🚀 go-pugleaf

| A client has asked me if he can use gcc/g++ 2.2.2 with gdb for a project
| where portability is an issue. They want the same compiler for many
| flavours of Unix, for VMS and for OS/2 2.0 which is the case with gcc
| 2.2.2 and gdb 4.6 (except there is no gdb for VMS).
| 
| Question: on which current Unix platforms does gcc/gdb work with full
| debugging support (i.e. access to all local and global variables and
| support for C++)? They are interested in:
| 
| - HP-PA			debugging does not work to my knowledge
| - MIPS			debugging works only partly ???
| - Sparc			???
| - i386/i486		works fully (same for i386/i486 under OS/2)
| - other?
| 
| Is there any Unix system today in addition to Intel platforms where gdb
| debugging works fully with gcc and gdb? Being able to access all
| variables during debugging is vital.

As long as you use -ggdb instead of -g, you get full debug support on
the MIPS.  Gcc 2.3 will contain a configure option (--with-stabs) to
select that as the default (which means you can't use the standard
vendor supplied debugger).  Alternatively, if you add:

	-DPREFERRED_DEBUGGING_TYPE=DBX_DEBUG

to the command line when building GCC, it will select bsd stabs as the
default -g debug format.

If you do not use C++, then using the host debug format (-gcoff or -g
if the above is not done) will give you full support.  The problem is
that the COFF debug format is too restrictive for C++ (ECOFF which the
MIPS uses is a little less restrictive, but there are still things
that can't be supported like inline functions defined in include
files).

Sparcs should work just fine and dandy.
--
Michael Meissner	email: meissner@osf.org		phone: 617-621-8861
Open Software Foundation, 11 Cambridge Center, Cambridge, MA, 02142

You are in a twisty little passage of standards, all conflicting.