gdb/Projects

   1
   2         Suggested projects for aspiring or current GDB hackers
   3         ======================================================
   4
   5     (You should probably chat with bug-gdb@cygnus.com to make sure that
   6   no one else is doing the project you chose).
   7
   8 Rewrite proceed, wait_for_inferior, and normal_stop to clean them up.
   9 Suggestions:
  10
  11         1) Make each test in wait_for_inferior a seperate subroutine
  12            call.
  13         2) Combine wait_for_inferior and normal_stop to clean up
  14            communication via global variables.
  15         3) See if you can find some way to clean up the global
  16            variables that are used; possibly group them by data flow
  17            and information content?
  18
  19 Work out some kind of way to allow running the inferior to be done as
  20 a sub-execution of, eg. breakpoint command lists.  Currently running
  21 the inferior interupts any command list execution.  This would require
  22 some rewriting of wait_for_inferior & friends, and hence should
  23 probably be done in concert with the above.
  24
  25 Add function arguments to gdb user defined functions.
  26
  27 Add convenience variables that refer to exec file, symbol file,
  28 selected frame source file, selected frame function, selected frame
  29 line number, etc.
  30
  31 Add a "suspend" subcommand of the "continue" command to suspend gdb
  32 while continuing  execution of the subprocess.  Useful when you are
  33 debugging servers and you want to dodge out and initiate a connection
  34 to a server running under gdb.
  35
  36 Work out and implement a reasonably general mechanism for multi-threaded
  37 processies.  There are parts of one implemented in convex-dep.c, if
  38 you want an example.
  39
  40 Add stab information to allow reasonable debugging of inline functions
  41 (possibly they should show up on a stack backtrace?  With a note
  42 indicating that they weren't "real"?).
  43
  44 Implement support for specifying arbitrary locations of stack frames
  45 (in practice, this usually requires specification of both the top and
  46 bottom of the stack frame (fp and sp), since you *must* retrieve the
  47 pc that was saved in the innermost frame).
  48
  49 Modify the naked "until" command to step until past the current source
  50 line, rather than past the current pc value.  This is tricky simply
  51 because the low level routines have no way of specifying a multi-line
  52 step range, and there is no way of saying "don't print stuff when we
  53 stop" from above (otherwise could just call step many times).
  54
  55 Modify the handling of symbols grouped through BINCL/EINCL stabs to
  56 allocate a partial symtab for each BINCL/EINCL grouping.  This will
  57 seriously decrease the size of inter-psymtab dependencies and hence
  58 lessen the amount that needs to be read in when a new source file is
  59 accessed.
  60
  61 Do an "x/i $pc" after each stepi or nexti.
  62
  63 Modify all of the disassemblers to use printf_filtered to get correct
  64 more filtering.
  65
  66 Modify gdb to work correctly with Pascal.
  67
  68 Rewrite macros that handle frame chaining and frameless functions.
  69 They should be able to tell the difference between start, main, and a
  70 frameless function called from main.
  71
  72 Work out what information would need to be included in an executable
  73 by the compiler to allow gdb to debug functions which do not have a
  74 frame pointer.  Modify gdb and gcc to do this.
  75
  76 When `attached' to a program (via either OS support or remote
  77 debugging), gdb should arrange to catch signals which the terminal
  78 might send, as it is unlikely that the program will be able to notice
  79 them.  SIGINT and SIGTSTP are obvious examples.
  80
  81 Enhance the gdb manual with extra examples where needed.
  82
  83 Arrange for list_command not to use decode_line_1 and thus not require
  84 symbols to be read in simply to read a source file.
  85
  86 Add a command for searching memory, a la adb.  It specifies size,
  87 mask, value, start address.  ADB searches until it finds it or hits
  88 an error (or is interrupted).
  89
  90 # Local Variables:
  91 # mode: text
  92 # End: