From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (qmail 9120 invoked by alias); 17 May 2006 21:35:05 -0000 Received: (qmail 9107 invoked by uid 22791); 17 May 2006 21:35:04 -0000 X-Spam-Check-By: sourceware.org Received: from intranet.codesourcery.com (HELO mail.codesourcery.com) (65.74.133.6) by sourceware.org (qpsmtpd/0.31) with ESMTP; Wed, 17 May 2006 21:35:01 +0000 Received: (qmail 28920 invoked from network); 17 May 2006 21:35:00 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO ?192.168.0.3?) (mitchell@127.0.0.2) by mail.codesourcery.com with ESMTPA; 17 May 2006 21:35:00 -0000 Message-ID: <446B96F9.2070609@codesourcery.com> Date: Thu, 18 May 2006 00:04:00 -0000 From: Mark Mitchell User-Agent: Thunderbird 1.5.0.2 (Windows/20060308) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: fnf@specifix.com CC: Richard Sandiford , gcc-patches@gcc.gnu.org, gdb-patches@sourceware.org Subject: Re: [RFC] Passing MIPS debug hints between gcc and gdb References: <200605101206.01433.fnf@specifix.com> <87y7x9aw12.fsf@talisman.home> <200605171624.16372.fnf@specifix.com> In-Reply-To: <200605171624.16372.fnf@specifix.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Mailing-List: contact gdb-patches-help@sourceware.org; run by ezmlm Precedence: bulk List-Subscribe: List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: , Sender: gdb-patches-owner@sourceware.org X-SW-Source: 2006-05/txt/msg00393.txt.bz2 Fred Fish wrote: > On Thursday 11 May 2006 02:57, Richard Sandiford wrote: >> Using empty sections was always a hack, to be honest (modelled on the >> old .gcc_compiled_v3 thing, whatever it was called). I suppose we >> should be using note sections really. > > Wouldn't that be ELF specific, as well as requiring the linker to > merge hint strings? I'm a little unclear on just what capabilities > the current linker has to merge section contents so that "hint > strings" put into a note section wouldn't be duplicated in the final > linked output, one for each compilation unit. The ARM EABI contains a specification for object-file attributes, including rules about how to merge them. The specification is quite general; there are mechanisms for compiler extension, etc. It is indeed ELF-specific, but I would guess you could use the same technique on other object formats that allow additional sections. I'm not sure what the current state of support for this feature is in Binutils, but I think we should consider using the ARM strategy on all platforms without a previously defined mechanism of their own; we want it anyhow (for ARM), and we can presumably avoid duplicate effort/code by reusing the code. -- Mark Mitchell CodeSourcery mark@codesourcery.com (650) 331-3385 x713