From: Bradley Chapman <kakadu_croc@yahoo.com>
To: "Randy.Dunlap" <rddunlap@osdl.org>
Cc: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
Subject: Re: What do frame pointers do?
Date: Mon, 3 Nov 2003 01:29:09 -0800 (PST) [thread overview]
Message-ID: <20031103092909.4955.qmail@web40907.mail.yahoo.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <20031102204556.0c5b377a.rddunlap@osdl.org>
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Mr. Dunlap,
--- "Randy.Dunlap" <rddunlap@osdl.org> wrote:
> On Sun, 2 Nov 2003 09:00:29 -0800 (PST) Bradley Chapman <kakadu_croc@yahoo.com>
> wrote:
>
> | What exactly is the purpose of a frame pointer? As far back as I can remember,
> 2.4
> | and 2.6 kernels have supported something called a frame pointer, which slows
> down
> | the kernel slightly but supposedly outputs 'very useful debugging information.'
> | Unfortunately, it doesn't really explain what they are, and for the past few
> months,
> | I haven't seen any hacker gods asking for CONFIG_FRAME_POINTER=y, except for
> Russell
> | King, who wants them compiled for ARM processors for some reason (I grepped the
> | kernel source looking for answers and found a comment which implied this).
> |
> | Does anyone know where I can find a good explanation of what they are and what
> they
> | do?
>
> Frame pointers enable more deterministic back tracing of the stack,
> which can be helpful for tracking down bugs. I build with
> CONFIG_FRAME_POINTER enabled all of the time.
>
> Note, however, that current 2.6.x Makefile does not allow frame pointers
> to be used with gcc 2.96 since it has some known problems with code generation
> when using frame pointers.
>
> There is a little discussion of frame pointers in the Intel
> IA-32 Intel® Architecture Software Developer;s Manual Volume 1:
> Basic Architecture
> and
> IA-32 Intel® Architecture Software Developer's Manual Volume 2:
> Instruction Set Reference,
> which are downloadable as .pdf files from developer.intel.com.
OK, thanks for explaining it to me.
>
> --
> ~Randy
Brad
=====
Brad Chapman
Permanent e-mail: kakadu_croc@yahoo.com
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next prev parent reply other threads:[~2003-11-03 9:29 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 4+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2003-11-02 17:00 What do frame pointers do? Bradley Chapman
2003-11-03 4:45 ` Randy.Dunlap
2003-11-03 9:29 ` Bradley Chapman [this message]
2003-11-03 10:04 ` Russell King
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