Re: RFA: attach to a PID using a different exec

[Stan Shebs <stan@codesourcery.com>]

Tom Tromey wrote:
>>>>>> "Daniel" == Daniel Jacobowitz <drow@false.org> writes:
>>>>>>             
>>> This patch changes gdb to look at the target's notion of the exec
>>> file, and then switch to it if it differs from the current exec.
>>>       
>
> Daniel> This seems like a bad idea to me.  The canonical example is:
> Daniel> /usr/bin/prog.stripped &
> Daniel> gdb /home/drow/prog.debug $(pidof prog.stripped)
> Daniel> I don't want GDB to prompt my to switch to the stripped program...
>
> Well, you can answer "no".  So while it is inconvenient, it seems
> minor.  On the other hand, the current situation can leave one with a
> nonsensical setup.  This bites me a lot more than I should probably
> admit.
>   
For multi-exec GDB, I added a set-exec command for just this situation - 
if you have multiple execs in the session, it's extremely difficult to 
tell which (if any) corresponds to the attached process. In practice so 
far, it's better than nothing, but we need more. We should have as many 
heuristics as possible, and ask for a confirmation too. (I wonder if 
comparing a handful of bytes, or sections, from each exec would be a 
useful check...)

Stan