Name: chT40241 Date: 03/04/98


With JDK 1.2, jdb (and the underlying sun.tools.debug) interface always
starts the program to be debugged using the java (not the java_g)
command. This is true even when jdb_g is used or when java_g is used
to run a user debugging tool. This means that the Java VM of the
debugger target cannot itself be easily debugged, due to the absence of debugging information.

We would like to suggest that if jdb_g is used, or if sun.tools.debug is
used from an application invoked by java_g, the debugger target should
be created using java_g. After all, if one chooses to run jdb_g, presumably one has some reason to have done so, namely, a desire to debug the debugger at the native level. Since all the interesting parts of the debugger run under the target VM in the debug agent, it only makes
sense for the target VM to be debuggable as well.

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