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(g77-295.info)Ease of Debugging

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Ease of Debugging
-----------------

   Because `g77' compiles directly to assembler code like `gcc',
instead of translating to an intermediate language (C) as does `f2c',
support for debugging can be better for `g77' than `f2c'.

   However, although `g77' might be somewhat more "native" in terms of
debugging support than `f2c' plus `gcc', there still are a lot of
things "not quite right".  Many of the important ones should be
resolved in the near future.

   For example, `g77' doesn't have to worry about reserved names like
`f2c' does.  Given `FOR = WHILE', `f2c' must necessarily translate this
to something *other* than `for = while;', because C reserves those
words.

   However, `g77' does still uses things like an extra level of
indirection for `ENTRY'-laden procedures--in this case, because the
back end doesn't yet support multiple entry points.

   Another example is that, given

     COMMON A, B
     EQUIVALENCE (B, C)

the `g77' user should be able to access the variables directly, by name,
without having to traverse C-like structures and unions, while `f2c' is
unlikely to ever offer this ability (due to limitations in the C
language).

   However, due to apparent bugs in the back end, `g77' currently
doesn't take advantage of this facility at all--it doesn't emit any
debugging information for `COMMON' and `EQUIVALENCE' areas, other than
information on the array of `char' it creates (and, in the case of
local `EQUIVALENCE', names) for each such area.

   Yet another example is arrays.  `g77' represents them to the debugger
using the same "dimensionality" as in the source code, while `f2c' must
necessarily convert them all to one-dimensional arrays to fit into the
confines of the C language.  However, the level of support offered by
debuggers for interactive Fortran-style access to arrays as compiled by
`g77' can vary widely.  In some cases, it can actually be an advantage
that `f2c' converts everything to widely supported C semantics.

   In fairness, `g77' could do many of the things `f2c' does to get
things working at least as well as `f2c'--for now, the developers
prefer making `g77' work the way they think it is supposed to, and
finding help improving the other products (the back end of `gcc';
`gdb'; and so on) to get things working properly.