From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Phil Edwards To: nobody@gcc.gnu.org Cc: gcc-prs@gcc.gnu.org Subject: Re: c/2678: gcc/g++ should stick compilation options into the .o file Date: Mon, 07 May 2001 16:56:00 -0000 Message-id: <20010507235601.30395.qmail@sourceware.cygnus.com> X-SW-Source: 2001-05/msg00206.html List-Id: The following reply was made to PR c/2678; it has been noted by GNATS. From: Phil Edwards To: "Ronald F. Guilmette" Cc: gcc-gnats@gcc.gnu.org Subject: Re: c/2678: gcc/g++ should stick compilation options into the .o file Date: Mon, 7 May 2001 18:33:36 -0400 On Tue, May 01, 2001 at 12:36:01AM -0000, Ronald F. Guilmette wrote: > OK. So now _here_ is a good excuse to come up with a new GNU invention... > a new ``GNU standardized'' ELF section name. Given the overly-loose hammer and nail analogy that you sent me in private email, I'll assume you're being facetious here. :-) > Hummm... OK. Wait a minute. That would work, but I have a better idea... > > Just _label_ each one of these hunks of option information with the > specific corresponding .c or .C ``primary'' source file name that was > being compiled when those options were used. Then the final linked > file would, in effect contain essentially a complete history, telling > you how it got built. Hell! You could practically write a program > to automatically reverse-engineer and re-create the original Makefiles > (or files functionally equivalent to them) just from the final linked > executable! Actually, my current implementation already does this. I needed to figure out where an extra copy of the options was coming from, and I left the code in when I was done. And I've never tried writing a tool using the BFD library, but if I understand its purpose correctly, it should be easy to use it to write a build-option-pretty-printer for an executable. It's on that part of my TODO list titled, "probably useless but would be really fun to try."[*] Phil [*] Much of my life is under this category, so there's a good chance that this tool would be written, if I haven't misunderstood BFD. -- pedwards at disaster dot jaj dot com | pme at sources dot redhat dot com devphil at several other less interesting addresses in various dot domains The gods do not protect fools. Fools are protected by more capable fools.