how does gdb read type descriptions for structures

[Roul Oldenburger]

Hello everyone,

most time I am only using gdb and most time via ddd but I have got a 
question for gdb internals.

I am trying to reconstruct type descriptions for a tree of structures 
from stabs debug informations included in executables.

Using for example 'ptype my_structure' in gdb delivers me components and 
types of my_structure but it looks like gdb prints part of the source 
code ... or does it evaluate its symbol tables or stabs information via 
BFD directly?

Furthermore I need to know the offset/address of each component of each 
substructure in the structure tree ... we are using quit complex 
structures.

Using 'objdump --stabs' I will get all the information/ type 
descriptions I need but I hope there is another way to retrieve this 
information rather than working it out from the text in .stabstr.

How does gdb does it?

Thanks for your help

Roul Oldenburger