Issue 050616.1: Null entries and null sibling references
PROBLEM STATEMENT
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The DW_AT_sibling attribute does not allow a means to indicate
the end of a sequence of siblings other than to reference a null
entry DIE that is arbitrarily later in the DWARF description. It
is not even sufficient to point to any arbitrary null entry that
may be available; the attribute must point to the one and only
null entry that terminates the list on which the DIE is linked.
OTOH, it is valid to terminate a list linked by sibling
attributes using a DIE that lacks a sibling attribute all
together. This has the disadvantage that it requires
definition/use of an abbreviation code/description that might
otherwise not be needed. Because this is valid, a consumer must be
prepared to parse the DIE tree with or without sibling pointers
on some or all DIEs.
Thus, the requirement that the last sibling attribute on a list
must refer to the null entry *of that same list* is a burden for
a producer but provides no advantage to a consumer.
PROPOSAL
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Allow the DW_AT_sibling attribute to have the reference value 0
to indicate there is no successor. Note that the value 0 is not
currently valid in any case, because it "refers" to the beginning
of the .debug_info section and not to any DIE at all.
To achieve this, add the following to the end of the last
paragraph in Section 2.3:
"A value of 0 (which otherwise does not refer to any
DIE) may be used to indicate that there is no successor
sibling."
Related editorial changes include the following:
- Add index entries for the phrase "null entry", which is used
in Sections 2.3, 7.5.2 and 7.5.3.
- Reword the second paragraph of bullet 4 in Section 4.1 to avoid
the phrase "null entry" which is claimed to be described in
Section 2.5 but is not. I suggest replace
"...if no location attribute is present, or if the location
attribute is present but describes a null entry (as described
in Section 2.5), the variable is..."
with
"...if no location attribute is present, or if the value
of the location attribute is a zero length location expression
(see Section 2.5.2) or designates a location list consisting
solely of an end of list entry (see Section 2.5.4), the
variable is..."
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The original submitter of this issue have found a way to generate
the null entry and no longer feel this is needed.
