From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (qmail 1949 invoked by alias); 3 Nov 2010 20:48:58 -0000 Received: (qmail 1819 invoked by uid 22791); 3 Nov 2010 20:48:55 -0000 X-SWARE-Spam-Status: No, hits=-2.1 required=5.0 tests=AWL,BAYES_00 X-Spam-Check-By: sourceware.org Received: from rock.gnat.com (HELO rock.gnat.com) (205.232.38.15) by sourceware.org (qpsmtpd/0.43rc1) with ESMTP; Wed, 03 Nov 2010 20:48:50 +0000 Received: from localhost (localhost.localdomain [127.0.0.1]) by filtered-rock.gnat.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 76C572BAC1A; Wed, 3 Nov 2010 16:48:48 -0400 (EDT) Received: from rock.gnat.com ([127.0.0.1]) by localhost (rock.gnat.com [127.0.0.1]) (amavisd-new, port 10024) with LMTP id HL2SmBZEYubM; Wed, 3 Nov 2010 16:48:48 -0400 (EDT) Received: from joel.gnat.com (localhost.localdomain [127.0.0.1]) by rock.gnat.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 1E3DF2BAC0D; Wed, 3 Nov 2010 16:48:48 -0400 (EDT) Received: by joel.gnat.com (Postfix, from userid 1000) id 8DBECF588F; Wed, 3 Nov 2010 13:48:44 -0700 (PDT) Date: Wed, 03 Nov 2010 20:48:00 -0000 From: Joel Brobecker To: Jan Kratochvil Cc: gdb-patches@sourceware.org Subject: Re: [RFA/DWARF] Add DW_AT_GNAT_descriptive_type support Message-ID: <20101103204844.GB2445@adacore.com> References: <20100112055258.GJ2007@adacore.com> <20091225093943.GA25252@host0.dyn.jankratochvil.net> <20101103192435.GA9182@host0.dyn.jankratochvil.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <20101103192435.GA9182@host0.dyn.jankratochvil.net> User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.20 (2009-06-14) Mailing-List: contact gdb-patches-help@sourceware.org; run by ezmlm Precedence: bulk List-Id: List-Subscribe: List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: , Sender: gdb-patches-owner@sourceware.org X-SW-Source: 2010-11/txt/msg00073.txt.bz2 > People developing non-Ada GDB code sometimes accidentally cause Ada > regressions but the current Ada debug info (at least as encoded in DWARF) is > unreadable for me, despite I tried. > > Is there some Ada-specific `readelf -wi'-like tool to be able to read it? Unfortunately not. In order to understand the debugging info, you need to read the GNAT encoding spec in exp_dbug.ads (in the compiler sources). > And why not to implement whole Ada properly in DWARF, with few extensions > proposed at when/if needed? As AdaCore > supplies both the compiler and the debugger I see no need to be bound by STABS > you noted before. We simply do not have the resources, and we don't project to have these resources any time soon. Also, we are still stuck with stabs for a while, as we haven't been able to transition to DWARF on some of the platforms that AdaCore supports (Eg: AIX, Tru64, some versions of LynxOS, HP/UX). We've identified some encodings that should be easy to express in pure DWARF, and these changes are in the queue, but the rest won't be done any time soon, I'm afraid. > As Ada regressions are AFAIK not acceptable for FSF GDB check-ins > there should be a way to make them troubleshootable by non-Ada > developers. I only expect the contributors to do their best: If they notice some regressions in gdb.ada with their patch, then try seeing if it's an obvious problem, but otherwise just ask either Paul or myself. I'm completely overworked these days, but I will always make room to help out. I understand that the Ada part can be obscure, so I don't expect more than that. And if someone introduces a regression, then oh well, I'll notice it eventually, and then go on to fix it. -- Joel