Re: [PATCH 5/8] gdb/riscv: introduce bare metal core dump support

Andrew Burgess
2020-12-07T16:58:46Z

* Luis Machado <luis.machado@linaro.org> [2020-12-07 12:58:19 -0300]:

> On 12/7/20 12:17 PM, Andrew Burgess wrote:
> > * Luis Machado <luis.machado@linaro.org> [2020-12-02 15:12:26 -0300]:
> >
> > > CC-ing paulmathieu@google.com and fredrik.hederstierna@verisure.com, who
> > > were also looking into supporting bare metal ARM core files.
> > >
> > > Just a quick note...
> > >
> > > Back in October we pondered about this and it looked reasonable, at the
> > > time, to put some effort into documenting the format (unlike the current
> > > Linux core file format, which lacks good documentation).
> > >
> > > My take on it is that we need to settle on a format that works for multiple
> > > architectures.
> >
> > Hi Luis,
> >
> > Thanks for your feedback, I'd love to better understand what you are
> > proposing here.
>
> Sure. What I'm proposing here is the same I proposed in this thread about
> ARM bare metal core files...
>
> https://sourceware.org/pipermail/gdb-patches/2020-October/172617.html
>
> ... and also suggested by Simon here:
>
> https://sourceware.org/pipermail/gdb-patches/2020-October/172270.html
>
> In summary, we should document what a bare metal core file is, what pieces
> it is expected to contain (registers, target descriptions, hardware
> information, execution environment etc) and what format it will be in.
>
> >
> > Could you expand a little on why we need a format that supports
> > multiple architectures (i.e. what benefits will this bring)? And how
> > this would be different to the approach taken here
>
> Having a common format makes it easier to maintain the code and expand the
> features when needed. This is not different from the Linux core file we have
> today. The Linux core file is a common format.
>
> But unlike Linux core files, which have less than ideal documentation and
> specifications, we want to take this opportunity to start clean and to
> document everything required to have a proper bare metal core file.
>
> I think this initial definition and documentation will benefit developers
> moving forward.
>
> Does that make it more clear?

Not really. I'll go read the various threads that you referenced and
see come back once I have more specific questions.

Thanks for the pointers.

Andrew