motorola coldfire patches ?

[Will Dean]

At 21:33 09/08/99 +0100, David Fiddes wrote:
>
>I'm not surprised with your problems with SDS. A couple of weeks ago I
>produced a set of test binaries for people who didn't want to download the
>latest EGCS(I mean gcc) and binutils snapshots but wanted to test m68k-elf
>support with their debugger. People with Noral and SDS kit both reported
>being unable to load the resulting binaries. About the same time I had a
>short email from an engineer at Noral who said there were a few problems
>with the debugging information but didn't provide any info to go hunting for
>problems... I offered my help but haven't heard anyhting since. SDS have
>also made vaguely promising noises about supporting the GNU compiler but
>failed to provide any info as to where the problem lies... A pair of typical
>British software companies I'm afraid.....
>

I drew SDS's attention to this, and they've asked me to post the following
reply:

Cheers,

Will

####################################
This is Tim Loveless, I work for SDS (now Diab-SDS) in our UK HQ.

The SDS debugger, SingleStep, reads ELF version 1 format debug files
with Dwarf version 1 format debug information. I am not sure of the precise
version numbers here, it may in fact be ELF 1.1 and Dwarf 1.1. I dumped
the contents of  a Diab compiled ELF file and in the ELF version field it
had simply "1". There was no sub version field.
David Fiddes says that his build of the GNU Coldfire compiler for Win32
does not support Dwarf V1. However there is hope, as he immediately
goes on to say -gdwarf+ (pre dwarf 1.1 extensions) do work. The 
best thing is to go ahead and try it. I do know for sure that SingleStep 
does *not* support Dwarf 2 (yet).

To be clear, it is the ELF and Dwarf standards that SDS supports, not the
actual GNU compiler. These standards should allow us to read GNU executable
files
and the line number, symbol and S-record information contained therein. I
think 
the confusion here is in the use of the word "support". SDS will *read* any 
compiler's ELF/Dwarf V1 output but SDS *supports* only its own software tools.

SDS's experience with the ELF and Dwarf standards is excellent. The standards
are strict enough that practically all compilers in the industry work with
all debuggers.
By the way, the ELF and Dwarf standards documents can be found at:
ftp://ftp.intel.com/pub/tis

I have used SingleStep with the Diab Data, Metaware, Greenhills, MRI and 
GNU (PowerPC) compilers. These are all ELF/Dwarf (V1) compliant tools,
although 
admittedly most of my work has been on PowerPC. We also have SingleStep 
customers using the Metrowerks' PowerPC compiler and SDS has tested against 
Hitachi's SH3/4 compiler. So, I am pretty confident that our ELF/Dwarf 
(version 1) reader is in good shape. But if any SDS customer does find a
bug we will of 
course be happy to fix it. 

To help users of David Fiddes' build of the GNU compiler for Coldfire who
want to use it 
with SingleStep SDS has loaned a full version of our debugger to Matt
Minnis. Matt  is 
reviewing how the tools work together and will publish the results to you.
I am working
with Matt and will drive through any changes on the SDS side, if required.

Oh, one minor correction. Diab-SDS is US (not UK) based, we do however have
a dozen or so international offices.

Tim Loveless
Diab-SDS
+44 1442 876065
http://www.sdsi.com
mailto:tim_loveless@sdsi.co.uk
####################################








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