[fpc-devel] GDB barfs on FPC generated stabs.

[Bruce Tulloch]

Hi Jonas,

Unfortunately GDB (6.6) still barfs on FPC (SVN 8427) generated stabs
sometimes when performing a backtrace or printing certain objects in
our application. As mentioned earlier, we'll do what we can to abstract
the problem into the small demonstration program we can send you. For
the time being we'll use DWARF2 as despite some remaining problems with
that (reported in another email) it does not crash GDB.

Cheers, Bruce.

Bruce Tulloch wrote:
> I have encountered a problem using GDB (6.4.90-debian) with FPC (2.0.4
> or 2.1.4). In a nutshell, GDB sometimes barfs on FPC generated stabs.
> 
> If the program is compiled with -g (stabs format) the debugger works
> but attempts to print some data structures or produce a back-trace
> can result in a SEGV in GDB (ie, GDB itself crashes).
> 
> If the program is compiled with -gd (DBX format) or -gw (dwarf) GDB
> works correctly without crashing but reference to source files that
> are in directories other than the current directory have a (relative)
> path prepended to the name which breaks other things (notably the
> emacs/GUD and Lazarus front ends).
> 
> By way of example, with GDB run in the (project home) directory
> 
>   /home/bruce/vc/
> 
> with dwarf symbols GDB reports:
> 
>   (gdb) info source
>   Current source file is src//Widget.pas
>   Compilation directory is src/
>   Located in /home/bruce/vc/src/Widget.pas
>   Contains 637 lines.
>   Source language is pascal.
>   Compiled with unknown debugging format.
>   Does not include preprocessor macro info.
> 
> When the program is compiled with stabs I get:
> 
>   (gdb) info source
>   Current source file is Widget.pas
>   Compilation directory is src/
>   Located in /home/bruce/vc/src/Widget.pas
>   Contains 637 lines.
>   Source language is pascal.
>   Compiled with stabs debugging format.
>   Does not include preprocessor macro info.
> 
> which is correct (but GDB is otherwise unusable due the stabs problem).
> 
> My (2) questions are:
> 
>  [1] has anyone else seen the GDB crashing problem when a program is
>      compiled with stabs info?
> 
>  [2] is the filename problem with dwarf encoded symbols an FPC bug or
>      is there some configuration I'm missing somehere.
> 
> Note that in all cases I've compiled the program (which is a port of a
> a working Delphi application) with no optimizations or other bells and
> whistles enabled.
> 
> Many thanks for any advice about what I might be doing wrong.
> 
> Otherwise consider this a bug report :-)
> 
> Cheers, Bruce Tulloch.
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