How to build and install the DJGPP native version of GDB
********************************************************
General
=======
GDB built with DJGPP supports native DJGPP debugging, whereby you run
gdb.exe and the program being debugged on the same machine. In
addition, this version supports remote debugging via a serial port,
provided that the target machine has a GDB-compatible debugging stub
which can be linked with the target program (see the section "Remote
Serial" in the GDB manual for more details).
Installation of the binary distribution
=======================================
Simply unzip the gdbNNNb.zip file (where NNN is the version number)
from the top DJGPP installation directory. Be sure to preserve the
directory structure while you unzip (use -d switch if you do this with
PKUNZIP). On Windows 9X and Windows 2000, use an unzip program which
supports long file names; one such program is unzip32.exe, available
from the DJGPP sites.
If you need the libraries which are built as part of GDB, install the
companion file gdbNNNa.zip. This allows to develop applications which
use the same functions as GDB. For example, you can build your own
front end to the debugger.
Rebuilding GDB from sources
===========================
1. Prerequisites
-------------
To build the package, you will need the DJGPP development environment
(GCC, header files, and the libraries), and also DJGPP ports of the
following tools:
- GNU Make 3.78.1 or later
- Bash 2.03 or later
- GNU Sed
- GNU Fileutils
- GNU Textutils 2.0 or later
- GNU Sh-utils
- GNU Grep 2.4 or later
- GNU Findutils
- GNU Awk 3.04 or later
- GNU Bison (only if you change one of the gdb/*.y files)
- Groff (only if you need to format the man pages)
- GNU Diffutils (only if you run the test suite)
These programs should be available from the DJGPP sites, in the v2gnu
directory. In addition, the configuration script invokes the `update'
and `utod' utilities which are part of the basic DJGPP development kit
(djdevNNN.zip).
2. Unpacking the sources
---------------------
If you download the source distribution from one of the DJGPP sites,
just unzip it while preserving the directory structure (I suggest to
use unzip32.exe available with the rest of DJGPP), and proceed to the
section "How to build" below.
Source distributions downloaded from one of the GNU FTP sites need
some more work to unpack. First, you MUST use the `djtar' program to
unzip the package. That's because some file names in the official
distributions need to be changed to avoid problems on the various
platforms supported by DJGPP. `djtar' can rename files on the fly
given a file with name mappings; the distribution includes a file
`gdb/config/djgpp/fnchange.lst' with the necessary mappings. So you
need first to retrieve that file, and then invoke `djtar' to unpack
the distribution. Here's how:
djtar -x -p -o gdb-5.0/gdb/config/djgpp/fnchange.lst gdb-5.0.tar.gz > lst
djtar -x -n lst gdb-5.0.tar.gz
(The name of the distribution archive and the top-level directory will
be different for versions other than 5.0.)
3. How to build
------------
The source distribution available from DJGPP archives is already
configured for DJGPP v2.x, so if you only want to compile it, just
invoke Make:
make
To build a package downloaded from a GNU FTP site, you will need o
configure it first. You will also need to configure it if you want to
change the configuration options (e.g., compile with support for the
GDBMI interface). To configure GDB, type this command:
sh ./gdb/config/djgpp/djconfig.sh
This script checks the unpacked distribution, then edits the configure
scripts in the various subdirectories, to make them suitable for
DJGPP, and finally invokes the top-level configure script, which
recursively configures all the subdirectories.
You may pass optional switches to djconfig.sh. It accepts all the
switches accepted by the original GDB configure script. These
switches are described in the file gdb/README, and their full list be
displayed by running the following command:
sh ./gdb/configure --help
NOTE: if you *do* use optional command-line switches, you MUST pass
to the script the name of the directory where GDB sources are
unpacked--even if you are building GDB in-place! For example:
sh ./gdb/config/djgpp/djconfig.sh . --enable-gdbmi
It is also possible to build GDB in a directory that is different from
the one where the sources were unpacked. In that case, you have to
pass the source directory as the first argument to the script:
sh ./gdb/config/djgpp/djconfig.sh d:/gnu/gdb-5.0
You MUST use forward slashes in the first argument.
After the configure script finishes, run Make:
make
When Make finishes, you can install the package:
make install INSTALL='/dev/env/DJDIR/bin/ginstall -c'
The above doesn't install the docs; for that you will need to say
this:
make -k install-info INSTALL='/dev/env/DJDIR/bin/ginstall -c'
(The -k switch is required, because some unneeded targets that are
part of the install process fail; -k lets Make run to completion
nonetheless.)
The test suite has been made to work with DJGPP. If you make a change
in some of the programs, or want to be sure you have a fully
functional GDB executable, it is a good idea to run the test suite.
You cannot use "make check" for that, since it will want to run the
`dejagnu' utility which GDB doesn't support. Instead, use the special
script gdb/config/djgpp/djcheck.sh, like this:
cd gdb/testsuite
sh ../config/djgpp/djcheck.sh
This will run for a while and should not print anything. Any test
that fails to produce the expected output will cause the diffs between
the expected and the actual output be printed, and in addition will
leave behind a file SOMETHING.tst (where SOMETHING is the name of one
of the tests). You should compare each of the *.tst files with the
corresponding *.out file and convince yourself that the differences do
not indicate a real problem. Examples of differences you can
disregard are changes in the copyright blurb printed by GDB, values of
unitialized variables, addresses of global variables like argv[] and
envp[] (which depend on the size of your environment), etc.
Note that djcheck.sh only recurses into those of the subdirectories of
the test suite which test features supported by the DJGPP port of GDB.
For example, the tests in the gdb.gdbtk, gdb.threads, and gdb.hp
directories are not run.
Enjoy,
Eli Zaretskii <eliz@is.elta.co.il>
7f668b8658