Re: [Valgrind-users] multiplatform support

[Philippe W. <phi...@sk...>]

On Wed, 2013-09-11 at 11:59 -0400, Paolo Piselli wrote:
> Perhaps I did not understanding the nature of valgrind multiplatform 
> support, so my previous questions were somewhat unclear.  Allow me to 
> start from a more root question:
> 
> Is a given arch/OS build of valgrind only capable of running guest 
> applications that target that same exact arch/OS?  When fiddling around 
> with --enable-only* configurations it seems that the x86_64 builds don't 
> run i386 applications even if the OS supports running i386 (e.g. 
> x86_64-darwin valgrind libs don't work for i386 apps even though OSX 
> supports i386).  Am I correct to say that "dual-arch" configuration just 
> meaning that both x86_64 and i386 core and tools are built and the 
> launcher picks the correct libs to use, but the individual libs are 
> still limited to instrumenting applications that are of the same 
> architecture that they themselves are compiled for? (i.e. you don't get 
> VM-like capabilities of running another arch/OS by intermediate 
> translation to VEXIR and then JIT into the native arch/OS)
Yes, a dual-arch means in fact to compile twice (most of) valgrind.

In theory, it should be possible to have e.g. a valgrind compiled
for x86_64 "valgrind-ing" a i386 executable, but that is not supported.
Similarly, in theory, e.g. a i386 valgrind could "valgrind" an
arm executable.

But none of this is supported. Feasible but quite some work to do.

Philippe