Messages in this thread | | | From | Tom Tromey <> | Subject | Re: linux-next: add utrace tree | Date | Mon, 25 Jan 2010 14:05:54 -0700 |
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>>>>> "Linus" == Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org> writes:
Linus> No. There is absolutely _no_ reason to believe that gdb et al would ever Linus> delete the ptrace interfaces anyway.
Yes, in GDB we approximately never delete anything.
Nevertheless, if the Linux kernel were to present a new user-space API, and if it had an advantage over ptrace, then we would port GDB to use it. There are other platforms where, IIRC, we now use some /proc thing instead of ptrace.
There are definitely things we would like from such an API. Here's a few I can think of immediately, there are probably others.
* Use an fd, not SIGCHLD+wait, to report inferior state changes to gdb. Internally we're already using a self-pipe to integrate this into gdb's main loop. Relatedly, don't mess with the inferior's parentage.
* Support "displaced stepping" in the kernel; I think this would improve performance when debugging in non-stop mode.
* Support some kind of breakpoint expression in the kernel; this would improve performance of conditional breakpoints. Perhaps the existing gdb agent expressions could be used.
Tom
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