Re: patch for printing 64-bit values in i386 registers; STABS format

Andrew Cagney
2003-04-28T16:08:23Z

>> The stabs reader will need to be modified so that it generates a proper
>> location description. Note that it is STABS centric. dwarf2 doesn't
>> need that mechanism since (presumably) GCC is generating the correct
>> info (....).
>
>
> No, that's incorrect. GDB wouldn't even be able to find half the value
> if GCC was putting out correct information. We can't fix that until
> GDB is ready to not choke on the result. We will have to handle the
> incorrect debug info probably forever.

I made two assertions:

- stabs
- dwarf2 (where I included a ``presumably'')

You're saying that both are incorrect?

> This is one of the intended purposes of this mechanism, and as I
>> indicated, is needed by MIPS. Being able to project an arbitrary [debug
>> info] view of the registers onto the raw register buffer.
>>
>> BTW, what happens when there is an attempt to write a long long value?
>> GDB again assumes that it can write to contigious registers - the reason
>> why REGISTER_BYTE can't be killed.
>
>
> That ugliness could go away too with Mark's introduced method. GDB
> could be fixed to find the next register properly.

GDB also uses it to encode offsets into a register. It also does not
help the MIPS where the debug register does need to be projected into
the raw registers. Why have add more mechanisms when the existing one
is sufficient. Focus the effort on fixing the real problem.

BTW, my comment about no names was wrong. They can be named, that
restriction should have been removed by the introduction of reggroups.

Andrew