[fpc-devel] Debugger for FPC

[Jonas Maebe]

Graeme Geldenhuys wrote on wo, 11 mrt 2009:

> On Wed, Mar 11, 2009 at 12:20 PM, Jonas Maebe   
> <jonas.maebe at elis.ugent.be> wrote:
>>
>> GDB is designed for any language it has maintainers for (just like FPC is
>> "designed" for all platforms that have active maintainers, and languishes or
>
> Probably true, but it's leans a lot more to C/C++ support than any
> other language.

It supports ADA at least as well. In fact, it probably supports ADA  
better than C++ (although C++ support got a big overhaul the new gdb  
based on the Archer branch in Fedora Core 11, so it may finally get up  
to speed).

>> DWARF is much more than the "flavour of the month". It's a very generic
>> debug format, which is also specifically defined as vendor-extensible.
>
> I downloaded the latest DWARF3 spec - last updated in December 2005.
> Quite a while back. Is this good or bad?

Neither. They are working on DWARF4 though, if that's what you mean.  
See here for a number of reported and resolved issues in that version:  
http://www.dwarfstd.org/Issues.php?type=closed3

> Or is the DWARF3 spec so
> good/flexible it caters for any new language features since 2005?

I don't know of a single Object Pascal developer ever proposing new  
extensions to be incorporated into the DWARF standard.

>> This is correct, although it's not because the GDB guys hate or don't care
>> about Pascal. In fact, they are always very welcoming and helpful when
>> someone submits a patch for any language (in correcting errors/making it
>
> Umm, and that means I have to go back and study C language again. I
> left C/C++ for a reason. Object Pascal is a much better language in my
> eyes, and I'm a lot more productive with the latter as well!

Me too. But I'm also more productive when submitting a few patches and  
bug reports against gdb every now and then, than when completely  
rewriting and maintaining a debugger clone (even if written in the  
cleanest Object Pascal in the world) on at least 5 platforms.

>> Not to mention that in many real world projects (at least on Mac OS X), a
>> debugger is pretty useless if it does not also support C, C++ and
>> Objective-C (there's a lot of mixed language development on Mac OS X).
>
> Well, I only work with the Free Pascal Compiler (and occasionally dab
> in Java). This issue I am raising relates directly to Free Pascal
> Compiler and the Object Pascal language, so I don't give a toss about
> any other languages or supporting them. After all, they have GDB. ;-)

That's useless when people combine Pascal and C code in a single  
program. And you may not do that, but I'm not developing FPC only for  
you.

>> c) bugs in the tooltip feature? (does it work if you try to get the value in
>> another way?)
>
> It always works if I use log files. :-)

I meant using the debugger, obviously.


Jonas

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