From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (qmail 27423 invoked by alias); 22 Jan 2005 04:25:46 -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 27307 invoked from network); 22 Jan 2005 04:25:43 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO ihemail1.lucent.com) (192.11.222.161) by sourceware.org with SMTP; 22 Jan 2005 04:25:43 -0000 Received: from ihgp.ih.lucent.com (h135-1-218-100.lucent.com [135.1.218.100]) by ihemail1.lucent.com (8.12.11/8.12.11) with ESMTP id j0M4Pe0W020877 for ; Fri, 21 Jan 2005 22:25:41 -0600 (CST) Received: from [192.11.175.73] by ihgp.ih.lucent.com (8.11.6+Sun/EMS-1.5 sol2) id j0M4Pd514031; Fri, 21 Jan 2005 22:25:39 -0600 (CST) Message-ID: <41F1D5C2.9040005@lucent.com> Date: Sat, 22 Jan 2005 04:25:00 -0000 From: Dave Trollope User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.2) Gecko/20040804 Netscape/7.2 (ax) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: David Steven Trollope CC: gdb@sources.redhat.com Subject: Re: Intrusive GDB Symbol Lookup when debugging remotely References: <1093622671.2836.ezmlm@sources.redhat.com> <76E69B58-F852-11D8-8E70-000A958F4C44@apple.com> <412F87A4.nail3LU117EOV@mindspring.com> <20050105232657.GB27494@white> <01c4f3aa$Blat.v2.2.2$b4217d20@zahav.net.il> <20050106233136.GA29435@white> <4CE93165-C27F-4CF6-90B8-7632A7BD2672@apple.com> <20050107011211.GB29435@white> <41DDFF0D.5040205@netspace.net.au> <20050111193526.GA5699@white> <41E5E102.2010703@lucent.com> In-Reply-To: <41E5E102.2010703@lucent.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-SW-Source: 2005-01/txt/msg00108.txt.bz2 Hello, No-one responded to this, but I'm sure someone on this list understands how difficult it would be to implement a new handler for a signal to run gdb in a "Local" mode when connected to a gdbserver. I'd really appreciate an estimate of how much effort this would be, or where in the code to start looking. Cheers Dave David Steven Trollope wrote: > Hello! > > I'm trying to determine if there exists an alternative solution, or a > patch for the following problem, or if someone familiar with the GDB > source can estimate how much work it would be to implement a patch. > Any advice would be welcome and appreciated. > > > Configuration: > > GDB running on a Sun Solaris machine. > GDBServer running on a PowerPC Linux machine > The application is running on the target in GDBServer and GDB is > connected to the target using "target remote x.x.x.x:y" > > Problem: > > While the target is running, I don't think it is possible to examine > the symbol table from within gdb without sending an interrupt signal > to GDB. This is a problem because users (and frontends) don't seem to > be able to look up symbols in the symbol table in GDB without > interrupting the target. > > In theory, it would be possible to stop the interrupt being propogated > to the server and hence the target could remain running without > interruption. One possible way of solving this would be to use a > different signal as a "Non-intrusive interrupt" or "Local Interrupt". > The symbol lookup can occur, and then gdb resumes. This would imply > gdb would need to know if its running in "Local" or "Remote" mode to > prevent operations trying to access the target. > > An alternative mechanism could be to have a separate thread that runs > and is signalled for non-intrusive operations. > > You might ask why not just run a separate gdb instance to do this kind > of look up? However, I am dealing with large executables where loading > separate instances for the sake of a symbol lookup is neither > efficient, timely or practical. > > I would very much appreciate discussion on this topic with regard to > feasibility, if its been done already or how much effort it would be > to implement this type of functionality. > > Cheers > Dave Trollope >