Java debugging

Jerry James loganjerry at gmail.com
Mon Apr 28 19:32:02 UTC 2008


To be able to debug a Java problem, I need class files compiled with
-g and the source files.  Java packages set up for AOT compilation
with GCJ do have debuginfo packages, but they are symbol files for the
GCJ-compiled .so files only, with no source files.  Has anybody looked
at what it would take to set things up for a reasonable Java debugging
environment?  The source file problem can be solved pretty easily, I
think, but what about compiling with -g?  I see 4 answers to that
question:

1. Never compile with -g.  People who want to debug have to recompile
their own JARs.
2. Always compile with -g and make everybody eat the bloat.
3. Compile all Java code twice, once to create a debug JAR and once to
create the normal distribution JAR.  The debug JAR goes into the
corresponding debuginfo package.
4. Always compile with -g.  Store the original JAR in the
corresponding debuginfo package, then strip out the debug symbols and
put the resulting JAR into the regular package.

I looked through both the JPackage and the Fedora Java guidelines but
did not see anything that addresses this issue.  Has anybody thought
about this before?  I prefer the answer to be "not #1". :-)

This came up, by the way, because I'm having problems with a web
service call.  It looks like an AXIS bug to me, but I can't step into
the AXIS code....
-- 
Jerry James
http://loganjerry.googlepages.com/




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