-Contents
---------
-
If you find inaccuracies in this list, please send mail to
-bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu.
-
-* Things to do for Mach.
-* General to do list.
-
-Things to do for Mach
----------------------
-
-This section is up to date as of 28 Oct 1993.
-
-All my attempted compilation was on douglas.gnu.ai.mit.edu.
+bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu. If you would like to work on any of these,
+you should consider sending mail to the same address, to find out
+whether anyone else is working on it.
-0. Get it to compile and run again, especially for non-threaded
-programs (some of the following are sub-tasks for this).
-
-1. attach_command still contains a call to wait_for_inferior which is
-wrong for Mach. Need to figure out a way to push this functionality
-into target_attach (perhaps by having target_attach, for non-Mach
-targets, call a function which does what is now in attach_command).
-
-2. jtv's port contains an #ifdef which skips the call to
-insert_step_breakpoint right after SOLIB_CREATE_INFERIOR_HOOK, but
-goes ahead and calls insert_breakpoints. I don't understand this--the
-comment would appear to apply to all breakpoints. Perhaps it is an
-artifact from a previous version of the Mach port? (BTW, the modern
-equivalent is the call to proceed from m3_create_inferior; proceed
-inserts breakpoints).
-
-3. Get the thread stuff to use the new generic thread code (enhancing
-the generic thread code to include any missing features). This is
-necessary to make thread-specific breakpoints work again. If someone
-wants to try to patch up the old Mach threads code, need to deal with
-the hooks for PREPARE_TO_PROCEED and ATTACH_TO_THREAD, which I haven't
-merged--can these go in target_resume()?
+General To Do List
+------------------
-4. BFD problem--"Undefined symbol _aout_32_swap_exec_header_in".
-Believed to be fixed (fix not yet tested with GDB).
+This list is probably not up to date, and opinions vary about the
+importance or even desirability of some of the items.
-5. The linker complains about mfree and so on being multiply defined.
-Believed to be fixed (fix not yet tested).
+Document trace machinery.
-6. i386_mach3_float_info and register_addr were undefined in the
-link. I haven't investigated, but probably just another easy
-configuration thing or something.
+Document overlay machinery.
-7. I couldn't find mach_port_t in any of the headers in
-/usr/include/*.h or /usr/include/mach/*.h (I think those are the two
-places I grepped; I don't know what headers I was actually getting).
-Typedeffing it to void * in nm-m3.h seemed to work, but of course
-that's hardly an elegant solution.
+Extend .gdbinit mechanism to specify name on command line, allow for
+lists of files to load, include function of --tclcommand.
-8. Implement the features which CMU gdb has which the main GDB does
-not. This could be done by getting paperwork from CMU and merging
-their changes, or by reimplementing them.
+@c This does not work (yet if ever). FIXME.
+@c @item --parse=@var{lang} @dots{}
+@c Configure the @value{GDBN} expression parser to parse the listed languages.
+@c @samp{all} configures @value{GDBN} for all supported languages. To get a
+@c list of all supported languages, omit the argument. Without this
+@c option, @value{GDBN} is configured to parse all supported languages.
-General To Do List
-------------------
+Add an "info bfd" command that displays supported object formats,
+similarly to objdump -i.
-This to do list is probably not up to date, and opinions may vary
-about the importance or even desirability of some of the items.
+START_INFERIOR_TRAPS_EXPECTED need never be defined to 2, since that
+is its default value. Clean this up.
It should be possible to use symbols from shared libraries before we know
exactly where the libraries will be loaded. E.g. "b perror" before running
one(s) there should be removed when we have to step over one. Support
breakpoints that don't have to be removed to step over them.
-Speed up watchpoints by using debug registers, page table diddling (on
-SunOS4, can call mprotect() in the inferior; on other machines can do
-something simpler), etc. Note that you need to detect a
-"fast-watchable expression" (i.e., if watching "*p", then either a
-change to the address pointed to by p or a change to p itself which
-causes the value of *p to change, is a watchpoint hit). It is
-possible we will also someday want extensions which are
-lower-level--"read from these addresses", "write to these addresses",
-etc., but there is no consensus about just how important these are and
-exactly what form they would take. There is a consensus that the
-existing watchpoint semantics should use hardware assists when
-available.
-
Update gdbint.texinfo to include doc on the directory structure and
the various tricks of building gdb.
Perhaps "i source" should take an argument like that of "list".
-See if coredep.c's fetch_core_registers can be used on more machines.
+See if core-aout.c's fetch_core_registers can be used on more machines.
E.g. MIPS (mips-xdep.c).
unpack_double() does not handle IEEE float on the target unless the host
The prompt at end of screen should accept space as well as CR.
-"List" should put you into a pseudo-"more" where you can hit space to
-get more, forever to eof. (questionable--you can already hit return
-to get more, and modal user interfaces are evil -kingdon, 28 Oct
-1993).
-
Check STORE_RETURN_VALUE on all architectures. Check near it in tm-sparc.h
for other bogosities.
"x/10i" should shorten the long name, if any, on subsequent lines.
Check through the code for FIXME comments and fix them. dbxread.c,
-blockframe.c, and plenty more.
+blockframe.c, and plenty more. (I count 634 as of 940621 - sts)
"next" over a function that longjumps, never stops until next time you happen
to get to that spot by accident. E.g. "n" over execute_command which has
an error.
-Watchpoints seem not entirely reliable, though they haven't failed me recently.
-
-"set zeroprint off", don't bother printing members of structs which are entirely
-zero. Useful for those big structs with few useful members.
+"set zeroprint off", don't bother printing members of structs which
+are entirely zero. Useful for those big structs with few useful
+members.
GDB does four ioctl's for every command, probably switching terminal modes
to/from inferior or for readline or something.
"ena d" is ambiguous, why? "ena delete" seems to think it is a command!
-Line numbers are off in some spots. In proceed() at 1st "oneproc = 1",
-it seems to run that statement, but it doesn't actually.
-
Perhaps move the tdep, xdep, and nat files, into the config
subdirectories. If not, at least straighten out their names so that
they all start with the machine name.
in a dynamic linking environment. Should remember the last copy loaded,
but not get too snowed if it finds references to the older copy.
-The original BFD core dump reading routine would itself coredump when fed
-a garbage file as a core file. Does the current one?
-
Generalize and Standardize the RPC interface to a target program,
improve it beyond the "ptrace" interface, and see if it can become a
-standard for remote debugging.
+standard for remote debugging. (This is talking about the vxworks
+interface. Seems unlikely to me that there will be "a standard" for
+remote debugging anytime soon --kingdon, 8 Nov 1994).
Remove all references to:
text_offset
For "char *malloc();":
ptype malloc ==> "char *()"; should be same as
ptype &malloc ==> "char *(*)()"
-call printf ("%x\n", malloc) ==> wierd value, should be same as
+call printf ("%x\n", malloc) ==> weird value, should be same as
call printf ("%x\n", &malloc) ==> correct value
Fix dbxread.c symbol reading in the presence of interrupts. It
Possible feature: A version of the "disassemble" command which shows
both source and assembly code ("set symbol-filename on" is a partial
solution).
+
+investigate "x/s 0" (right now stops early) (I think maybe GDB is
+using a 0 address for bad purposes internally).
+
+Make "info path" and path_command work again (but independent of the
+environment either of gdb or that we'll pass to the inferior).
+
+Make GDB understand the GCC feature for putting octal constants in
+enums. Make it so overflow on an enum constant does not error_type
+the whole type. Allow arbitrarily large enums with type attributes.
+Put all this stuff in the testsuite.
+
+Make TYPE_CODE_ERROR with a non-zero TYPE_LENGTH more useful (print
+the value in hex; process type attributes). Add this to the
+testsuite. This way future compilers can add new types and old
+versions of GDB can do something halfway reasonable.
+
+Clean up formatting of "info registers" on MIPS and 88k. See if it
+is possible to do this generically across all target architectures.
+
+GDB gets bfd/corefile.c and gdb/corefile.c confused (this should be easy to
+repeat even with something more recent than GDB 4.9).
+
+Check that unmatched RBRAC doesn't abort().
+
+Fix mdebugread.c:parse_type to do fundamental types right (see
+rs6000_builtin_type in stabsread.c for what "right" is--the point is
+that the debug format fixes the sizes of these things and it shouldn't
+depend on stuff like TARGET_PTR_BIT and so on. For mdebug, there seem
+to be separate bt* codes for 64 bit and 32 bit things, and GDB should
+be aware of that). Also use a switch statement for clarity and speed.
+
+Investigate adding symbols in target_load--some targets do, some
+don't.
+
+Put dirname in psymtabs and change lookup*symtab to use dirname (so
+/foo/bar.c works whether compiled by cc /foo/bar.c, or cd /foo; cc
+bar.c).
+
+Merge xcoffread.c and coffread.c. Use breakpoint_re_set instead of
+fixup_breakpoints.
+
+Fix byte order and int size sins in tm-a29k.h
+(EXTRACT_RETURN_VALUE). Perhaps should reproduce bug and verify fix
+(or perhaps should just fix it...).
+
+Make a watchpoint on a constant expression an error (or warning
+perhaps)
+
+Make a watchpoint which contains a function call an error (it is
+broken now, making it work is probably not worth the effort).
+
+Re-do calls to signal() in remote.c, and inflow.c (set_sigint_trap and
+so on) to be independent of the debugging target, using target_stop to
+stop the inferior. Probably the part which is now handled by
+interrupt_query in remote.c can be done without any new features in
+the debugging target.
+
+New test case based on weird.exp but in which type numbers are not
+renumbered (thus multiply defining a type). This currently causes an
+infinite loop on "p v_comb".
+
+Nuke baseclass_addr.
+
+Nuke USG define.
+
+"source file more recent" loses on re-read
+
+Fix 386 floating point so that floating point registers are real
+registers (but code can deal at run-time if they are missing, like
+mips and 68k). This would clean up "info float" and related stuff.
+
+Look at Solaris bug in interrupt.exp. Can get out of syscall with
+PRSABORT (syscall will return EINTR) but merely doing that leads to a
+"can't read memory" error.
+
+gcc -g -c enummask.c then gdb enummask.o, then "p v". GDB complains
+about not being able to access memory location 0.
+
+-------------------- enummask.c
+enum mask
+{
+ ANIMAL = 0,
+ VEGETABLE = 1,
+ MINERAL = 2,
+ BASIC_CATEGORY = 3,
+
+ WHITE = 0,
+ BLUE = 4,
+ GREEN = 8,
+ BLACK = 0xc,
+ COLOR = 0xc,
+
+ ALIVE = 0x10,
+
+ LARGE = 0x20
+} v;
+
+If try to modify value in file with "set write off" should give
+appropriate error not "cannot access memory at address 0x65e0".
+
+Why do we allow a target to omit standard register names (NO_STD_REGS
+in tm-z8k.h)? I thought the standard register names were supposed to
+be just that, standard.
+
+Allow core file without exec file on RS/6000.
+
+Make sure "shell" with no arguments works right on DOS.
+
+Make gdb.ini (as well as .gdbinit) be checked on all platforms, so
+the same directory can be NFS-mounted on unix or DOS, and work the
+same way.
+
+cd ~/tmp/<M-?> causes infinite loop (where ~/tmp is a directory).
+
+Get SECT_OFF_TEXT stuff out of objfile_relocate (might be needed to
+get RS/6000 to work right, might not be immediately relevant).
+
+Clean up add_toc_to_loadinfo
+
+Think about attached processes and sharing terminal.
+
+John sez in reference to ignoring errors from tcsegpgrp if attach_flag:
+set_tty_state should not have any trouble with attached processes.
+Instead, the tty handling should leave the pgrp of the tty alone when
+attaching to processes (perhaps pass terminal_init_inferior a flag
+saying whether we're attaching).
+
+PAGE_SIZE redefined warnings on AIX. Probably should be using
+BFD_PAGE_SIZE throughout BFD.
+
+Rewrite proceed, wait_for_inferior, and normal_stop to clean them up.
+Suggestions:
+
+ 1) Make each test in wait_for_inferior a seperate subroutine
+ call.
+ 2) Combine wait_for_inferior and normal_stop to clean up
+ communication via global variables.
+ 3) See if you can find some way to clean up the global
+ variables that are used; possibly group them by data flow
+ and information content?
+
+Work out some kind of way to allow running the inferior to be done as
+a sub-execution of, eg. breakpoint command lists. Currently running
+the inferior interupts any command list execution. This would require
+some rewriting of wait_for_inferior & friends, and hence should
+probably be done in concert with the above.
+
+Add function arguments to gdb user defined functions.
+
+Add convenience variables that refer to exec file, symbol file,
+selected frame source file, selected frame function, selected frame
+line number, etc.
+
+Add a "suspend" subcommand of the "continue" command to suspend gdb
+while continuing execution of the subprocess. Useful when you are
+debugging servers and you want to dodge out and initiate a connection
+to a server running under gdb.
+
+Add stab information to allow reasonable debugging of inline functions
+(possibly they should show up on a stack backtrace? With a note
+indicating that they weren't "real"?).
+
+Modify the naked "until" command to step until past the current source
+line, rather than past the current pc value. This is tricky simply
+because the low level routines have no way of specifying a multi-line
+step range, and there is no way of saying "don't print stuff when we
+stop" from above (otherwise could just call step many times).
+
+Modify the handling of symbols grouped through BINCL/EINCL stabs to
+allocate a partial symtab for each BINCL/EINCL grouping. This will
+seriously decrease the size of inter-psymtab dependencies and hence
+lessen the amount that needs to be read in when a new source file is
+accessed.
+
+Do an "x/i $pc" after each stepi or nexti.
+
+Modify all of the disassemblers to use printf_filtered to get correct
+more filtering.
+
+Modify gdb to work correctly with Pascal.
+
+Add a command for searching memory, a la adb. It specifies size,
+mask, value, start address. ADB searches until it finds it or hits
+an error (or is interrupted).
+
+Remove the range and type checking code and documentation, if not
+going to implement.
+
+# Local Variables:
+# mode: text
+# End: