linux-kernel - Re: getter PTRACE_GETSIGINFO should not modify anything [Re: [PATCH 11/11] ptrace: implement group stop notification for ptracer]

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Date:	Sun, 15 May 2011 22:06:54 +0200
From:	Jan Kratochvil <jan.kratochvil@...hat.com>
To:	Tejun Heo <tj@...nel.org>
Cc:	oleg@...hat.com, vda.linux@...glemail.com,
	linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org, torvalds@...ux-foundation.org,
	akpm@...ux-foundation.org, indan@....nu
Subject: Re: getter PTRACE_GETSIGINFO should not modify anything  [Re: [PATCH
 11/11] ptrace: implement group stop notification for ptracer]

On Sun, 15 May 2011 19:28:11 +0200, Tejun Heo wrote:
> It's a balancing act.  The primary goal is to make it _functional_ as
> the current ptrace is outright broken in many places.  The second, at
> least for me, is not deviating from the current behavior too much
> unless required by the first goal or not doing so is extremely silly.

You are introducing new API which requires new codepaths in every
debugger-like program using it.  I do not find the "not deviating" reason as
valid for making the _new_ API parts needlessly imperfect.  Otherwise in the
next step we will want to fix the new imperfect parts and - there will be
three APIs that time to be supported in each debugger-like program depending
on how old kernel versions the debugger wants to support.

> After all, this is a pretty low level API which only a handful are
> gonna use.

People are now rather directed on #gdb@...enode to use gdb instead of dealing
with ptrace when coding various monitoring/debugging helpers.  While sure
ptrace is not a mainstream syscall I would find great making it more easy.

Sure the changes should be still small - I do not ask for making unrelated new
changes; just making the already needed changes perfect in their scope.

Thanks,
Jan
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