> The Apple approach has both the features of the Sun/HP implementation as well > as the ability to create a standalone debug info file.
Thanks for the clarifications. I based my comments on a description you sent me a couple of years ago, and I apologize for any oversimplifications I introduced. > The compiler puts DWARF in the .o file, the linker adds some records in the > executable which help us to understand where files/function/symbols landed in > the final executable[1]. Did you intend to add a footnote? > If the user runs our gdb or lldb on one of these binaries, the debugger will > read the DWARF directly out of the .o files on the fly. Because the linker > doesn't need to copy around/update/modify the DWARF, link times are very > fast. If the developer decides to debug the program, no extra steps are > required - the debugger can be started up & used with the debug info still in > the .o files. We're trying to achieve something very similar, but we have the additional goal of separating the info from the .o files because of our distributed build environment. I also wanted to attempt to standardize the approach, instead of having each vendor go in separate directions. Thanks, -cary
