[AVaRICE-user] Avarice file formats

[Nils K. S. <ni...@om...>]

Hi developers

After seing some discussion on the list about file formats, I would like to
share some additional thoughts (and code) before any changes are being
determined and applied.

The GNU binutils (linker, assembler ++) use the BFD (Binary File Descriptor)
library.  From the BFD manual "BFD is a package which allows applications
to use the same routines to operate on object files whatever the object
file format."

By using BFD, avarice is be able to support the following file formats:
  elf32-avr elf32-little elf32-big srec symbolsrec tekhex binary ihex

This would satisfy most users of the GNU compiler (as these are the same
file formats avr-objcopy can make).

IMHO this solution is less error-prone than writing the file-format parser
from scratch.

Please find the attached patch, providing file format support through BFD. This
patch is against todays CVS version.

The patch is tested on elf and binary file formats.

Regards,
Nils Strom
E-mail:  ni...@om...
Web:     http://www.omegav.ntnu.no/~nilsst

Hardware, n: The part of a computer system that can be kicked
             (Michael Barr)