[Dwarf-Discuss] PROPOSAL: DW_OP_implicit_pointer

[Ron Brender]

Jakub,

OK, good, that helps a lot. One can imagine that the internal debug 
implementation can use a kind of "unavailable but potentially unneeded 
pointer" value that is not, of itself, necessarily a user error until 
that turns out to be the value of the overall user expression.

Now keep going... How does DW_op_implicit_pointer help with 
disaggregated fields of a struct?

Your posited inline add() and non-inlined foo() functions and claimed

"Similarly in the inlined add calls you can print *a->x, a->y, *b->x, 
b->y or in foo print say *p[0].x."

Please explain, by similarly detailed example, how this works?

Thanks,
Ron

--------------------
Jakub Jelinek wrote:
> On Sun, Aug 15, 2010 at 02:52:04PM -0400, Ron Brender wrote:
>> Finally, as described, it appears that this operator neither uses
>> any values that are expected to be on the DEBUG stack nor has any
>> effect (pushes/pops/whatever) on the DEBUG stack--is that correct?
> 
> It is a terminal, similarly to e.g. DW_OP_reg*, it can appear just
> in the same contexts as DW_OP_reg*.
> 
> For:
> 
> int                                                                                                                                              
> bar (int i)                                                                                                                                      
> {                                                                                                                                                
>   int *j = &i;                                                                                                                                   
>   int **k = &j;                                                                                                                                  
>   int ***l = &k;                                                                                                                                 
>   i++;                                                                                                                                           
>   return i;                                                                                                                                      
> }
> 
> GCC generates:
>         .uleb128 0x3    # (DIE (0x4e) DW_TAG_formal_parameter)
>         .ascii "i\0"    # DW_AT_name
>         .byte   0x1     # DW_AT_decl_file (qqq.c)
>         .byte   0x2     # DW_AT_decl_line
>         .long   0x8c    # DW_AT_type
>         .uleb128 0x3    # DW_AT_location
>         .byte   0x75    # DW_OP_breg5
>         .sleb128 1
>         .byte   0x9f    # DW_OP_stack_value
>         .uleb128 0x4    # (DIE (0x5b) DW_TAG_variable)
>         .ascii "j\0"    # DW_AT_name
>         .byte   0x1     # DW_AT_decl_file (qqq.c)
>         .byte   0x4     # DW_AT_decl_line
>         .long   0x93    # DW_AT_type
>         .uleb128 0x6    # DW_AT_location
>         .byte   0xf2    # DW_OP_GNU_implicit_pointer
>         .long   .Ldebug_info0+78	# ref to DIE 0x4e
>         .sleb128 0
>         .uleb128 0x4    # (DIE (0x6b) DW_TAG_variable)
>         .ascii "k\0"    # DW_AT_name
>         .byte   0x1     # DW_AT_decl_file (qqq.c)
>         .byte   0x5     # DW_AT_decl_line
>         .long   0x99    # DW_AT_type
>         .uleb128 0x6    # DW_AT_location
>         .byte   0xf2    # DW_OP_GNU_implicit_pointer
>         .long   .Ldebug_info0+91	# ref to DIE 0x5b
>         .sleb128 0
>         .uleb128 0x4    # (DIE (0x7b) DW_TAG_variable)
>         .ascii "l\0"    # DW_AT_name
>         .byte   0x1     # DW_AT_decl_file (qqq.c)
>         .byte   0x6     # DW_AT_decl_line
>         .long   0x9f    # DW_AT_type
>         .uleb128 0x6    # DW_AT_location
>         .byte   0xf2    # DW_OP_GNU_implicit_pointer
>         .long   .Ldebug_info0+107	# ref to DIE 0x6b
>         .sleb128 0
> 
> So, if the debugger wants to
> print j
> it knows that the value is implicit pointer and can print something like
> <optimized out pointer>
> but for
> print *j
> it sees it is a implicit pointer to DIE 0x4e with offset 0 and
> that DIE has reg5 + 1 value, so it prints that value.
> 
> 	Jakub
> 
>