Inquiry about Development Features and Integration of Source Code Version Control Systems

Inquiry about Development Features and Integration of Source Code Version Control Systems

[T R]

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Dear Debuginfod developers,

I hope this email finds you well. My name is Tobias Rebele and I am a developer interested in utilizing the Debuginfod server for debugging purposes. I have been following the development of Debuginfod and I am particularly interested in the features that are currently being worked on.

I recently came across an article on the Red Hat Developer Blog titled "Deploying Debuginfod Servers for Your Developers" [1], which provides an overview of the Debuginfod Server and its capabilities. In the article, it mentions the integration of source code version control systems, and I would like to inquire further about this feature.

Specifically, I am interested in understanding how the Debuginfod Server can facilitate the direct download of source code from Git repositories. It would be incredibly helpful if you could provide more information on this feature and any advancements that are being made in this area.

I believe that the ability to retrieve source code directly from Git repositories through the Debuginfod Server would greatly enhance the debugging process and streamline development workflows.

I would greatly appreciate any insights or updates you can provide regarding this feature. Additionally, if there are any other noteworthy features or improvements in the pipeline, I would be eager to learn more about them as well.

Thank you for your time and consideration. I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Best regards,
Tobias Rebele

[1] Link: https://developers.redhat.com/blog/2019/12/17/deploying-debuginfod-servers-for-your-developers

Re: Inquiry about Development Features and Integration of Source Code Version Control Systems

[Frank Ch. Eigler]

Hi -

> [...] Specifically, I am interested in understanding how the
> Debuginfod Server can facilitate the direct download of source code
> from Git repositories.  [...]

Can you explain under what situations you think this would be helpful?

The main challenge is that compilers don't generally have such
information (e.g. git repo + file commit/hash) available to them when
they build the object files, so it doesn't show up in DWARF, and
therefore it doesn't show up in packaged binaries.  Thus debuginfod
can't pass the info to clients or a version control system.

- FChE

Re: Inquiry about Development Features and Integration of Source Code Version Control Systems

[Matt Schulte]

Hi Tobias,

I wanted to provide an alternative solution that may work for you
(with or without support from debuginfod).

Support for reading source code directly from a code hosting service
(such as GitHub) has been supported for years by Microsoft via
SourceLink[1]. In 2018, a proposal[2] was submitted to the DWARF
standard to include sourcelink information in the DWARF format. In
2022, a modification to the proposal[2] was accepted and is in the
current working draft for DWARF6[3]. The proposal is to place the
source URL for any file with an available URL in the DWARF
information.

There is still a lot of work to do. The DWARF6 specification needs to
be published, compilers (or external tools) need to support adding the
URLs into the DWARF info, and debuggers need to support downloading
the source files. But it could provide a path for you (or debuginfod)
to support reading directly from the upstream source repository.

> Can you explain under what situations you think this would be helpful?

I can only think about situations that involve closed source software.
In my experience, companies shipping closed source software have
restrictions about where source code can be placed.

-Matt
[1]: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/cpp/build/reference/sourcelink?view=msvc-170
[2]: https://dwarfstd.org/issues/181223.1.html
[3]: https://snapshots.sourceware.org/dwarfstd/dwarf-spec/latest/dwarf6-20240227-2154.pdf

Re: Inquiry about Development Features and Integration of Source Code Version Control Systems

[Frank Ch. Eigler]

Hi -

> Support for reading source code directly from a code hosting service
> (such as GitHub) has been supported for years by Microsoft via
> SourceLink[1]. [...]

Thanks for that reminder.  Yeah, eventually that could be an alternate
way.

> [...]
> > Can you explain under what situations you think this would be helpful?
> 
> I can only think about situations that involve closed source software.
> In my experience, companies shipping closed source software have
> restrictions about where source code can be placed.

i.e., a situation where even an internal debuginfod instance cannot be
trusted with the source code, but some version control system can be?


- FChE

Re: Inquiry about Development Features and Integration of Source Code Version Control Systems

[Matt Schulte]

> i.e., a situation where even an internal debuginfod instance cannot be
> trusted with the source code, but some version control system can be?

That was my thought exactly.

On Wed, Apr 10, 2024 at 9:07 AM Frank Ch. Eigler <fche@redhat.com> wrote:
>
> Hi -
>
> > Support for reading source code directly from a code hosting service
> > (such as GitHub) has been supported for years by Microsoft via
> > SourceLink[1]. [...]
>
> Thanks for that reminder.  Yeah, eventually that could be an alternate
> way.
>
> > [...]
> > > Can you explain under what situations you think this would be helpful?
> >
> > I can only think about situations that involve closed source software.
> > In my experience, companies shipping closed source software have
> > restrictions about where source code can be placed.
>
> i.e., a situation where even an internal debuginfod instance cannot be
> trusted with the source code, but some version control system can be?
>
>
> - FChE
>