Date: Tue, 21 Mar 1995 23:08:31 -0500 (EST) From: Chuck Robey <chuckr@Glue.umd.edu> To: Bakul Shah <bakul@netcom.com> Cc: hackers@FreeBSD.org Subject: Re: Debugging Message-ID: <Pine.SUN.3.91.950321230237.10430B-100000@mocha.eng.umd.edu> In-Reply-To: <199503220040.QAA11375@netcom3.netcom.com>
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On Tue, 21 Mar 1995, Bakul Shah wrote:
> > 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, what I think I learned from trying ups on my machine is that ups
takes the gdb code, uses perl to massage itself into the insides of it,
and spits it back out. Thus, you HAVE to have a running gdb port before
you have a ups port. That's why I couldn't get ups running: gdb 4.13
wouldn't compile yet and understand FreeBSD binaries, so ups won't either
(it builds you understand, it just doesn't understand the binaries).
What you get out of tgdb is a wish shell that is capable of a whole lot
more than just tgdb, and an additional amount of tgdb tcl code that isn't
a lot. Seems a fair deal, seeing as I was running wish ANYWAYS.
Learning wish is a pretty fair way to learn compilers, too (see
Ousterhout's great TCL book). I have yet to see ups running, so I can't
say more about that, but the size of ups probably isn't on the same order
as the tcl code, seeing as its got the entire gdb code inside itself.
----------------------------+-----------------------------------------------
Chuck Robey | Interests include any kind of voice or data
chuckr@eng.umd.edu | communications topic, C programming, and Unix.
7608 Topton St. |
New Carrollton, MD 20784 | I run Journey2 (Freebsd 2.0) and n3lxx
(301) 459-2316 | (FreeBSD 1.1.5.1) and am I happy!
----------------------------+-----------------------------------------------
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