GDB

@alfkil
I will throw the reports on you in another thread then

@alfkil

I tried Spotless when it first came out, but was unable to make it do anything useful, not even as much as DB101. I was left with the impression that it was mainly a demo of how to make a debugger, and that it wouldn't be developed further. Given that, it seemed pointless to try to do anything more with it, such as submitting bug reports. Has the situation changed?

I think there is a place in AmigaLand for both GDB and a working version of Spotless. Kas1e is right that GDB has far more people working on it, adding new features and honing the existing ones based on lots of real-world use. And for some applications remote debugging is useful or even essential.

Spotless, on the other hand, has a nice easy-to-use GUI and feels like an Amiga program, and could be a better choice for beginners and those with less demanding needs (and who aren't already familiar with GDB and how to use it). Spotless could be the debugger of first choice; if it can handle your debugging task, great! If you need more power then move on to GDB.

But Spotless needs more work before that's viable.

Quote:
I had that impression as well, and on my X5000 all the tests I did were not working, unfortunately.

If you have the intention to continue working on spotless, I will be glad to help with tests and feedback.

@walkero

Unfortunately the Final Edition Update 2 public release, which coincided with the release of Spotless, introduced the broken compatibility with the exec debugging module, which let many people to believe, that Spotless is broken. This was purely a case of some unlucky changes to the os, that were later reverted, and those running later (or even latest) beta versions of the kernel should see, that Spotless performs quite well. What this means is, that it should load executables without crashing, and it should display some meaningful info in the different parts of the window.

What is missing is handling the location of sourcefiles (for display in the 'sources' pane) and correct handling of external modules (shared objects and libraries) and probably adjustments to the displaying of symbols (variables). Everything else is either the same as db101 or better, because the new code base has better readability and better targeting to problems.

@alfkil

Thanks for the background information. I've browsed the code some and it appears to be well written, which left me puzzled as to why it just wouldn't work. I hope to be able to try it again some day when things get straightened out. In the mean time, I guess further testing will be up to those with access to newer kernels.

@all

Some progress about gdb port can be found even in the binutils 2.40 thread

@All
Some progress being made on GDB front: MigthyMax fixes some hardcore issues, and now GDB more and more operational and stable. Few more remains, and after that can be a good time for public betas IMHO.

Also today i were able to port source-highligh-lib to os4 (with help of Andrea's port of latest Boost, from which regexp part is used), so our GDB can now have not only internal coloring of disassembly and co, but also of the source code! Take a look at the "list" output at top:

(press open image in new-tab for full-size):

@kas1e

What version of GDB do we currently have? :)

Btw what i see, also an updated shell with closing gadgets on tabs!

@samo79
Quote:
The one which were latest one once Max start working on latest binutils (GDB part of them): 14.0.50.20230114-git. Updating to todays one (together with binutils) will be probably easy, but currently make no big difference to worry about, as one from 2023 is more than good for making what we need.

ps. For example WHL2 on win10 had 12.1 (from 2022) by default.

@samo79

If you wanted to know, the gdb version from the latest public SDK, I
I think it something 4.x.y. So having anderer gbd is major leap forward.

When public beta test have passed, I even want to upgrade the port to the latest gbd version.

@Max
In latest SDK version of GDB coming with it is 6.3 one (build 20050719). Which is almost 20 years old in compare with one you works on :)