Re: [RFC] Unified watchpoints for x86 platforms

[Kevin Buettner <kevinb at cygnus dot com>]

On Feb 15,  2:45pm, J.T. Conklin wrote:

> Subject: Re: [RFC] Unified watchpoints for x86 platforms
> >>>>> "Eli" == Eli Zaretskii <eliz@delorie.com> writes:
> >> > Is there any particular reason why you need the PID argument?  AFAICS
> >> > it will always be equal to INFERIOR_PID, so I think we can do without
> >> > it.  This is also true for the other i386_hwbp_* functions you're
> >> > proposing.
> >> 
> >> I think it'd be better to not rely on ``inferior_pid''.  I would
> >> rather see the explicitly passed.  There will come a day when GDB
> >> is able to debug more than one process at a time and to perpetuate
> >> reliance on inferior pid would be short sighted.
> 
> Eli> I have two opposite opinions here.  We need to resolve this somehow.
> 
> We're going to need to pass a PID, or perhaps some new representation
> of a execution context, to a lot of code functions that don't allready
> have such an argument.  It is not clear to me that adding such an
> argument "because it will be needed" is correct, considering that the
> design has not yet started.  The truth is we don't know "what" will be
> needed, so we'll have to revisit this function (among many others)
> down the line anyway.

Eli,

I think the answer is to use your best judgement.  Regardless of
whether you pass the pid in or simply use inferior_pid, your new
watchpoint code is going to have to eventually be changed to use
a different representation of the execution context.  I happen to
think that it might actually change less if you pass a parameter, but
after thinking about it a bit more, I can see why someone else might
hold the opposite opinion.

Kevin