GDB Documentation and Request for Help

[Michael Eager <eager at eagercon dot com>]

I'm trying to move a proprietary target from an old version
of gdb (5.3) to the latest version.  Based on seeing that
there was no clear way to translate the existing target support
to the current gdb architecture (and with a little advice from
the mailing list) I decided to create a new port for the target.

So that's coming along, but I'm having trouble figuring out
frame handling, in particular, when and where the current target
registers are read into the current frame.  After stumbling around
tracing the code for a while, I decided to take the plunge and
actually (re-)read the gdb internals document.

So I found the description of frames and the sentinel frame.
Not where I had been looking, under the chapter titled Target
Architecture Definition, but by accident, under Algorithms.
Under the former section, I found what I was looking for:
FRAME_INIT_SAVED_REGISTERS, now renamed DEPRECATED_.  But when
I look in the code, I find that this was removed in 2004.

So the gdb internals document comes close to being useless,
IMO.  There are several sections which are empty, others which
declare themselves to be obsolete, parts which are more-or-less
unclear, and worse, parts which appear to explain the internals
but are several years out of date.

If someone would volunteer to spend an hour or two helping me
understand frame handling and what parts of the Architecture
Definition section are (as the politicos say) no longer
operative, and what they should say, I'll update the document
to incorporate those changes.  I won't rewrite the gdb internals
document, although it really needs this, but even removing
misleading text would be an improvement.

Thanks in advance!

--
Michael Eager	 eager@eagercon.com
1960 Park Blvd., Palo Alto, CA 94306  650-325-8077