INSIGHT: with GNU cross-compilers.

INSIGHT: with GNU cross-compilers.

[Brendan Simon]

I have tried out Insight on a Cygwin installation and think it is great
(probably not quite as powerful as DDD at this stage but at least I
don't need an X Server running).  This makes it easy for my non-unix
savy colleagues.

I have compiled egcs-1.1.2 as a powerpc-eabi cross compiler hosted on
Linux and also hosted on cygwin.  Can Insight be used as a frontend to
powerpc-eabi-gdb ?  I've done this with DDD and Linux so I was hoping
Insight would do something similar (especially in the Win32
environment).

I believe that Insight is written in tk/tcl which I believe are
scripting languages.  But the cygwin version has a .exe entension and is
a binary file.  I am misunderstanding something but I'm not sure what it
is.  I thought that tk uses the "wish" interpreter.  Can someone set me
straight on this ?

Thanks,
Brendan Simon.

Re: INSIGHT: with GNU cross-compilers.

[Stan Shebs]

   Date: Tue, 03 Aug 1999 13:47:06 +1000
   From: Brendan Simon <brendan@dgs.monash.edu.au>

   I have tried out Insight on a Cygwin installation and think it is great
   (probably not quite as powerful as DDD at this stage but at least I
   don't need an X Server running).  This makes it easy for my non-unix
   savy colleagues.

What are the DDD features you would most like to see in Insight??

   I have compiled egcs-1.1.2 as a powerpc-eabi cross compiler hosted on
   Linux and also hosted on cygwin.  Can Insight be used as a frontend to
   powerpc-eabi-gdb ?  I've done this with DDD and Linux so I was hoping
   Insight would do something similar (especially in the Win32
   environment).

Insight's first public demo (ESC '97) was for Windows x powerpc-eabi
target, and it ships regularly with Cygnus powerpc-eabi releases, so
it's pretty likely to work... :-)

Even better, the target dialog is complete enough to let you do all
the connection/download setup without typing any commands at all!

								Stan

Re: INSIGHT: with GNU cross-compilers.

[Brendan Simon]

Stan Shebs wrote:

> What are the DDD features you would most like to see in Insight??

Well I have not used it very much.  I mainly used it for a look see.  I
couldn't use it to talk to my BDM (Wiggler) with Linux so I put it aside.  I
will try to remember the things I really liked.

1) The command window and source windows could be seperate or one window with
many adjustable dividers (I can't remember the correct GUI/Widget name for
it).

2) Placing the mouse pointer over variables would bring up a little tooltip
style box with the value of the variable.  Great for inspecting the odd
variable quickly.

3) the --debugger command line option allows selection of different
debuggers.  I have used "ddd --debugger powerpc-rtems-gdb", etc.  The default
is to use gdb.  I'm not sure if DDD has any debugger built into the code or
whether it is just a front end to debuggers.  I would guess it is just a
GUI front end which makes sence to me.  I would like to see Insight head
along these lines.  As I understand it. gdb is "built in" to Insight so the
only available targets are what was selected at build time.


> Insight's first public demo (ESC '97) was for Windows x powerpc-eabi
> target, and it ships regularly with Cygnus powerpc-eabi releases, so
> it's pretty likely to work... :-)

Sounds great, but I get the feeling that you have to compile/build different
versions of Insight for different targets.  I would like to see a generic
front end.  Then again, I remember some talk on the gdb list for gdb to cater
for multiple target architectures (eg. m68k, i386, powercp, etc).  I'm not
sure what the state of this is but if it is working then I guess Insight will
support all these at once.

Can I get a binary of Insight that will run on a MS-Windows host and target a
powerpc-eabi environment via the Wiggler BDM ?  If so, where can I download
it.


> Even better, the target dialog is complete enough to let you do all
> the connection/download setup without typing any commands at all!

Fantastic.  I think Insight is going to do wonderfull things for GDB and the
entire GNU toolchain.


Brendan Simon.

Re: INSIGHT: with GNU cross-compilers.

[Stan Shebs]

   Date: Wed, 04 Aug 1999 10:16:26 +1000
   From: Brendan Simon <brendan@dgs.monash.edu.au>

   Stan Shebs wrote:

   > What are the DDD features you would most like to see in Insight??

   Well I have not used it very much.  I mainly used it for a look see.  I
   couldn't use it to talk to my BDM (Wiggler) with Linux so I put it aside.  I
   will try to remember the things I really liked.

   1) The command window and source windows could be seperate or one window with
   many adjustable dividers (I can't remember the correct GUI/Widget name for
   it).

Insight has infrastructure to allow for a choice of panes vs separate
windows, it's waiting for someone to come up with a reasonable
interface design for choosing the style.  The command window isn't as
important for Insight, of course, but it would be cool to have a split
source window, split source/backtrace, etc.

   2) Placing the mouse pointer over variables would bring up a little tooltip
   style box with the value of the variable.  Great for inspecting the odd
   variable quickly.

Your look see was too cursory! :-)  Insight does this already.

   3) the --debugger command line option allows selection of different
   debuggers.  I have used "ddd --debugger powerpc-rtems-gdb", etc.  The default
   is to use gdb.  I'm not sure if DDD has any debugger built into the code or
   whether it is just a front end to debuggers.  I would guess it is just a
   GUI front end which makes sence to me.

That's true, DDD is just a front end.

   I would like to see Insight head
   along these lines.  As I understand it. gdb is "built in" to Insight so the
   only available targets are what was selected at build time.

It would be possible to make Insight work as a separate program, and that
would make it convenient to use with older versions of GDB or even other
debuggers.  However, you'd give up some of the optimizations that are
available if the GUI has a high-bandwidth pipe into the debugger core,
such as information about all the breakable lines.  It also gives a more
integrated feel - it's not possible for GDB to die but leave the GUI
running with nobody to talk to, as happens with DDD sometimes.

Even so, allowing the option of running the GUI as a separate program
seems worthwhile, and if someone were to contribute good patches for
this ability, I would want to take them in.

   > Insight's first public demo (ESC '97) was for Windows x powerpc-eabi
   > target, and it ships regularly with Cygnus powerpc-eabi releases, so
   > it's pretty likely to work... :-)

   Sounds great, but I get the feeling that you have to compile/build different
   versions of Insight for different targets.  I would like to see a generic
   front end.  Then again, I remember some talk on the gdb list for gdb to cater
   for multiple target architectures (eg. m68k, i386, powercp, etc).  I'm not
   sure what the state of this is but if it is working then I guess Insight will
   support all these at once.

Certainly when full multi-arch is done this will be possible.  In the
meantime it works better just to think of Insight as an enhanced GDB
rather than as a separate entity.  If you have wiggler patches for
instance, you can just apply them and build in the usual way (Ok, it
takes longer to build... :-) )

   Can I get a binary of Insight that will run on a MS-Windows host and target a
   powerpc-eabi environment via the Wiggler BDM ?  If so, where can I download
   it.

I don't think anyone has put one of these up for ftp yet?

									Stan

Re: INSIGHT: with GNU cross-compilers.

[Andrew Cagney]

> I have compiled egcs-1.1.2 as a powerpc-eabi cross compiler hosted on
> Linux and also hosted on cygwin.  Can Insight be used as a frontend to
> powerpc-eabi-gdb ?  I've done this with DDD and Linux so I was hoping
> Insight would do something similar (especially in the Win32
> environment).

Look at it another way, is there any theoretical reason why it shouldn't
work? :-) Please let us know how it goes.

> I believe that Insight is written in tk/tcl which I believe are
> scripting languages.  But the cygwin version has a .exe entension and is
> a binary file.  I am misunderstanding something but I'm not sure what it
> is.  I thought that tk uses the "wish" interpreter.  Can someone set me
> straight on this ?

One simple non-tcl hacker (1) description of Insight is: GDB + tcl/tk
interpreter/GUI-environment + extra tcl commands that directly access
GDB internals ([incr tcl] is in there somewhere :-).  ``wish'' is a
binary that just contains the tcl interpreter + tk GUI stuff.  The big
difference between GDBtk (er Insight) and other debuggers like DDD is
that Insight can directly access the internals of GDB (zero CLI
overhead) via those extra tcl commands.  (The other big difference is
that the GUI proper is in a scripting language allowing rapid
customization).

When you run gdb.exe, it (by default) starts up the tcl interpreter
passing it the insight tcl scripts.

	enjoy,
		Andrew

(1) I think I qualify well for this :-)