arm-none-eabi-gdb wants to build for x86_64 on Apple Silicon

[jmalcaide (Jose M. Alcaide)]

It seems that the arm-none-eabi-gdb port is ignoring build_arch. This is what happens when trying to build that port on an Apple Silicon-based Mac (from Terminal.app):

% sudo port install arm-none-eabi-gdb
Error: Cannot install arm-none-eabi-gdb for the arch 'x86_64' because
Error: its dependency arm-none-eabi-gcc is only installed for the arch 'arm64'
Error: and does not have a universal variant.
Error: Unable to execute port: architecture mismatch

Here is my list of installed ports:

% port -v installed
The following ports are currently installed:
  arm-none-eabi-binutils @2.41_0 (active) requested_variants='' platform='darwin 23' archs='arm64' date='2023-11-30T22:18:17+0100'
  arm-none-eabi-gcc @13.2.0_0 (active) requested_variants='' platform='darwin 23' archs='arm64' date='2023-12-10T16:06:33+0100'
  db48 @4.8.30_5 (active) requested_variants='' platform='darwin 23' archs='arm64' date='2023-12-10T14:26:03+0100'
  gdbm @1.23_0 (active) requested_variants='' platform='darwin 23' archs='arm64' date='2023-12-10T14:26:26+0100'
  gettext @0.21.1_0 (active) requested_variants='' platform='darwin 23' archs='arm64' date='2023-11-30T22:00:54+0100'
  gettext-runtime @0.21.1_0 (active) requested_variants='' platform='darwin 23' archs='arm64' date='2023-11-30T21:56:30+0100'
  gettext-tools-libs @0.21.1_0 (active) requested_variants='' platform='darwin 23' archs='arm64' date='2023-11-30T21:59:03+0100'
  gmp @6.3.0_0 (active) requested_variants='' platform='darwin 23' archs='arm64' date='2023-12-10T13:25:26+0100'
  help2man @1.49.3_0 (active) requested_variants='' platform='darwin 23' archs='arm64' date='2023-12-10T14:29:32+0100'
  isl @0.24_1 (active) requested_variants='' platform='darwin 23' archs='arm64' date='2023-12-10T13:25:43+0100'
  libiconv @1.17_0 (active) requested_variants='' platform='darwin 23' archs='arm64' date='2023-11-30T21:55:57+0100'
  libmpc @1.3.1_0 (active) requested_variants='' platform='darwin 23' archs='arm64' date='2023-12-10T13:27:00+0100'
  libtextstyle @0.21.1_0 (active) requested_variants='' platform='darwin 23' archs='arm64' date='2023-11-30T21:57:06+0100'
  lz4 @1.9.4_0 (active) requested_variants='' platform='darwin 23' archs='arm64' date='2023-12-10T13:27:05+0100'
  mpfr @4.2.1_0 (active) requested_variants='' platform='darwin 23' archs='arm64' date='2023-12-10T13:26:52+0100'
  ncurses @6.4_0 (active) requested_variants='' platform='darwin 23' archs='arm64' date='2023-11-30T21:54:03+0100'
  nethack @3.6.7_0 (active) requested_variants='' platform='darwin 23' archs='arm64' date='2023-11-30T21:54:31+0100'
  p5.34-locale-gettext @1.70.0_1 (active) requested_variants='' platform='darwin 23' archs='arm64' date='2023-12-10T14:29:29+0100'
  perl5.34 @5.34.1_0 (active) requested_variants='' platform='darwin 23' archs='arm64' date='2023-12-10T14:29:20+0100'
  readline @8.2.001_0 (active) requested_variants='' platform='darwin 23' archs='arm64' date='2023-12-10T14:26:17+0100'
  texinfo @7.1_0 (active) requested_variants='' platform='darwin 23' archs='arm64' date='2023-12-10T14:30:30+0100'
  unrar @6.2.12_0 (active) requested_variants='' platform='darwin 23' archs='arm64' date='2023-11-30T21:53:16+0100'
  xz @5.4.5_0 (active) requested_variants='' platform='darwin 23' archs='arm64' date='2023-12-10T13:25:59+0100'
  zlib @1.3_0 (active) requested_variants='' platform='darwin 23' archs='arm64' date='2023-11-30T22:07:41+0100'
  zstd @1.5.5_0 (active) requested_variants='' platform='darwin 23' archs='arm64' date='2023-12-10T13:27:24+0100'

I am using the default macports.conf and I don't have a ~/.macports directory.

[ryandesign (Ryan Carsten Schmidt)]

Replying to jmalcaide:

It seems that the arm-none-eabi-gdb port is ignoring build_arch.

It isn't; this is working as intended. The arm-none-eabi-gdb​ portfile includes the crossgdb portgroup​ which contains the lines:

        # gdb is not supported on macOS ARM now
        # See https://inbox.sourceware.org/gdb/3185c3b8-8a91-4beb-a5d5-9db6afb93713@Spark
        supported_archs x86_64 i386

[jmalcaide (Jose M. Alcaide)]

I think that the error message is very misleading. First, it says that arm-none-eabi-gdb was being installed for X86-64 (I never intended that). Secondly, it states that the reason for failing is that the dependency arm-none-eabi-gcc has been installed for arm64; however, the real reason is that arm-none-eabi-gdb does not support building for arm64, because it is not listed as a supported architecture by the crossdb portgroup.

Anyway, I don't understand why arm-none-eabi-gdb cannot be built for arm64. In my case, I intend to use this port for cross-debugging programs running on a BBC micro:bit microcontroller board connected to my Mac via USB, and using PyOCD for communication with the onboard debugger. These programs are being cross-compiled, cross-assembled and cross-linked using arm-none-eabi-gcc and arm-none-eabi-as. The executable so generated is converted using arm-none-eabi-objdump from ELF to bin formats. The architecture of the host computer (the Mac) is completely irrelevant for all this to work. In fact, I installed the complete toolchain (including arm-none-eabi-gdb) using Homebrew and it works perfectly.