[RFC] warn if stabs lineno exceeds 16 bits?

[Michael Snyder]

Hi, 

I'm passing on a request from a GDB user.  Is there any reason
why gas or ld could not emit a warning if a source line number
will be truncated because it exceeds 16 bits?  Perhaps even
a suggestion that the user try "-gdwarf-2"?

[begin forwarded msg]

> > I'm working on a project in which some very long (millions of lines) C
> > source files get generated.  Since GNU 'as' and 'gdb' cannot store more
> > than 16 bits of line number information, debugging programs using these
> > files is tedious.

> Have you tried using -gdwarf-2?

I had not, and that does indeed solve the problem.

In that case, I might change my RFE to request that 'as' emit a warning
when it encodes a stabs n_desc value that does not fit in 16 bits; the
warning might suggest -ggdb or -gdwarf-2.

Thanks,

-Scott