Re: [rfc/rfa] accept DW_TAG_namespace and friends, possibly on 5.3

[Daniel Jacobowitz <drow@mvista.com>]

On Tue, Oct 22, 2002 at 01:40:25PM -0700, David Carlton wrote:
> The current situation around C++ namespace debugging info is that GCC
> isn't generating it because, if it were generating it, it would
> produce debugging info that GDB really can't handle.  Basically,
> DW_TAG_namespace entries have children that are important, so GDB has
> to know a little bit about those nodes in order not to miss large
> chunks of debugging info.  (This is true whether or not GDB wants to
> do anything particularly namespace-specific with that debugging info.)
> 
> So it seems to me like it would be a good idea to change GDB as
> quickly as possible to not get confused by DW_TAG_namespace (as well
> as DW_TAG_imported_declaration and DW_TAG_imported_module): we
> shouldn't wait until adding more namespace functionality to GDB.  For
> example, if that support makes it into GDB 5.3, then maybe GCC 3.3
> will be able to generate the appropriate debugging info, so when a GDB
> 5.4 (or whatever) rolls around that handles namespaces better, users
> will be able to take advantage of it immediately (instead of having to
> wait for the next GCC release).
> 
> Here are some patches to let GDB accept that debugging information: I
> think it would be a good idea to get it into 5.3 as well as mainline,
> if possible.  They're quite minimal changes: they make sure that, when
> reading partial symbols, we descend into DW_TAG_namespace entries,
> that when reading full symbols, we read children of DW_TAG_namespace
> entries (but we don't keep around any more namespace information than
> we do currently: e.g. we still get names from
> DW_AT_MIPS_linkage_name), and that we don't complain about the
> presence of DW_TAG_imported_declaration or DW_TAG_imported_module (but
> we also don't do anything useful about that info).

I'd like to raise my voice in support of this patch, for both trunk and
5.3-branch.  David's quite right - we need this in order for GCC to
move forward, in order for us to move forward.

-- 
Daniel Jacobowitz
MontaVista Software                         Debian GNU/Linux Developer