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Re: FYI DWARF .gdb_index-like proposal by Apple


On Mon, 27 May 2013 15:34:10 +0200, Jan Kratochvil wrote:
> just a highlight of submitted DWARF extension with new indexes:
> 	http://www.dwarfstd.org/ShowIssue.php?issue=130410.1&type=open
> 
> I have not checked yet if it is sufficient for GDB instead of .gdb_index.

In the proposal ".debug_names" entries for DW_TAG_variable should support also
TLS variables (which do not use DW_OP_addr required by the proposal).

Compared with GDB .gdb_index:
	http://sourceware.org/gdb/current/onlinedocs/gdb/Index-Section-Format.html#Index-Section-Format

(1) The proposal does not have any address -> name index;
    there is .debug_aranges but that is probably deprecated by the proposal
    above plus it has other issues:
    http://www.dwarfstd.org/ShowIssue.php?issue=100430.1&type=open
    http://www.dwarfstd.org/ShowIssue.php?issue=100430.2&type=open

(2) The proposal symbol names are either fully qualified mangled or just
    DW_AT_name; .gdb_index uses demangled fully qualified name.
    The problem is GDB cannot mangle names so GDB would have to make
    the look up via DW_AT_name where may occur many lookup collisions.

(3) .gdb_index has single hash table;
    the proposal uses 3 hash tables, this is less efficient.
    One should use DW_ATOM_die_tag there anyway to look up only symbol kinds
    GDB is interested in - .gdb_index uses it with performance gain in:
    http://sourceware.org/ml/gdb-patches/2012-06/msg00607.html
    And with DW_ATOM_die_tag present the 3 hash tables could be merged.

(4) .gdb_index provides global/static flag for each symbol;
    one could use new DW_ATOM_* kind but that costs 1 byte, not 1 bit;
    one wants to look up only global symbol first while there are usually many
    static symbols of the same name, performance data is in the same URL above.


Jan


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