[lldb-dev] Acceptance of dwarf2/3 suggested form of DW_AT_comp_dir

[Matthew Gardiner]

Folks,

The DWARF2/3 standard specifies DW_AT_comp_dir as follows:

"
A DW_AT_comp_dir attribute whose value is a null-terminated string 
containing the
current working directory of the compilation command that produced this 
compilation unit
in whatever form makes sense for the host system.

/The suggested form for the value of the DW_AT_comp_dir attribute on U 
NIX systems is//
//‘‘hostname:pathname’’. If no hostname is available, the suggested form 
is ‘‘:pathname’’.//
/"

The section in italics (see the spec. for yourselves) is unfortunate, 
since in the Introduction we are told that italicised text are "not part 
of the format definition itself", but by using the word "suggested" in 
the definition the implies compliance with the definition.

Consulting the DWARF4 standard's definition I see that the errant 
italicised text has been removed. (I say errant because in my opinion, 
the suggested form, contradicts the earlier requirement "makes sense for 
the host system", as the hostname:pathname or :pathname forms are not 
acceptable to the UNIXs stat or open functions).

I note that the earlier versions of gcc ignored this "suggested form".

Unfortunately the toolchain which I'm using follows the suggested form 
for UNIX systems, e.g.:

mg11-fc20.root.pri:/home/mg11/mydirectory/step.c

This isn't currently acceptable to lldb, since when I am stepping an 
inferior, the DisplaySourceLinesXXX functions fail to perform, due to 
GetFileStats predictably failing when ::stat is passed a 
hostname:pathname style of string.

Now I could get our toolchain fixed (so that it ignores DWARF2's 
suggestion, and encodes only the pathname), but I wondered whether it 
was worth seeing how the rest of the lldb community feels regarding 
supporting the suggested DWARF2/3 form.

thanks
Matthew Gardiner





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