GDB Focus Group at the 2008 GCC Summit

[Mark Kettenis]

> Date: Thu, 19 Jun 2008 15:09:42 -0400
> From: Joel Brobecker <brobecker@adacore.com>
> 
> Hello,
> 
> we had a couple of 45min sessions where we discussed various items
> related to GDB. I took some brief notes, although I might have forgotten
> one or two. Anyway, here is what I wrote:
> 
> | * Transition to SVN:
> | 
> |     Required version (for the client) just released a couple of hours ago:
> |     feature allows to checkout a subset of the module (?). There is still
> |     no one-line command that allows to check gdb out, so maybe will have
> |     a script.
> | 
> |     Pb: If we want to have a combined tree, we will need to convert
> |     binutils, gnulib, etc.

Objection!  I have played with SVN for work and I really dilike the
fact that a checked out repository is very grep unfriendly.

> | * Using threads inside GDB:
> | 
> |     Problem: Expression evaluation is synchronous and blocking.
> |     While GDB is doing that work, it is not handling other events,
> |     which can be a problem in non-stop mode.
> |
> |     Typical problem is inferior function call that causes two issues:
> |       - potential length of time it takes to evaluate
> |       - having to re-enter the event loop to wait for function to return.
> | 
> |     Pedro to think about it and write a proposal. Idea we're gearing
> |     towards is one thread that runs the event loop all the time.

I guess something like this is inevitable, but I'm not happy with
using threads.  Threads and signals don't mix really well, and
ptrace(2) depends heavily on threads.