From: Stan Shebs <shebs@apple.com>
To: Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>
Cc: gdb@sources.redhat.com
Subject: Re: Using reverse execution
Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2005 23:20:00 -0000 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <43348DB4.5000206@apple.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <u8xxwn3em.fsf@gnu.org>
(Been in Cupertino talking about reverse execution to Apple people,
just now getting caught up)
Eli Zaretskii wrote:
>>Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2005 11:02:50 -0700
>>From: Stan Shebs <shebs@apple.com>
>>Cc: gdb@sources.redhat.com
>>
>>Eli Zaretskii wrote:
>>
>>
>>>What features can be implemented without hacking the kernel?
>>>
>>>
>>If you limited reversing to designated regions, and single-stepped
>>every instruction in the range, collected the exact data changes
>>(by disassembling the instructions) and only allowed examination
>>rather than re-executing from any given point, all that just needs
>>existing GDB machinery. Is it useful?
>>
>
>Sorry, you lost me. Can you describe this in smaller words?
>
ODB works by hacking up the bytecode interpreter to log what every
bytecode does, recording addresses and data values. After the
program runs, you have a gigantic log, and you look at it with a
debugger-type interface. Since the log contains every before-and-after
change to objects etc, it's just a matter of rooting through it to
be able to display any value at any time. But the program execution
is already over, so there's no way to set a variable and continue,
call a method, or do anything else to alter execution.
An analogy I used this week is that of a "time-traveler's telescope" -
you can focus in on any point in the past, and study it closely from
the present day, but you can't alter it. A handy way to sidestep
paradox, but it also precludes "what-if" experiments; you'd have to
restart the program before you could make the program go a different way.
>>At least somebody thinks so, because I just described how the
>>omniscient debugger works (using Java bytecodes instead of machine
>>instructions).
>>
>
>As I understood the description of the omniscient debugger, it would
>be very useful.
>
Indeed it seems so. That would be a very nice outcome - we could get
a powerful new feature without having to make a scarily-large
commitment to a feature that doesn't current have a large body of
users demanding it already.
Stan
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2005-09-23 23:20 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 38+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2005-09-13 1:17 Stan Shebs
2005-09-13 3:43 ` Eli Zaretskii
2005-09-14 0:36 ` Stan Shebs
2005-09-14 3:42 ` Eli Zaretskii
2005-09-14 22:34 ` Stan Shebs
2005-09-15 3:37 ` Eli Zaretskii
2005-09-15 5:36 ` Stan Shebs
2005-09-15 15:14 ` Eli Zaretskii
2005-09-15 18:02 ` Jason Molenda
2005-09-15 20:12 ` Stan Shebs
2005-09-16 10:42 ` Eli Zaretskii
2005-09-16 14:00 ` Stan Shebs
2005-09-16 16:22 ` Eli Zaretskii
2005-09-16 18:03 ` Stan Shebs
2005-09-16 20:50 ` Eli Zaretskii
2005-09-23 23:20 ` Stan Shebs [this message]
2005-09-16 17:50 ` Ian Lance Taylor
2005-09-16 10:43 ` Eli Zaretskii
2005-09-13 18:11 ` Min Xu (Hsu)
2005-09-13 22:01 ` Jim Blandy
2005-09-14 0:42 ` Stan Shebs
2005-09-16 12:03 ` Ramana Radhakrishnan
2005-09-20 22:47 Michael Snyder
2005-09-20 22:56 Michael Snyder
2005-09-20 23:14 ` Ian Lance Taylor
2005-09-21 3:40 ` Eli Zaretskii
2005-09-21 4:00 ` Ian Lance Taylor
2005-09-21 17:52 ` Eli Zaretskii
2005-09-21 20:37 ` Michael Snyder
2005-09-24 0:46 ` Stan Shebs
2005-09-24 1:10 ` Michael Snyder
2005-09-24 10:05 ` Eli Zaretskii
2005-09-27 22:00 ` Jim Blandy
2005-09-21 4:03 ` Daniel Jacobowitz
2005-09-21 16:56 ` Paul Gilliam
2005-09-23 23:44 ` Stan Shebs
2005-09-20 23:11 Michael Snyder
2005-09-24 0:07 ` Stan Shebs
Reply instructions:
You may reply publicly to this message via plain-text email
using any one of the following methods:
* Save the following mbox file, import it into your mail client,
and reply-to-all from there: mbox
Avoid top-posting and favor interleaved quoting:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posting_style#Interleaved_style
* Reply using the --to, --cc, and --in-reply-to
switches of git-send-email(1):
git send-email \
--in-reply-to=43348DB4.5000206@apple.com \
--to=shebs@apple.com \
--cc=eliz@gnu.org \
--cc=gdb@sources.redhat.com \
/path/to/YOUR_REPLY
https://kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/git-send-email.html
* If your mail client supports setting the In-Reply-To header
via mailto: links, try the mailto: link
Be sure your reply has a Subject: header at the top and a blank line
before the message body.
This is a public inbox, see mirroring instructions
for how to clone and mirror all data and code used for this inbox;
as well as URLs for read-only IMAP folder(s) and NNTP newsgroup(s).