GDB 8.2 release 2018-08-26 status update

GDB 8.2 release 2018-08-26 status update

[Joel Brobecker]

Hello,

First of all, thanks to everyone who got involved last week and gave
the release a nice little push. This really helpped and we are getting
closer!

As far as I can tell, there is only PR still left pending:

  * [KeithS] PR symtab/23010
    Regression: Assertion: SYMBOL_LANGUAGE (sym) == DICT_LANGUAGE (dict)->la_language
    https://sourceware.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=23010

	This regression was seemingly fixed, and then makes a come back.
        I'm still not sure whether it's the same issue, or rather
        a different one that lead to the same symptom, though.

At this point, I think we should only wait so long for a fix to this
one, and consider the idea of releasing what we have at the moment,
without PR symtab/23010 completely fixed if necessary. The release
is getting very late, and this problem was both present in 8.0 and
I believe mitigated in the 8.2 branch. So we can afford to defer
the rest of the fix in 8.3.

Thoughts?
-- 
Joel

Re: GDB 8.2 release 2018-08-26 status update

[Keith Seitz]

On 08/26/2018 03:11 AM, Joel Brobecker wrote:
> As far as I can tell, there is only PR still left pending:
> 
>   * [KeithS] PR symtab/23010
>     Regression: Assertion: SYMBOL_LANGUAGE (sym) == DICT_LANGUAGE (dict)->la_language
>     https://sourceware.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=23010
> 
> 	This regression was seemingly fixed, and then makes a come back.
>         I'm still not sure whether it's the same issue, or rather
>         a different one that lead to the same symptom, though.
> 
> At this point, I think we should only wait so long for a fix to this
> one, and consider the idea of releasing what we have at the moment,
> without PR symtab/23010 completely fixed if necessary. The release
> is getting very late, and this problem was both present in 8.0 and
> I believe mitigated in the 8.2 branch. So we can afford to defer
> the rest of the fix in 8.3.

Yes (re: mitigation).

As far as I know, the only reported examples of the bug still are:
1) non-DWARF systems
2) LTO executables
3) Possibly a Fedora bug demonstrating another path (or could be LTO
   again)

I am working on a fix for #2, but I don't think that is going to come very
timely, but it is generally well-known (I'm told) that debugging with LTO
is problematic. [Not that we shouldn't make it work, but it is right now
already a difficult proposition.]

#1 will undoubtedly involve audting the code and rolling some dice.
Fortunately we have some access to such systems in the compile farm
which should make any auditing much easier and deterministic.

I would urge maintainers to consider a point release containing any fix
should the problem prove so prevalent/widespread over holding up the
current release.

My $0.002,
Keith

HEADS UP: GDB 8.2 release on Sep 3rd or 4th (was: "Re: GDB 8.2 release 2018-08-26 status update")

[Joel Brobecker]

> > As far as I can tell, there is only PR still left pending:
> > 
> >   * [KeithS] PR symtab/23010
> >     Regression: Assertion: SYMBOL_LANGUAGE (sym) == DICT_LANGUAGE (dict)->la_language
> >     https://sourceware.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=23010
> > 
> > 	This regression was seemingly fixed, and then makes a come back.
> >         I'm still not sure whether it's the same issue, or rather
> >         a different one that lead to the same symptom, though.
> > 
> > At this point, I think we should only wait so long for a fix to this
> > one, and consider the idea of releasing what we have at the moment,
> > without PR symtab/23010 completely fixed if necessary. The release
> > is getting very late, and this problem was both present in 8.0 and
> > I believe mitigated in the 8.2 branch. So we can afford to defer
> > the rest of the fix in 8.3.
> 
> Yes (re: mitigation).
[...]
> I would urge maintainers to consider a point release containing any fix
> should the problem prove so prevalent/widespread over holding up the
> current release.

Thanks Keith. Unless there are objections, I therefore plan on switching
the target milestone for this PR to 8.3, and then release either Monday
or Tuesday (Sep 3-4) -- just in time for the GNU Cauldron :).

Please yell if you know of blocking issues we missed.

Thank you,
-- 
Joel