type_info::name question

[Mark Mitchell]

>>>>> "Mike" == Mike Stump <mrs@wrs.com> writes:

    >> To: kunert@physik.tu-dresden.de, egcs@cygnus.com From: Jason
    >> Merrill <jason@cygnus.com> Date: 11 Oct 1998 13:12:38 -0700

    >> How would people feel about including the demangler in libgcc,
    >> and calling from type_info::name?

    Mike> The only concerns I guess I have are:

    Mike> kankakee bash[42] size cxxmain.o text data bss dec hex
    Mike> filename 24349 120 4 24473 5f99 cxxmain.o

I agree with Mike.  I think the two consistent approaches are to put
the fully demangled names directly into the object file, and to keep
things as they are.  I don't really think the demangler should be in
libgcc.

I think the right solution is to install a new header file with a well
documented demangling interface, along with the code to do the
demangling.  We don't need the full complexity of demangle.h, just
__demangle_name (const char*) or some such.  On many compilers, this
is a separate library (libdemangle), and I think that's what we should
do, too; it's a C++-specific (and maybe Java) concept, and it doesn't
really need to take up space in libgcc.a.  This library should be
created/installed only if LANGUAGES contains C++ (Java?).

Another advantage of this approach over your suggestion is that you
can use the demangler for more than just RTTI: for example, you could
demangle names used with dlsym and friends.

-- 
Mark Mitchell 			mark@markmitchell.com
Mark Mitchell Consulting	http://www.markmitchell.com