This is from the minutes of a meeting in 2008...
DW_OP_implicit_value is still needed in some circumstances so it will
be kept as-is. DW_OP_implicit_value could possibly be used to express
something like a floating point number whereas it would be more
complex to do the same thing with DW_OP_value.
(DW_OP_value was later renamed DW_OP_stack_value.)
-cary
On Mon, Jan 4, 2021 at 11:30 AM Paul Robinson via Dwarf-Discuss <
dwarf-discuss@lists.dwarfstd.org> wrote:
> Happy New Year, everybody!
>
> A colleague just had a question for me about DW_OP_implicit_value
> which led me to wonder why we have both that and DW_OP_stack_value.
> Looking at http://dwarfstd.org/ShowIssue.php?issue=071227.1 which
> introduced the latter, it says in part:
>
> (This operator is similar to DW_OP_implicit_value, issue "070426.1". The
> latter only permits the description of values known to be literals at
> compile-time; this proposal permits the description of values which
> have known expressions at compile-time. It is more general; since
> a sequence of DW_OP_constxx, DW_OP_value can replace every instance
> of DW_OP_implicit_value, this proposal also includes the removal of
> DW_OP_implicit value from the standard.)
>
> ...although I don't think "the removal of DW_OP_implicit_value" actually
> happened.
>
> I have come up with only two advantages that DW_OP_implicit_value would
> have, compared to DW_OP_stack_value:
> 1) it can express a value larger than one expression-stack element in
> a single operation;
> 2) it's faintly possible that it's simpler for a producer to produce.
>
> But, DW_OP_stack_value would frequently result in a more compact
> representation, for example:
> DW_OP_implicit_value 4 0 0 0 0 => 6 bytes
> DW_OP_lit0 DW_stack_value => 2 bytes
>
> I don't see much value 😉 in actually deprecating or removing
> DW_OP_implicit_value, now that it's out in the world; is it worth
> adding a non-normative note that DW_OP_stack_value is actually more
> general?
>
> Thanks,
> --paulr
>
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