[cfe-dev] Optionally suppress debug info for inlined calls?

[Philip Reames]

On 11/25/13 4:28 PM, Robinson, Paul wrote:
>
>> If we could find a good heuristic
>> for "trivial inline functions" (maybe a function with a single setter
>> or return) and use that as our signal for "don't bother emitting debug
>> info for this" maybe that would be good. That would still provide the
>> size wins with the benefit that it might be beneficial to a broader
>> range of users.
> How about "any indication in the source that the programmer wanted it
> inlined."  That is: (i) method defined inside the class declaration;
> (ii) 'inline' keyword; (iii) an attribute that means "inline this."
> All of these are indications that the programmer wanted the function
> inlined, and if the programmer then builds the program using the
> proposed -gno-inlined-scopes feature, it should not be shocking to
> anyone that these inlined functions don't have debug info.  (Sorry to
> be proposing something that isn't shocking; it's all I got.)
Speaking for only for myself, I would strongly oppose this proposal. 
This proposal would require that anyone who wanted to step inside any 
inline function would be required to modify the source code and 
recompile.  Maybe I've just spent too much time debugging nasty timing 
related bugs, but I view that as an unacceptable debugging experience.

Just to note, I do like the idea of being able to specify certain 
functions as "uninteresting" to the debugger.  I'd lean towards having 
this be a debugger flag, not a compiler flag, but if the only efficient 
implementation was at the compiler level, I could probably live with 
that.  It's the combination of "inline hint" and "no debug info hint" 
that I'm objecting to.

Philip