Status of Ada support in GDB?

Status of Ada support in GDB?

[Andreas Jaeger]

Trying to debug some Ada problems in GCC I noticed that GDB comes with
Ada support files but does not link them at all, they just seem to be
there for cosmetic :-(

I made some patches to link those files into GDB but still cannot
debug Ada.

So, I have two questions:
- are you interested in my fixes for compilation and/or adding Ada to
  the makefile?

- does anybody care at all about Ada support in GDB?  Since it's
  disabled, I don't see how anybody can use it...


FYI - I'm still fighting with unk_lang_create_fundamental_type, even
if I use set language ada:

$ /usr/src/aj/GDB/build/gdb/gdb ../../gnatmake 
A handler for the OS ABI "GNU/Linux" is not built into this configuration of GDB.  Attempting to continue with the default i386 settingsGNU gdb 2003-02-24-cvs
Copyright 2003 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
GDB is free software, covered by the GNU General Public License, and you are
welcome to change it and/or distribute copies of it under certain conditions.
Type "show copying" to see the conditions.
There is absolutely no warranty for GDB.  Type "show warranty" for details.
This GDB was configured as "x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu"...
(gdb) r -c -I../rts -I. -I/cvs/gcc-hammer-3_3-branch/gcc/ada gnatchop --GCC="../../xgcc -B../../ -g      -gnatpg -gnata"
Starting program: /usr/src/aj/build/gcc/misc/gcc/gnatmake -c -I../rts -I. -I/cvs/gcc-hammer-3_3-branch/gcc/ada gnatchop --GCC="../../xgcc -B../../ -g      -gnatpg -gnata"
internal error - unimplemented function unk_lang_create_fundamental_type called.
(gdb) bt
internal error - unimplemented function unk_lang_create_fundamental_type called.
(gdb) set language 
The currently understood settings are:

local or auto    Automatic setting based on source file
ada              Use the Ada language
c                Use the C language
c++              Use the C++ language
asm              Use the Asm language
fortran          Use the Fortran language
java             Use the Java language
modula-2         Use the Modula-2 language
pascal           Use the Pascal language
scheme           Use the Scheme language
(gdb) r
Starting program: /usr/src/aj/build/gcc/misc/gcc/gnatmake -c -I../rts -I. -I/cvs/gcc-hammer-3_3-branch/gcc/ada gnatchop --GCC="../../xgcc -B../../ -g      -gnatpg -gnata"
internal error - unimplemented function unk_lang_create_fundamental_type called.
(gdb) show language 
The current source language is "ada".


Andreas
-- 
 Andreas Jaeger
  SuSE Labs aj@suse.de
   private aj@arthur.inka.de
    http://www.suse.de/~aj

Re: Status of Ada support in GDB?

[Joel Brobecker]

Andreas,

> Trying to debug some Ada problems in GCC I noticed that GDB comes with
> Ada support files but does not link them at all, they just seem to be
> there for cosmetic :-(

Let me explain a bit the history behind these files, and why they are
not linked in yet. 

We, at ACT, are the original authors of these files, and have been
planning on submitting them for inclusion in the FSF tree as soon as
possible. There is no doubt in our minds that this would be beneficial
to everybody: the GDB community, the free software community, the Ada
community, and also ACT itself. So we are trying very hard on our side
to get this done. Unfortunately, due to commercial pressure and lack of
resources, we haven't be able to get this done yet.

So maybe a year ago, ACT made a "code dropping": our sources-du-jour
were made available for download on the sources.redhat.com ftp site.
The hope was that some people might find it useful, while we keep making
progress on cleaning up our code to get it to a state where it would be
acceptable for inclusion.

Somebody outside of ACT actually volunteered to merge these changes into
the FSF tree for us. He started by first sending a new patch that was
this time against the current sources (instead of current against an old
5.1 snapshot). He then checked in the ada-* files, and started cleaning
them up. The plan was for him to (more or less): cleanup these files,
add the bits in the makefiles to compile them in, and then activate
slowly all the ada functionality. Unfortunately, as it often happens,
this volunteer found a day job, and found that he could not spend time
on this task anymore.

So ACT is picking up the task again. We are getting much closer to
having something we can submit, one of our part-time consultant is
working full-time (if I may say so) on it. In the meantime, could you
try using the 5.1.1-based sources that we made available through
sources.redhat.com?

-- 
Joel

Re: Status of Ada support in GDB?

[Andreas Jaeger]

Hi Joel,
 
Joel Brobecker <brobecker@gnat.com> writes:

> Andreas,
>
>> Trying to debug some Ada problems in GCC I noticed that GDB comes with
>> Ada support files but does not link them at all, they just seem to be
>> there for cosmetic :-(
>
> Let me explain a bit the history behind these files, and why they are
> not linked in yet. 

Thanks for the background.

> We, at ACT, are the original authors of these files, and have been
> planning on submitting them for inclusion in the FSF tree as soon as
> possible. There is no doubt in our minds that this would be beneficial
> to everybody: the GDB community, the free software community, the Ada
> community, and also ACT itself. So we are trying very hard on our side
> to get this done. Unfortunately, due to commercial pressure and lack of
> resources, we haven't be able to get this done yet.
>
> So maybe a year ago, ACT made a "code dropping": our sources-du-jour
> were made available for download on the sources.redhat.com ftp site.
> The hope was that some people might find it useful, while we keep making
> progress on cleaning up our code to get it to a state where it would be
> acceptable for inclusion.
>
> Somebody outside of ACT actually volunteered to merge these changes into
> the FSF tree for us. He started by first sending a new patch that was
> this time against the current sources (instead of current against an old
> 5.1 snapshot). He then checked in the ada-* files, and started cleaning
> them up. The plan was for him to (more or less): cleanup these files,
> add the bits in the makefiles to compile them in, and then activate
> slowly all the ada functionality. Unfortunately, as it often happens,
> this volunteer found a day job, and found that he could not spend time
> on this task anymore.
>
> So ACT is picking up the task again. We are getting much closer to
> having something we can submit, one of our part-time consultant is
> working full-time (if I may say so) on it. In the meantime, could you

I'm glad to hear about this commitment!

> try using the 5.1.1-based sources that we made available through
> sources.redhat.com?

I need a gdb to debug problems on x86-64 - and that architecture is
only supported since gdb 5.2, so your 5.1.1 changes will not help me
directly,

Andreas
-- 
 Andreas Jaeger
  SuSE Labs aj@suse.de
   private aj@arthur.inka.de
    http://www.suse.de/~aj

Re: Status of Ada support in GDB?

[Stephane Carrez]

Hi!

Joel Brobecker wrote:

> Andreas,
> 
> [...] 
>
> So ACT is picking up the task again. We are getting much closer to
> having something we can submit, one of our part-time consultant is
> working full-time (if I may say so) on it. In the meantime, could you
> try using the 5.1.1-based sources that we made available through
> sources.redhat.com?
> 

FYI, gdb 5.1 cannot be used to debug a program compiled by gcc 3.2 when
DWARF2 debugging format is used (which is the default for i386 now if I'm not wrong).
This is because gdb 5.1/5.0 do not support the DW_FORM_strp that gcc now generates.

In the past, a gdb without Ada support could be used to, at least, see the source.
However, we are now in this sad situation where this is no longer possible
because now gdb complains at unknown languages and... stops.

	Stephane

P.S: I'm willing to help if you send patches...

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Re: Status of Ada support in GDB?

[Joel Brobecker]

> > try using the 5.1.1-based sources that we made available through
> > sources.redhat.com?
> 
> I need a gdb to debug problems on x86-64 - and that architecture is
> only supported since gdb 5.2, so your 5.1.1 changes will not help me
> directly,

Argh... 

We are currently discussing internally how to give a public access to
our current sources. There are several possible ways that we are
exploring, but hope to be able to have this done soon.

-- 
Joel

Re: Status of Ada support in GDB?

[Andrew Cagney]

Another tar ball is quick/cheap :-)

Andrew