Re: New target method returning the name of the malloc function?

[Michael Snyder <msnyder@redhat.com>]

Joel Brobecker wrote:
> 
> Hello,
> 
> The name of the function used to allocate some memory in the inferior is
> currently hard-coded to "malloc" in valops.c:
> 
>      struct value *
>      value_allocate_space_in_inferior (int len)
>      {
>        struct value *blocklen;
>        struct value *val = find_function_in_inferior ("malloc");
>                                                        ^^^^^^
> 
> Unfortunately, on interix, the malloc function is not always there.
> Quoting Donn Terry:
> <<
> malloc() won't necessarily be present; the way our namespace pollution
> prevention stuff works, if the user application doesn't call an entry
> point at all, it just won't be there.  However, _malloc is always
> present (at least in any real program) because it's called from within
> the library.
> >>
> 
> May I suggest a new architecture method called for instance
> NAME_OF_MALLOC or MALLOC_FUNCTION_NAME? The default would be to return
> "malloc", but we could then change it to "_malloc" for the interix
> target.

Joel, 

This is a known limitation.  Certain things in GDB simply will not
work if the target program doesn't contain malloc.  It's been like 
that for 10 years.