Internal error with gcc 4.7 elffile

Internal error with gcc 4.7 elffile

[Fabian Cenedese]

Hello

I'm currently working with a gdb 11.2.90.20220208, used for cross-compiled
.elf files for PowerPC and ARM. There are no problems with elf files from
gcc 7 or 10 or clang 12. However an elf file from a gcc 4.7 leads to an
internal error in gdb. Somehow it can't detect the architecture. It should
be PowerPC as readelf is able to confirm.

----------------------------
Reading symbols from inos_testing.elf...
../../gdb/gdbarch.c:3576: internal-error: bool gdbarch_elf_make_msymbol_special_p(gdbarch*): Assertion `gdbarch != NULL' failed.
A problem internal to GDB has been detected,
further debugging may prove unreliable.
Quit this debugging session?
----------------------------

First I wanted to know if this should work at all or is gcc 4.7 too old to
be supported by gdb 11? If it should still work, is this a known problem?
I couldn't find bugs mentioning gdbarch.c
The same elffile works perfectly fine with a gdb 7.6. A workaround seems
to be to first start gdb, then set architecture before loading elffile.

Thanks

bye  Fabi

Re: Internal error with gcc 4.7 elffile

[Luis Machado]

Hi,

On 3/8/22 07:54, Fabian Cenedese wrote:
> Hello
>
> I'm currently working with a gdb 11.2.90.20220208, used for cross-compiled
> .elf files for PowerPC and ARM. There are no problems with elf files from
> gcc 7 or 10 or clang 12. However an elf file from a gcc 4.7 leads to an
> internal error in gdb. Somehow it can't detect the architecture. It should
> be PowerPC as readelf is able to confirm.
>
> ----------------------------
> Reading symbols from inos_testing.elf...
> ../../gdb/gdbarch.c:3576: internal-error: bool gdbarch_elf_make_msymbol_special_p(gdbarch*): Assertion `gdbarch != NULL' failed.
> A problem internal to GDB has been detected,
> further debugging may prove unreliable.
> Quit this debugging session?
> ----------------------------
>
> First I wanted to know if this should work at all or is gcc 4.7 too old to
> be supported by gdb 11? If it should still work, is this a known problem?
> I couldn't find bugs mentioning gdbarch.c
> The same elffile works perfectly fine with a gdb 7.6. A workaround seems
> to be to first start gdb, then set architecture before loading elffile.

Although gcc 4.7 is fairly old, it could be a bug or deficiency in GDB.
It might be the case that GDB is not finding what it is looking for,
thus ending up in an inconsistent state.

If you have a reproducer, it might be worth opening a bug ticket against
GDB so developers can take a look: https://sourceware.org/bugzilla/
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