Re: Default debug format for AVR

[Simon Marchi <simon.marchi@polymtl.ca>]

On 2021-04-05 3:36 p.m., Jim Wilson wrote:> On Sat, Apr 3, 2021 at 6:24 PM Simon Marchi via Gcc <gcc@gcc.gnu.org <mailto:gcc@gcc.gnu.org>> wrote:
> 
>     The default debug format (when using only -g) for the AVR target is
>     stabs.  Is there a reason for it not being DWARF, and would it be
>     possible to maybe consider possibly thinking about making it default to
>     DWARF?  I am asking because the support for stabs in GDB is pretty much
>     untested and bit-rotting, so I think it would be more useful for
>     everyone to use DWARF.
> 
> 
> I tried to deprecate the stabs support a little over 4 years ago.
>     https://gcc.gnu.org/pipermail/gcc-patches/2017-December/489296.html <https://gcc.gnu.org/pipermail/gcc-patches/2017-December/489296.html>
> There was a suggestion to change the error to a warning, but my startup company job kept me so busy I never had a chance to follow up on this.
> 
> I would like to see the stabs support deprecated and the later removed from gcc.  No new features have been added in a long time, and it is only being maintained in the sense that when it fails it is fixed to ignore source code constructs that it doesn't support.  The longer it survives in this state, the less useful it becomes.
> 
> Jim

You have 100% my suppose on this.  The longer stabs survives (especially
as the default for an arch), the longer some people who don't know the
intricacies of debug formats could use it without knowing, and that
does them a disservice.

Simon