Re: External debug symbols

[Alexander Larsson <alexl at redhat dot com>]

On Fri, 20 Sep 2002, Daniel Jacobowitz wrote:

> On Fri, Sep 20, 2002 at 11:11:09AM -0400, Elena Zannoni wrote:
> > 
> > I have looked at this. I think it's a valuable thing to have.  I have
> > a few questions about the approach, and a few more specific comments
> > about the code. I haven't followed all the implications of this patch.
> > What do other folks think?
> 
> In general, I'm in love with it.
> 
> >  > diff --exclude '*~' --exclude '*.orig' --exclude '*.rej' --exclude '.#*' --exclude '*.o' --exclude CVS --exclude SCCS --exclude RCS --exclude '.*.flags' --exclude .cvsignore --exclude .depend -ur gdb-5.2.1/gdb/configure.in gdb-5.2.1.separate_debug_symbols/gdb/configure.in
> >  > --- gdb-5.2.1/gdb/configure.in	Thu Mar 28 05:28:00 2002
> >  > +++ gdb-5.2.1.separate_debug_symbols/gdb/configure.in	Mon Aug 26 17:02:48 2002
> >  > @@ -234,6 +234,14 @@
> >  >  AC_CHECK_LIB(socket, socketpair)
> >  >  AC_CHECK_FUNCS(socketpair)
> >  >  
> >  > +debugdir=${libdir}/debug
> >  > +	 
> >  > +AC_ARG_WITH(separate-debug-dir,
> >  > +[  --with-separate-debug-dir=path   Look for global separate debug info in this path [LIBDIR/debug]],
> >  > +[debugdir="${withval}"])
> >  > +	
> >  > +AC_DEFINE_DIR(DEBUGDIR, debugdir)
> >  > +#AC_DEFINE_UNQUOTED(DEBUGDIR, "$debugdir"),
> >  >  
> > 
> > Could this be done alternatively using an environment variable,
> > instead of being set at configure time? something like
> > DEBUG_INFO_PATH, or similar.  I don't have a strong preference, but
> > seems to me that an environment variable is more flexible. 
> 
> I'd have to change this for local GDB packages anyway.  Full
> relocatable installs are a must for me, so I'd have to make this path
> follow the current location of the GDB binary.  I'm hoping to put the
> necessary support code in libiberty eventually...

That's only the default value, you can change it as a gdb variable too. 
Although having it relocate correctly would be really nice.
  
> > Thinking out loud...
> > 
> > I wonder if it wouldn't be more intuitive to add the debug info to the
> > objfile, instead of creating another objfile.  So that in the end we
> > would have just a new field added to the objfile, indicating the name
> > of the debug info file.
> 
> I like this idea; it seems a lot less fragile.

I'm not sure exactly what is meant by it though. But I'm not really a gdb 
hacker. :)

-- 
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
 Alexander Larsson                                            Red Hat, Inc 
                   alexl@redhat.com    alla@lysator.liu.se 
He's a scarfaced soccer-playing photographer from the 'hood. She's a pregnant 
bisexual angel who don't take no shit from nobody. They fight crime!