[lldb-dev] LLDB for Android initiative

[Alex Weisberger]

Hi Todd,

I work on a sizable cross-platform mobile app that uses the Android NDK
pretty heavily. I've had very hit or miss experiences debugging with gdb in
that environment, so I think this is a great idea.

Have you started a branch for this effort or anything like that? I would be
very interested in helping improve the NDK debugging experience in any way.

Sincerely,
-Alex Weisberger


On Mon, Nov 18, 2013 at 11:40 PM, Todd Fiala <tfiala at google.com> wrote:

> Hi all!
>
> I'm starting up an effort to get LLDB running on Android.  I just wanted
> to reach out, say hi, and give you an outline of how I'm thinking about
> attacking this effort.  I'm looking for feedback, so please fire away if
> you have any suggestions or comments!
>
>  I'm thinking of attacking the effort in stages, looking something like
> this:
>
> 1. Get LLDB up and running against a local Linux x86 process.
>
>  It looks like many aspects of this already work.  I've heard there might
> be some rough edges around core dump support, DWARF 4/5 support, and
> possibly some optimized debug info support on the clang side, so any work
> here might touch those areas.
>
> I see we have what looks like 2 buildbots dedicated to building lldb in
> linux scenarios:
>
> http://lab.llvm.org:8011/builders/lldb-x86_64-debian-clang
>  http://lab.llvm.org:8011/builders/lldb-x86_64-linux
>
> Android currently builds linux host tools as 32-bit.  Both of those
> buildbots above appear to be 64-bit. I'd love to get the equivalent of an
> Ubuntu 12.04 LTS x64 buildbot building a 32-bit LLDB executable.  How can I
> go about setting that up?
>
> 2. Get the LLDB remote solution up and running against a remote Linux x86
> process.
>
> Here we get to the first high-level question mark: do we continue to use
> gdbserver, use debugserver, or base something on lldb-platform?  I haven't
> dug into this yet.  I've heard some thoughts on this topic, such as (a)
> LLDB has extended the gdb remote protocol and offers some benefits over
> using gdbserver, (b) debugserver is currently very part-specific and might
> be a painful way to go in the short term (but I haven't heard comments on
> the longer-term potential benefits of toughing through that), and (c)
> lldb-platform is a reasonable starting point and has been used to get some
> traction bringing up LLDB on other chipsets.  Like in (1), I'll want to set
> up a build bot that builds and runs remote tests in this environment.
>
> Any thoughts on this?
>
> 3. Get the LLDB remote solution up and running against a remote Linux ARM
> system.
>
> The idea being that it will be easier for me to poke around on the Linux
> ARM system than it would be to go straight for the Android device or
> emulator, but gets me working against an ARM system, one step closer to a
> typical Nexus device.  And helps out ARM Linux remote support in the
> process (if there are any weak spots).  I don't know yet what the scope of
> work here might entail.  Similar to (2), I'll want to set up a build bot
> that builds and runs remote tests in this environment as well.
> 4. Getting LLDB remote solution up and running against an Android ARM
> device.
>
> 5. Either directly implement or make it straightforward for Android
> vendors to fill in anything necessary to use our remote solution on other
> Android hardware.
>
> I look forward to working with the LLDB community on this effort!
>  Suggestions or comments are appreciated.
>
> Sincerely,
> Todd Fiala
>
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