Re: GDB support for Flash memory programming

[Jim Blandy <jimb at codesourcery dot com>]

Russell Shaw <rjshaw@netspace.net.au> writes:
>> an interesting point of discussion.  But as I say to Steven, we'd like
>> to get feedback on the user interface first.  Would the interface as
>> proposed be useful in the work you're doing now?
>
> I've been stuck on desktop programming for months, so i haven't done
> embedded stuff for ages. Anything that improves the situation for
> embedded targets would be good.
>
> A characteristic of micro-controller embedded targets is multiple memory
> spaces, such as small ones just for programming device config. fuses etc.
> As well as being read/write or read-only, the spaces can vary in width.
> Some may be 8-bit, while others are 16-bit or more. Whether this needs
> improving, i can't tell until i get into gdb hacking again.

The GNU toolchain has various approaches to dealing with multi-space
target systems: in ELF files, we divide up the ELF address space and
map the target spaces into that; in GDB, we use type qualifiers to
indicate which space a pointer indexes.

But that sounds like a separate discussion from the flash user
interface.