From: Muhammad Kamran <muhammad.kamran@arm.com>
To: <gdb-patches@sourceware.org>
Cc: Simon Marchi <simark@simark.ca>,
Andrew Burgess <aburgess@redhat.com>,
Wilco Dijkstra <Wilco.Dijkstra@arm.com>,
Yury Khrustalev <Yury.Khrustalev@arm.com>,
Thiago Jung Bauermann <thiago.bauermann@linaro.org>,
Adhemerval Zanella Netto <adhemerval.zanella@linaro.org>,
Carlos O'Donell <carlos@redhat.com>,
Muhammad Kamran <muhammad.kamran@arm.com>
Subject: [PATCH v3 0/2] gdb: Fix internal inferior calls through GNU IFUNCs
Date: Mon, 29 Jun 2026 15:32:01 +0000 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <20260629153203.10142-1-muhammad.kamran@arm.com> (raw)
This series fixes a GDB inferior-call issue exposed by malloc being a GNU
IFUNC in glibc on AArch64. The underlying problem is not AArch64-specific:
it can affect any inferior helper found through find_function_in_inferior's
minimal-symbol fallback when that helper is a GNU IFUNC.
GDB calls find_function_in_inferior ("malloc") when expression evaluation
needs to allocate memory in the inferior, for example for string literal
arguments. In the minimal-symbol fallback, GDB created a synthetic ordinary
function pointer from the minimal symbol address. If the symbol was a GNU
IFUNC, this lost the IFUNC marker, so call_function_by_hand did not resolve
the symbol before calling it.
Patch 1 checks the minimal symbol kind directly and propagates the GNU IFUNC
marker to the synthetic function type for mst_text_gnu_ifunc and
mst_data_gnu_ifunc symbols. The existing fallback address and return type
are unchanged.
Patch 2 fixes the follow-on return-type issue after IFUNC resolution. When
the resolved target type, or the type inferred from the resolver return type,
does not provide a usable return type, find_function_addr now keeps the
original function type's return type. This preserves the synthetic fallback
return type used by find_function_in_inferior ("malloc").
The tests add an internal inferior-call case using an IFUNC malloc and run it
through the existing gdb.base/gnu-ifunc.exp matrix for resolver attr,
resolver debug info, and resolved-target debug info.
Changes since v2:
* Rework the minimal-symbol fallback to check the minimal symbol kind
directly as suggested by Simon.
* Add coverage for both debug and no-debug IFUNC malloc variants by
using the existing framework.
* Preserve the original IFUNC return type when the resolved target type
is unknown.
Muhammad Kamran (2):
gdb: Preserve IFUNC marker when finding inferior functions
gdb: Keep original IFUNC return type when target type is unknown
gdb/infcall.c | 12 +++-
.../gdb.base/gnu-ifunc-inferior-call-final.c | 27 ++++++++
.../gnu-ifunc-inferior-call-resolver.c | 43 +++++++++++++
.../gdb.base/gnu-ifunc-inferior-call.c | 37 +++++++++++
gdb/testsuite/gdb.base/gnu-ifunc.exp | 61 +++++++++++++++++++
gdb/valops.c | 5 ++
6 files changed, 183 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)
create mode 100644 gdb/testsuite/gdb.base/gnu-ifunc-inferior-call-final.c
create mode 100644 gdb/testsuite/gdb.base/gnu-ifunc-inferior-call-resolver.c
create mode 100644 gdb/testsuite/gdb.base/gnu-ifunc-inferior-call.c
--
2.43.0
next reply other threads:[~2026-06-29 15:34 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 3+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2026-06-29 15:32 Muhammad Kamran [this message]
2026-06-29 15:32 ` [PATCH v3 1/2] gdb: Preserve IFUNC marker when finding inferior functions Muhammad Kamran
2026-06-29 15:32 ` [PATCH v3 2/2] gdb: Keep original IFUNC return type when target type is unknown Muhammad Kamran
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