Re: Fedora 14 debug proposal

[Dodji Seketeli <dodji@redhat.com>]

Tom Tromey <tromey@redhat.com> writes:

[...]

> 2. Change GCC so that it no longer emits .debug_aranges,
>    .debug_pubnames, and .debug_pubtypes.
>
>    From what I can tell, no program uses these sections.  They just
>    waste space.
>
>    Well... Fedora gdb does use .debug_aranges, but that use is replaced
>    by the index.  .debug_aranges is a reasonable-enough section; it is
>    just that we really also need by-name indices to get good
>    performance, and having the whole index be mmap()able gives better
>    startup performance.
>
>    I think .debug_pub* are pretty useless.  GCC didn't even generate
>    pubtypes for years, and it had a lot of pubnames bugs... maybe it
>    still does.  What this means is that we can't really make gdb rely on
>    them.  Also, based on earlier experiments, reading these sections is
>    actually still too slow.  The index is better.

I can take this part if it helps. I guess at worst, upstream will
require a flag to get the .debug_{pug,aranges,pubnames,pubtypes} section
back for a little while before removing the code completely?

-- 
	Dodji