Re: stabs vs. dwarf-2 for C programs

[Daniel Berlin <dan@cgsoftware.com>]

John Haller <jhaller@lucent.com> writes:

> Daniel Berlin wrote:
> 
> > The pre-linker pass is on my list of things to do, after all the
> > optimized code debugging support and finishing the work on the new
> > register allocator for gcc.
> 
> The native Sun Solaris linker takes an interesting approach
> to eliminating duplicate debugging information.  It does
> not copy much debug information from the original object
> module to the final linked product, just enough to identify
> which original object contains the debugging information.
> The debugger then needs to locate the original object module
> when setting breakpoints or looking up symbol information.
> The only downside is that this prevents much symbolic debugging
> if the original built objects aren't around.  It can also
> speed the link not only by not having to rewrite symbolic
> debug information, but also by not having to read it in the
> original objects.  It also speeds up starting the debugger,
> as the debugger no longer has to read the entire symbol table
> at startup.

We already don't do this anyway, without needing to do this kind of
hairy trick.

DWARF2 was made to be able to be quickly scanned, and not entirely
loaded all at once.

> 
> I'm glad to see other people looking at this, because in
> my spare time it could take years to work on this myself.
> -- 
> John Haller jhaller@lucent.com

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