From: invalid AT erehwon DOT invalid (Graaagh the Mighty)
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.djgpp
Subject: Re: Strange behavior of compiler.
Organization: Low Charisma Anonymous
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Date: Fri, 29 Jun 2001 05:53:43 GMT
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To: djgpp AT delorie DOT com
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Reply-To: djgpp AT delorie DOT com

On Thu, 28 Jun 2001 22:16:51 +0300, "Eli Zaretskii"
<eliz AT is DOT elta DOT co DOT il> sat on a tribble, which squeaked:

>> From: invalid AT erehwon DOT invalid (Graaagh the Mighty)
>> Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.djgpp
>> Date: Thu, 28 Jun 2001 15:20:05 GMT
>> >
>> >It's not broken more than it is on Unix.  There are known limitations 
>> >with stabs, but they are inherent to its design, not specific to DJGPP.  
>> >And the COFF debug limitations are much more grave.
>> 
>> Yeah, that was it, there was some reason this wouldn't work right
>> until you switched to the elf format, which you hadn't yet.
>
>You are mixing object format with debug info format.  ELF is an object
>file format.  The best format for debug info currently known to
>humankind is DWARF2, and that's where DJGPP is heading: COFF object
>format with DWARF2 debug info.

Okay, so where in this picture does the stabs format and some problem
or conflict between it and the available space in COFF images fit?
Because I distinctly remember a big discussion about that some months
or a year ago (I was lurking at the time). The way I remember it,
someone was having fits trying to get sensible debugging info from g++
with hairy templates and inlines everywhere. Someone mentioned
something like gee wouldn't it be nice if we had stabs, or something,
and somewhere in there was something about limitations on how much
debug info could go into a COFF image, and ELF got reiterated as a
wishlist item, with the implication that it was a fairly long term or
farfetched one.
-- 
Bill Gates: "No computer will ever need more than 640K of RAM." -- 1980
"There's nobody getting rich writing software that I know of." -- 1980
"This antitrust thing will blow over." -- 1998
Combine neo, an underscore, and one thousand sixty-one to make my hotmail addy.