> Date: Tue, 06 Nov 2007 16:38:44 +0000 (GMT)
> From: Paul Jakma <Paul.Jakma at Sun.COM>
> Subject: Re: Move gdb from /usr/sfw/bin to /usr/bin [PSARC/2007/630 Self
Review]
> To: April Chin <April.Chin at Sun.COM>
> Cc: don.cragun at Sun.COM, PSARC-ext at Sun.COM
> MIME-version: 1.0
> Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT
>
> On Mon, 5 Nov 2007, April Chin wrote:
>
> > The current plan is not to upgrade software, although gdb could be
> > upgraded in a separate case. This wouldn't fix things... The current
> > gdb in Solaris is version 6.3, but I also tried reading a
> > gcore-generated core with the latest gdb (version 6.7.1), and the
> > above reported problem still occurs.
>
> Yes, I had tested with the CSW gdb too (6.6) - so it's not been fixed by
> GNU.
>
> > However, gdb is not completely broken--as far as I can tell, gdb can
> > debug gcc- and Sun Studio 11-compiled binaries, including
> > core files generated (not via gcore) when executing those files.
>
> The compiler is irrelevant - if Solaris generates the core, then gdb
> can't read it. The only core files it will understand are those it
> generated itself (with the gdb-internal 'gcore' command - I guess there
> may be some GNU specific gcore tools though, but I don't see any).
The core files I tried were not generated by gdb; they were generated
by executing a faulty program which core dumped, so gdb did read a Solaris-
generated core file. I am trying to track down the gdb owners at Sun
regarding these other problems.
April
>
> So it's completely useless for post-mortem debugging (the primary
> use-case for debuggers) on Solaris. Possibly it's still of some residual
> use for interactive debugging I guess (no need for core-files), but who
> does that? :)
>
> The thing needs fixing or chucking away really, rather than moving..
>
> regards,
> --
> Paul Jakma,
> Solaris Networking Sun Microsystems, Scotland
> http://opensolaris.org/os/project/quagga tel: EMEA x73150 / +44 15066 73150
