The following GDB behavior was also reported as a GDB bug in
https://sourceware.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=28396
I will reiterate the problem a bit and give some more information here.
This patch closes the above mentioned bug.
The DWARF 5 standard 2.23 'Template Parameters' reads:
A template type parameter is represented by a debugging information
entry with the tag DW_TAG_template_type_parameter. A template value
parameter is represented by a debugging information entry with the tag
DW_TAG_template_value_parameter. The actual template parameter entries
appear in the same order as the corresponding template formal
parameter declarations in the source progam.
A type or value parameter entry may have a DW_AT_name attribute, whose
value is a null-terminated string containing the name of the
corresponding formal parameter.
So the DW_AT_name attribute for DW_TAG_template_type_parameter and
DW_TAG_template_value_parameter is optional.
Within GDB, creating a new symbol from some read DIE usually requires the
presence of a DW_AT_name for the DIE (an exception here is the case of
unnamed namespaces or the existence of a linkage name).
This patch makes the presence of the DW_AT_name for template value/type
tags optional, similar to the unnamed namespaces.
For unnamed namespaces dwarf2_name simply returns the constant string
CP_ANONYMOUS_NAMESPACE_STR '(anonymous namespace)'. For template tags a
case was added to the switch statement calling the
unnamed_template_tag_name helper. Within the scope of parent which
the template parameter is a child of, the helper counts the position
of the template tag within the unnamed template tags and returns
'<unnamedNUMBER>' where NUMBER is its position. This way we end up with
unique names within the respective scope of the function/class/struct
(these are the only currenltly supported template kinds within GDB and
usually the compilers) where we discovered the template tags in.
While I do not know of a way to bring GCC to emit template tags without
names there is one for clang/icpx. Consider the following example
template<typename A, typename B, typename C>
class Foo {};
template<typename, typename B, typename>
class Foo;
int main () {
Foo<double, int, float> f;
return 0;
}
The forward declaration for 'Foo' with the missing template type names
'A' and 'C' makes clang emit a bunch of template tags without names:
...
<2><43>: Abbrev Number: 3 (DW_TAG_variable)
<44> DW_AT_location : 2 byte block: 91 78 (DW_OP_fbreg: -8)
<47> DW_AT_name : (indirect string, offset: 0x63): f
<4b> DW_AT_decl_file : 1
<4c> DW_AT_decl_line : 8
<4d> DW_AT_type : <0x59>
...
<1><59>: Abbrev Number: 5 (DW_TAG_class_type)
<5a> DW_AT_calling_convention: 5 (pass by value)
<5b> DW_AT_name : (indirect string, offset: 0x74): Foo<double, int, float>
<5f> DW_AT_byte_size : 1
<60> DW_AT_decl_file : 1
<61> DW_AT_decl_line : 2
<2><62>: Abbrev Number: 6 (DW_TAG_template_type_param)
<63> DW_AT_type : <0x76>
<2><67>: Abbrev Number: 7 (DW_TAG_template_type_param)
<68> DW_AT_type : <0x52>
<6c> DW_AT_name : (indirect string, offset: 0x6c): B
<2><70>: Abbrev Number: 6 (DW_TAG_template_type_param)
<71> DW_AT_type : <0x7d>
...
Befor this patch, GDB would not create any symbols for the read template
tag DIEs and thus lose knowledge about them. Breaking at the return
statement and printing f's type would read
(gdb) ptype f
type = class Foo<double, int, float> [with B = int] {
<no data fields>
}
After this patch GDB does generate symbols from the DWARF (with their
artificial names:
(gdb) ptype f
type = class Foo<double, int, float> [with <unnamed0> = double, B = int,
<unnamed1> = float] {
<no data fields>
}
The same principle theoretically applies to template functions. Also
here, GDB would not record unnamed template TAGs but I know of no visual
way to trigger and test this changed behavior. Template functions do
not emit a '[with...]' list and their name generation also does not
suffer from template tags without names. GDB does not check whether or
not a template tag has a name in 'dwarf2_compute_name' and thus, the
names of the template functions are created independently of whether or
not the template TAGs have a DW_TAT_name attribute. A testcase has
been added in the gdb.dwarf2 for template classes and structs.
Bug: https://sourceware.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=28396
945e66a74d