Re: expected behavior of GNU/Linux gcore and corefiles

Daniel Jacobowitz
2003-03-02T17:09:17Z

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.