Date: Mon, 30 Mar 1998 19:50:53 +0300 (IDT)
From: Eli Zaretskii <eliz AT is DOT elta DOT co DOT il>
To: "Salvador Eduardo Tropea (SET)" <salvador AT inti DOT gov DOT ar>
cc: djgpp-workers AT delorie DOT com
Subject: Re: Auto-symified traceback
In-Reply-To: <m0yJghG-000S2kC@inti.gov.ar>
Message-ID: <Pine.SUN.3.91.980330193929.20942A-100000@is>
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On Mon, 30 Mar 1998, Salvador Eduardo Tropea (SET) wrote:

> How do you plan to implement it? calling it from the destroyed program?

If you mean calling `symify.exe', then no, I didn't think about that.  I 
thought about copying some of the `symify' code into the library 
function which prints the traceback.  The code is actually quite simple.

> If the program crashes in the machine of an end user (and beleive me I saw tons 
> of djgpp programs distributed with debug info) it won't help.

It was meant as an aid to someone who is debugging the program on the same
machine where it was developed.  But I also don't understand why are you
saying that it won't help on other machines.  `symify' doesn't need
sources to print the info, so the file names and line numbers will be
printed even if the sources are long gone, or were never installed.  It is
much easier to deal with a crash report when it has this info attached,
even if it crashed on someone else's machine.  For example, imagine the
situation where a program I wrote crashed at some other machine, while the
sources I maintain have already changed.  A symified traceback will help a
whole lot more in this situation. 

> Experimented 
> users can run symify or use a custom methode and RHIDE users (a lot of newbies) 
> gets it from RHIDE (It traps the GPF and shows the translated trace back). So 
> doesn't look to be very needed.

You seem to only think about RHIDE users ;-).

There are situations when this could be useful.  One such case is when a 
program which you already use for a long time crashes once in a while.  
If you are unlucky enough and the properties of that program aren't set 
to not close the DOS box, the traceback is gone after you click "OK".  A 
symified traceback at least lets you see where did it happen before it 
disappears for good.

Anyway, I won't force anybody to have that feature.  If it isn't 
required, I have better things to do...