RE: Deprecate dwarf and mdebug support, delete nlm?

Kean Johnston
2003-05-09T15:34:25Z

> The SCO target is i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*.
>
> With gcc 2.95.3, this target prefers DWARF 1 or SDB.
>
> With gcc 3.2.2, this target prefers DWARF 2 or SDB.
> (see config.gcc and config/i386/sco5.h in the source).
Yeah I know I'm the maintainer :)

> Are there still a lot of SCO users with gcc 2?
HUGE numbers. It's the currently "officially supported" version
that we give our customers. Until 3.3 we haven't really felt GCC
3 was ready for primetime. In fact the next "oficially supported"
version will be 3.4.

> If there are, is it reasonable to require them to upgrade to gcc 3
> when they upgrade their gdb?
Not really. For one, more people compile than debug (sad but true)
so it is much more critical that the compiler works, and once people
have a stable, working compiler they are VERY loathsome to switch.
But a debugger is considered more of a utility tool and people are
more prone to update it (and to be frank, as the integrator of our
'GNU tools' package I am more likely to WANT to update it). There
are other good improvements in GDB that even current consumers can
benefit from.

Aside from that ... just as a general guiding light, a debugger
shouldn't be target to a compiler, that's bad practice. It should
take advantage of features of the compiler if it can but it should
be VERY forgiving of things like debug formats (ie support as many
as it can), calling conventions etc.

Kean