Re: [PATCH 3/7] Force to insert software single step breakpoint

[Pedro Alves <palves at redhat dot com>]

On 04/19/2016 03:54 PM, Yao Qi wrote:
> Pedro Alves <palves@redhat.com> writes:
> 
>> Another scenario occurred to me:
>>
>>  - Thread A is software single-stepping.
>>  - Thread B hits single-step breakpoint of thread A.
>>  - We pause all threads and set thread B stepping past the
>>    single-step breakpoint of thread A.
>>
>> But if the single-step breakpoint is for another thread, then
>> we won't actually manage to have thread B step past it, resulting
>> in spurious re-hits and no-guaranteed forward progress.  See
>> e.g., non-stop-fair-events.exp:
>>
>>         # On software single-step targets that don't support displaced
>>         # stepping, threads keep hitting each others' single-step
>>         # breakpoints, and then GDB needs to pause all threads to step
>>         # past those.  The end result is that progress in the main
>>         # thread will be slower and it may take a bit longer for the
>>         # signal to be queued; bump the timeout.
>>
>> Sounds like we may need to look at the single-step breakpoint's thread 
>> id, and only insert it if it is for the thread that is going to be 
>> doing the step-over?  We may need to record that in step_over_info and 
>> pass more info to stepping_past_instruction_at.
> 
> I think this is about any thread specific breakpoint, instead of
> only single-step breakpoint (single-step breakpoint is thread specific
> too).  If we are doing step-over for thread A, do we need to insert any
> breakpoints specific to other threads?  (my answer is No).

Right, we don't need to insert them, because other threads
will remain stopped while thread A is doing the step-over.

However, given that gdb does not remove/re-insert all breakpoints on
internal stops nowadays, removing thread-specific breakpoints of others
threads will be less efficient than leaving them be, I think.  I mean,
you'll get more z0/Z0 traffic than if you leave them inserted.

Thanks,
Pedro Alves