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Introduction

Cygnus’ GNUPro Toolkit is a complete solution for C and C++ development for the NEC VR4300 family of processors. The tools include compilers for C and C++, an interactive debugger, and utilities libraries.

Debugger and linker support is included for the DDB-VR4300 board. It is easy to add support for other VR4300 boards using the DDB support as an example.

The following documentation serves as further introductory discussion for the NEC VR4300 family of processors.

Tool naming conventions

Cross-development tools in the Cygnus GNUPro Toolkit normally have names that reflect the target processor and the object file format output by the tools (e.g. ELF). This makes it possible to install more than one set of tools in the same binary directory, including both native and cross-development tools.

The complete tool name is a three-part hyphenated string. The first part indicates the processor or processor family (e.g. ‘mips64vr4300’). The second part indicates the file format output by the tool (e.g. ELF). The third part is the generic tool name (e.g. ‘gcc’). For example, the GCC compiler for the NEC VR4300 is ‘mips64vr4300-elf-gcc’.

If you have an MS-DOS hosted toolchain, the names of the executables are different in order to accommodate the MS-DOS filename length limitation. The names are the tool name without the target name prefix. Where the GNU C compiler is called ‘mips64vr4300-elf-gcc’ on the Unix side, the MS-DOS name is simply ‘gcc’. The binaries are also installed with an ‘.exe’ suffix, however, you do not need to specify the suffix when running the executable.

For the MS-DOS toolchain the libraries are installed in different locations. Several specific environment settings are required in the ‘autoexec.bat’ file, even when installing the release in the default location of C:\USR\CYGNUS. The MS-DOS hosted toolchain requires the following environmental settings to function properly. Assume the release is installed in C:\USR\CYGNUS.

SET PROOT=C:\USR\CYGNUS
SET PATH=%PROOT%\BIN;%PATH%
SET GCC_EXEC_PREFIX=%PROOT%\LIB\
SET INFOPATH=%PROOT%\INFO
SET C_INCLUDE_PATH=%PROOT%\include
SET CPLUS_INCLUDE_PATH=%PROOT%\include\cxx;%PROOT%\include
SET GO32=EMU %PROOT%\BIN\EMU387
REM Set TMPDIR to point to a ramdisk if you have one
SET TMPDIR=%PROOT%

Note:
The trailing back slash ‘
\’ in ‘GCC_EXEC_PREFIX’ is necessary.

The VR4300 package includes the following supported tools:

Tool Description Unix Tool Name DOS Tool Name
GCC compiler mips64vr4300-elf-gcc gcc
G++ compiler mips64vr4300-elf-g++ g++
C++ compiler mips64vr4300-elf-c++ c++
C++ demangler mips64vr4300-elf-c++filt c++filt
GAS assembler mips64vr4300-elf-as as
GLD linker mips64vr4300-elf-ld ld
Standalone simulator mips64vr4300-elf-run run
Binary Utilities mips64vr4300-elf-ar ar
mips64vr4300-elf-nm nm
mips64vr4300-elf-objcopy objcopy
mips64vr4300-elf-objdump objdump
mips64vr4300-elf-ranlib ranlib
mips64vr4300-elf-size size
mips64vr4300-elf-strings strings
mips64vr4300-elf-strip strip
GDB debugger mips64vr4300-elf-gdb gdb
WinGDB debugger

N/A

wingdb

Case Sensitivity

The following things are case sensitive under Unix and Windows 95:

The following things are not case sensitive under Unix or Windows 95:

File names are case sensitive under Unix. Case sensitivity for Windows 95 is dependent on system configuration. By default, file names under Windows 95 are not case sensitive.

Processor version(s)

Targets Supported

GNUPro Instruction Set Simulator

The NEC DDB-VR4300 board is described in the NEC manual, DDB-VR4300 Evaluation Board. This board runs the VR4300 processor in little-endian mode. The GNUPro simulator runs in both big-endian and little-endian mode.

Hosts Supported

Object file format

The VR4300 tools support the ELF object file format (refer to System V Application Binary Interface). Use ‘ld’ (refer to Using LD in GNUPro Utilities) or ‘objcopy’ (see objcopy in The GNU Binary Utilities in GNUPro Utilities) to produce S-records.

Setup

Programs may be developed for and debugged on the GNUPro simulator or the VR4300 board.