[lldb-dev] Increasing support for other gdbservers

Tue Mar 31 16:55:47 PDT 2015

Also, it should be possible to do this in a way that doesn't require lots
of ifdefs.  Just create a stub xml parser implementation that has the same
interface as whatever the one in libxml2 is, and contain all the ifdefs
there.  have the stub return an error on creation.  Then calling code can
just error out if it tries to parse xml and gets an error.

On Tue, Mar 31, 2015 at 4:51 PM Zachary Turner <zturner at google.com> wrote:

> I hate them too.  The amount of effort I spent removing them from Host
> (even though there's still some there) is a testament to that.  But we
> already have enough external dependencies on Windows as is (building Python
> is already a huge chore, for example), and adding more to the mix is kind
> of a blocking issue for me unless it's for really critical functionality.
> Windows is in the unfortunate position of it being a pain to build most
> open source libraries.  I don't want to make it even harder for people to
> build LLDB on Windows just because of an xml library.
>
> On Tue, Mar 31, 2015 at 4:36 PM Vince Harron <vince at nethacker.com> wrote:
>
>> I hate ifdefs, especially the ones that we've added to the code. I would
>> hate to see any others go in.  It's our plan for example to remove ifdefs
>> that we have added .
>> On Mar 31, 2015 4:28 PM, "Zachary Turner" <zturner at google.com> wrote:
>>
>>> As long as it's possible to build lldb without it I'm fine with
>>> whatever, including downloading it separately, building it, and referencing
>>> it externally.  But I don't want it to be a forced dependency.
>>>
>>> On Tue, Mar 31, 2015 at 4:19 PM Vince Harron <vince at nethacker.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> I really don't want LLDB to embed a copy of libxml2.  I think we should
>>>> build it externally and reference it from LLDB.  Systems with package
>>>> managers can get this trivially.  Windows can download and build all
>>>> dependencies with one script.
>>>> On Mar 31, 2015 2:10 PM, "Colin Riley" <colin at codeplay.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>  I noticed that use in cmake also. FWIW, my primary LLDB platform is
>>>>> Windows, which is why we were using TinyXML2 for ease of prototyping. If
>>>>> libxml2 works on all the targets we will use it - I do worry about the
>>>>> usual issues you get with windows prebuilts. So source may still be
>>>>> required. We'll look into it.
>>>>>
>>>>> Colin
>>>>>
>>>>> On 31/03/2015 20:45, Zachary Turner wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> There's already some stuff in the CMake to try to find libxml, but
>>>>> it's behind a Darwin specific branch in the CMake.  So I think what would
>>>>> need to happen is that we move this into a platform agnostic codepath, and
>>>>> then set a define like LLDB_HAVE_LIBXML2 in the code to a value that
>>>>> indicates whether it is present (search clang for CLANG_HAVE_LIBXML in *.*
>>>>> to see how this is done).  Then, in the code, we would need to put xml code
>>>>> behind a check for this define.
>>>>>
>>>>> On Tue, Mar 31, 2015 at 10:02 AM Zachary Turner <zturner at google.com>
>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> A good rule of thumb for anything is that "Windows doesn't have it"
>>>>>> and that holds true for libxml2 as well.  It appears that libxml2 does
>>>>>> support Windows though (http://xmlsoft.org/downloads.html), it just
>>>>>> isn't something that's there by default.  It would be nice if everyone were
>>>>>> using the same thing, could we clone this repo in our own repo and then
>>>>>> just build it ourselves as part of the build process.  The license looks
>>>>>> very permissive, but IANAL.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Tue, Mar 31, 2015 at 9:47 AM Greg Clayton <gclayton at apple.com>
>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> > On Mar 31, 2015, at 3:35 AM, Aidan Dodds <aidan at codeplay.com>
>>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>> >
>>>>>>> > On 30/03/2015 18:38, Greg Clayton wrote:
>>>>>>> > >
>>>>>>> > > I know about the register numbering stuff and I would love to
>>>>>>> see support for the "$qXfer:features:" added to LLDB. The one thing this
>>>>>>> data doesn't contain is the register numbers for the ABI (DWARF register
>>>>>>> numbers (for debug info), compiler register numbers (for like .eh_frame)),
>>>>>>> but that info could be inferred from an ABI plugin that we could infer from
>>>>>>> the "osabi" of "GNU/Linux" in the target.xml:
>>>>>>> >
>>>>>>> > >
>>>>>>> > > So please do submit patches that implement this and we will be
>>>>>>> happy to approve them.
>>>>>>> >
>>>>>>> > I am currently prototyping $qXfer:features support in LLDB with an
>>>>>>> aim to upstream it. It will require an XML parser, so I wanted to have a
>>>>>>> discussion about adding one to LLDB.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Most unix variants have libxml2 that is available. I am not sure on
>>>>>>> windows though. I have CC'ed Zachary to get some input on windows XML (in
>>>>>>> case LLVM doesn't already have some support for this).
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> > I have been using TinyXML2 in my prototype, which is open sourced
>>>>>>> under the ZLib license. Is there any policy in LLDB for handling external
>>>>>>> library dependencies?
>>>>>>> > Would there be objections to TinyXML2 making its way into the LLDB
>>>>>>> code base as an external? Writing a new XML parser from scratch in LLDB
>>>>>>> isn't ideal.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> It would be great to stick with stuff that everyone has installed
>>>>>>> and hopefully that is libxml2. Windows is the biggest question. I am also
>>>>>>> not sure if llvm or clang has any XML support, but we should first look to
>>>>>>> see if llvm has XML support and if not, then look for alternatives. We
>>>>>>> definitely do not want to write our own.
>>>>>>> >
>>>>>>> > I would still like to have a discussion about adding a plugin
>>>>>>> architecture to gdb-remote making it easier to handle packets outwith the
>>>>>>> LLDB based servers. The code in gdb-remote that sends and handles packets
>>>>>>> is scattered over one or two huge classes, it would be beneficial to start
>>>>>>> looking at breaking this up and modularizing it. At least for the packets
>>>>>>> which are not supported by lldb's own RSP producers.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I say just build all and any support it into
>>>>>>> GDBRemoteCommunicationClient and GDBRemoteCommunicationServer. I don't see
>>>>>>> the need to break it up.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Greg Clayton
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>
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>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
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