Date: Tue, 21 Mar 95 16:39:02 -0800 From: Bakul Shah <bakul@netcom.com> To: Chuck Robey <chuckr@Glue.umd.edu> Cc: hackers@FreeBSD.org Subject: Re: Debugging Message-ID: <199503220040.QAA11375@netcom3.netcom.com> In-Reply-To: Your message of "Tue, 21 Mar 95 18:37:51 EST." <Pine.SUN.3.91.950321183156.1226C-100000@espresso.eng.umd.edu>
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> Yeah, but gdb is the only public domain debugger available, and it does
> one whale of a lot more than sdb or adb or dbx or whatever did. Anyways,
> my point is, the tgdb thing is a relatively tiny frill on that, with
> enormous effect. All the packages listed above, which gives you a really
> useful wish shell, make up about 1.1 megs statically linked (ask me later
> about dynamic sizes, I hope to do that), but the actual tgdb tcl code is
> pretty tiny. The tgdb stuff, which is interpreted (so it doesn't get
> compiled) is only 136k gzipped. That's relatively miniscule against the
> gdb whale. Some folks use that whale to death, I guess I'd rather have
> too much tool than too little.
I can't resist one more comment. Then I will shut up on this subject.
You are right that gdb is the (great white) whale, the big
elephant that no one wants to see, the big enchilada, the
800 pound gorilla etc. and efforts like tgdb are tiny in
comparison. My kneejerk reaction _was_ triggered by the list
of things one needed to make/run tgdb but my diatribe is
really against gdb. As for size, here is what `size ups' of
a *statically* linked ups (on my X11R4 SunOS3.5 Sun3/50)
gives me:
text data bss dec hex
475136 49152 26860 551148 868ec
Along with a very nice GUI and standard debugger facilities,
it also gives me the ability to insert C code. Does gdb?
Unfortunately, ups-2.45.2 does not run on {Free,Net}BSD.
There was a version that ran on 386BSD-0.1 so may be it
won't be too hard to make it work....
Ideally one wants a very sparse interface (almost like that
of /bin/ed) to a line oriented debugger to which a GUI
frontend (like tgdb!) can be attached.
-- bakul
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