Hotspot Debugger on Mac OS X Java 1.6 32-bit

[Daniel D. Daugherty]

Forwarding to hotspot-dev at ...

Dan


Derek Shinaberry wrote:
> I am so far out of my depth here that I am not even sure which mailing 
> list to start with, but the serviceability-dev seemed as good a place 
> as any to begin.
>
> First of all, I am NOT well versed in Java, particularly the minutia 
> and all things VM related.  I am well versed in C++, which led me to 
> believe that I might have half a chance when it comes to debugging a 
> problem inside the VM.
>
> I'm running Mac OS X 10.5.8 on a 32-bit Core Duo processor, which 
> doesn't support Java 6.  So, I'm attempting to use OpenJDK 6 installed 
> using MacPorts.
>
> After some issues getting the build to work, I figured out what needed 
> patching and succeeded in building and installing openjdk6.  So far, 
> so good.
>
> The program I'm running that required Java 6, called Marketcetera, 
> crashes fairly frequently.  Using gdb to investigate the crash, I 
> figured out that it has to do with 16-byte stack alignment 
> requirements on Mac OS X.  I discovered a patch by Landon Fuller that 
> attempts to address the issues.  I fought for a while to get that 
> patch integrated and building, but it finally built and installed.  
> Still having the same crash and it is still related to stack alignment.
>
> I've tracked it down to code that is being generated at runtime, so 
> gdb isn't much use in discovering exactly what code is the source of 
> the problem.  Enter the Hotspot Debugger. (Finally, he gets to the 
> point!)
>
> It doesn't appear that HSDB is built by MacPorts on Mac OS X.  It 
> doesn't even look like there is a bsd directory which would presumably 
> contain that code.  Has anyone successfully used HSDB on Mac OS X?  
> Can anyone point me in the right direction for being able to 
> understand what is going on inside the VM on Mac OS X?  Any help would 
> be much appreciated.
>
> Cheers,
> Derek