers. I'm guessing that #define U_REGS_OFFSET 0 means that u.u_ar0 is the location of the registers.

CLEAR_SOLIB
See objfiles.c.
DEBUG_PTRACE
Define this to debug ptrace calls.


Node:Support Libraries, Next:, Previous:Native Debugging, Up:Top

Support Libraries

BFD

BFD provides support for GDB in several ways:

identifying executable and core files
BFD will identify a variety of file types, including a.out, coff, and several variants thereof, as well as several kinds of core files.
access to sections of files
BFD parses the file headers to determine the names, virtual addresses, sizes, and file locations of all the various named sections in files (such as the text section or the data section). GDB simply calls BFD to read or write section x at byte offset y for length z.
specialized core file support
BFD provides routines to determine the failing command name stored in a core file, the signal with which the program failed, and whether a core file matches (i.e. could be a core dump of) a particular executable file.
locating the symbol information
GDB uses an internal interface of BFD to determine where to find the symbol information in an executable file or symbol-file. GDB itself handles the reading of symbols, since BFD does not "understand" debug symbols, but GDB uses BFD's cached information to find the symbols, string table, etc.

opcodes

The opcodes library provides GDB's disassembler. (It's a separate library because it's also used in binutils, for objdump).

readline

mmalloc

libiberty

gnu-regex

Regex conditionals.

C_ALLOCA

NFAILURES

RE_NREGS

SIGN_EXTEND_CHAR

SWITCH_ENUM_BUG

SYNTAX_TABLE

Sword

sparc

include


Node:Coding, Next:, Previous:Support Libraries, Up:Top

Coding

This chapter covers topics that are lower-level than the major algorithms of GDB.

Cleanups

Cleanups are a structured way to deal with things that need to be done later.

When your code does something (e.g., xmalloc some memory, or open a file) that needs to be undone later (e.g., xfree the memory or close the file), it can make a cleanup. The cleanup will be done at some future point: when the command is finished and control returns to the top level; when an error occurs and the stack is unwound; or when your code decides it's time to explicitly perform cleanups. Alternatively you can elect to discard the cleanups you created.

Syntax:

struct cleanup *old_chain;
Declare a variable which will hold a cleanup chain handle.
old_chain = make_cleanup (function, arg);
Make a cleanup which will cause function to be called with arg (a char *) later. The result, old_chain, is a handle that can later be passed to do_cleanups or discard_cleanups. Unless you are going to call do_cleanups or discard_cleanups, you can ignore the result from make_cleanup.
do_cleanups (old_chain);
Do all cleanups added to the chain since the corresponding make_cleanup call was made.
discard_cleanups (old_chain);
Same as do_cleanups except that it just removes the cleanups from the chain and does not call the specified functions.

Cleanups are implemented as a chain. The handle returned by make_cleanups includes the cleanup passed to the call and any later cleanups appended to the chain (but not yet discarded or performed). E.g.:

make_cleanup (a, 0);
{
  struct cleanup *old = make_cleanup (b, 0);
  make_cleanup (c, 0)
  ...
  do_cleanups (old);
}

will call c() and b() but will not call a(). The cleanup that calls a() will remain in the cleanup chain, and will be done later unless otherwise discarded.

Your function should explicitly do or discard the cleanups it creates. Failing to do this leads to non-deterministic behavior since the caller will arbitrarily do or discard your functions cleanups. This need leads to two common cleanup styles.

The first style is try/finally. Before it exits, your code-block calls do_cleanups with the old cleanup chain and thus ensures that your code-block's cleanups are always performed. For instance, the following code-segment avoids a memory leak problem (even when error is called and a forced stack unwind occurs) by ensuring that the xfree will always be called:

struct cleanup *old = make_cleanup (null_cleanup, 0);
data = xmalloc (sizeof blah);
make_cleanup (xfree, data);
... blah blah ...
do_cleanups (old);

The second style is try/except. Before it exits, your code-block calls discard_cleanups with the old cleanup chain and thus ensures that any created cleanups are not performed. For instance, the following code segment, ensures that the file will be closed but only if there is an error:

FILE *file = fopen ("afile", "r");
struct cleanup *old = make_cleanup (close_file, file);
... blah blah ...
discard_cleanups (old);
return file;

Some functions, e.g. fputs_filtered() or error(), specify that they "should not be called when cleanups are not in place". This means that any actions you need to reverse in the case of an error or interruption must be on the cleanup chain before you call these functions, since they might never return to your code (they longjmp instead).

Wrapping Output Lines

Output that goes through printf_filtered or fputs_filtered or fputs_demangled needs only to have calls to wrap_here added in places that would be good breaking points. The utility routines will take care of actually wrapping if the line width is exceeded.

The argument to wrap_here is an indentation string which is printed only if the line breaks there. This argument is saved away and used later. It must remain valid until the next call to wrap_here or until a newline has been printed through the *_filtered functions. Don't pass in a local variable and then return!

It is usually best to call wrap_here after printing a comma or space. If you call it before printing a space, make sure that your indentation properly accounts for the leading space that will print if the line wraps there.

Any function or set of functions that produce filtered output must finish by printing a newline, to flush the wrap buffer, before switching to unfiltered (printf) output. Symbol reading routines that print warnings are a good example.

GDB Coding Standards

GDB follows the GNU coding standards, as described in etc/standards.texi. This file is also available for anonymous FTP from GNU archive sites. GDB takes a strict interpretation of the standard; in general, when the GNU standard recommends a practice but does not require it, GDB requires it. GDB follows an additional set of coding standards specific to GDB, as described in the following sections.

ISO-C

GDB assumes an ISO-C compliant compiler. GDB does not assume an ISO-C or POSIX compliant C library.

Memory Management

GDB does not use the functions malloc, realloc, calloc, free and asprintf. GDB uses the functions xmalloc, xrealloc and xcalloc when allocating memory. Unlike malloc et.al. these functions do not return when the memory pool is empty. Instead, they unwind the stack using cleanups. These functions return NULL when requested to allocate a chunk of memory of size zero.

Pragmatics: By using these functions, the need to check every memory allocation is removed. These functions provide portable behavior. GDB does not use the function free. GDB uses the function xfree to return memory to the memory pool. Consistent with ISO-C, this function ignores a request to free a NULL pointer.

Pragmatics: On some systems free fails when passed a NULL pointer. GDB can use the non-portable function alloca for the allocation of small temporary values (such as strings).

Pragmatics: This function is very non-portable. Some systems restrict the memory being allocated to no more than a few kilobytes. GDB uses the string function xstrdup and the print function xasprintf.

Pragmatics: asprintf and strdup can fail. Print functions such as sprintf are very prone to buffer overflow errors.

Compiler Warnings

With few exceptions, developers should include the configuration option --enable-gdb-build-warnings=,-Werror when building GDB. The exceptions are listed in the file gdb/MAINTAINERS.

This option causes GDB (when built using GCC) to be compiled with a carefully selected list of compiler warning flags. Any warnings from those flags being treated as errors.

The current list of warning flags includes:

-Wimplicit
Since GDB coding standard requires all functions to be declared using a prototype, the flag has the side effect of ensuring that prototyped functions are always visible with out resorting to -Wstrict-prototypes.
-Wreturn-type
Such code often appears to work except on instruction set architectures that use register windows.
-Wcomment

-Wtrigraphs

-Wformat
Since GDB uses the format printf attribute on all printf like functions this checks not just printf calls but also calls to functions such as fprintf_unfiltered.
-Wparentheses
This warning includes uses of the assignment operator within an if statement.
-Wpointer-arith

-Wuninitialized

Pragmatics: Due to the way that GDB is implemented most functions have unused parameters. Consequently the warning -Wunused-parameter is precluded from the list. The macro ATTRIBUTE_UNUSED is not used as it leads to false negatives -- it is not an error to have ATTRIBUTE_UNUSED on a parameter that is being used. The options -Wall and -Wunused are also precluded because they both include -Wunused-parameter.

Pragmatics: GDB has not simply accepted the warnings enabled by -Wall -Werror -W.... Instead it is selecting warnings when and where their benefits can be demonstrated.

Formatting

The standard GNU recommendations for formatting must be followed strictly.

A function declaration should not have its name in column zero. A function definition should have its name in column zero.

/* Declaration */
static void foo (void);
/* Definition */
void
foo (void)
{
}

Pragmatics: This simplifies scripting. Function definitions can be found using ^function-name.

There must be a space between a function or macro name and the opening parenthesis of its argument list (except for macro definitions, as required by C). There must not be a space after an open paren/bracket or before a close paren/bracket.

While additional whitespace is generally helpful for reading, do not use more than one blank line to separate blocks, and avoid adding whitespace after the end of a program line (as of 1/99, some 600 lines had whitespace after the semicolon). Excess whitespace causes difficulties for diff and patch utilities.

Pointers are declared using the traditional K&R C style:

void *foo;

and not:

void * foo;
void* foo;

Comments

The standard GNU requirements on comments must be followed strictly.

Block comments must appear in the following form, with no /*- or */-only lines, and no leading *:

/* Wait for control to return from inferior to debugger.  If inferior
   gets a signal, we may decide to start it up again instead of
   returning.  That is why there is a loop in this function.  When
   this function actually returns it means the inferior should be left
   stopped and GDB should read more commands.  */

(Note that this format is encouraged by Emacs; tabbing for a multi-line comment works correctly, and M-q fills the block consistently.)

Put a blank line between the block comments preceding function or variable definitions, and the definition itself.

In general, put function-body comments on lines by themselves, rather than trying to fit them into the 20 characters left at the end of a line, since either the comment or the code will inevitably get longer than will fit, and then somebody will have to move it anyhow.

C Usage

Code must not depend on the sizes of C data types, the format of the host's floating point numbers, the alignment of anything, or the order of evaluation of expressions.

Use functions freely. There are only a handful of compute-bound areas in GDB that might be affected by the overhead of a function call, mainly in symbol reading. Most of GDB's performance is limited by the target interface (whether serial line or system call).

However, use functions with moderation. A thousand one-line functions are just as hard to understand as a single thousand-line function.

Macros are bad, M'kay. (But if you have to use a macro, make sure that the macro arguments are protected with parentheses.)

Declarations like struct foo * should be used in preference to declarations like typedef struct foo { ... } *foo_ptr.

Function Prototypes

Prototypes must be used when both declaring and defining a function. Prototypes for GDB functions must include both the argument type and name, with the name matching that used in the actual function definition.

All external functions should have a declaration in a header file that callers include, except for _initialize_* functions, which must be external so that init.c construction works, but shouldn't be visible to random source files.

Where a source file needs a forward declaration of a static function, that declaration must appear in a block near the top of the source file.

Internal Error Recovery

During its execution, GDB can encounter two types of errors. User errors and internal errors. User errors include not only a user entering an incorrect command but also problems arising from corrupt object files and system errors when interacting with the target. Internal errors include situtations where GDB has detected, at run time, a corrupt or erroneous situtation.

When reporting an internal error, GDB uses internal_error and gdb_assert. GDB must not call abort or assert.

Pragmatics: There is no internal_warning function. Either the code detected a user error, recovered from it and issued a warning or the code failed to correctly recover from the user error and issued an internal_error.

File Names

Any file used when building the core of GDB must be in lower case. Any file used when building the core of GDB must be 8.3 unique. These requirements apply to both source and generated files.

Pragmatics: The core of GDB must be buildable on many platforms including DJGPP and MacOS/HFS. Every time an unfriendly file is introduced to the build process both Makefile.in and configure.in need to be modified accordingly. Compare the convoluted conversion process needed to transform COPYING into copying.c with the conversion needed to transform version.in into version.c.

Any file non 8.3 compliant file (that is not used when building the core of GDB) must be added to gdb/config/djgpp/fnchange.lst.

Pragmatics: This is clearly a compromise.

When GDB has a local version of a system header file (ex string.h) the file name based on the POSIX header prefixed with gdb_ (gdb_string.h).

For other files - is used as the separator.

Include Files

All .c files should include defs.h first.

All .c files should explicitly include the headers for any declarations they refer to. They should not rely on files being included indirectly.

With the exception of the global definitions supplied by defs.h, a header file should explictily include the header declaring any typedefs et.al. it refers to.

extern declarations should never appear in .c files.

All include files should be wrapped in:

#ifndef INCLUDE_FILE_NAME_H
#define INCLUDE_FILE_NAME_H
header body
#endif

Clean Design and Portable Implementation

In addition to getting the syntax right, there's the little question of semantics. Some things are done in certain ways in GDB because long experience has shown that the more obvious ways caused various kinds of trouble.

You can't assume the byte order of anything that comes from a target (including values, object files, and instructions). Such things must be byte-swapped using SWAP_TARGET_AND_HOST in GDB, or one of the swap routines defined in bfd.h, such as bfd_get_32.

You can't assume that you know what interface is being used to talk to the target system. All references to the target must go through the current target_ops vector.

You can't assume that the host and target machines are the same machine (except in the "native" support modules). In particular, you can't assume that the target machine's header files will be available on the host machine. Target code must bring along its own header files - written from scratch or explicitly donated by their owner, to avoid copyright problems.

Insertion of new #ifdef's will be frowned upon. It's much better to write the code portably than to conditionalize it for various systems.

New #ifdef's which test for specific compilers or manufacturers or operating systems are unacceptable. All #ifdef's should test for features. The information about which configurations contain which features should be segregated into the configuration files. Experience has proven far too often that a feature unique to one particular system often creeps into other systems; and that a conditional based on some predefined macro for your current system will become worthless over time, as new versions of your system come out that behave differently with regard to this feature.

Adding code that handles specific architectures, operating systems, target interfaces, or hosts, is not acceptable in generic code.

One particularly notorious area where system dependencies tend to creep in is handling of file names. The mainline GDB code assumes Posix semantics of file names: absolute file names begin with a forward slash /, slashes are used to separate leading directories, case-sensitive file names. These assumptions are not necessarily true on non-Posix systems such as MS-Windows. To avoid system-dependent code where you need to take apart or construct a file name, use the following portable macros:

HAVE_DOS_BASED_FILE_SYSTEM
This preprocessing symbol is defined to a non-zero value on hosts whose filesystems belong to the MS-DOS/MS-Windows family. Use this symbol to write conditional code which should only be compiled for such hosts.
IS_DIR_SEPARATOR (c)
Evaluates to a non-zero value if c is a directory separator character. On Unix and GNU/Linux systems, only a slash / is such a character, but on Windows, both / and \ will pass.
IS_ABSOLUTE_PATH (file)
Evaluates to a non-zero value if file is an absolute file name. For Unix and GNU/Linux hosts, a name which begins with a slash / is absolute. On DOS and Windows, d:/foo and x:\bar are also absolute file names.
FILENAME_CMP (f1, f2)
Calls a function which compares file names f1 and f2 as appropriate for the underlying host filesystem. For Posix systems, this simply calls strcmp; on case-insensitive filesystems it will call strcasecmp instead.
DIRNAME_SEPARATOR
Evaluates to a character which separates directories in PATH-style lists, typically held in environment variables. This character is : on Unix, ; on DOS and Windows.
SLASH_STRING
This evaluates to a constant string you should use to produce an absolute filename from leading directories and the file's basename. SLASH_STRING is "/" on most systems, but might be "\\" for some Windows-based ports.

In addition to using these macros, be sure to use portable library functions whenever possible. For example, to extract a directory or a basename part from a file name, use the dirname and basename library functions (available in libiberty for platforms which don't provide them), instead of searching for a slash with strrchr.

Another way to generalize GDB along a particular interface is with an attribute struct. For example, GDB has been generalized to handle multiple kinds of remote interfaces--not by #ifdefs everywhere, but by defining the target_ops structure and having a current target (as well as a stack of targets below it, for memory references). Whenever something needs to be done that depends on which remote interface we are using, a flag in the current target_ops structure is tested (e.g., target_has_stack), or a function is called through a pointer in the current target_ops structure. In this way, when a new remote interface is added, only one module needs to be touched--the one that actually implements the new remote interface. Other examples of attribute-structs are BFD access to multiple kinds of object file formats, or GDB's access to multiple source languages.

Please avoid duplicating code. For example, in GDB 3.x all the code interfacing between ptrace and the rest of GDB was duplicated in *-dep.c, and so changing something was very painful. In GDB 4.x, these have all been consolidated into infptrace.c. infptrace.c can deal with variations between systems the same way any system-independent file would (hooks, #if defined, etc.), and machines which are radically different don't need to use infptrace.c at all.

All debugging code must be controllable using the set debug module command. Do not use printf to print trace messages. Use fprintf_unfiltered(gdb_stdlog, .... Do not use #ifdef DEBUG.


Node:Porting GDB, Next:, Previous:Coding, Up:Top

Porting GDB

Most of the work in making GDB compile on a new machine is in specifying the configuration of the machine. This is done in a dizzying variety of header files and configuration scripts, which we hope to make more sensible soon. Let's say your new host is called an xyz (e.g., sun4), and its full three-part configuration name is arch-xvend-xos (e.g., sparc-sun-sunos4). In particular:

Configuring GDB for Release

From the top level directory (containing gdb, bfd, libiberty, and so on):

make -f Makefile.in gdb.tar.gz

This will properly configure, clean, rebuild any files that are distributed pre-built (e.g. c-exp.tab.c or refcard.ps), and will then make a tarfile. (If the top level directory has already been configured, you can just do make gdb.tar.gz instead.)

This procedure requires:

... and the usual slew of utilities (sed, tar, etc.).

TEMPORARY RELEASE PROCEDURE FOR DOCUMENTATION

gdb.texinfo is currently marked up using the texinfo-2 macros, which are not yet a default for anything (but we have to start using them sometime).

For making paper, the only thing this implies is the right generation of texinfo.tex needs to be included in the distribution.

For making info files, however, rather than duplicating the texinfo2 distribution, generate gdb-all.texinfo locally, and include the files gdb.info* in the distribution. Note the plural; makeinfo will split the document into one overall file and five or so included files.


Node:Releasing GDB, Next:, Previous:Porting GDB, Up:Top

Releasing GDB

Obsolete any code

Before anything else, poke the other developers (and around the source code) to see if there is anything that can be removed from GDB (an old target, an unused file).

Obsolete code is identified by adding an OBSOLETE prefix to every line. Doing this means that it is easy to identify obsolete code when grepping through the sources.

The process has a number of steps and is intentionally slow -- this is to mainly ensure that people have had a reasonable chance to respond. Remember, everything on the internet takes a week.

Maintainer note: Removing old code, while regrettable, is a good thing. Firstly it helps the developers by removing code that is either no longer relevant or simply wrong. Secondly since it removes any history associated with the file (effectively clearing the slate) the developer has a much freer hand when it comes to fixing broken files.

Before the branch

The most important objective at this stage is to find and fix simple changes that become a pain to track once the branch is created. For instance, configuration problems that stop GDB from even building. If you can't get the problem fixed, document it in the gdb/PROBLEMS file.

Organize and announce the schedule.

The following is a possible schedule. It is based on the rule-of-thumb that everything on the Internet takes a week. You may want to even increase those times further since an analysis of the actual data strongly suggests that the below is far to aggressive.

As an aside, the branch tag name is probably regrettable vis:

gdb_N_M-YYYY-MM-DD-{branch,branchpoint}

Refresh any imported files.

A number of files are taken from external repositories. They include:

and should be refreshed.

Prompt for gdb/NEWS

People always forget. Send a post reminding them but also if you know something interesting happened add it your self.

Review gdb/README

Grab one of the nightly snapshots and then walk through the gdb/README looking for anything that can be improved.

Check the ARI

ARI is an awk script (Awk Regression Indicator?) that checks for a number of errors and coding conventions. The checks include things like using malloc instead of xmalloc and file naming problems. There shouldn't be any regressions.

Cut the branch

The dirty work

I think something like the below was used:

$  d=`date -u +%Y-%m-%d`
$  echo $d
2002-01-24
$  cvs -f -d /cvs/src rtag -D $d-gmt \
gdb_5_1-$d-branchpoint insight+dejagnu
$  cvs -f -d /cvs/src rtag -b -r gdb_V_V-$d-branchpoint \
gdb_5_1-$d-branch insight+dejagnu
$

Post the branch info

Update the web and news pages

Tweak cron to track the new branch

Stabilize the branch

Something goes here.

Create a Release

This procedure can be followed when creating beta and final final releases. With a beta many of the steps can be skipped.

Establish a few defaults.


$  b=gdb_5_1-2001-07-29-branch
$  v=5.1.1
$  t=/sourceware/snapshot-tmp/gdbadmin-tmp
$  echo $t/$b/$v
$  mkdir -p $t/$b/$v
$  cd $t/$b/$v
$  pwd
/sourceware/snapshot-tmp/gdbadmin-tmp/gdb_5_1-2001-07-29-branch/5.1.1
$  which autoconf
/home/gdbadmin/bin/autoconf
$

NB: Check the autoconf version carefully. You want to be using the version taken from the binutils snapshot directory. It is most likely that your system's installed version (/usr/bin?) is probably correct.

Check out the relevant modules:


$  for m in gdb insight dejagnu
do
( mkdir -p $m && cd $m && cvs -q -f -d /cvs/src co -P -r $b $m )
done
$

NB: The reading of .cvsrc is disabled (-f) so that there isn't any confusion between what is written here and what your local CVS really does.

Update relevant files.

gdb/NEWS

Major releases get their comments added as part of the mainline. Minor releases should probably mention any significant bugs that were fixed.

Don't forget to update the ChangeLog.

$  emacs gdb/src/gdb/NEWS
...
c-x 4 a
...
c-x c-s c-x c-c
$  cp gdb/src/gdb/NEWS insight/src/gdb/NEWS
$  cp gdb/src/gdb/ChangeLog insight/src/gdb/ChangeLog
gdb/README

You'll need to update: the version, the update date, and who did it.

$  emacs gdb/src/gdb/README
...
c-x 4 a
...
c-x c-s c-x c-c
$  cp gdb/src/gdb/README insight/src/gdb/README
$  cp gdb/src/gdb/ChangeLog insight/src/gdb/ChangeLog

Maintainer note: Hopefully the README file was reviewed before the initial branch was cut so just a simple substitute is needed to get it updated.

Maintainer note: Other projects generate README and INSTALL from the core documentation. This might be worth pursuing.

gdb/version.in

$  echo $v > gdb/src/gdb/version.in
$  emacs gdb/src/gdb/version.in
...
c-x 4 a
...
c-x c-s c-x c-c
$  cp gdb/src/gdb/version.in insight/src/gdb/version.in
$  cp gdb/src/gdb/ChangeLog insight/src/gdb/ChangeLog
dejagnu/src/dejagnu/configure.in

Dejagnu is more complicated. The version number is a parameter to AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE. Tweak it to read something like gdb-5.1.1.

Re-generate configure.

Add a ChangeLog.

Do the dirty work

This is identical to the process used when creating the daily snapshot.

$  for m in gdb insight dejagnu
do
( cd $m/src && gmake -f Makefile.in $m.tar.bz2 )
done

Check the source files

You're looking for files that have mysteriously disappeared as the distclean has the habit of deleting files it shouldn't. Watch out for the version.in update cronjob.

$  ( cd gdb/src && cvs -f -q -n update )
M djunpack.bat
? proto-toplev
? gdb-5.1.1.tar.bz2
M gdb/ChangeLog
M gdb/NEWS
M gdb/README
M gdb/version.in
? gdb/p-exp.tab.c
? gdb/doc/gdb.info-11
? gdb/doc/gdb.info-12
? gdb/doc/gdb.info-13
? gdb/doc/gdb.info-14
? gdb/doc/gdb.info-15
? gdb/doc/gdbint.info-4
? gdb/doc/gdbint.info-5
$

Don't worry about the gdb.info-?? or gdb/p-exp.tab.c. They were generated (and yes gdb.info-1 was also generated only something strange with CVS means that they didn't get supressed). Fixing it would be nice though.

Re-pack the release with gzip


$  cp */*/*.bz2 .
$  bunzip2 -k -v *.bz2
$  gzip -9 -v *.tar

NB: A pipe such as bunzip2 < xxx.bz2 | gzip -9 > xxx.gz shouldn't be used since, in that mode, gzip doesn't know the file name information and consequently can't include it. This is also why the release process runs tar and bzip2 as separate passes.

Maintainer note: The release process could be changed to create .tar rather than .tar.bz2 files.

Check the release

Grab the gdb.tar.bz2, copy it to your local machine and then try a simple build using it.

If this is a pre-release just copy the .bz2 files to the snapshot directory and skip the remaining steps.

If it is a final release, also make it available under a bogus name so that others can download and check it.

Maintainer note: This adds an extra day to the release process but is very much worth it. Other developers are given the oportunity to check that things like your NEWS entries are correct or that other changes actually work.

Release the tar ball

This is where, unfortunatly, the notes just get vague.

Install on sware


$  cp *.bz2 *.gz ~ftp/pub/gdb/releases

Create and update the web pages.

Try the following:

Maintainer note: This step is too fragile -- it is too easy to mis one of the entries and forget to update it.

Generate online docs

You need to find the magic command that is used to generate the online docs from the .tar.bz2. The best way is to look in the output from one of the nightly cronjobs and then just edit accordingly. Something like:

$  ~/ss/update-web-docs \
 ~ftp/pub/gdb/releases/gdb-5.1.1.tar.bz2 \
 $PWD/www \
 /www/sourceware/htdocs/gdb/5.1.1/onlinedocs \
 gdb

Something about ANNOUNCEMENT

Send the ANNOUNCEMENT file you created above to:

Install it on GNU

At the time of writing, the GNU machine was gnudist.gnu.org in ~ftp/gnu/gdb (I think, I'm still waiting for it to copy into my home directory).

Cleanup

Commit outstanding changes

In particular you'll need to commit the changes to:

Tag the release

Something like:

$  d=`date -u +%Y-%m-%d`
$  echo $d
2002-01-24
$  ( cd insight/src/gdb && cvs -f -q update )
$  ( cd insight/src && cvs -f -q tag gdb_5_1_1-$d-release )

Insight is used since that contains more of the release than GDB (yes dejagnu doesn't get tagged but I think we can live with that.).

Restart gdb/version.in

If gdb/version.in does not contain an ISO date such as 2002-01-24 then the daily cronjob won't update it. Having committed all the release changes it can be set to 5.1.0_0000-00-00-cvs which will restart things (yes the _ is important - it affects the snapshot process).

Don't forget the ChangeLog.

Merge into trunk

The files committed to the branch may also need changes merged into the trunk.

Post release

Remove any OBSOLETE code.


Node:Testsuite, Next:, Previous:Releasing GDB, Up:Top

Testsuite

The testsuite is an important component of the GDB package. While it is always worthwhile to encourage user testing, in practice this is rarely sufficient; users typically use only a small subset of the available commands, and it has proven all too common for a change to cause a significant regression that went unnoticed for some time.

The GDB testsuite uses the DejaGNU testing framework. DejaGNU is built using Tcl and expect. The tests themselves are calls to various Tcl procs; the framework runs all the procs and summarizes the passes and fails.

Using the Testsuite

To run the testsuite, simply go to the GDB object directory (or to the testsuite's objdir) and type make check. This just sets up some environment variables and invokes DejaGNU's runtest script. While the testsuite is running, you'll get mentions of which test file is in use, and a mention of any unexpected passes or fails. When the testsuite is finished, you'll get a summary that looks like this:

                === gdb Summary ===

# of expected passes            6016
# of unexpected failures        58
# of unexpected successes       5
# of expected failures          183
# of unresolved testcases       3
# of untested testcases         5

The ideal test run consists of expected passes only; however, reality conspires to keep us from this ideal. Unexpected failures indicate real problems, whether in GDB or in the testsuite. Expected failures are still failures, but ones which have been decided are too hard to deal with at the time; for instance, a test case might work everywhere except on AIX, and there is no prospect of the AIX case being fixed in the near future. Expected failures should not be added lightly, since you may be masking serious bugs in GDB. Unexpected successes are expected fails that are passing for some reason, while unresolved and untested cases often indicate some minor catastrophe, such as the compiler being unable to deal with a test program.

When making any significant change to GDB, you should run the testsuite before and after the change, to confirm that there are no regressions. Note that truly complete testing would require that you run the testsuite with all supported configurations and a variety of compilers; however this is more than really necessary. In many cases testing with a single configuration is sufficient. Other useful options are to test one big-endian (Sparc) and one little-endian (x86) host, a cross config with a builtin simulator (powerpc-eabi, mips-elf), or a 64-bit host (Alpha).

If you add new functionality to GDB, please consider adding tests for it as well; this way future GDB hackers can detect and fix their changes that break the functionality you added. Similarly, if you fix a bug that was not previously reported as a test failure, please add a test case for it. Some cases are extremely difficult to test, such as code that handles host OS failures or bugs in particular versions of compilers, and it's OK not to try to write tests for all of those.

Testsuite Organization

The testsuite is entirely contained in gdb/testsuite. While the testsuite includes some makefiles and configury, these are very minimal, and used for little besides cleaning up, since the tests themselves handle the compilation of the programs that GDB will run. The file testsuite/lib/gdb.exp contains common utility procs useful for all GDB tests, while the directory testsuite/config contains configuration-specific files, typically used for special-purpose definitions of procs like gdb_load and gdb_start.

The tests themselves are to be found in testsuite/gdb.* and subdirectories of those. The names of the test files must always end with .exp. DejaGNU collects the test files by wildcarding in the test directories, so both subdirectories and individual files get chosen and run in alphabetical order.

The following table lists the main types of subdirectories and what they are for. Since DejaGNU finds test files no matter where they are located, and since each test file sets up its own compilation and execution environment, this organization is simply for convenience and intelligibility.

gdb.base
This is the base testsuite. The tests in it should apply to all configurations of GDB (but generic native-only tests may live here). The test programs should be in the subset of C that is valid K&R, ANSI/ISO, and C++ (#ifdefs are allowed if necessary, for instance for prototypes).
gdb.lang
Language-specific tests for any language lang besides C. Examples are gdb.c++ and gdb.java.
gdb.platform
Non-portable tests. The tests are specific to a specific configuration (host or target), such as HP-UX or eCos. Example is gdb.hp, for HP-UX.
gdb.compiler
Tests specific to a particular compiler. As of this writing (June 1999), there aren't currently any groups of tests in this category that couldn't just as sensibly be made platform-specific, but one could imagine a gdb.gcc, for tests of GDB's handling of GCC extensions.
gdb.subsystem
Tests that exercise a specific GDB subsystem in more depth. For instance, gdb.disasm exercises various disassemblers, while gdb.stabs tests pathways through the stabs symbol reader.

Writing Tests

In many areas, the GDB tests are already quite comprehensive; you should be able to copy existing tests to handle new cases.

You should try to use gdb_test whenever possible, since it includes cases to handle all the unexpected errors that might happen. However, it doesn't cost anything to add new test procedures; for instance, gdb.base/exprs.exp defines a test_expr that calls gdb_test multiple times.

Only use send_gdb and gdb_expect when absolutely necessary, such as when GDB has several valid responses to a command.

The source language programs do not need to be in a consistent style. Since GDB is used to debug programs written in many different styles, it's worth having a mix of styles in the testsuite; for instance, some GDB bugs involving the display of source lines would never manifest themselves if the programs used GNU coding style uniformly.


Node:Hints, Next:, Previous:Testsuite, Up:Top

Hints

Check the README file, it often has useful information that does not appear anywhere else in the directory.


Node:Getting Started, Up:Hints

Getting Started

GDB is a large and complicated program, and if you first starting to work on it, it can be hard to know where to start. Fortunately, if you know how to go about it, there are ways to figure out what is going on.

This manual, the GDB Internals manual, has information which applies generally to many parts of GDB.

Information about particular functions or data structures are located in comments with those functions or data structures. If you run across a function or a global variable which does not have a comment correctly explaining what is does, this can be thought of as a bug in GDB; feel free to submit a bug report, with a suggested comment if you can figure out what the comment should say. If you find a comment which is actually wrong, be especially sure to report that.

Comments explaining the function of macros defined in host, target, or native dependent files can be in several places. Sometimes they are repeated every place the macro is defined. Sometimes they are where the macro is used. Sometimes there is a header file which supplies a default definition of the macro, and the comment is there. This manual also documents all the available macros.

Start with the header files. Once you have some idea of how GDB's internal symbol tables are stored (see symtab.h, gdbtypes.h), you will find it much easier to understand the code which uses and creates those symbol tables.

You may wish to process the information you are getting somehow, to enhance your understanding of it. Summarize it, translate it to another language, add some (perhaps trivial or non-useful) feature to GDB, use the code to predict what a test case would do and write the test case and verify your prediction, etc. If you are reading code and your eyes are starting to glaze over, this is a sign you need to use a more active approach.

Once you have a part of GDB to start with, you can find more specifically the part you are looking for by stepping through each function with the next command. Do not use step or you will quickly get distracted; when the function you are stepping through calls another function try only to get a big-picture understanding (perhaps using the comment at the beginning of the function being called) of what it does. This way you can identify which of the functions being called by the function you are stepping through is the one which you are interested in. You may need to examine the data structures generated at each stage, with reference to the comments in the header files explaining what the data structures are supposed to look like.

Of course, this same technique can be used if you are just reading the code, rather than actually stepping through it. The same general principle applies--when the code you are looking at calls something else, just try to understand generally what the code being called does, rather than worrying about all its details.

A good place to start when tracking down some particular area is with a command which invokes that feature. Suppose you want to know how single-stepping works. As a GDB user, you know that the step command invokes single-stepping. The command is invoked via command tables (see command.h); by convention the function which actually performs the command is formed by taking the name of the command and adding _command, or in the case of an info subcommand, _info. For example, the step command invokes the step_command function and the info display command invokes display_info. When this convention is not followed, you might have to use grep or M-x tags-search in emacs, or run GDB on itself and set a breakpoint in execute_command.

If all of the above fail, it may be appropriate to ask for information on bug-gdb. But never post a generic question like "I was wondering if anyone could give me some tips about understanding GDB"--if we had some magic secret we would put it in this manual. Suggestions for improving the manual are always welcome, of course.


Node:Debugging GDB, Up:Hints

Debugging GDB with itself

If GDB is limping on your machine, this is the preferred way to get it fully functional. Be warned that in some ancient Unix systems, like Ultrix 4.2, a program can't be running in one process while it is being debugged in another. Rather than typing the command ./gdb ./gdb, which works on Suns and such, you can copy gdb to gdb2 and then type ./gdb ./gdb2.

When you run GDB in the GDB source directory, it will read a .gdbinit file that sets up some simple things to make debugging gdb easier. The info command, when executed without a subcommand in a GDB being debugged by gdb, will pop you back up to the top level gdb. See .gdbinit for details.

If you use emacs, you will probably want to do a make TAGS after you configure your distribution; this will put the machine dependent routines for your local machine where they will be accessed first by M-.

Also, make sure that you've either compiled GDB with your local cc, or have run fixincludes if you are compiling with gcc.

Submitting Patches

Thanks for thinking of offering your changes back to the community of GDB users. In general we like to get well designed enhancements. Thanks also for checking in advance about the best way to transfer the changes.

The GDB maintainers will only install "cleanly designed" patches. This manual summarizes what we believe to be clean design for GDB.

If the maintainers don't have time to put the patch in when it arrives, or if there is any question about a patch, it goes into a large queue with everyone else's patches and bug reports.

The legal issue is that to incorporate substantial changes requires a copyright assignment from you and/or your employer, granting ownership of the changes to the Free Software Foundation. You can get the standard documents for doing this by sending mail to gnu@gnu.org and asking for it. We recommend that people write in "All programs owned by the Free Software Foundation" as "NAME OF PROGRAM", so that changes in many programs (not just GDB, but GAS, Emacs, GCC, etc) can be contributed with only one piece of legalese pushed through the bureaucracy and filed with the FSF. We can't start merging changes until this paperwork is received by the FSF (their rules, which we follow since we maintain it for them).

Technically, the easiest way to receive changes is to receive each feature as a small context diff or unidiff, suitable for patch. Each message sent to me should include the changes to C code and header files for a single feature, plus ChangeLog entries for each directory where files were modified, and diffs for any changes needed to the manuals (gdb/doc/gdb.texinfo or gdb/doc/gdbint.texinfo). If there are a lot of changes for a single feature, they can be split down into multiple messages.

In this way, if we read and like the feature, we can add it to the sources with a single patch command, do some testing, and check it in. If you leave out the ChangeLog, we have to write one. If you leave out the doc, we have to puzzle out what needs documenting. Etc., etc.

The reason to send each change in a separate message is that we will not install some of the changes. They'll be returned to you with questions or comments. If we're doing our job correctly, the message back to you will say what you have to fix in order to make the change acceptable. The reason to have separate messages for separate features is so that the acceptable changes can be installed while one or more changes are being reworked. If multiple features are sent in a single message, we tend to not put in the effort to sort out the acceptable changes from the unacceptable, so none of the features get installed until all are acceptable.

If this sounds painful or authoritarian, well, it is. But we get a lot of bug reports and a lot of patches, and many of them don't get installed because we don't have the time to finish the job that the bug reporter or the contributor could have done. Patches that arrive complete, working, and well designed, tend to get installed on the day they arrive. The others go into a queue and get installed as time permits, which, since the maintainers have many demands to meet, may not be for quite some time.

Please send patches directly to the GDB maintainers.

Obsolete Conditionals

Fragments of old code in GDB sometimes reference or set the following configuration macros. They should not be used by new code, and old uses should be removed as those parts of the debugger are otherwise touched.

STACK_END_ADDR
This macro used to define where the end of the stack appeared, for use in interpreting core file formats that don't record this address in the core file itself. This information is now configured in BFD, and GDB gets the info portably from there. The values in GDB's configuration files should be moved into BFD configuration files (if needed there), and deleted from all of GDB's config files.

Any foo-xdep.c file that references STACK_END_ADDR is so old that it has never been converted to use BFD. Now that's old!

PYRAMID_CONTROL_FRAME_DEBUGGING
pyr-xdep.c
PYRAMID_CORE
pyr-xdep.c
PYRAMID_PTRACE
pyr-xdep.c
REG_STACK_SEGMENT
exec.c


Node:GNU Free Documentation License, Next:, Previous:Hints, Up:Top

GNU Free Documentation License

Version 1.1, March 2000

Copyright (C) 2000  Free Software Foundation, Inc.
59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA  02111-1307  USA

Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies
of this license document, but changing it is not allowed.

  1. PREAMBLE

    The purpose of this License is to make a manual, textbook, or other written document "free" in the sense of freedom: to assure everyone the effective freedom to copy and redistribute it, with or without modifying it, either commercially or noncommercially. Secondarily, this License preserves for the author and publisher a way to get credit for their work, while not being considered responsible for modifications made by others.

    This License is a kind of "copyleft", which means that derivative works of the document must themselves be free in the same sense. It complements the GNU General Public License, which is a copyleft license designed for free software.

    We have designed this License in order to use it for manuals for free software, because free software needs free documentation: a free program should come with manuals providing the same freedoms that the software does. But this License is not limited to software manuals; it can be used for any textual work, regardless of subject matter or whether it is published as a printed book. We recommend this License principally for works whose purpose is instruction or reference.

  2. APPLICABILITY AND DEFINITIONS

    This License applies to any manual or other work that contains a notice placed by the copyright holder saying it can be distributed under the terms of this License. The "Document", below, refers to any such manual or work. Any member of the public is a licensee, and is addressed as "you."

    A "Modified Version" of the Document means any work containing the Document or a portion of it, either copied verbatim, or with modifications and/or translated into another language.

    A "Secondary Section" is a named appendix or a front-matter section of the Document that deals exclusively with the relationship of the publishers or authors of the Document to the Document's overall subject (or to related matters) and contains nothing that could fall directly within that overall subject. (For example, if the Document is in part a textbook of mathematics, a Secondary Section may not explain any mathematics.) The relationship could be a matter of historical connection with the subject or with related matters, or of legal, commercial, philosophical, ethical or political position regarding them.

    The "Invariant Sections" are certain Secondary Sections whose titles are designated, as being those of Invariant Sections, in the notice that says that the Document is released under this License.

    The "Cover Texts" are certain short passages of text that are listed, as Front-Cover Texts or Back-Cover Texts, in the notice that says that the Document is released under this License.

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    The "Title Page" means, for a printed book, the title page itself, plus such following pages as are needed to hold, legibly, the material this License requires to appear in the title page. For works in formats which do not have any title page as such, "Title Page" means the text near the most prominent appearance of the work's title, preceding the beginning of the body of the text.

  3. VERBATIM COPYING

    You may copy and distribute the Document in any medium, either commercially or noncommercially, provided that this License, the copyright notices, and the license notice saying this License applies to the Document are reproduced in all copies, and that you add no other conditions whatsoever to those of this License. You may not use technical measures to obstruct or control the reading or further copying of the copies you make or distribute. However, you may accept compensation in exchange for copies. If you distribute a large enough number of copies you must also follow the conditions in section 3.

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  4. COPYING IN QUANTITY

    If you publish printed copies of the Document numbering more than 100, and the Document's license notice requires Cover Texts, you must enclose the copies in covers that carry, clearly and legibly, all these Cover Texts: Front-Cover Texts on the front cover, and Back-Cover Texts on the back cover. Both covers must also clearly and legibly identify you as the publisher of these copies. The front cover must present the full title with all words of the title equally prominent and visible. You may add other material on the covers in addition. Copying with changes limited to the covers, as long as they preserve the title of the Document and satisfy these conditions, can be treated as verbatim copying in other respects.

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    It is requested, but not required, that you contact the authors of the Document well before redistributing any large number of copies, to give them a chance to provide you with an updated version of the Document.

  5. MODIFICATIONS

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    A. Use in the Title Page (and on the covers, if any) a title distinct from that of the Document, and from those of previous versions (which should, if there were any, be listed in the History section of the Document). You may use the same title as a previous version if the original publisher of that version gives permission.
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  6. COMBINING DOCUMENTS

    You may combine the Document with other documents released under this License, under the terms defined in section 4 above for modified versions, provided that you include in the combination all of the Invariant Sections of all of the original documents, unmodified, and list them all as Invariant Sections of your combined work in its license notice.

    The combined work need only contain one copy of this License, and multiple identical Invariant Sections may be replaced with a single copy. If there are multiple Invariant Sections with the same name but different contents, make the title of each such section unique by adding at the end of it, in parentheses, the name of the original author or publisher of that section if known, or else a unique number. Make the same adjustment to the section titles in the list of Invariant Sections in the license notice of the combined work.

    In the combination, you must combine any sections entitled "History" in the various original documents, forming one section entitled "History"; likewise combine any sections entitled "Acknowledgements", and any sections entitled "Dedications." You must delete all sections entitled "Endorsements."

  7. COLLECTIONS OF DOCUMENTS

    You may make a collection consisting of the Document and other documents released under this License, and replace the individual copies of this License in the various documents with a single copy that is included in the collection, provided that you follow the rules of this License for verbatim copying of each of the documents in all other respects.

    You may extract a single document from such a collection, and distribute it individually under this License, provided you insert a copy of this License into the extracted document, and follow this License in all other respects regarding verbatim copying of that document.

  8. AGGREGATION WITH INDEPENDENT WORKS

    A compilation of the Document or its derivatives with other separate and independent documents or works, in or on a volume of a storage or distribution medium, does not as a whole count as a Modified Version of the Document, provided no compilation copyright is claimed for the compilation. Such a compilation is called an "aggregate", and this License does not apply to the other self-contained works thus compiled with the Document, on account of their being thus compiled, if they are not themselves derivative works of the Document.

    If the Cover Text requirement of section 3 is applicable to these copies of the Document, then if the Document is less than one quarter of the entire aggregate, the Document's Cover Texts may be placed on covers that surround only the Document within the aggregate. Otherwise they must appear on covers around the whole aggregate.

  9. TRANSLATION

    Translation is considered a kind of modification, so you may distribute translations of the Document under the terms of section 4. Replacing Invariant Sections with translations requires special permission from their copyright holders, but you may include translations of some or all Invariant Sections in addition to the original versions of these Invariant Sections. You may include a translation of this License provided that you also include the original English version of this License. In case of a disagreement between the translation and the original English version of this License, the original English version will prevail.

  10. TERMINATION

    You may not copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute the Document except as expressly provided for under this License. Any other attempt to copy, modify, sublicense or distribute the Document is void, and will automatically terminate your rights under this License. However, parties who have received copies, or rights, from you under this License will not have their licenses terminated so long as such parties remain in full compliance.

  11. FUTURE REVISIONS OF THIS LICENSE

    The Free Software Foundation may publish new, revised versions of the GNU Free Documentation License from time to time. Such new versions will be similar in spirit to the present version, but may differ in detail to address new problems or concerns. See http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/.

    Each version of the License is given a distinguishing version number. If the Document specifies that a particular numbered version of this License "or any later version" applies to it, you have the option of following the terms and conditions either of that specified version or of any later version that has been published (not as a draft) by the Free Software Foundation. If the Document does not specify a version number of this License, you may choose any version ever published (not as a draft) by the Free Software Foundation.

ADDENDUM: How to use this License for your documents

To use this License in a document you have written, include a copy of the License in the document and put the following copyright and license notices just after the title page:

Copyright (C)  year  your name.
Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document
under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.1
or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation;
with the Invariant Sections being list their titles, with the
Front-Cover Texts being list, and with the Back-Cover Texts being list.
A copy of the license is included in the section entitled "GNU
Free Documentation License."

If you have no Invariant Sections, write "with no Invariant Sections" instead of saying which ones are invariant. If you have no Front-Cover Texts, write "no Front-Cover Texts" instead of "Front-Cover Texts being list"; likewise for Back-Cover Texts.

If your document contains nontrivial examples of program code, we recommend releasing these examples in parallel under your choice of free software license, such as the GNU General Public License, to permit their use in free software.


Node:Index, Previous:GNU Free Documentation License, Up:Top

Index


Footnotes

  1. The function cast is not portable ISO-C.

  2. As of this writing (April 2001), setting verbosity level is not yet implemented, and is always returned as zero. So calling ui_out_message with a verbosity argument more than zero will cause the message to never be printed.

  3. Some D10V instructions are actually pairs of 16-bit sub-instructions. However, since you can't jump into the middle of such a pair, code addresses can only refer to full 32 bit instructions, which is what matters in this explanation.