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Running test_gdb on Fedora 17 produces a litany of the following error:
- warning: File "/home/ncoghlan/devel/py3k/python-gdb.py" auto-loading has been declined by your `auto-load safe-path' set to "/usr/share/gdb/auto-load:/usr/lib/debug:/usr/bin/mono-gdb.py".
Presumably some security features in gdb have either been added, or enabled by default, with the F17 update.
The devguide needs to be updated with a reference to the relevant gdb security settings so contributors can get it running again.

In addition, we should probably report this as a test skip rather than as a litany of test failures.

New changeset 2db5010a610c by Nick Coghlan in branch '3.2':
Issue #15043: skip test_gdb if the custom hooks can't be loaded
http://hg.python.org/cpython/rev/2db5010a610c 

New changeset ac2f5067c220 by Nick Coghlan in branch '2.7':
Issue #15043: skip test_gdb if the custom hooks can't be loaded (backport from 3.x)
http://hg.python.org/cpython/rev/ac2f5067c220 

New changeset 9456591d0761 by Nick Coghlan in branch 'default':
Merge from 3.2 (Issue #15043: skip test_gdb if the custom hooks can't be loaded)
http://hg.python.org/cpython/rev/9456591d0761 

Added new section to devguide in http://hg.python.org/devguide/rev/9fee8e6c2619 

Also added an FAQ with the specific ~/.gdbinit entry needed to get it running in http://hg.python.org/devguide/rev/1d81501be702
I did try adding a similar command directly to the gdb invocation, but, as far as I can tell, any commands specified as arguments run too late to allow python-gdb.py to be loaded with the current command line invocation.

It does seem to be possible to do this at command invocation. Patch attached.

New changeset b71cda2f48c6 by R David Murray in branch '3.2':
#15043: Improve test_gdb support of gdb >= 7.4.
http://hg.python.org/cpython/rev/b71cda2f48c6
New changeset 6f064689b8c0 by R David Murray in branch '3.3':
merge #15043: Improve test_gdb support of gdb >= 7.4.
http://hg.python.org/cpython/rev/6f064689b8c0
New changeset b9141239a5b4 by R David Murray in branch 'default':
merge #15043: Improve test_gdb support of gdb >= 7.4.
http://hg.python.org/cpython/rev/b9141239a5b4 

New changeset 1b1ead5cecae by R David Murray in branch '2.7':
#15043: Improve test_gdb support of gdb >= 7.4.
http://hg.python.org/cpython/rev/1b1ead5cecae 

Committed. Also deleted the paragraph from the devguide faq, since it is no longer needed.

The test still seems to fail on Fedora 16:
http://buildbot.python.org/all/builders/AMD64%20Fedora%20without%20threads%202.7/builds/906/steps/test/logs/stdio 

Since it looks like that is your buildbot, can you do some command line testing to see what is going wrong with the gdb invocation? I'm wondering if perhaps this feature was backported as a security patch, so that the gdb version check is an insufficient check :(
Or it could be that I got the version check wrong.

The gdb version is "GNU gdb (GDB) Fedora (7.3.50.20110722-16.fc16)", which
looks like either a pre-release of 7.4 or a patched version.
Testing for (gdb_major_version, gdb_minor_version) >= (7, 3) would fix the
specific failure on Fedora 16, but I don't know if it would break other
7.3.x versions.

I'm using the .gdbinit solution on the Fedora buildbot now. Trying to
categorize gdb pre-releases and patched versions is probably not a good
use of time. ;)

In my Fedora Python packages I've been applying this patch:
http://pkgs.fedoraproject.org/cgit/python.git/plain/00156-gdb-autoload-safepath.patch
which uses this code fragment to detect if gdb has the autoload safe path code, rather than trying to guess it from version numbers (which I *think* is failing for Stefan due to a backport of the autoload stuff in that gdb):
def gdb_has_autoload_safepath():
 # Recent GDBs will only auto-load scripts from certain safe
 # locations, so we will need to turn off this protection.
 # However, if the GDB doesn't have it, then the following
 # command will generate noise on stderr (rhbz#817072):
 cmd = "--eval-command=set auto-load safe-path /"
 p = subprocess.Popen(["gdb", "--batch", cmd],
 stderr=subprocess.PIPE)
 _, stderr = p.communicate()
 return '"on" or "off" expected.' not in stderr
 
HAS_AUTOLOAD_SAFEPATH = gdb_has_autoload_safepath()
(etc)