Re: A java DEBUG flag

[Brian Jones]

address@hidden (Kevin A. Burton) writes:

> Brian Jones <address@hidden> writes:
> <snip>
> 
> > 
> > Thanks, the attached is the patch to classpath for the same.  I've
> > left the arguments to configure the same... seems like
> > --enable-java-debug should add '-g' to put debug symbols in class
> > files... and I couldn't really change the define in the java file
> > anyway without breaking gcj...
> 
> This essentially works out to being a precompiler... precompilers
> were explicitly left out of Java during its early design just like
> multiple inheritance and pointers... thus I don't think it is a good
> idea to include it in GCJ..

What do you mean by not a good idea?  The gcj guys did this to get
more information when debugging classes in a simple way which can be
compiled out easily when you don't want to debug.  So my post was just
to say I've added the same configure stuff to support this to
classpath.  We share java source code between projects so it makes
sense for us to do this.

Relating to your objection, we're not adding a precompiler capability
to classpath or gcj with this which you can use generically wherever
you want.  This is specifically for us, the people who develop
classpath, to use when we want to debug.  

I have thought of one problem however.  It might be more useful to
break down debugging into at least package specific flags as opposed
to turning on debugging for the entire world with this one flag... and
I'd like a better name than GCJDEBUG... ideas?

Brian
-- 
Brian Jones <address@hidden>