• Ray Van Der Roon <Ray_member pathlink.com> Aug 13 2005
• "Walter" <newshound digitalmars.com> Aug 13 2005
• Scott Michel <scottm aero.org> Sep 12 2005
• "Walter Bright" <newshound digitalmars.com> Sep 13 2005

Great compiler, but IDE is so outdated, I have read that someone is willing to
create the GDB patch to work with DMC, any news on that? Automatically, as you
have GDB support you have all modern IDE's working with DMC, that would rock.
I know you just want to make more money and keep everything under control not
going any way open with your compier, but honestly you can make more money if
DMC get's compatible with other stuff.

"Ray Van Der Roon" <Ray_member pathlink.com> wrote in message
news:ddku3e$jm$1 digitaldaemon.com...
 Great compiler, but IDE is so outdated, I have read that someone is


 create the GDB patch to work with DMC, any news on that? Automatically, as


 have GDB support you have all modern IDE's working with DMC, that would


 I know you just want to make more money and keep everything under control


 going any way open with your compier, but honestly you can make more money


 DMC get's compatible with other stuff.


To do that, the linker would have to be rewritten. Unfortunately, that's not
too practical, as it's entirely in assembler.

Ray Van Der Roon wrote:
 Great compiler, but IDE is so outdated, I have read that someone is willing to
 create the GDB patch to work with DMC, any news on that? Automatically, as you
 have GDB support you have all modern IDE's working with DMC, that would rock.
 I know you just want to make more money and keep everything under control not
 going any way open with your compier, but honestly you can make more money if
 DMC get's compatible with other stuff.


Personal swipes at Walter are counter-productive. Really. To be sure, 
there are parts of DMC that are outdated, but that doesn't mean there 
aren't ways to work around the problem. If you know the history 
surrounding DMC, you'll immediately understand that a lot of the code 
that Walter has to deal with is copywritten by other people and cannot 
be released into a GPL bazaar (bizzare?) or BSD core style of 
collaborative development. FWIW, I still have a Symantec C/C++ v.7 CD 
package at home -- I've considered selling it on e-bay as "NIB" (new in 
box).

If you truly want to help with getting DMC to play nicely with GDB, it's 
a matter of hacking the code in libbfd to recognize OMF format objects. 
It looks like there was code to do that at one time or another, but 
today, it's gone. I can't say there's a wealth of information out there 
on CodeView's debugging info, but OMF records are pretty nicely 
documented. Also, DMC has to conform to MS's name mangling scheme, 
otherwise, DMC wouldn't work with a large cross-section of software 
compiled on Win32.

The good news, if this effort can be made to happen, is that the GNU 
binary utilities could be used to upconvert OMF objects to MS ELF/DWARF 
objects.

Unfortunately, USAF program office travel tends to hamper my development 
and hacking hours currently, but I'm happy to offer advice and perhaps 
collaborate on making this happen.


-scooter

"Scott Michel" <scottm aero.org> wrote in message
news:dg4h8m$25iv$1 digitaldaemon.com...
 If you truly want to help with getting DMC to play nicely with GDB, it's
 a matter of hacking the code in libbfd to recognize OMF format objects.
 It looks like there was code to do that at one time or another, but
 today, it's gone. I can't say there's a wealth of information out there
 on CodeView's debugging info, but OMF records are pretty nicely
 documented. Also, DMC has to conform to MS's name mangling scheme,
 otherwise, DMC wouldn't work with a large cross-section of software
 compiled on Win32.


The CodeView debug format generated by DMC is as described in the Microsoft
document:

"CV4 Symbolic Debug Information Specification"
Authors: Ross Barmoe, David Gray, Steve Smith, Dan Spalding, Jim Schaad, et
al.
Public Release
Revision 3.1 March 5, 1993
Languages Business Unit

Unfortunately, nobody seems to have ever put this information up on the
internet.