Re: stabs and macro information

[Daniel Berlin <dberlin@dberlin.org>]

On Wednesday, April 16, 2003, at 11:58  AM, David Taylor wrote:

> Currently, when invoked with -gdwarf-2 -g3, gcc will record macro
> information in a .debug_macinfo elf section.  And when presented with
> an executable containing macro information in a .debug_macinfo
> section, gdb will make use of it.
>
> Many companies, including EMC, still use stabs.  So...  it would be
> nice if the same was true of stabs.

>
> To that end, I have started to implement this.
>
> The GCC side of things took less than a day to implement; I'm hoping
> to get started on the GDB side soon.
>
I didn't see it on the GCC list. Was it submitted?
I ask because ...

> One question I have is what stabs types to use -- tentatively I'm 
> using:
>
>     /* GNU extension.  Macro define.  */
>     __define_stab(N_MAC_DEFINE, 0x36, "MAC_DEFINE")

>     /* GNU extension.  Macro undefine.  */
>     __define_stab(N_MAC_UNDEF, 0x3a, "MAC_UNDEF")
>
Unless these are really generated by GCC, they aren't GNU extensions, 
they are EMC extensions.

> as it appears (based on gcc/stab.def, include/aout/stab.def, and
> gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo) that 0x36 and 0x3a are available.
>
> Is anyone aware of any other uses of stab types 0x36 and 0x3a --
> i.e. is anyone aware of uses that might conflict?
>
You might want to look at what Sun's tools do.
Do they generate STABS anymore, and if so, see if they have extensions 
that conflict here.
> Thanks.
>
> David
>
> p.s. shouldn't include/aout/stab.def and gcc/stab.def be merged?

Possibly.
I would imagine that nobody seriously cares about *extending* STABS 
anymore, so nobody has had any motivation to do anything about it.

--Dan