Is bitstring support still useful?

Daniel Jacobowitz
2009-07-17T14:33:28Z

GDB contains both type (TYPE_CODE_BITSTRING) and expression
(OP_BITSTRING) support for bitstrings. This is in the way for some
bitfield changes I'd like to make, and before I spend time fixing it,
I'd like to know if it's still useful.

OP_BITSTRING is currently dead code. It's handled in a number of
places, but never generated.

TYPE_CODE_BITSTRING can be generated two ways: from OP_BITSTRING (so,
dead) or from the stabs reader. It's not generated from any other
symbol reader, including DWARF. Does this mean it's dead or that
there's something the DWARF reader should do?

For now, I'm going to remove support in my local tree.

Pierre, I've copied you because the most recent non-mechanical patch
related to bitstrings was yours, a long while ago:

2002-05-02 Pierre Muller <muller@ics.u-strasbg.fr>

* p-typeprint.c (pascal_type_print_base): Add support
for TYPE_CODE_STRING and TYPE_CODE_BITSTRING.

(I'm not sure you'll receive my mail directly, though - something
about the IPv6 addresses used by u-strasbg.fr causes my mail server a
lot of grief.)