From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (qmail 30133 invoked by alias); 3 Jan 2013 16:22:16 -0000 Received: (qmail 30051 invoked by uid 22791); 3 Jan 2013 16:22:11 -0000 X-SWARE-Spam-Status: No, hits=-2.5 required=5.0 tests=AWL,BAYES_40,KHOP_RCVD_UNTRUST,KHOP_SPAMHAUS_DROP,RCVD_IN_DNSWL_NONE,RCVD_IN_HOSTKARMA_W,RCVD_IN_HOSTKARMA_WL,T_RP_MATCHES_RCVD X-Spam-Check-By: sourceware.org Received: from hop-nat-141.emc.com (HELO mexforward.lss.emc.com) (168.159.213.141) by sourceware.org (qpsmtpd/0.43rc1) with ESMTP; Thu, 03 Jan 2013 16:22:08 +0000 Received: from hop04-l1d11-si04.isus.emc.com (HOP04-L1D11-SI04.isus.emc.com [10.254.111.24]) by mexforward.lss.emc.com (Switch-3.4.3/Switch-3.4.3) with ESMTP id r03GLsnl009916 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA bits=256 verify=NO); Thu, 3 Jan 2013 11:21:56 -0500 Received: from mailhub.lss.emc.com (mailhubhoprd04.lss.emc.com [10.254.222.226]) by hop04-l1d11-si04.isus.emc.com (RSA Interceptor); Thu, 3 Jan 2013 11:21:47 -0500 Received: from usendtaylorx2l.lss.emc.com (usendtaylorx2l.lss.emc.com [10.243.10.188]) by mailhub.lss.emc.com (Switch-3.4.3/Switch-3.4.3) with ESMTP id r03GLjBN014186; Thu, 3 Jan 2013 11:21:45 -0500 Received: by usendtaylorx2l.lss.emc.com (Postfix, from userid 26043) id 04E905A8971; Thu, 3 Jan 2013 11:21:44 -0500 (EST) Received: from usendtaylorx2l (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by usendtaylorx2l.lss.emc.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 6E04C5A894F; Thu, 3 Jan 2013 11:21:44 -0500 (EST) From: David Taylor To: binutils@sourceware.org, gcc@gcc.gnu.org, gdb@sourceware.org Subject: stabs support in binutils, gcc, and gdb Date: Thu, 03 Jan 2013 16:22:00 -0000 Message-ID: <12972.1357230104@usendtaylorx2l> X-EMM-MHVC: 1 X-IsSubscribed: yes Mailing-List: contact gdb-help@sourceware.org; run by ezmlm Precedence: bulk List-Id: List-Subscribe: List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: , Sender: gdb-owner@sourceware.org X-SW-Source: 2013-01/txt/msg00008.txt.bz2 What is the status of STABS support? I know that there is considerably more activity around DWARF than STABS. It appears that STABS is largely in maintenance mode. Are there any plans to deprecate STABS support? If STABS enhancements were made and posted would they be frowned upon? Or would they be reviewed for possible inclusion in a future release? [We have copyright assignments in place for past and future changes to BINUTILS, GCC, and GDB -- and it took almost 4 years from start to finish -- I do not want to ever have to go through that again with the company lawyers! So, paperwork should not be an issue.] I know that DWARF is more expressive than STABS. And if it didn't cause such an explosion in disk space usage, we would probably have switched from STABS to DWARF years ago. Switching to DWARF causes our build products directory (which contains *NONE* of the intermediate files) to swell from 1.2 GB to 11.5 GB. Ouch! The DWARF ELF files are 8-12 times the size of the STABS ELF files. If the DWARF files were, say, a factor of 2 the size of the STABS files, I could probably sell people on switching to DWARF; but, a factor of 8 to 12 is too much. Thanks. David