Re: Using gdb as a trace agent

Alexandre Courbot
2004-05-17T16:49:03Z

>>In my quest to get datas out of a program as non-intrusively as
>>possible (I'm trying to get graphes out of the memory manager of an
>>embedded operating system), I'm having a close and interested look at
>>gdb tracepoints. It looks like a great solution, but unfortunately:
>>
>>- It only works on remote targets, dixit the manual,
>
>
> How are you communicating with the target?

Right now, preferred ways to use GDB with this platform is either to
generate a native binary for your GNU environment (in which case GDB can
run non-remotely, but tracepoints seems not to be supported at all in
this case), or to generate a Game Boy Advance ROM that you run with some
emulator that supports GDB. But that does not support tracepoints,
unfortunately.

The ideal for me would be to be able to use tracepoints in both cases
(i.e. remote and local). What would prevent a local support for tracepoints?

> I remember Michael talking about getting the stub tracing code
> released to the public, but I don't remember what came of that.
> Michael?

That would be nice indeed. But no chance to get tracepoints to work
locally? That would turn GDB into a great analysis tool. I'm already
successfully using it to generate Gnuplot data, and it would be just
great if I could do it less intrusively so I can exploit these datas
along with time.

Maybe if the task is not to huge I could try myself to it, for it would
dramatically ease my life.

Thanks for your reply,