mingw: add a helper function to attach GDB to the current process

When debugging Git, the criss-cross spawning of processes can make
things quite a bit difficult, especially when a Unix shell script is
thrown in the mix that calls a `git.exe` that then segfaults.

To help debugging such things, we introduce the `open_in_gdb()` function
which can be called at a code location where the segfault happens (or as
close as one can get); This will open a new MinTTY window with a GDB
that already attached to the current process.

Inspired by Derrick Stolee.

Signed-off-by: Johannes Schindelin <[email protected]>

Author: dscho

compat/mingw.c

@@ -14,6 +14,19 @@
 
 #define HCAST(type, handle) ((type)(intptr_t)handle)
 
+void open_in_gdb(void)
+{
+	static struct child_process cp = CHILD_PROCESS_INIT;
+	extern char *_pgmptr;
+
+	argv_array_pushl(&cp.args, "mintty", "gdb", NULL);
+	argv_array_pushf(&cp.args, "--pid=%d", getpid());
+	cp.clean_on_exit = 1;
+	if (start_command(&cp) < 0)
+		die_errno("Could not start gdb");
+	sleep(1);
+}
+
 int err_win_to_posix(DWORD winerr)
 {
 	int error = ENOSYS;

compat/mingw.h

@@ -733,6 +733,16 @@ static int mingw_main(c,v)
 
 #endif
 
+/*
+ * For debugging: if a problem occurs, say, in a Git process that is spawned
+ * from another Git process which in turn is spawned from yet another Git
+ * process, it can be quite daunting to figure out what is going on.
+ *
+ * Call this function to open a new MinTTY (this assumes you are in Git for
+ * Windows' SDK) with a GDB that attaches to the current process right away.
+ */
+extern void open_in_gdb(void);
+
 /*
  * Used by Pthread API implementation for Windows
  */