Re: [PATCH] Use mmap for symbol tables

[Jim Blandy <jimb at red-bean dot com>]

On 1/30/06, Eirik Fuller <eirik@hackrat.com> wrote:
> This suggests a simple way to complicate my mmap patch.  If it can be
> determined beforehand what interval of the symbol table gdb is going to
> read in its entirety, that interval can be recorded in the BFD struct,
> and the first mmap call can map just that interval.  That will
> complicate the offset calculations somewhat, but the basic approach will
> be the same.  This will only waste virtual address space if the sections
> gdb would otherwise read don't form a contiguous region of the file.

Actually, that's a pretty great idea.  We could have the linker
arrange to put all the debug sections together; that's easy.  Then we
could have the BFD API let GDB specify a list of sections to map.  BFD
would map the smallest contiguous region containing those sections. 
You'd get an interface that works with all files, but performs better
when the linker does its job right.