Re: [avr-chat] Preferred debugging/executable format (ELF vs. DWARF)?

[Joerg Wunsch]

As Rick Mann wrote:

> Alas, digging into gdb's code is not my idea of fun. But, working on
> a nice Mac-native app appeals to me much more :-)

Well, it's a good idea to separate the machine-oriented backend (like
the GDB) from the "cool" frontend anyway, rather than trying to invent
a large and unmaintainable monolith.

> In that case, I'd like to know if I should learn and support DWARF-2
> or STABS. Is one better than the other? Faster to load/query, etc?

DWARF-2 is a standard, but a relatively young one.  You might find
some documents about it, its design is certainly not bad, but not
everything might actually be implemented the way these documents say.
Many things are still in flux, the more for a non-mainstream target
like the AVR, where currently practically the only known generator of
DWARF-2 is GCC, and the only known consumer is AVR Studio.

OTOH, stabs is a de-facto standard that simply "evolved".  The GNU
binutils folks have to be thanked for doing the tedious work of
actually documenting stabs with all its facettes.  It's a
well-established system that has been in use for more than 20 years
now, and as such, it's fairly stable.  Being a pragmatic approach, it
might even be less complex than DWARF-2.

-- 
cheers, J"org               .-.-.   --... ...--   -.. .  DL8DTL

http://www.sax.de/~joerg/                        NIC: JW11-RIPE
Never trust an operating system you don't have sources for. ;-)