RE: [EXT] Re: Slow "symbol-file" when using GDB 12.1 on Windows hosts

[Adrian Oltean via Gdb <gdb@sourceware.org>]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>
> Sent: Monday, March 20, 2023 3:19 PM
> To: Adrian Oltean <adrian.oltean@nxp.com>
> Cc: luis.machado@arm.com; gdb@sourceware.org
> Subject: [EXT] Re: Slow "symbol-file" when using GDB 12.1 on Windows hosts
> 
> Caution: EXT Email
> 
> > From: Adrian Oltean <adrian.oltean@nxp.com>
> > CC: "gdb@sourceware.org" <gdb@sourceware.org>
> > Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2023 12:29:25 +0000
> >
> > Eli mentioned that the timestamps offered by Process Monitor are not
> > relevant. However, I consider that the events and their timestamps are
> > relevant when compared to the ones generated by GDB 10. There's no
> > attempt to access "C:\Windows\CSC" when using GDB 10. If that file
> > access wouldn't be attempted by GDB 12, I'm pretty sure there wouldn't be
> any slowdown.
> 
> Any idea why GDB is accessing all those directories?  I cannot know what kind
> of directory structure you have there, and so cannot reason about the
> directories being accessed by GDB or whether it should access some
> directory.  What are those directories, and why symbol-file causes GDB to
> access them?

I was thinking that GDB starts inspecting some known locations (e.g. location of the elf).
I don't think GDB is so unpredictable when it comes to what files/directories
needs to access when "symbol-file" is issued... Or is it? 

> > By the way, there's no spike in CPU/memory usage when invoking
> > "symbol-file" but, on my PC, "C:\Windows\CSC" is completely
> > inaccessible with my user account.
> 
> That is probably the real culprit: some directory that needs some special
> credentials, or which causes GDB to call some network-related resources
> which are inaccessible or something.  So understanding why GDB tries to
> access that directory and/or making its access faster, might fix your problem.

Indeed... Why is GDB trying to access "client-side caching" folder from Windows? I'm
pretty sure this is not specific to my machine.

> > Maybe you guys can also answer (some of) the questions from my initial
> email?
> 
> Which ones?

You, Luis or anyone else... :-)

Thank you,
Adrian