gregset vs prgregset vs elf_gregset in thread_db

[Daniel Jacobowitz]

[Apparently libc-alpha@sources.redhat.com exists, but is not a working mailing
list... I seem to have hit a black hole.]

----- Forwarded message from Daniel Jacobowitz <dmj+@andrew.cmu.edu> -----

Date: Mon, 18 Jun 2001 12:06:08 -0700
From: Daniel Jacobowitz <dmj+@andrew.cmu.edu>
Subject: gregset vs prgregset vs elf_gregset in thread_db
To: libc-alpha@sources.redhat.com
Mail-Followup-To: libc-alpha@sources.redhat.com

The thread-db routines are defined to take arguments of type 'prgregset_t'. 
On about half the supported architectures, prgregset_t is typedef'd to be
'gregset_t'; on the other half it is 'elf_gregset_t'.  I don't know where
the gregset_t definitions came from, especially on platforms that have
always been ELF, but they are substantially less useful than their elf
counterparts - what we really want to fill in is the data we can get from
ptrace, and pt_regs is usually fairly similar to an elf_gregset_t and an
elf_fpregset_t.

For instance, on PowerPC the NIP is not in any of r0 - r31, and a gregset_t
only has 32 elements.  No way to convey the thread's NIP, which makes
debugging all but meaningless.

The only consumer of the prgregset_t and prfpregset_t types is thread-db. 
Is there any objection to changing them to the elf_* variants, and possibly
bumping the thread-db soname?  Although I'm not sure the latter is even
necessary; gdb is the only consumer of thread-db I've ever found on linux,
and it doesn't work with threads on the architectures affected yet anyway.

-- 
Daniel Jacobowitz                           Debian GNU/Linux Developer
Monta Vista Software                              Debian Security Team

----- End forwarded message -----