Re: [PATCH v2 4/4] Kbuild: implement support for DWARF v5

Arvind Sankar
2020-12-11T00:30:48Z

On Thu, Dec 10, 2020 at 03:18:45PM -0800, Nick Desaulniers wrote:
> On Fri, Dec 4, 2020 at 9:06 AM Arvind Sankar <nivedita@alum.mit.edu> wrote:
> >
> > Why? Does this actually cause any problems?
> >
> > It seems like the options for gcc can actually be very straightforward:
> > you just need a cc-option check, and then add -gdwarf-N to both CFLAGS
> > and AFLAGS and you're done. Adding the -Wa flag is superfluous and
> > carries the risk of interfering with what the compiler driver does. Just
> > let the gcc driver handle the details.
> >
> > Clang/IAS is almost as straightforward, with the only additional edge
> > case being that for assembler files, DWARF 2 doesn't work, so the CFLAGS
> > is the same -gdwarf-N, but AFLAGS gets -gdwarf-N only if N > 2.
> >
> > The messy case is only Clang/IAS=0, which needs to check the support
> > from the external assembler, and needs CFLAGS of -gdwarf-N and AFLAGS of
> > -Wa,--gdwarf-N, because Clang doesn't pass that option on to an external
> > assembler. This is why I was asking if the assembler support check can
> > be restricted to CC_IS_CLANG: nothing but Clang/IAS=0 actually requires
> > that check.
>
> Oh, I see. Yeah, that might be a nicer approach. What should we do in
> the case of gcc < 7 though, where -gdwarf-5 won't produce DWARF v5?
> Maybe that's ok, but the intent behind the Kconfig check was to
> prevent the option from being selectable if the tools do not support
> it. Maybe it's more flexible to pass the arguments along, and hope
> for the best?
>
> As a gcc-5 user, I might be surprised if I chose
> CONFIG_DEBUG_INFO_DWARF5 if what I got was not actually DWARF v5; it
> does violate the principle of least surprise. Maybe that doesn't
> matter though?

Even the current gcc documentation still says "DWARF Version 5 is only
experimental". If the user wants to try it out, I think it's fine to
let them get whatever subset their tool chain produces, as long as it's
not completely broken. Your latest help text does say that gcc 7+ is
required, maybe add another sentence saying that gcc 5+ only has partial
support for some draft DWARF 5 features?

Thanks.