binutils-gdb/gdb/gcore-elf.h
Andrew Burgess 95ce627aeb gdb: write target description into core file
When a core file is created from within GDB add the target description
into a note within the core file.

When loading a core file, if the target description note is present
then load the target description from the core file.

The benefit of this is that we can be sure that, when analysing the
core file within GDB, that we are using the exact same target
description as was in use at the time the core file was created.

GDB already supports a mechanism for figuring out the target
description from a given corefile; gdbarch_core_read_description.
This new mechanism (GDB adding the target description) is not going to
replace the old mechanism.  Core files generated outside of GDB will
not include a target description, and so GDB still needs to be able to
figure out a target description for these files.

My primary motivation for adding this feature is that, in a future
commit, I will be adding support for bare metal core dumps on some
targets.  For RISC-V specifically, I want to be able to dump all the
available control status registers.  As different targets will present
different sets of register in their target description, including
registers that are possibly not otherwise known to GDB I wanted a way
to capture these registers in the core dump.

I therefore need a mechanism to write out an arbitrary set of
registers, and to then derive a target description from this arbitrary
set when later loading the core file.  The obvious approach (I think)
is to just reuse the target description.

Once I'd decided to add support for writing out the target description
I could either choose to make this RISC-V only, or make it generic.  I
figure that having the target description in the core file doesn't
hurt, and _might_ be helpful.  So that's how I got here, general
support for including the target description in GDB generated core
files.

In previous versions of this patch I added the target description from
generic code (in gcore.c).  However, doing this creates a dependency
between GDB's common code and bfd ELF support.  As ELF support in gdb
is optional (for example the target x86_64-apple-darwin20.3.0 does not
include ELF support) then having gcore.c require ELF support would
break the GDB build in some cases.

Instead, in this version of the patch, writing the target description
note is done from each specific targets make notes function.  Each of
these now calls a common function in gcore-elf.c (which is only linked
in when bfd has ELF support).  And so only targets that are ELF based
will call the new function and we can therefore avoid an unconditional
dependency on ELF support.

gdb/ChangeLog:

	* corelow.c: Add 'xml-tdesc.h' include.
	(core_target::read_description): Load the target description from
	the core file when possible.
	* fbsd-tdep.c (fbsd_make_corefile_notes): Add target description
	note.
	* gcore-elf.c: Add 'gdbsupport/tdesc.h' include.
	(gcore_elf_make_tdesc_note): New function.
	* gcore-elf.h (gcore_elf_make_tdesc_note): Declare.
	* linux-tdep.c (linux_make_corefile_notes): Add target description
	note.
2021-03-05 17:21:41 +00:00

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C

/* Copyright (C) 2021 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
This file is part of GDB.
This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
the Free Software Foundation; either version 3 of the License, or
(at your option) any later version.
This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
GNU General Public License for more details.
You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
along with this program. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>. */
/* This file contains generic functions for writing ELF based core files. */
#if !defined (GCORE_ELF_H)
#define GCORE_ELF_H 1
#include "gdb_bfd.h"
#include "gdbsupport/gdb_signals.h"
#include "gcore.h"
struct gdbarch;
struct thread_info;
/* Add content to *NOTE_DATA (and update *NOTE_SIZE) to describe the
registers of thread INFO. Report the thread as having stopped with
STOP_SIGNAL. The core file is being written to OBFD, and GDBARCH is the
architecture for which the core file is being generated. */
extern void gcore_elf_build_thread_register_notes
(struct gdbarch *gdbarch, struct thread_info *info, gdb_signal stop_signal,
bfd *obfd, gdb::unique_xmalloc_ptr<char> *note_data, int *note_size);
/* Add content to *NOTE_DATA (and update *NOTE_SIZE) to include a note
containing the current targtet's target description. The core file is
being written to OBFD. If something goes wrong then *NOTE_DATA can be
set to nullptr. */
extern void gcore_elf_make_tdesc_note
(bfd *obfd, gdb::unique_xmalloc_ptr<char> *note_data, int *note_size);
#endif /* GCORE_ELF_H */