Re: Release 2.24

["Maciej W. Rozycki" <macro@codesourcery.com>]

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