Upcoming metadata changes in V8 7.7

[cjihrig]

The V8 7.7 update requires the following adjustments to the postmortem debugging metadata constants:

• v8dbg_class_ConsString__first__String

  • Class is now generated via torque.
  • Postmortem tools should use v8dbg_class_ConsString__first_offset__int
  • Refs: v8/v8@14274bb

• v8dbg_class_ConsString__second__String

  • Class is now generated via torque.
  • Postmortem tools should use v8dbg_class_ConsString__second_offset__int
  • Refs: v8/v8@14274bb

• v8dbg_class_SlicedString__offset__SMI

  • Class is now generated via torque.
  • Postmortem tools should use v8dbg_class_SlicedString__offset_offset__int
  • Refs: v8/v8@14274bb

• v8dbg_class_ThinString__actual__String

  • Class is now generated via torque.
  • Postmortem tools should use v8dbg_class_ThinString__actual_offset__int
  • Refs: v8/v8@14274bb

Refs: https://github.com/nodejs/node/pull/28918

[mmarchini]

Interesting, the type of those fields didn't change, but they are all prefixed by __int. Is the metadata generated for Torque classes prefixed by the the metadata type instead of the field type? That's probably not a good idea, if a field type changes it wouldn't reflect on the metadata name, and we wouldn't have a way to check the type on llnode...

[mmarchini]

class_Symbol__name__Object was removed as well, I'm guessing in this version. Still investigating.

[mmarchini]

So I renamed the String metadata back to their previous names in: https://chromium-review.googlesource.com/c/v8/v8/+/1847783. I also added the missing metadata for symbols. Will update the tests once this is merged to core.

[mmarchini]

If the above gets merged, no changes will be necessary on llnode for 7.7 (and then we can close this issue). I already have patches to fix 7.2, 7.4 and 7.6 (I haven't opened PRs with all of them yet because some are blocked by #303), so once the metadata lands upstream and is backported to core, we'll have llnode working on Node.js v12 :)

[No9]

@cjihrig We discussed the issue of breaking changes in a recent diagnostics meeting. Is there a process around how these breaking changes are identified and flagged to llnode or do we just rely on the good will of folks like yourself?

[cjihrig]

There used to be a test in core that verified the existence of the metadata used by llnode. However, that test was removed in https://github.com/nodejs/node/commit/9a0aaa610706bfe7aeb2234b085cdcb912403c90. After that, I think @mmarchini had her own way of detecting the breaking changes. You'll definitely want some automated way to detect the breaking changes because they happen frequently with V8 updates.

[No9]

Cheers @cjihrig - I'll close this and captured your recommendation here https://github.com/nodejs/llnode/issues/412