Re: expected behavior of GNU/Linux gcore and corefiles

[Andrew Cagney <ac131313@redhat.com>]

> On Sun, Mar 02, 2003 at 10:56:08AM -0500, Andrew Cagney wrote:
> 
>> >On Sat, Mar 01, 2003 at 10:39:00PM -0500, Daniel Jacobowitz wrote:
>> >
> 
>> >>> My instincts tell me that, to completly implement the above 
>> >>> functionality, GDB is always going to need libthread-db.  If GDB could 
>> >>> implement the above on a core file without using libthread-db, then GDB 
>> >>> could also implement the above on a live target also without using 
>> >>> libthread-db.  This is because a core file is always going to contain a 
>> >>> subset of the information made available via ptrace et.al.
> 
>> >
>> >
>> >Oh, and one other thing that I like to mention when this comes up.  My
>> >previous message was the implementation issues involved; this one's the
>> >motivational issue.  Thread_db is not, and can't/shouldn't be,
>> >available in a cross environment.  We have done a lot of work to make
>> >GDB read corefiles in a cross environment; and at MontaVista we've seen
>> >a large demand for this functionality from our customers.  So using
>> >thread_db with corefiles doesn't meet our (GDB developers') goals, I
>> >think.
> 
>> 
>> Sorry, on this point, I'm lost.  What are you suggesting here?
> 
> 
> My point is just that it's important for GDB to not require thread_db
> when dealing with core files.   A lot of people seem to use e.g. Solaris
> to debug core files and expect everything they would get from using GDB
> natively; that's their expectation and so far we've been able to stay
> pretty much there.

If that position means precluding certain native-only functionality?

Andrew