Re: status of PIE support?

[Daniel Jacobowitz <drow at false dot org>]

On Thu, May 08, 2008 at 11:19:05AM -0700, Kees Cook wrote:
> >   - the submitter has to be able to justify any line of the patch that
> >     does not make sense to the reviewer
> 
> This is probably where I'd get hung up, shouting "it's magic!"  :)
> 
> > time to do it.  A good way to handle bits you don't understand is
> > to remove them and see what breaks; often this isn't practical,
> > but when it is it's a sign of good tests :-)
> 
> Yeah, I assume that I'll end up learning gdb internals eventually, and be
> a bit more helpful then, but that won't be in the near-term.  That said,
> it's been 5 years since Elena Zannoni's original work, so I'm hoping
> some folks will step up and help review the existing patches with me --
> they clearly have some merit.

Right.  Basically, speaking only for myself (but as the most active
patch reviewer), I have really little time for GDB that isn't
specifically related to my day job.  Enough of that job is related
to GDB that this isn't always apparent.  So I like helping people
understand the code and I'm glad to answer questions... but I like my
own projects, too, so it takes a really long time to get things nailed
down if you can't find someone besides me to help :-)

Fortunately there's an increasing number of active developers on the
lists over the last year.  I'm thrilled by that.  So maybe someone
else will be able to step up to help you, or maybe the patches will
be clear enough to me that I can help quickly.

Anyway.  The clear place to start is first, make sure the copyright
issue is out of the way if it isn't already.  Then see if you can
identify any bits of the patches that stand independently and make
sense to you, and submit those as individual patches.  Unfortunately
this isn't a great part of GDB to get your introduction in...

I took a quick look through the patch; I'm not immediately convinced
about some of the design choices (which doesn't mean they're wrong,
but does mean they aren't obviously correct).  The amd64 and varobj
parts I do not see the connection to the rest of the patch.

-- 
Daniel Jacobowitz
CodeSourcery