From: Jeff Law <jeffreyalaw@gmail.com>
To: Richard Biener <rguenther@suse.de>,
"Koning, Paul" <Paul.Koning@dell.com>
Cc: GCC Patches <gcc-patches@gcc.gnu.org>,
Andreas Schwab <schwab@linux-m68k.org>,
"dave.anglin@bell.net" <dave.anglin@bell.net>,
"ni1d@arrl.net" <ni1d@arrl.net>
Subject: Re: [PATCH][v2] Always default to DWARF2_DEBUG if not specified, warn about deprecated STABS
Date: Thu, 16 Sep 2021 09:05:59 -0600 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <3b13a7c8-dd7a-c5a9-1767-47fe649329e8@gmail.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <1917qo39-689-257q-738p-59r817o42ps1@fhfr.qr>
On 9/16/2021 1:41 AM, Richard Biener wrote:
> On Wed, 15 Sep 2021, Koning, Paul wrote:
>
>>
>>> On Sep 13, 2021, at 3:31 AM, Richard Biener <rguenther@suse.de> wrote:
>>>
>>> This makes defaults.h choose DWARF2_DEBUG if PREFERRED_DEBUGGING_TYPE
>>> is not specified by the target and NO_DEBUG if DWARF is not supported.
>> As I'm looking at questions about old debug formats, it brings up the
>> question of old object formats. I don't remember what the status of
>> a.out is. Is that considered deprecated? Still current? Of course
>> most targets use elf, but is there an expectation to move away from
>> a.out the way there is an expectation to move away from STABS?
>>
>> Is this actually a binutils rather than a gcc question?
> I guess it's a question for both - I do still see a.out targets
> in the configs supported by gas for example.
>
> Note that languages like C++ might have difficulties with object
> formats that do not support separate sections for instantiated
> templates for example, or for global initializers. We might have
> kludges for that in collect2 where removing those might be a
> motivation to deprecate object formats not supporting some
> set of features (named sections for example).
>
> As for "old", the problem with the legacy systems, being it
> pdp11 or hppa-hpux, is of course that they tend to be kept alive
> with minimal resources and doing major modernization doesn't
> really make sense if all that is wanted is to preserve them
> rather than turning them into something modern.
>
> That said - yes, I'd consider a.out purely legacy and not fit
> for the future. But it never came up on the radar of standing
> in the way of modernizing GCC in any area.
I'd definitely consider a.out & SOM as purely legacy. As long as they
continue to work, great, but I wouldn't make any significant investment
in either. And yes, there are mechanisms in collect2 to support things
like global initializers/finalizers on a.out systems.
FWIW, SOM (the 32bit native hpux format) is a COFF derivative and can
support most of the stuff ELF can. Even so, I'd consider it pure legacy.
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2021-09-16 15:06 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 19+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2021-09-13 7:31 Richard Biener
2021-09-13 13:24 ` Jeff Law
2021-09-13 13:47 ` Richard Biener
2021-09-13 13:53 ` Jeff Law
2021-09-13 14:58 ` John David Anglin
2021-09-13 15:05 ` Jeff Law
2021-09-13 15:44 ` John David Anglin
2021-09-13 15:52 ` Jeff Law
2021-09-15 6:26 ` Richard Biener
2021-09-15 13:27 ` John David Anglin
2021-09-15 14:06 ` Richard Biener
2021-09-15 15:55 ` John David Anglin
2021-09-15 17:18 ` Koning, Paul
2021-09-13 16:52 ` Koning, Paul
2021-09-13 19:06 ` Jeff Law
2021-09-15 20:23 ` Koning, Paul
2021-09-16 7:41 ` Richard Biener
2021-09-16 15:05 ` Jeff Law [this message]
2021-09-16 16:46 ` Koning, Paul
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