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Date: Sun, 17 Aug 2003 07:32:52 +0900
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To: Vladimir Ciobanu <xoanon@rhaaw.rdsnet.ro>
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cc: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org
Subject: Re: Debugging symbols with nasm
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Hello.

On Sat, Aug 16, 2003 at 09:14:30AM +0300, Vladimir Ciobanu wrote:
>   I'm not sure whether this is the best list to post to, but it's my 
> first guess. I'm using nasm to compile some code I wrote. The 
> developer-handbook suggests I use "-f elf", so that's what I did. Then I 
> linked it with ld. The program works as expected, but I can't debug it 
> with gdb; it reports "no debugging symbols found".
>   I've tried to get the possible debugging formats nasm can output, and 
> I get "null" for both elf and aoutb ( ld can't even link aoutb .o files ).
>   Is there a way I could debug my nasm-compiled assembler sources, 
> preferably with gdb ? I don't mind any binary format that can run on 
> FreeBSD, nor any other linker.
>   Any suggestions are welcome.

Nasm man page explicitly states that it doesn't support debug symbols:
$ env PAGER='less +/debug' man nasm

However, there seem to be a patch that adds this feature. This is mentioned
in a netnews group comp.lang.asm.x86:
    http://groups.google.com/groups?q=nasm+ELF+debug+symbol+group:comp.lang.asm.x86&hl=ja&lr=&ie=UTF-8&inlang=ja&group=comp.lang.asm.x86&c2coff=1&selm=k0Uga.49882$o8.1005465@twister.tampabay.rr.com&rnum=2

Cheers.