Introduction

[todd dot allen at ccur dot com (Todd Allen)]

We at Concurrent Computer Corporation have been using the DWARF 2.0.0
standard with certain extensions since around '92 for our C, C++, Fortran,
Ada 83, and Ada 95 compilers, NightView debugger, and our real-time data
monitoring tools.

We only recently became aware of your efforts to produce a DWARF 2.1
standard.  So, I've been reading over your draft document, proposals, and
minutes to play catch-up on your activities over the past year and half.  I
like a lot of what what I've been reading.

I have some suggestions for further modifications, mostly in an attempt to
legitimize some of our extensions.  I realize that you're planning to release
the standard for public review in April.  I suppose the group will have to
decide if these suggestions can be "squeezed in" before then, or if they're
worth extending the release.

Several of these suggestions are inspired by our work to support Ada.  Ada is
a complex language, and we made an extensive effort to describe it in the
spirit of the DWARF standard.  To do that, we added 28 new tags, 87 new
attributes, 3 new base type encodings, 5 new calling conventions, and some
additional information types: parameter mode, return method, artificial_kind,
private/limited indicators, 'pos/'val interpretation, etc.  We also defined a
DW_LANG_Ada95 language in the vendor-specific area above DW_LANG_lo_user, but
I see you've already covered that issue.

We're willing to make Ada 95 DWARF documentation available if there's
interest in incorporating this into the standard.

-- 
Todd Allen
Concurrent Computer Corporation