From: Johannes Schindelin <johannes.schindelin@xxxxxx> When debugging Git, the criss-cross spawning of processes can make things quite a bit difficult, especially when a Unix shell script is thrown in the mix that calls a `git.exe` that then segfaults. To help debugging such things, we introduce the `open_in_gdb()` function which can be called at a code location where the segfault happens (or as close as one can get); This will open a new MinTTY window with a GDB that already attached to the current process. Inspired by Derrick Stolee. Signed-off-by: Johannes Schindelin <johannes.schindelin@xxxxxx> --- win32: make it easy to start the GNU debugger at a certain source line In particular when trying to debug issues in processes with redirected stdin and/or stdout, it can be quite a challenge to use an interactive debugger. Help this, by introducing a function that is purely meant for debugging purposes: open_in_gdb(). It will open a new terminal window, attach gdb to the current process in it, and sleep. That way, the above-mentioned debugging problem can be solved simply by inserting the statement open_in_gdb(); at a specific source code line, then recompiling Git and then running e.g. the regression test that failed. Published-As: https://github.com/gitgitgadget/git/releases/tag/pr-150%2Fdscho%2Fopen-in-gdb-v1 Fetch-It-Via: git fetch https://github.com/gitgitgadget/git pr-150/dscho/open-in-gdb-v1 Pull-Request: https://github.com/gitgitgadget/git/pull/150 compat/mingw.c | 13 +++++++++++++ compat/mingw.h | 10 ++++++++++ 2 files changed, 23 insertions(+) diff --git a/compat/mingw.c b/compat/mingw.c index 8141f77189..615e9b64aa 100644 --- a/compat/mingw.c +++ b/compat/mingw.c @@ -13,6 +13,19 @@ static const int delay[] = { 0, 1, 10, 20, 40 }; +void open_in_gdb(void) +{ + static struct child_process cp = CHILD_PROCESS_INIT; + extern char *_pgmptr; + + argv_array_pushl(&cp.args, "mintty", "gdb", NULL); + argv_array_pushf(&cp.args, "--pid=%d", getpid()); + cp.clean_on_exit = 1; + if (start_command(&cp) < 0) + die_errno("Could not start gdb"); + sleep(1); +} + int err_win_to_posix(DWORD winerr) { int error = ENOSYS; diff --git a/compat/mingw.h b/compat/mingw.h index 30d9fb3e36..26d3296d56 100644 --- a/compat/mingw.h +++ b/compat/mingw.h @@ -584,6 +584,16 @@ int main(int argc, const char **argv) \ } \ static int mingw_main(c,v) +/* + * For debugging: if a problem occurs, say, in a Git process that is spawned + * from another Git process which in turn is spawned from yet another Git + * process, it can be quite daunting to figure out what is going on. + * + * Call this function to open a new MinTTY (this assumes you are in Git for + * Windows' SDK) with a GDB that attaches to the current process right away. + */ +extern void open_in_gdb(void); + /* * Used by Pthread API implementation for Windows */ base-commit: 8104ec994ea3849a968b4667d072fedd1e688642 -- gitgitgadget