Re: gdb6.0 and statically linked threaded programs

[Andrew Cagney <cagney@gnu.org>]

> On Wed, Oct 22, 2003 at 03:59:53PM -0700, Todd.Kneisel@Bull.com wrote:
> 
>> I have built gdb6.0 and am having trouble using it to debug a
>> threaded program that is statically linked with the linuxthreads
>> pthread library. Gdb does not detect the creation of threads,
>> it traps signal 32 that the pthread library uses to restart
>> threads, and gets a SIGINT instead of stopping at a breakpoint
>> in a thread.
>> 
>> If I dynamically link my program, everything works fine. For
>> a number of reasons, I need to link my program statically.
>> 
>> I've begun looking at the gdb code and found the following
>> text in a comment in the thread_db_mourn_inferior function:
>> 
>>    At present,
>>    debugging a statically-linked threaded program is broken, but
>>    the check is added below in the event that it is fixed in the
>>    future.
>> 
>> Is anyone working on fixing this?  Or can anyone provide more
>> details about how or why it's broken?
> 
> 
> It's broken because the thread layer is never initialized.  I'm waiting
> for some of the changes to the target stack to see if they make it
> easier to fix this - the last few things I've tried were simply gross
> beyond words.

Daniel, suggest looking at:
interface VS target (or something else wrong with the target vector)
http://sources.redhat.com/ml/gdb/2003-10/msg00218.html

The implication is that immediatly after attaching to a process (or 
corefile) there'd be some sort of broadcast message telling any 
interested parties (thread stratum, overlay stratum, shlibs, ...) that 
there's a fresh new process/core to push onto.

But as you note, it will require some pushing and shoving to get there.

Andrew