Date: Mon, 22 Apr 1996 18:47:25 +0800 (GMT+0800)
From: Orlando Andico <orly AT abigail DOT eee DOT upd DOT edu DOT ph>
To: Eli Zaretskii <eliz AT is DOT elta DOT co DOT il>
cc: Dave Love <d DOT love AT dl DOT ac DOT uk>, djgpp AT delorie DOT com
Subject: Re: Standard 32-bit libraries
In-Reply-To: <Pine.SUN.3.91.960422185032.17614C-100000@is>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.3.91.960422183936.8203B-100000@abigail.eee.upd.edu.ph>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII



On Mon, 22 Apr 1996, Eli Zaretskii wrote:

> 
> 
> DJGPP uses COFF as its object file format.  As far as I know it is
> incompatible with the OBJ format used by other DOS compilers.  So you
> cannot link them together directly.  There is an OBJ to COFF converter
> that is mentioned in that section of the FAQ which you can use to generate
> a COFF file from an OBJ file, and *then* link that COFF file with a DJGPP
> program. 
> 
> If you have further questions, please ask.
> 

I have a further question  :)

It's not my intention to question the design decisions made by the DJGPP 
developer(s), but what advantages exactly does COFF have over AOUT 
(forgive my ignorance)? I mean, with COFF I lose an extremely desirable 
feature -- that of being able to debug/step-through code in other source 
files, i.e. headers (I know you've answered this question of mine before, 
Eli).

Also: in the source code for gcc, there is an option to insert stabs in 
the compiled file, kind of to get around the limitations of COFF. Does 
this *work* for DJGPP? I don't know nearly enough to change the 
compiler's output back to AOUT, but will this stabs-insertion that the 
compiler (if rebuilt...) re-enable the desired GDB features?

Thanks,

Orlando Andico
orly AT abigail DOT eee DOT upd DOT edu DOT ph