Re: macros, debug information, and parse_macro_definition

[Andrew Cagney <ac131313@redhat.com>]

> 
> These encodings are simple enough that I wouldn't expect them to
> change over time.
> 
> I would think it more likely that there would be a bug, either in
> gcc's encoding of them or in gdb's processing of them.  And if the
> code is duplicated, then both locations need to be modified to fix the
> bug -- with the attendant risk that someone will modify one and forget
> to modify the other.  Or will modify it, but accidentally make it
> slightly different.


> I don't know how people would feel about having STABS have a
> description of the encoding combined with a caveat that the DWARF
> 2.0.0 spec is authoritative.  I would certainly prefer that the STABS
> document remain self contained.

I think this is a good strategy.  It's already a ``gcc extension'',  and 
stealing an existing (known to be working) spec is always a good 
strategy :-)

Have you thought about link time information compression?  One of the 
complaints leveled at the macro stuff is the size of the resultant debug 
info.

Andrew