gdb 5.3 issues with g++ 3.2 on RedHat 7.3 & Solaris 9.

["Joshua D. Marantz" <josh@carbondesignsystems.com>]

Hello,

We are having trouble debugging C++ code.  Are there a number of
outstanding issues, or could we have a configuration problem?

We have tried a variety of combinations of the following tools:

gdb 5.2.1, gdb 5.3
g++ 3.1.1, 3.2, 3.2.1
g++ compile options "-g", "-g3", "-ggdb", "-gstabs", "-gstabs+", "-gdwarf-2"
SGI STL & STLport 4.5.3
RedHat 7.3 & Solaris 9

Symptoms include:

 - breakpoints in constructors do not work.  gdb says they get set successfully,
   but they do not actually break.  This occurs whether the constructors are
   inline or out-of-line.
 - casting on the command line does not work -- yields a syntax error
 - printing contents of instances of STL classes sometimes crashes
 - frequent gdb crashes (sorry this is so vague...)
 - when compiling with -gstabs+, I can print most structures, but I can't
   call class methods from gdb.
 - when compiling with -gdwarf-2, I can call class methods from gdb, but I can't
   print most structures
 - calling global functions from the debugger takes a long time and uses
   a lot of memory.  calling class methods is fast however.  
 - it is difficult to call template methods from the debugger

All these issues were not present using g++ 2.8.1 and gdb 4.17.  In
that environment most things worked well  Although gdb 4.17 did crash
a little too often, it was much more functional.

We can't go back to those old tools because our C++ & STL usage goes
beyond the capabilities of g++ 2.8.1 & 2.9.*.

I can give testcases for all these things but it's really pretty
basic C++ debugging.

Is this enough information?  Is there a path through these tools that
works -- e.g. config options, versions, etc?

Thanks,
-Josh