Re: New Proposal: Global Types section

[brender at gemevn dot zko dot dec dot com (Ron 603-884-2088)]

>> How does the existing compiler decide whether to generate an opaque
>> type or the full type info?  Do you get two entries for "struct A"
>> and "struct A *"?
>
>Only the C++ compiler does this, and AFAICT it does it only for
>classes.
>
>What I believe that it does is to use an algorithm like the one used
>for deciding where to generate a vtable to decide where to generate
>complete, concrete class type information.
>
>In all other compilation units it generates an opaque class
>declaration which has the name but not much else at the time when it
>needs to generate the class type itself.

I think this is the right idea, although I don't know what the actual
criteria is in detail.

FWIW, in Compaq C++ for Alpha Linux this "optimization" of the symbol table
size does happen by default for the typical -g option, but the user can force
full type (class) descriptions to always be emitted using -gall.

(IIRC & FWIW, essentially the optimization technique -- and -g choice -- is
used by Compaq C++ for Alpha Tru64 UNIX, which uses a STAB/eCOFF
representation.)

Ron