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

Mark Kettenis
2003-04-27T22:03:23Z

Date: Fri, 25 Apr 2003 23:32:47 -0400
From: Andrew Cagney <ac131313@redhat.com>

> I'm afraid I don't understand, and I still don't see your reasoning
> against this approach.

It isn't necessary, just like register convertible and register
raw/virtual size; .... that go before it, also were not necessary. And
now all these years later, GDB is still yet to expunge.

I still don't see how you can get rid of the register convertible
stuff. On the i386 I still need it for variables stuffed into the
floating point registers.

Until someone does the right think - add support for values scattered
across registers and memory - hacks should be confined to architecture
specific code.

But even if someone does add support for values scattered across
multiple registers and/or memory, we still need the architecture
method I proposed. There simply is too much debugging info out there
that can't express values being scattered across multiple registers.

And I don't think the hack you proposed is a good idea. I think it's
better to add a new architecture method with a clear purpose than
abuse an existing mechanism for something that it wasn't quite
intended for. Even if the architecture method in question would only
be used by a single target.

Mark