[fpc-devel] Status and ideas about debug info (stabs, dwarf / dwar3)

[Jonas Maebe]

On 12 Sep 2011, at 08:56, Graeme Geldenhuys wrote:

> On 11/09/2011 23:40, Jonas Maebe wrote:
>> extensions. I don't see the advantage of allocating one of those and
>> communicating it to other compiler writers (to avoid them using that
>> same extension for something else) instead of submitting it for
>> inclusion in the official DWARF standard though.
>
> I understand that, but waiting for the DWARF specification to accept  
> it,

You don't have to wait until it is published. Both gcc and gdb  
supported provisional DWARF4 features before the standard was out.  
Simply asking for comments on the DWARF list and then posting it in  
their issue tracker is probably already enough.

The point is simply to make sure that there is a fleshed out spec that  
can be implemented, rather than a hack that will have to be broken  
again next year because someone forgot about something, and which also  
will have to be maintained forever for compatibility with existing  
tools that implemented it (like the hack for shortstring support in  
Stabs).

> Is there any reason why you or somebody else in the FPC team, that  
> knows
> DWARF, haven't submitted such a a proposal yet? What's the hold-up?

That someone has to spend time on writing a formal specification, and  
preferably do some tests to flesh out at least some obvious  
shortcomings. That is quite a bit of work. The reasons I personally  
have not done that are
a) I have no need whatsoever for debug information for properties
b) there are plenty of other things to work on that I consider more  
interesting (also known as "time")


Jonas