Re: [PATCH] Add "set debug minsyms" command

Eli Zaretskii
2018-12-26T17:19:29Z

> Date: Wed, 26 Dec 2018 11:43:18 -0500
> From: Simon Marchi <simon.marchi@polymtl.ca>
> Cc: Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>, jhb@freebsd.org, gdb-patches@sourceware.org
>
> > The manual documents the values for "set debug symtab-create". I think
> > a patch is indeed needed since you added a new value.
>
> Actually that value is already used and documented:
>
> Turns on or off display of debugging messages related to symbol table
> creation. The default is 0 (off). A value of 1 provides basic
> information. A value greater than 1 provides more verbose information.
>
> > Also I was wondering why not just use "maint print msymbols".
>
> Because I didn't know about it :). Do you think the new debugging
> output is redundant and should be removed? It's the same data (minimal
> symbols), but in a different order. With "set debug symtab-create",
> they are shown in the order they are provided by the symbol reader (same
> order as in the file usually), whereas "maint print msymbols" shows them
> as saved in GDB's memory, sorted by address. I think that the "set
> debug symtab-create" may be useful when debugging the symbol reader,
> whereas "maint print msymbols" may be useful when debugging lookups.

Btw, when I "set debug symtab-create 1" (or even a very large value),
I see no symbols, just the files from which those symbols are loaded.
Where's the code that shows the symbols? Could it be that this
happens only on ELF platforms?