Re: Ada Type Information

[Sam Carnicelli <samuel.charles.carnicelli@lmco.com>]

dennison@telepath.com wrote:
> 
> >
> > This is why I want to get the information from a product of the
> > compiler.  If a new
> > compiler were to change the layout of the record type, I would simply
> > have to rerun my tool to get the new information.  All of the methods I
> > have mentioned make use of products of the compiler.
> 
> Typically the only part of a compilation environemnt that keeps this kind of
> information it the debugging support.
> 
> We had a situation here where we basicly needed a mini-debugging capability
> in our simulator's Instructor Operator Station. So the engineers here
> reverse-engineered the debug information created by the compiler. That
> solution seemed quite dangerous to me, as a compiler vendor has every reason
> to believe they can change the format of that data at will (as long as they
> change their debuggers to match). But such a change would require us to redo
> the entire reverse-engineering process (or more likely, refuse to ever
> upgrade our compiler). In the end, they were convinced to not do this (at
> least on this program).
> 
> But if you stick to GCC technology, there's probably some standard for the
> "-g" output. Perhaps there's even a document somewhere describing it for
> prospective debugger writers. This might be a reasonable option, assuming you
> are willing to keep up with any changes the gcc folks put in.
> 
> T.E.D.

What you are describing is similar to the stabs data produced by the gcc
compiler with the -g and -S options.  It is described as a debug format
and seems to be somewhat of a standard.  It appears to have everything I
would need, but the syntax is not intuitive.  Apparently, the version
used under Solaris has some extensions and I can't find adequate
documentation.  This data is actually used by the gdb debugger....

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Sam Carnicelli
Lockheed Martin				Phone : 315-456-2881
Syracuse, NY 13221-4840			Fax   : 315-456-0107

e-mail: samuel.charles.carnicelli@lmco.com
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