Notation and Conventions
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## Notation and Conventions

Since there are many supported target architectures, notation conventions will be used to avoid repeating instructions which are very similar.

### GDB and GCC Command Notation

Cross-development commands like `gcc` and `gdb` will be shown without prefixed information about the platform for which you are cross-compiling. You need to add the necessary prefix before you execute the commands, so instead of typing ™gcc' and ™gdb' as in the examples, use:
`sh-elf-gcc and sh-elf-gdb for SH
i686-pc-linux-gnu-gcc` and `i686-pc-linux-gnu-gdb for` i386

Note that the GCC cross compiler generates executable files with the `.exe` suffix on Windows, but not on UNIX. The suffix .exe will be omitted from executable file names, so you will see hello instead of hello.exe .

### Directory and File System Conventions

The default directory for installing eCos on Windows (usually `C:/Program Files/Red Hat/eCos` ) is different from that on UNIX (usually /usr/local/ecos-v1_3_1 ). Since many command line examples in the tutorials use these paths, this default (base) directory will be shown as BASE_DIR .

Windows and UNIX have similar file system syntax, but the MS-DOS command interpreter on Windows uses the backslash character (\) as a path separator, while UNIX and POSIX shells (including the Cygwin bash shell for windows) use the forward slash (/).

This document will use the POSIX shell convention of forward slashes.

Notation and Conventions
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