GDB Focus Group at the 2008 GCC Summit

Joel Brobecker
2008-06-19T19:10:09Z

Hello,

we had a couple of 45min sessions where we discussed various items
related to GDB. I took some brief notes, although I might have forgotten
one or two. Anyway, here is what I wrote:

| * Next GDB Release:
|
| Lots of new features, but not ready for real release. When
| the features are in, need a little more maturing time before
| shipping it in an official release. Suggest next release
| in 6 months from now (Jan-Feb 2009).
|
| For people really interested in trying it out before the official
| release, perhaps either:
| - Announce various nightly tarballs that contain the features
| - Or perhaps create a 6.9 branch but never release 6.9. Just
| make various pre-releases 6.8.90, 6.8.91, etc.
|
| * Reverse debugging:
|
| 4 different implementations, but are starting to converge.
| We think there is a reasonable chance that this makes 7.0.
|
| * Calling python function from the CLI:
|
| Several possible syntaxes:
| $(function-name arguments)
| $function_name (arguments)
|
| And also, should be treat the arguments as a simple string,
| or should we treat each argument as an expression?
|
| We reached a consensus and Tom to send it to the gdb list.
|
| * Python support:
|
| Entire work has been split in ~10 patches. Daniel reviewed
| the patches and 80% of the action items have now been done.
| Work could be checked in as early as in a month from now.
|
| Real issue: Documentation and testsuite.
|
| Suggestion: Make sure that the distros build GDB with Python
| enabled when support is provided in a release.
|
| * Transition to SVN:
|
| Required version (for the client) just released a couple of hours ago:
| feature allows to checkout a subset of the module (?). There is still
| no one-line command that allows to check gdb out, so maybe will have
| a script.
|
| Pb: If we want to have a combined tree, we will need to convert
| binutils, gnulib, etc.
|
| * Switch to Bugzilla (from gnats):
|
| We would like to move to bugzilla, and then need to write somei
| documentation about the transition, and how to translate old bug
| numbers into new bug numbers. Use same database as binutils.
|
| * Using threads inside GDB:
|
| Problem: Expression evaluation is synchronous and blocking.
| While GDB is doing that work, it is not handling other events,
| which can be a problem in non-stop mode.
|
| Typical problem is inferior function call that causes two issues:
| - potential length of time it takes to evaluate
| - having to re-enter the event loop to wait for function to return.
|
| Pedro to think about it and write a proposal. Idea we're gearing
| towards is one thread that runs the event loop all the time.
|
| * Fix and continue:
|
| Perhaps try to implement this feature through the use of Python.
| For instance, use python to build a return value, and return that.

--
Joel