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<H1>TDF Diagnostic Specification, Issue 3.0</H1>
<H3>January 1998</H3>
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<DT><A HREF="#intro"><B>1</B> - Introduction</A><DD>
<DT><A HREF="diag4.html"><B>2</B> - Diagnostic SORTs</A><DD>
<DT><A HREF="diag5.html"><B>3</B> - Reserved diagnostic TOKENs</A><DD>
<DT><A HREF="diag6.html"><B>4</B> - Proposed changes</A><DD>
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<H1><A NAME="intro">1. Introduction</A></H1>
The TDF diagnostic information is intended to convey all that information,
used by current source level debuggers, which would conventionally
be part of an object file. Any particular installer will only use
those parts of this information which its native object format can
represent.
<P>
The version of the diagnostics described here is the first version.
It has only been tested with TDF produced from C programs. There are
known to be certain deficiencies relative to other languages (in particular
to FORTRAN). A later version will correct these deficiencies. The
changes already envisaged are detailed in <A HREF="diag6.html#0">section
4</A>, and would have minimal (if any) impact on C producers.
<P>
The diagnostic system introduces one new type of TDF linkable entities,
and currently adds two new units to the bitstream representation of
TDF.
<P>
Much of the actual annotation of procedure bodies is currently done
by reserved <CODE>TOKEN</CODE>s, which installers recognize specially.
These <CODE>TOKEN</CODE>s are described in <A HREF="diag5.html#0">section
3</A>.
<P>
There is a resemblance between the TDF diagnostic information and
Unix International's DWARF format. DWARF has similar aims to the TDF
diagnostics, and ensuring that complete DWARF information could be
generated provided a useful check during the development of the TDF
diagnostics. However the TDF diagnostics are intended to be architecture
(and format) neutral. No inference should be made about any link (present
or future) between DWARF and TDF diagnostics.
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