On Fri, Feb 08, 2008 at 08:28:21AM +1300, Nick Roberts wrote: > > > > I would say they are pretty stable, because we have a stable ABI which > > > we are not going to break until C++0x: that means we can only implement > > > limited span changes, we cannot add data members, for example neither > > > change the memory layout of the classes. > > Probably an ignorant question, but how does this particular ABI get used? > > > Yes, it would certainly make sense to teach gdb (not just the Emacs > > interface of gdb) to recognize STL containers and give a better display. > > The members of std::vector have been stable since gcc-3.0, I'm pretty > > sure (certainly since 3.2). > > I was thinking of doing it in Emacs, not Gdb. AFAIK, Gdb can't tell > what compiler created the executable.
It doesn't need to know that. Any compiler that follows the ABI, whether gcc, icc, or SGI's compiler, will produce the same data members on a GNU/Linux or BSD platform. It's a portable specification. gdb could cross-check to see if the class has the expected members. So, if gdb sees the class std::vector<int> has the members _M_start _M_finish, and _M_end_of_storage, and it's on a platform that supports the standard ABI, it can assume that it has a standard vector<int>, and could safely supply advanced methods.
