[PATCH] Add a comment briefly explaining partial symbols

[Christian Biesinger via gdb-patches]

On Wed, Jul 31, 2019 at 6:59 PM Simon Marchi <simark@simark.ca> wrote:
>
> On 2019-07-31 6:12 p.m., Christian Biesinger via gdb-patches wrote:
> > Based on an explanation by tromey on IRC.
> >
> > gdb/ChangeLog:
> >
> > 2019-07-31  Christian Biesinger  <cbiesinger@google.com>
> >
> >       * objfiles.h (objfile): Add a comment describing partial symbols.
> > ---
> >  gdb/objfiles.h | 8 +++++++-
> >  1 file changed, 7 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)
> >
> > diff --git a/gdb/objfiles.h b/gdb/objfiles.h
> > index a0c106be3d..c7e0be1955 100644
> > --- a/gdb/objfiles.h
> > +++ b/gdb/objfiles.h
> > @@ -382,7 +382,13 @@ private:
> >     2.  Additional symbol files added by the add-symbol-file command,
> >     3.  Shared library objfiles, added by ADD_SOLIB,  4.  symbol files
> >     for modules that were loaded when GDB attached to a remote system
> > -   (see remote-vx.c).  */
> > +   (see remote-vx.c).
> > +
> > +   GDB typically reads symbols twice -- first an initial scan which just
> > +   reads "partial symbols"; these are partial information for the
> > +   static/global symbols in a symbol file.  When later looking up symbols,
> > +   objfile->sf->qf->lookup_symbol is used to check if we only have a partial
> > +   symbol and if so, read and expand the full compunit.  */
> >
> >  struct objfile
> >  {
> >
>
> Hi Christian,
>
> Thanks, that LGTM.  But please wait a few days before pushing to see if others have things to add.

Thanks, pushed now.

Christian