[RFC][PATCH] gdb, configure: Add disable-readers option for configure

[Guinevere Larsen]

On 8/27/24 11:06 AM, Simon Marchi wrote:
>
> On 2024-08-27 06:25, Guinevere Larsen wrote:
>> I planned on sending this as the first patch of a series, and
>> subsequent patches would introduce code changes required to be able to
>> disable other readers.
>>
>> Would you prefer if I instead sent separate patches/series
>> disentangling the code, and once everything is merged I send a final
>> patch with the configure changes?
> I would imagine a series that makes any necessary adjustments to the
> code first, and the last patch adding the configure machinery to make
> all readers optional.  But I don't know the amount of work it
> represents, so it's not a hard requirement.  Just that when we leave
> things as "future work", we tend not to do it, so it's preferable to do
> it right the first time, when possible.

I've been looking into this some more, and talked to Andrew a bit, and I 
think this patch (and gdb in general) muddles 2 different concepts.

There are file format readers, and there are debug information readers. 
Both are named <something>reader.c (except for the dwarf2 one), but the 
ones that deal with file formats register a symtab_fns struct, while the 
ones that deal with only debug information don't - and their functions 
get called directly by file format readers.

I'm spitting this project into 2, one that disables file formats, and 
the other that disables debug info support even if the file format would 
support it. I'll send them in this order, since file formats are much 
easier - we should have all the infrastructure in place from symtab_fns, 
so it's mostly disentangling debug info from file format reading.

-- 
Cheers,
Guinevere Larsen
She/Her/Hers

>
> Simon
>