Re: gdb 6.8 selected_byte_order function

[Richard Stuckey <richard dot stuckey at arc dot com>]

Ah, I see.  So this function is actually returning the byte order, if
any, selected by the user (hence its name!).

I think that the question I should have asked is why, in function
gdbsim_open in file remote-sim.c, the switch statement has been changed
to call selected_byte_order instead of using TARGET_BYTE_ORDER (which is
#defined to be gdbarch_byte_order (current_gdbarch)) as it did in the
6.6 code?

I suppose this change was because in the 6.6 code there was the comment

  /* Specify the byte order for the target when it is both selectable
     and explicitly specified by the user (not auto detected). */

and the code was not actually doing this: calling gdbarch_byte_order was
using auto-detection in the case that the user had not specified the
byte order.

This change caused a difference in the behaviour of the ARC debugger
when using the built-in simulator: the 6.6. version used a default of
little-endian, whereas in the 6.8 version it is now necessary to issue a
"set endian little" command before the "target sim" command, otherwise a
"Target byte order unspecified" error is given.  Alternatively, using
the "file <program>" command before the "target sim" command, instead of
after it, has the desired effect.

 Thanks for clearing this up for me.

     Richard Stuckey, ARC