Re: Release 2.24

Maciej W. Rozycki
2013-09-18T22:26:58Z

On Wed, 18 Sep 2013, Joel Brobecker wrote:

> > Just as a reminder, can we please coordinate so that GDB 7.7 is released
> > before binutils 2.24?
>
> It's fine with GDB of course if the Binutils projects wants to wait
> for the GDB 7.7 release, but my guess is that we are quite a ways
> away from it: We need the git transition to be done first, then
> we need to make the branch and stabilize it towards a release state.

I reckon the original plan was to make the steps in the reverse order so
that there's no pressure from outstanding releases to get the GIT tree in
order, which I found reasonable -- what was the rationale behind changing
the plan? It has somehow escaped me (a list archive reference will do).

> > On the MIPS target we've switched PLT formats produced by LD for MIPS16
> > and microMIPS binaries and for correct frame unwinding GDB has to
> > understand them. Otherwise it'll fail in odd ways, e.g. when stepping
> > over a function called via PLT. Of course all code required is there in
> > our shared repository, it's just a matter of making the releases in the
> > right order so that ordinary developers have a version of GDB to upgrade
> > to available if needed.
>
> Can you patch gdb-7.6 to understand the new format as well as
> the old one with a patch that could be deemed safe? Perhaps it would
> make sense to make a 7.6.2 release just for MIPS.

That sounds like a plan, thanks, and should be doable with a reasonable
effort -- the changes really needed by GDB are the addition of
_bfd_mips_elf_get_synthetic_symtab to bfd/elfxx-mips.c, its wiring in
bfd/elf32-mips.c, and then small self-contained pieces in opcodes/ and of
course gdb/. I'll have a look at it and let you know when I'm ready with
a backport.

BTW, please note that the old format remains supported and produced for
standard MIPS and, in some cases, mixed-mode binaries, so it's not like
it's going away or something.

Maciej