On 22/02/2026 19:11, Kostas Michalopoulos via fpc-devel wrote:
On 2/21/26 7:36 PM, Martin Frb via fpc-devel wrote:
Well, yes, you still save on **encoding** Pascal into Dwarf. But you
have to decode 2 debug formats. (or more, depending on which others
you want to support, in any case: 1 more than otherwise)
FWIW in practice FPC being able to emit DWARF debug information is
useful for other tools too, like Valgrind and Perf (and other
performance analyzers) so i do not think that dropping DWARF support
is a good idea.
Of course a better debug experience with FPC + Lazarus would be great
because there are always annoyances here and there but that shouldn't
happen by removing existing functionality (being able to step into
non-FPC code) and interoperability (being able to use FPC binaries
with any tool that understands DWARF)
Aside from his "he wanted to do it for the experience" the reasoning
about Dwarf is - as previously indicated - IMHO incorrect.
Dwarf supports a lot more than we use. And can be extended (official and
fpc-only).
I would say the biggest problems with debugging today (Win/Linux /
Intel) is caused by missing implementation in the compiler.
And well, his work including a new info-format fixes this, that is true.
But...
It isn't the new format that does the fix, it is the fact that he
implemented it into the compiler.
Had he done the same using Dwarf, and he would have had the same fixes.
Yes, true as well, that it may be a little bit less work doing so with
the new format. Not because Dwarf is so "C biased", but because Dwarf is
way more generic. But, the upside is, that then you get a choice of way
more debuggers, for way more target architectures.
So from all the arguments I saw sofar, the only one that stuck was "he
wanted to do it for the experience".
For all else I couldn't help but think of: https://xkcd.com/927/
(But at the same time admit, in other case I have myself done the same
an paved my own road, because I could, and I wanted)
Anyway, still haven't seen the result...
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