Target-Descriptions.html 6.8 KB

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  64. <a name="Target-Descriptions-1"></a>
  65. <h2 class="appendix">Appendix G Target Descriptions</h2>
  66. <a name="index-target-descriptions"></a>
  67. <p>One of the challenges of using <small>GDB</small> to debug embedded systems
  68. is that there are so many minor variants of each processor
  69. architecture in use. It is common practice for vendors to start with
  70. a standard processor core &mdash; ARM, PowerPC, or <acronym>MIPS</acronym>, for example &mdash;
  71. and then make changes to adapt it to a particular market niche. Some
  72. architectures have hundreds of variants, available from dozens of
  73. vendors. This leads to a number of problems:
  74. </p>
  75. <ul>
  76. <li> With so many different customized processors, it is difficult for
  77. the <small>GDB</small> maintainers to keep up with the changes.
  78. </li><li> Since individual variants may have short lifetimes or limited
  79. audiences, it may not be worthwhile to carry information about every
  80. variant in the <small>GDB</small> source tree.
  81. </li><li> When <small>GDB</small> does support the architecture of the embedded system
  82. at hand, the task of finding the correct architecture name to give the
  83. <code>set architecture</code> command can be error-prone.
  84. </li></ul>
  85. <p>To address these problems, the <small>GDB</small> remote protocol allows a
  86. target system to not only identify itself to <small>GDB</small>, but to
  87. actually describe its own features. This lets <small>GDB</small> support
  88. processor variants it has never seen before &mdash; to the extent that the
  89. descriptions are accurate, and that <small>GDB</small> understands them.
  90. </p>
  91. <p><small>GDB</small> must be linked with the Expat library to support XML
  92. target descriptions. See <a href="Requirements.html#Expat">Expat</a>.
  93. </p>
  94. <table class="menu" border="0" cellspacing="0">
  95. <tr><td align="left" valign="top">&bull; <a href="Retrieving-Descriptions.html#Retrieving-Descriptions" accesskey="1">Retrieving Descriptions</a>:</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align="left" valign="top">How descriptions are fetched from a target.
  96. </td></tr>
  97. <tr><td align="left" valign="top">&bull; <a href="Target-Description-Format.html#Target-Description-Format" accesskey="2">Target Description Format</a>:</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align="left" valign="top">The contents of a target description.
  98. </td></tr>
  99. <tr><td align="left" valign="top">&bull; <a href="Predefined-Target-Types.html#Predefined-Target-Types" accesskey="3">Predefined Target Types</a>:</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align="left" valign="top">Standard types available for target
  100. descriptions.
  101. </td></tr>
  102. <tr><td align="left" valign="top">&bull; <a href="Enum-Target-Types.html#Enum-Target-Types" accesskey="4">Enum Target Types</a>:</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align="left" valign="top">How to define enum target types.
  103. </td></tr>
  104. <tr><td align="left" valign="top">&bull; <a href="Standard-Target-Features.html#Standard-Target-Features" accesskey="5">Standard Target Features</a>:</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align="left" valign="top">Features <small>GDB</small> knows about.
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