Issue 230414.1: Eliminate last use of "location expression"

Author: Ron Brender
Champion: Ron Brender
Date submitted: 2023-04-14
Date revised: 2023-07-21
Date closed: 2023-07-10
Type: Editorial
Status: Accepted
DWARF Version: 6

Background

There are "DWARF expressions", see 2.5; and there are "DWARF location descriptions," see Section 2.6.

The term "location description" was chosen carefully and deliberately in the V3 document precisely to try and avoid the rampant expression-related terminology confusion found in the V2 document. Unfortunately, the V3 document did continue to use "location expression" as one kind of location description, which perpetuated some of the earlier confusion. This was cleaned up in V4 which eliminated the term "location expression" altogether in favor of "memory location description".

The term "location expression" occurs exactly once in the DWARF 5 document (in an aside on p248 line 32) and that use is simply wrong.

Proposal

In Section 7.32, page 248, line 32, delete the word "location" so that the sentence reads:

(For example, a constant value should be preferred to an expression when possible.)


2023-07-10: Accepted.