From: Andrew Crabtree <andrewc AT typhoon DOT rose DOT hp DOT com>
Message-Id: <199706051623.AA232197823@typhoon.rose.hp.com>
Subject: File Formats
To: djgpp-workers AT delorie DOT com
Date: Thu, 05 Jun 1997 9:23:43 PDT
Precedence: bulk

Hi Guys - 

I hope this is the right place to post.

The recent messages on file formats (COFF, ELF), sparked my 
memory about an issue I wanted to bring up.  Namely, the 0xFFFF
limit of source lines in the COFF debug format DJGPP uses.

I was just curious if anybody had investigated using a more advanced
debugging file format (STABS perhaps), and what the time estimates would be.  
My assumptions were, that at a minimum it would involve reconfiguring
and compiling the whole of binutils (namely as and ld), as well as
gdb, and also possible the c compiler itself.  This is, of course, 
if the configuration is supported even.  If not, then much more
work would be required.  Things I wasn't sure about was if it was
possible to create one set of exes that would work with existing stuff
as well as supporting the advanced format as well.

Also, I wanted to test out pgcc with the latest version of the loader
from binutils 2.8.1.  I got everything built OK, but I noticed that 
while ld can read in coff-go32 tagged object files, it will not output
them.  A little perusing showed that I needed to set output format
to be coff-i386 and everything works fine.  Sound like something
I configured wrong or perhaps just a nuisance in binutils? 


Please copy me in replies as I am not subscribed

Thanks

Andrew