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digitalmars.D - [gdb] Pushing the D patches upstream (again)

reply Robert Clipsham <robert octarineparrot.com> writes:
After working on the debug information produced by dmd recently, I 
started wondering what happened to the efforts to get the gdb patches 
pushed upstream.

http://d.puremagic.com/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=3207
http://sourceware.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=10142

After reading the threads attached to these bug reports I thought I'd 
ask the gdb developers what the current status was. Here's a log of the 
conversation we had on IRC (on chat.freenode.net in #gdb):
----
( mrmonday) does anyone here know the status of 
http://sourceware.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=10142 ?
( tromey) ISTR that we're waiting for a patch refresh
( tromey) or maybe some bit of paperwork
( tromey) I do think the patch was reviewed and needed a few changes
( tromey) but I forget exactly what
( mrmonday) it'd be good if we knew what, I've been doing quite a bit of 
work regarding the debug info produced by the main D compiler to make 
sure it's playing nicely with GDB, if there's anything I can do to help 
get the patches moved along it'd be good to know
( tromey) I'm looking for the thread but having trouble finding it
( tromey) yeah, I can't find it readily
( tromey) we really rely on contributors to ping their patches or to 
rewrite them after a review
( mrmonday) hmm, guess we need to chase some people up then if we want 
gdb to support D
( tromey) the paperwork might already all be done, I am not positive
( tromey) basically a patch like this needs someone to champion it
( mrmonday) and what does that involve?
( tromey) nothing formal :)
( tromey) just submitting it, then dealing with the review
( tromey) fixing whatever issues there are
( tromey) from my POV, what happened with this patch is that it got 
reviewed, then the submitters disappeared
( mrmonday) that story sounds far too common :s
( tromey) :)
( mrmonday) what would be needed to get it back off the ground again?
( tromey) two things
( tromey) first, verify that anybody who contributed to the patch has 
signed paperwork
( tromey) second, somebody (who has also signed paperwork) to resubmit 
the patch and then respond to reviews, ping it if it languishes, etc
( mrmonday) I think everyone that needs to have signed has done, as the 
last comment on the bug report was asking for confirmation that the FSF 
had recieved them
( tromey) yeah, I would guess so
( tromey) it is good to be certain
( mrmonday) if they have been recieved then the patch should be able to 
move in, once the issues with it have been resolved (we'd need to know 
what they are) and it's been updated to the latest gdb source code
( tromey) yeah
( tromey) you could either find the review thread from the last 
submission, or just update the patch to gdb head and resubmit it
( tromey) I'd suggest fixing the formatting problems too, since that is 
a known thing
----
So it seems what is needed is to:
a) Find out the status of the paperwork
b) Get the patch up to scratch and resubmit it

As Leandro Lucarella was heading up the efforts last time, he is 
probably the best person to talk to about part a. If that's all up to 
scratch, then we need to sort out the patch. To do this, we need to:

1) Update the patch to gdb head
2) Sort out the formatting issues so it matches the GNU style guidelines 
(http://www.gnu.org/prep/standards/standards.html - fun task :))
3) This seems to be the thread where it was discussed before (Not 100% 
though, there may be others): 
http://sourceware.org/ml/gdb-patches/2010-01/msg00204.html - We need to 
scour this thread and make sure everything in the patch is as requested. 
 From my quick flick through it seems that the patch was almost ready 
for inclusion in gdb 7.1 but didn't quite make it.

While we're on the topic of gdb patches, it might also be good to note 
http://d.puremagic.com/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=4044 which is a tracker 
bug for all gdb and debugging info related issues. A few of these have 
patches which are awaiting review or inclusion, and some need looking 
at... It could be good to get these issues fixed before the patch is 
included in gdb.

It seems that Mihail Zenkov is currently pushing for this too, as he's 
the current maintainer of the gdb-patches at 
http://dsource.org/projects/gdb-patches/, and according to the thread 
linked above he's been actively involved in getting the patch up to date 
(it seems there's a more recent patch in the thread than the repository, 
I'm not sure how up to date it is).

I'd be interested to know if anyone knows the current status of the D 
patches and what needs doing to get them included, it seems we're 
getting close to where we need to be to get D support into mainstream 
gdb, we just need the last push though.
Apr 09 2010
parent reply Leandro Lucarella <llucax gmail.com> writes:
Robert Clipsham, el  9 de abril a las 22:43 me escribiste:

 After working on the debug information produced by dmd recently, I
 started wondering what happened to the efforts to get the gdb
 patches pushed upstream.
 
 http://d.puremagic.com/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=3207
 http://sourceware.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=10142
 
 After reading the threads attached to these bug reports I thought
 I'd ask the gdb developers what the current status was. Here's a log
 of the conversation we had on IRC (on chat.freenode.net in #gdb):


Thanks for picking up this! I was following it but got lost in the
paperwork.


 ( mrmonday) does anyone here know the status of
 http://sourceware.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=10142 ?
 ( tromey) ISTR that we're waiting for a patch refresh
 ( tromey) or maybe some bit of paperwork
 ( tromey) I do think the patch was reviewed and needed a few changes
 ( tromey) but I forget exactly what
 ( mrmonday) it'd be good if we knew what, I've been doing quite a
 bit of work regarding the debug info produced by the main D compiler
 to make sure it's playing nicely with GDB, if there's anything I can
 do to help get the patches moved along it'd be good to know
 ( tromey) I'm looking for the thread but having trouble finding it
 ( tromey) yeah, I can't find it readily
 ( tromey) we really rely on contributors to ping their patches or to
 rewrite them after a review
 ( mrmonday) hmm, guess we need to chase some people up then if we
 want gdb to support D
 ( tromey) the paperwork might already all be done, I am not positive
 ( tromey) basically a patch like this needs someone to champion it
 ( mrmonday) and what does that involve?
 ( tromey) nothing formal :)
 ( tromey) just submitting it, then dealing with the review
 ( tromey) fixing whatever issues there are
 ( tromey) from my POV, what happened with this patch is that it got
 reviewed, then the submitters disappeared


I think there was never been a formal review of the patch, because the
lack of copyright assignment. I thought the merge was stucked in the
paperwork, not in the review.

The problem is, the original authors are not *that* interested in
following this right now AFAIK. At least John Demme has dissapeared a long
time ago (it was hard to contact him) and I don't know what is Mihail
Zenkov doing right now, maybe we have a better chance to have some help
from him.


 ( mrmonday) that story sounds far too common :s
 ( tromey) :)
 ( mrmonday) what would be needed to get it back off the ground again?
 ( tromey) two things
 ( tromey) first, verify that anybody who contributed to the patch
 has signed paperwork
 ( tromey) second, somebody (who has also signed paperwork) to
 resubmit the patch and then respond to reviews, ping it if it
 languishes, etc


This is the tricky part, I don't know if John Demme and Mihail
Zenkov want to do this. I hope that the modifications to the patch needed
to be accepted could be done by somebody else.


 So it seems what is needed is to:
 a) Find out the status of the paperwork
 b) Get the patch up to scratch and resubmit it
 
 As Leandro Lucarella was heading up the efforts last time, he is
 probably the best person to talk to about part a.


All I know is in the bugs comments. I was waiting from some sort of
GDB/FSF response before starting to poke people again :)


 If that's all up to scratch, then we need to sort out the patch. To do
 this, we need to:
 
 1) Update the patch to gdb head
 2) Sort out the formatting issues so it matches the GNU style
 guidelines (http://www.gnu.org/prep/standards/standards.html - fun
 task :))


The formatting part is easy, probably the only thing needed is to run the
indent program with the -gnu option :)

I don't know if they have naming conventions or other things that need
manual intervention.


 3) This seems to be the thread where it was discussed before (Not
 100% though, there may be others):
 http://sourceware.org/ml/gdb-patches/2010-01/msg00204.html - We need
 to scour this thread and make sure everything in the patch is as
 requested. From my quick flick through it seems that the patch was
 almost ready for inclusion in gdb 7.1 but didn't quite make it.


Ok, it looks like there was a review, I guess I missed those threads. So
the thing is more advanced that I thought! =)


 While we're on the topic of gdb patches, it might also be good to
 note http://d.puremagic.com/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=4044 which is a
 tracker bug for all gdb and debugging info related issues. A few of
 these have patches which are awaiting review or inclusion, and some
 need looking at... It could be good to get these issues fixed before
 the patch is included in gdb.
 
 It seems that Mihail Zenkov is currently pushing for this too, as
 he's the current maintainer of the gdb-patches at
 http://dsource.org/projects/gdb-patches/, and according to the
 thread linked above he's been actively involved in getting the patch
 up to date (it seems there's a more recent patch in the thread than
 the repository, I'm not sure how up to date it is).


We should try to contact Mihail again then, he was very friendly and
helpful when I did.


 I'd be interested to know if anyone knows the current status of the
 D patches and what needs doing to get them included, it seems we're
 getting close to where we need to be to get D support into
 mainstream gdb, we just need the last push though.


Thanks for pushing this forward again! I kinda forgot about it =)

-- 
Leandro Lucarella (AKA luca)                     http://llucax.com.ar/
----------------------------------------------------------------------
GPG Key: 5F5A8D05 (F8CD F9A7 BF00 5431 4145  104C 949E BFB6 5F5A 8D05)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Hey you, would you help me to carry the stone?
Open your heart, I'm coming home.
Apr 19 2010
next sibling parent Robert Clipsham <robert octarineparrot.com> writes:
On 19/04/10 19:12, Leandro Lucarella wrote:

 Thanks for picking up this! I was following it but got lost in the
 paperwork.


By the looks of things this isn't a hard thing to do...


 I think there was never been a formal review of the patch, because the
 lack of copyright assignment. I thought the merge was stucked in the
 paperwork, not in the review.

 The problem is, the original authors are not *that* interested in
 following this right now AFAIK. At least John Demme has dissapeared a long
 time ago (it was hard to contact him) and I don't know what is Mihail
 Zenkov doing right now, maybe we have a better chance to have some help
 from him.


I guess we need to contact Mihail, as he'll know the status better than us.


 This is the tricky part, I don't know if John Demme and Mihail
 Zenkov want to do this. I hope that the modifications to the patch needed
 to be accepted could be done by somebody else.


I wouldn't mind doing this if they don't want to, providing other 
paperwork is sorted out.


 All I know is in the bugs comments. I was waiting from some sort of
 GDB/FSF response before starting to poke people again :)


Ah, we probably know roughly the same then! I guess you know a tad more 
though if you've poked people before though.


 The formatting part is easy, probably the only thing needed is to run the
 indent program with the -gnu option :)


Oooh, nice app, not seen that before! :)


 I don't know if they have naming conventions or other things that need
 manual intervention.


Even still, that wouldn't take much to do.



 Ok, it looks like there was a review, I guess I missed those threads. So
 the thing is more advanced that I thought! =)


Yaay! :D


 We should try to contact Mihail again then, he was very friendly and
 helpful when I did.


Agreed, I think he'll know better than us what needs doing with him 
being the current maintainer of the patches.


 Thanks for pushing this forward again! I kinda forgot about it =)


Thanks for doing it in the first place, I'd probably not have thought 
about it otherwise! I just came across it while writing patches to fix 
dmd's debug info.
Apr 19 2010
prev sibling parent reply BCS <none anon.com> writes:
I could be wrong but it sounds like one of the major problems here is that 
the original authors aren't very motivated to help with this. If that's the 
case, how much work would it be to redo the work? I'm thinking a chines wall 
approach (I think that's the term) where someone looks at the patch as is 
and makes a list of bullet points enumerating what features it adds and someone 
else goes and makes a new patch that does that. The first should be a few 
hours work and, as it happens, I might soon be in a position to spend some 
time doing the second. (I've never working with DWARF or hacked GDB, but 
I wouldn't mind learning.)
Apr 22 2010
parent Leandro Lucarella <llucax gmail.com> writes:
BCS, el 22 de April a las 18:26 me escribiste:

 I could be wrong but it sounds like one of the major problems here
 is that the original authors aren't very motivated to help with
 this.


Fortunately you are wrong :)

I contated Mihail and he is still working on the patch and merge, and he
is very close to inclusion (as he said).

I've updated the bug reports with this information.

I hope we have good news soon ;)

-- 
Leandro Lucarella (AKA luca)                     http://llucax.com.ar/
----------------------------------------------------------------------
GPG Key: 5F5A8D05 (F8CD F9A7 BF00 5431 4145  104C 949E BFB6 5F5A 8D05)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Can you stand up?
I do believe it's working, good.
That'll keep you going through the show
Come on it's time to go.
Apr 22 2010