GDB 10.1

#1

Post by lelf » Sat, Oct 24, 2020, 2:55 PM UTC

GDB 10.1
lists.gnu.org

Re: GDB 10.1

#2

Post by sroussey » Sat, Oct 24, 2020, 3:44 PM UTC

I saw Ada as the first language, and that brought back fond memories of optimizing compiler design I did for the language a long long time ago...

Re: GDB 10.1

#3

Post by statquontrarian » Sat, Oct 24, 2020, 3:47 PM UTC

> * Support for debuginfod, an HTTP server for distributing ELF/DWARF debugging information as well as source code.

This is huge! Microsoft's symbol servers have long made it easier to deal with PDBs. This will finally help with the annoyingness of -debuginfo and -debug Linux packages.

Edit: Background on debuginfod: https://developers.redhat.com/blog/2019/10/14/introducing-de...

Re: GDB 10.1

#4

Post by xxpor » Sat, Oct 24, 2020, 4:15 PM UTC

statquontrarian wrote: post #3

> * Support for debuginfod, an HTTP server for distributing ELF/DWARF debugging information as well as source code. This is huge! Microsoft's symbol servers have long made it easier to deal with PDBs. This will finally help with the annoyingness of -debuginfo and -debug Linux packages. Edit: Background on debuginfod: https://developers.redhat.com/blog/2019/10/14/introducing-de...

Is there any other implementation of the same API, but not GPLv3? I'm thinking from LLVM or similar?

Re: GDB 10.1

#5

Post by ComputerGuru » Sat, Oct 24, 2020, 4:40 PM UTC

xxpor wrote: post #4

statquontrarian wrote: post #3

> * Support for debuginfod, an HTTP server for distributing ELF/DWARF debugging information as well as source code. This is huge! Microsoft's symbol servers have long made it easier to deal with PDBs. This will finally help with the annoyingness of -debuginfo and -debug Linux packages. Edit: Background on debuginfod: https://developers.redhat.com/blog/2019/10/14/introducing-de...

Is there any other implementation of the same API, but not GPLv3? I'm thinking from LLVM or similar?

I’m a huge proponent of MIT/BSD but I wouldn’t blink twice at deploying this. The code running on your end doesn’t need to be GPL to communicate with a GPL’d server over the network.

Re: GDB 10.1

#6

Post by blendergeek » Sat, Oct 24, 2020, 4:51 PM UTC

xxpor wrote: post #4

statquontrarian wrote: post #3

> * Support for debuginfod, an HTTP server for distributing ELF/DWARF debugging information as well as source code. This is huge! Microsoft's symbol servers have long made it easier to deal with PDBs. This will finally help with the annoyingness of -debuginfo and -debug Linux packages. Edit: Background on debuginfod: https://developers.redhat.com/blog/2019/10/14/introducing-de...

Is there any other implementation of the same API, but not GPLv3? I'm thinking from LLVM or similar?

Are you hoping to modify it and refuse to contribute your changes back to the community?

If not, the GPL will not affect you. If so, does that not feel like mooching off the community?

Re: GDB 10.1

#7

Post by r-r-r » Sat, Oct 24, 2020, 5:23 PM UTC

> Multi-target debugging support

This is great! I really needed this multiple times over the years. Always wanted to compare some data between 2 executions of the same applications with 2 different inputs or 2 revisions of an application. This should really help with triangulation of regressions etc. automatically using a single script within gdb!

Re: GDB 10.1

#8

Post by fredsanford » Sat, Oct 24, 2020, 5:48 PM UTC

blendergeek wrote: post #6

xxpor wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there any other implementation of the same API, but not GPLv3? I'm thinking from LLVM or similar?

Are you hoping to modify it and refuse to contribute your changes back to the community? If not, the GPL will not affect you. If so, does that not feel like mooching off the community?

Aren't you assuming the worst here? Why so strident?

Maybe his/her employer does not allow gpl software...

Re: GDB 10.1

#9

Post by chubot » Sat, Oct 24, 2020, 5:49 PM UTC

Just want to give a shout out to the people who have been improving GDB's Python API over the years (I think it first appeared about 10 years ago). It seems like a lot of it is due to Tom Tromey? [1]

This is a super useful feature that I just used. I have a DSL for algebraic data types in C++ called ASDL [2], and I wrote a very small Python plugin that pretty prints the types.

Basically it automates the process of looking at the runtime type tag, and downcasting to the right variant, so you can see all the fields in the debugger. (Variants are naturally modeled with inheritance, and you still have type safety)

This makes debugging the code way easier. I basically enhanced C++'s type system and now the debugger also understands it!

It works on the command line and the Eclipse GUI. Although I should get around to requesting an open source license for CLion, because I think it is significantly more polished.

-----

GDB is very old, and has sort of a bad reputation for usability, but it's getting better after all these years! This scripting power can make up for the usability in some cases (and maybe CLion will give the best of both worlds)

https://lobste.rs/s/h7f6qk/what_debugging_technique_did_it_t...

[1] https://tromey.com/blog/?m=201809

https://tromey.com/blog/?p=927

[2] What is Zephyr ASDL? https://www.oilshell.org/blog/2016/12/11.html

ASDL is mentioned in the post about Ungrammar, on the front page now: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24878098

Re: GDB 10.1

#10

Post by formerly_proven » Sat, Oct 24, 2020, 5:56 PM UTC

fredsanford wrote: post #8

blendergeek wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you hoping to modify it and refuse to contribute your changes back to the community? If not, the GPL will not affect you. If so, does that not feel like mooching off the community?

Aren't you assuming the worst here? Why so strident? Maybe his/her employer does not allow gpl software...

> Maybe his/her employer does not allow gpl software...

Then they aren't using GCC (or Linux) in the first place.