From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (qmail 8106 invoked by alias); 29 Nov 2004 16:08:34 -0000 Mailing-List: contact gdb-help@sources.redhat.com; run by ezmlm Precedence: bulk List-Subscribe: List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: , Sender: gdb-owner@sources.redhat.com Received: (qmail 7589 invoked from network); 29 Nov 2004 16:08:14 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO mx1.redhat.com) (66.187.233.31) by sourceware.org with SMTP; 29 Nov 2004 16:08:14 -0000 Received: from int-mx1.corp.redhat.com (int-mx1.corp.redhat.com [172.16.52.254]) by mx1.redhat.com (8.12.11/8.12.11) with ESMTP id iATG89n4014625 for ; Mon, 29 Nov 2004 11:08:09 -0500 Received: from localhost.redhat.com (vpn50-72.rdu.redhat.com [172.16.50.72]) by int-mx1.corp.redhat.com (8.11.6/8.11.6) with ESMTP id iATG83r28799; Mon, 29 Nov 2004 11:08:04 -0500 Received: from [127.0.0.1] (localhost.localdomain [127.0.0.1]) by localhost.redhat.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id EC519129D8C; Mon, 29 Nov 2004 11:07:08 -0500 (EST) Message-ID: <41AB492A.8070804@gnu.org> Date: Mon, 29 Nov 2004 16:11:00 -0000 From: Andrew Cagney User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird 0.8 (X11/20041020) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Eli Zaretskii Cc: Andrew Burgess , gdb@sources.redhat.com Subject: Re: new option --readnever & script gstack? References: <41A24D4E.6090301@redhat.com> <01c4d151$Blat.v2.2.2$ca52d9c0@zahav.net.il> <41A363FE.9060307@redhat.com> <01c4d19d$Blat.v2.2.2$0109b2e0@zahav.net.il> <01c4d1f2$Blat.v2.2.2$5a3f3880@zahav.net.il> In-Reply-To: <01c4d1f2$Blat.v2.2.2$5a3f3880@zahav.net.il> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-SW-Source: 2004-11/txt/msg00256.txt.bz2 Eli Zaretskii wrote: >>Cc: gdb@sources.redhat.com >>From: "Andrew Burgess" >>Date: Tue, 23 Nov 2004 13:42:54 -0800 >> >> >>>It sounds like the -readnever option you propose would be useful only >>>in the pstack-like situation. So how about adding a -pstack option >>>which will do whatever it takes for GDB to emulate pstack, i.e. avoid >>>reading the symbols, produce a backtrace, and then detach from the >>>process? >> >>I think I would tend to use it 'with' symbols myself... > > > Then perhaps using the -readnow switch would do what you want. > > I understand that the motivation for not reading the symbols is the > long time it takes GDB to do that, right? Yes, the objective is to get in, get a minimal backtrace, and get out. Apparently this is a relatively common task in production environments - a few seconds down time is considered acceptable but not a few minutes (that's the magnitude difference I'm seeing :-/). I also don't see the option as being pstack specific - this technique is equally applicable to other scripts - gcore comes to mind - again only minimal symbol information being required. So, ..., would a gstack.sh script and an option to disable symbolic debug information reading be useful additions to GDB? Andrew