Re: GDB plugin

[<Paul_Koning@Dell.com>]

On May 8, 2012, at 10:38 AM, Matt Rice wrote:

> On 5/7/12, Hui Zhu <teawater@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Tue, May 8, 2012 at 4:18 AM, Tom Tromey <tromey@redhat.com> wrote:
>>>>>>>> "Abhijit" == Abhijit Halder <abhijit.k.halder@gmail.com> writes:
>>> 
>>> Abhijit> Is there any way to load a GDB plugin (shared library having
>>> extended
>>> Abhijit> functionality) in current GDB? I am planning to develop one.
>>> Need
>>> Abhijit> yours opinion on this.
>>> 
>>> There is a little bit of this for the JIT functionality.
>>> 
>>> Generic plugins are trouble because they tend to fix the API -- but we
>>> want to be able to change the API as needed.  The JIT approach avoided
>>> this by exporting a custom, minimal API.
>>> 
>>> What exactly are you planning to do?
>>> 
>>> Tom
>> 
>> I think the api is not a big trouble, the Linux kernel's api is always
>> change.  But lkm is still alive.  I use some ifdef to make KGTP can be
>> work from 2.6.18 to upstream.  I think if GDB can supply some
>> interface to get the api version, support different api is not very
>> hard.
> 
> all but a few of the kernel modules are actually shipped with the kernel though.
> nor does the kernel have a python interpreter embedded in it.

I'm confused.  GDB is not a kernel component, so a GDB plugin isn't a kernel module.  How did lkm get brought into the discussion?

Extending GDB can done in a number of ways, but the Python way is quite flexible and easy when the things you need are available in its API.  And if they aren't, they can be added.

	paul