From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (qmail 14713 invoked by alias); 5 Feb 2006 19:34:43 -0000 Received: (qmail 14691 invoked by uid 22791); 5 Feb 2006 19:34:42 -0000 X-Spam-Check-By: sourceware.org Received: from cgf.cx (HELO cgf.cx) (24.61.23.223) by sourceware.org (qpsmtpd/0.31) with ESMTP; Sun, 05 Feb 2006 19:34:42 +0000 Received: by cgf.cx (Postfix, from userid 201) id 829C913C0F8; Sun, 5 Feb 2006 14:34:40 -0500 (EST) Date: Sun, 05 Feb 2006 19:34:00 -0000 From: Christopher Faylor To: gdb-patches@sourceware.org Subject: Re: RFA: Support Windows extended error numbers in safe_strerror Message-ID: <20060205193440.GB4718@trixie.casa.cgf.cx> Mail-Followup-To: gdb-patches@sourceware.org References: <20060203215455.GA3501@nevyn.them.org> <200602032325.k13NPJ6g028001@elgar.sibelius.xs4all.nl> <20060203233935.GA13238@trixie.casa.cgf.cx> <20060204032730.GB9890@nevyn.them.org> <200602041435.k14EZ6NK016329@elgar.sibelius.xs4all.nl> <20060205001503.GB8728@trixie.casa.cgf.cx> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.11 Mailing-List: contact gdb-patches-help@sourceware.org; run by ezmlm Precedence: bulk List-Subscribe: List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: , Sender: gdb-patches-owner@sourceware.org X-SW-Source: 2006-02/txt/msg00098.txt.bz2 On Sun, Feb 05, 2006 at 06:46:06AM +0200, Eli Zaretskii wrote: >>Date: Sat, 4 Feb 2006 19:15:03 -0500 >>From: Christopher Faylor >> >>>But it isn't the same platform, anymore than MIPS/Linux and MIPS/Irix >>>are the same platform. Cygwin requires a considerable amount of >>>additional software to be installed, of which a large part is a system >>>library that presents a very different API than the native OS. >> >>The minimal amount of software required for gdb to run with Cygwin is: >>gdb.exe, Cygwin1.dll, cygiconv-2.dll, and cygncurses-8.dll . You may >>potentially need to have the terminfo library installed, too, don't >>know for sure, and I'm not really interested in testing. I wouldn't >>call that a considerable amount of software. > >First, I think you need the shell as well (correct me if I'm wrong). The shell is needed for the "shell" command. The shell is not used for running programs. So, yes, if you don't have a Cygwin shell, then the shell command won't work. If that is a show stopper, I could have gdb revert to using a windows shell if /bin/sh is missing. >Second, running GDB alone is not useful. People use the Cygwin build >of GDB to debug other Cygwin programs. Just building those other >programs requires a more or less full Cygwin installation, including >the shell, Coreutils, Grep, Gawk, and whatsnot. You've lost me. So people *do* (because they can) download a lot of other packages along with gdb so that means that gdb is unacceptable as a native debugger? I thought the point was that you needed too many packages to debug windows programs. Of course you can debug Cygwin programs with the Cygwin version of gdb. If you are going to be building programs which use configure then you will need coreutils, grep, gawk, and maybe even M4. Many people who use MinGW have native versions of these programs on their system, but that's sort of besides the point. We are talking about debugging Windows apps which do not use any of these. >More importantly, what matters is that the software that makes your >system a Cygwin system modifies the OS interface in important ways, so >it can no longer be considered the same platform, IMO. Cygwin is just a DLL. It doesn't inject itself into native windows applications to change what they see as the "OS interface", except for the, IMO, minor, caveats mentioned below. People use the Cygwin version of gdb to debug MinGW applications all of the time. In fact, I believe that one of the main MinGW developers uses Cygwin as his platform for working on MinGW. Other developers use MSYS which is a Cygwin fork. >>You are apparently confusing the Cygwin distribution with the Cygwin >>DLL. That's like conflating Fedora Core 5 with the linux kernel. > >Please give me more credit than that, Chris. Eli, you are making statements which I know to be false, so I can only draw the conclusion that you are either confused or misinformed. Neither is an an indication of lack of intelligence or something to be taken as an insult. >>Also, there is nothing in Cygwin which stops you from running native >>windows apps (e.g., a MinGW version of gcc) if that is your preference. > >Yes, there is. But I'm sure you know that, so I won't elaborate. I'd prefer that you did elaborate since you seem to be implying that I was (to put it politely) withholding information, and I have no idea what you're talking about. It would not make much sense to think that the existence of the Cygwin DLL on a windows system would somehow interfere with the correct operation of a windows program since there are scores of windows programs running on a correctly functioning Windows system at any given time. So, you can't mean that, obviously. If you're talking about trying to run programs under bash, then, the only problem that I can think of is what Daniel found - some native Windows programs misbehave if used with Cygwin's ttys or ptys. The solution to this dilemma is the same that you'd use if Cygwin was not on the system - don't use ptys or ttys. If you are a purist, then don't use bash. Just run gdb directly. I am not aware of any problems with running native windows programs under gdb. If there are, then I'd be happy to look into fixing them for as long as I continue to be maintainer. cgf