[Dwarf-discuss] C++ standard integral types and overload resolution

[Jim Blandy]

brender at gemgrp.zko.dec.com (Ron 603-884-2088) writes:
> Which is to say that the debugger needs to have a lot of builtin
> knowledge of C++ semantics in any case, so one routine that computes
> the predicate is_same_cxx_type(char*,char*) is perhaps messy but
> probably no worse than many other language-specific idiosyncrasies
> that abound...

It sounds like we all understand that one must parse the base type
names to get the right behavior, and the question is whether that's a
problem or not.

The rules for C++ overloading resolution are complicated.  The ISO C++
standard's Section 13.3, "Overload Resolution", goes on for fourteen
pages.  It's the exactly the kind of problem where you've got to
operate on a parsed form, not strings.  The compiler had exactly the
information the debugger needs in some nice direct form when it
produced the Dwarf data, but it has thrown that away.

If there's some alternative to James's proposal that would extend more
readily to other languages, that would be nice, but nothing jumps out
at me.