Re: DW_AT_base_types

[Michael Eager <eager at eagercon dot com>]

James Cownie wrote:
> 
> Michael Eager wrote :-
> 
> > I don't know of any implementation which uses DW_AT_base_types.  It
> > was proposed to solve a problem which, it appears, no one really
> > finds all that pressing.  This makes discussion of what and how it
> > really works or should work a bit vague.
> 
> Maybe this is a reason to deprecate it in our revision of DWARF 2 ?
> 
> (Do we have a way to do that ?)

We just say it's deprecated.  Or as deleted from Dwarf 2.1, but with the
note that some producers/consumers may chose to support it as an extension.
And that the TAG value is reserved.
 
> If no-one is producing it (and I, also have never seen anyone do so),
> _and_ we don't know how it should work, those seem like good reasons
> for suggesting that producers prbably shouldn't use it...

We are in the odd position of having open proposals (albeit incomplete)
to address compressing Dwarf files, while considering eliminating a feature
which was intended to address this issue.

But I do think that our time and energy would be better spent on real 
issues rather than on discussions about how something might work if 
someone ever felt it was useful to implement it.  Like with cooking,
it isn't hard to come up with a recipe, but knowing how it turns out 
requires actual doing.

-- 
Michael Eager	 Eager Consulting     eager@eagercon.com
1960 Park Blvd., Palo Alto, CA 94306  650-325-8077