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GDB can use the MIPS remote debugging protocol to talk to a MIPS board attached to a serial line. This is available when you configure GDB with ‘--target=mips-elf’.
Use these GDB commands to specify the connection to your target board:
target mips portTo run a program on the board, start up gdb with the
name of your program as the argument. To connect to the board, use the
command ‘target mips port’, where port is the name of
the serial port connected to the board. If the program has not already
been downloaded to the board, you may use the load command to
download it. You can then use all the usual GDB commands.
For example, this sequence connects to the target board through a serial port, and loads and runs a program called prog through the debugger:
host$ gdb prog GDB is free software and … (gdb) target mips /dev/ttyb (gdb) load prog (gdb) run
target mips hostname:portnumberOn some GDB host configurations, you can specify a TCP connection (for instance, to a serial line managed by a terminal concentrator) instead of a serial port, using the syntax ‘hostname:portnumber’.
target pmon portPMON ROM monitor.
target ddb portNEC’s DDB variant of PMON for Vr4300.
target lsi portLSI variant of PMON.
target r3900 devDensan DVE-R3900 ROM monitor for Toshiba R3900 Mips.
target array devArray Tech LSI33K RAID controller board.
GDB also supports these special commands for MIPS targets:
set mipsfpu doubleset mipsfpu singleset mipsfpu noneset mipsfpu autoshow mipsfpuIf your target board does not support the MIPS floating point coprocessor, you should use the command ‘set mipsfpu none’ (if you need this, you may wish to put the command in your GDB init file). This tells GDB how to find the return value of functions which return floating point values. It also allows GDB to avoid saving the floating point registers when calling functions on the board. If you are using a floating point coprocessor with only single precision floating point support, as on the R4650 processor, use the command ‘set mipsfpu single’. The default double precision floating point coprocessor may be selected using ‘set mipsfpu double’.
In previous versions the only choices were double precision or no floating point, so ‘set mipsfpu on’ will select double precision and ‘set mipsfpu off’ will select no floating point.
As usual, you can inquire about the mipsfpu variable with
‘show mipsfpu’.
set timeout secondsset retransmit-timeout secondsshow timeoutshow retransmit-timeoutYou can control the timeout used while waiting for a packet, in the MIPS
remote protocol, with the set timeout seconds command. The
default is 5 seconds. Similarly, you can control the timeout used while
waiting for an acknowledgment of a packet with the set
retransmit-timeout seconds command. The default is 3 seconds.
You can inspect both values with show timeout and show
retransmit-timeout. (These commands are only available when
GDB is configured for ‘--target=mips-elf’.)
The timeout set by set timeout does not apply when GDB
is waiting for your program to stop. In that case, GDB waits
forever because it has no way of knowing how long the program is going
to run before stopping.
set syn-garbage-limit numLimit the maximum number of characters GDB should ignore when it tries to synchronize with the remote target. The default is 10 characters. Setting the limit to -1 means there’s no limit.
show syn-garbage-limitShow the current limit on the number of characters to ignore when trying to synchronize with the remote system.
set monitor-prompt promptTell GDB to expect the specified prompt string from the remote monitor. The default depends on the target:
‘PMON’
‘NEC010’
‘PMON>’
show monitor-promptShow the current strings GDB expects as the prompt from the remote monitor.
set monitor-warningsEnable or disable monitor warnings about hardware breakpoints. This
has effect only for the lsi target. When on, GDB will
display warning messages whose codes are returned by the lsi
PMON monitor for breakpoint commands.
show monitor-warningsShow the current setting of printing monitor warnings.
pmon commandThis command allows sending an arbitrary command string to the monitor. The monitor must be in debug mode for this to work.
Next: PowerPC Embedded, Previous: MicroBlaze, Up: Embedded Processors [Contents][Index]