Re: gdb doesn't work very well with dynamic linked binaries

[Eli Zaretskii <eliz at delorie dot com>]

> 
> Date: Mon, 4 Sep 2000 16:44:58 -0700
> From: "H . J . Lu" <hjl@lucon.org>
> 
> 1. Delete hardware watchpoints to free hardware debug registers. Set 4
> hardware watchpoints. Then delete/disable one hardware watchpoint. Set
> another hardware watchpoint. Can gdb free a hardware debug register
> when I delete/disable the hardware watchpoint which uses it?
> 2. Watch for different values on a viariable with one hardware debug
> register. That is do
> 
> (gdb) watch foobar == 1
> (gdb) watch foobar == 2
> (gdb) watch foobar == 3
> (gdb) watch foobar == 4
> (gdb) watch foobar == 5
> 
> only using one hardware debug register.
> 
> I have reported them long before 5.0 was released. But at least #1
> still doesn't work right in 5.0 under Linux/ia32.

These are not GDB/ia32 issues per se: the above features are all
implemented in the DJGPP port of GDB and work in v5.0.  Every
x86-based target should be able to lift the relevant parts of
go32-nat.c and use them almost verbatim.  You get debug register
sharing through reference counts, and the ability to watch large
regions (up to 16 bytes) using multiple registers.  (The required
infrastructure in high-level GDB application code, mostly in
breakpoint.c, is also working since v5.0.)

What is missing is something that we discussed here some time ago: a
unified handling for debug registers common for ALL ia32 targets.  If
you want to get this done before 5.1 is out, I'm for it.  I said in
the past that I'm willing to volunteer to pull the code out of
go32-nat.c and generalize it as appropriate, as the first step towards
this goal.  Provided that it's decided to do that for 5.1, of course
(otherwise, I have too many other important things to do ;-).