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(stabs.info)Overview

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Overview of Stabs
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   "Stabs" refers to a format for information that describes a program
to a debugger.  This format was apparently invented by Peter Kessler at
the University of California at Berkeley, for the `pdx' Pascal
debugger; the format has spread widely since then.

   This document is one of the few published sources of documentation on
stabs.  It is believed to be comprehensive for stabs used by C.  The
lists of symbol descriptors (Note: Symbol Descriptors) and type
descriptors (Note: Type Descriptors) are believed to be completely
comprehensive.  Stabs for COBOL-specific features and for variant
records (used by Pascal and Modula-2) are poorly documented here.

   Other sources of information on stabs are `Dbx and Dbxtool
Interfaces', 2nd edition, by Sun, 1988, and `AIX Version 3.2 Files
Reference', Fourth Edition, September 1992, "dbx Stabstring Grammar" in
the a.out section, page 2-31.  This document is believed to incorporate
the information from those two sources except where it explicitly
directs you to them for more information.

Flow

Overview of debugging information flow

Stabs Format

Overview of stab format

String Field

The string field

C Example

A simple example in C source

Assembly Code

The simple example at the assembly level