DWARF 2[/3] the most advanced debugging format?

[Robert P. J. Day]

  a friend who's just getting into development on linux was reading
the gcc manual and ran across the variety of available debugging
formats here:

http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc-4.3.0/gcc/Debugging-Options.html

and asked me, out of all those formats, which was the "best" one to
start working with.

  i suggested he'd be best off getting familiar with the DWARF 2
format, since fedora already comes with a yum-installable "dwarves"
package containing various DWARF-related examination utilities.

  that seemed like an easy answer at the time, but is there a better
choice?  i realize stabs is still common but, in terms of being
technically advanced, is DWARF 2 the most informative and most useful
of the formats?  thanks.

rday
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Robert P. J. Day
Linux Consulting, Training and Annoying Kernel Pedantry:
    Have classroom, will lecture.

http://crashcourse.ca                          Waterloo, Ontario, CANADA
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