[Dwarf-Discuss] What is a byte's size?

[Jan van Dongen]

Hi,

I've an issue with one of our users about the meaning of the DW_AT_byte_size
attribute.

In my interpretation a value of '1' means '1' minimal addressable unit. On an
architecture with 16-bit memory, this then means one '16-bit' byte.

The user (or actually his debugger provider) interprets the value '1'
as one '8-bit' byte. Iow: a byte is always 8-bit in size. A 16-bit 'short int'
then should have a 'DW_AT_byte_size' with value '2'.


The DWARF3 standard defines:
  A base type entry has a DW_AT_byte_size attribute, whose value (see Section
  2.19) is the size in bytes of the storage unit used to represent an object of
  the given type.


The phrase 'bytes of the storage unit used' to me explains that the size of a
byte depends on the architecture and thus is not an 8-bit entity by
definition. Unfortunately, the DWARF document nowhere gives an explanation of
the term 'byte'.

Even worse, of course a 'byte' in an object file does not have to match
a 'byte' on the architecture, so there can be confusion everywhere.

Can anyone provide me the proper interpretation?

Kind regards,
	Jan van Dongen

-- 
Jan van Dongen, Senior Software Engineer, ACE Associated Compiler Experts bv,
De Ruyterkade 113, 1011 AB Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Tel: +31 20 6646416, Fax: +31 20 6750389,
mailto:jvd at ace.nl, http://www.ace.nl
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