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       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 3.79.1 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 `djunpack' batch

file 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.  `djunpack' invokes the `djtar'

program (that is part of the basic DJGPP development kit) to rename

these 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 batch file,

and then invoke it to unpack the distribution.  Here's how:

 djtar -x -p -o gdb-5.2/djunpack.bat gdb-5.2.tar.gz > djunpack.bat

 djunpack gdb-5.2.tar.gz

(The name of the distribution archive and the leading directory of the

path to `djunpack.bat' in the distribution will be different for

versions of GDB other than 5.2.)

If the argument to `djunpack.bat' include leading directories, it MUST

be given with the DOS-style backslashes; Unix-style forward slashes

will NOT work.

If the distribution comes as a .tar.bz2 archive, and your version of

`djtar' doesn't support bzip2 decompression, you need to unpack it as

follows:

 bunzip2 gdb-6.4.tar.bz2

 djtar -x -p -o gdb-6.4/djunpack.bat gdb-6.4.tar > djunpack.bat

 djunpack gdb-6.4.tar

3. How to build

   ------------

If the source distribution available from DJGPP archives is already

configured for DJGPP v2.x (if it is, you will find files named

`Makefile' in each subdirectory), then just invoke Make:

                make

To build a package that is not yet configured, or if you downloaded

GDB from a GNU FTP site, you will need to configure it first.  You

will also need to configure it if you want to change the configuration

options (e.g., compile without 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 can

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 . --disable-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-6.4

You MUST use forward slashes in the first argument.

After the configure script finishes, run Make:

        make

If you want to produce the documentation (for example, if you changed

some of the Texinfo sources), type this:

        make info

When Make finishes, you can install the package:

        make install prefix='${DJDIR}' INSTALL='ginstall -c'

The above doesn't install the docs; for that you will need to say

this:

        make install-info prefix='${DJDIR}' INSTALL='ginstall -c'

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 DJGPP 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, except the

messages "Running tests in DIR", where DIR is one of the

subdirectories of the testsuite.  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 the failed test).  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