At 2012-4-18 21:21, Dave Anderson wrote:
In our original discussions, i thought that I had made it clear that the introduction of a new option paradigm with submembers could be avoided by using, for example, "page._mapcounter" instead of having to enter "page._mapcount.counter"? This option makes the struct command seemingly violate its own rules, and really confuses things. For example, with your patch, a user would see things like this:
The most important reason why I insisted this option is the performance. Both original struct and print command are very slow. When kernel debugger wants to parse a bit amount of data, the performance of original struct and print command is not ideal.
crash> page._mapcount.counter ffffea0000000508 -s -1 crash> page._mapcount.counter ffffea0000000508 struct: invalid format: page._mapcount.counter crash> page._mapcount ffffea0000000508 _mapcount = { counter = -1 } crash> page._mapcount ffffea0000000508 -s struct: invalid data structure reference page._mapcount crash>
An idea of solving this confusion is changing the error information. When users uses "-s" option and error happens, error information suggests to use struct command without "-s" option if it is valid. And vice versa, when error happens without specified "-s" option.
I had suggested that you look into the get_member_data() function in to the gdb/symtab.c file to access the member offset and size values.
Actually, the function need to be changed a lot to support what I want. I need the information of submember, and I need the position and size of bitfield. After investigation, function print_command_1 hides the data that I want. I know it is not a good idea of modifying this function. But what if a new function which has the similar mechanism with function print_command_1?
I also don't like the idea of modifying the prototype of the stalwart print_command_1() gdb function, and the creation of a new gdb command. Whenever there is a need to update the embedded gdb version, patches like this can be problematic. I would prefer that you create a new "GNU_XXXX" #define, similar to GNU_GET_SYMBOL_TYPE, pass the request through the gdb_command_funnel switch statement, and write a new standalone function to accomplish what you have done in the print_command_1() function.
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