1<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd"> 2<html> 3<!-- Copyright (C) 1992-2021 Free Software Foundation, Inc. 4Contributed by Cygnus Support. Written by Julia Menapace, Jim Kingdon, 5and David MacKenzie. 6 7Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document 8under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.3 or 9any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no 10Invariant Sections, with no Front-Cover Texts, and with no Back-Cover 11Texts. A copy of the license is included in the section entitled "GNU 12Free Documentation License". --> 13<!-- Created by GNU Texinfo 5.1, http://www.gnu.org/software/texinfo/ --> 14<head> 15<title>STABS: Overview</title> 16 17<meta name="description" content="STABS: Overview"> 18<meta name="keywords" content="STABS: Overview"> 19<meta name="resource-type" content="document"> 20<meta name="distribution" content="global"> 21<meta name="Generator" content="makeinfo"> 22<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"> 23<link href="index.html#Top" rel="start" title="Top"> 24<link href="Symbol-Types-Index.html#Symbol-Types-Index" rel="index" title="Symbol Types Index"> 25<link href="index.html#SEC_Contents" rel="contents" title="Table of Contents"> 26<link href="index.html#Top" rel="up" title="Top"> 27<link href="Flow.html#Flow" rel="next" title="Flow"> 28<link href="index.html#Top" rel="previous" title="Top"> 29<style type="text/css"> 30<!-- 31a.summary-letter {text-decoration: none} 32blockquote.smallquotation {font-size: smaller} 33div.display {margin-left: 3.2em} 34div.example {margin-left: 3.2em} 35div.indentedblock {margin-left: 3.2em} 36div.lisp {margin-left: 3.2em} 37div.smalldisplay {margin-left: 3.2em} 38div.smallexample {margin-left: 3.2em} 39div.smallindentedblock {margin-left: 3.2em; font-size: smaller} 40div.smalllisp {margin-left: 3.2em} 41kbd {font-style:oblique} 42pre.display {font-family: inherit} 43pre.format {font-family: inherit} 44pre.menu-comment {font-family: serif} 45pre.menu-preformatted {font-family: serif} 46pre.smalldisplay {font-family: inherit; font-size: smaller} 47pre.smallexample {font-size: smaller} 48pre.smallformat {font-family: inherit; font-size: smaller} 49pre.smalllisp {font-size: smaller} 50span.nocodebreak {white-space:nowrap} 51span.nolinebreak {white-space:nowrap} 52span.roman {font-family:serif; font-weight:normal} 53span.sansserif {font-family:sans-serif; font-weight:normal} 54ul.no-bullet {list-style: none} 55--> 56</style> 57 58 59</head> 60 61<body lang="en" bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000" link="#0000FF" vlink="#800080" alink="#FF0000"> 62<a name="Overview"></a> 63<div class="header"> 64<p> 65Next: <a href="Program-Structure.html#Program-Structure" accesskey="n" rel="next">Program Structure</a>, Previous: <a href="index.html#Top" accesskey="p" rel="previous">Top</a>, Up: <a href="index.html#Top" accesskey="u" rel="up">Top</a> [<a href="index.html#SEC_Contents" title="Table of contents" rel="contents">Contents</a>][<a href="Symbol-Types-Index.html#Symbol-Types-Index" title="Index" rel="index">Index</a>]</p> 66</div> 67<hr> 68<a name="Overview-of-Stabs"></a> 69<h2 class="chapter">1 Overview of Stabs</h2> 70 71<p><em>Stabs</em> refers to a format for information that describes a program 72to a debugger. This format was apparently invented by 73Peter Kessler at 74the University of California at Berkeley, for the <code>pdx</code> Pascal 75debugger; the format has spread widely since then. 76</p> 77<p>This document is one of the few published sources of documentation on 78stabs. It is believed to be comprehensive for stabs used by C. The 79lists of symbol descriptors (see <a href="Symbol-Descriptors.html#Symbol-Descriptors">Symbol Descriptors</a>) and type 80descriptors (see <a href="Type-Descriptors.html#Type-Descriptors">Type Descriptors</a>) are believed to be completely 81comprehensive. Stabs for COBOL-specific features and for variant 82records (used by Pascal and Modula-2) are poorly documented here. 83</p> 84 85<p>Other sources of information on stabs are <cite>Dbx and Dbxtool 86Interfaces</cite>, 2nd edition, by Sun, 1988, and <cite>AIX Version 3.2 Files 87Reference</cite>, Fourth Edition, September 1992, "dbx Stabstring Grammar" in 88the a.out section, page 2-31. This document is believed to incorporate 89the information from those two sources except where it explicitly directs 90you to them for more information. 91</p> 92<table class="menu" border="0" cellspacing="0"> 93<tr><td align="left" valign="top">• <a href="Flow.html#Flow" accesskey="1">Flow</a>:</td><td> </td><td align="left" valign="top">Overview of debugging information flow 94</td></tr> 95<tr><td align="left" valign="top">• <a href="Stabs-Format.html#Stabs-Format" accesskey="2">Stabs Format</a>:</td><td> </td><td align="left" valign="top">Overview of stab format 96</td></tr> 97<tr><td align="left" valign="top">• <a href="String-Field.html#String-Field" accesskey="3">String Field</a>:</td><td> </td><td align="left" valign="top">The string field 98</td></tr> 99<tr><td align="left" valign="top">• <a href="C-Example.html#C-Example" accesskey="4">C Example</a>:</td><td> </td><td align="left" valign="top">A simple example in C source 100</td></tr> 101<tr><td align="left" valign="top">• <a href="Assembly-Code.html#Assembly-Code" accesskey="5">Assembly Code</a>:</td><td> </td><td align="left" valign="top">The simple example at the assembly level 102</td></tr> 103</table> 104 105 106 107 108</body> 109</html> 110