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gdb: Symbol Errors

 
 18.6 Errors Reading Symbol Files
 ================================
 
 While reading a symbol file, GDB occasionally encounters problems, such
 as symbol types it does not recognize, or known bugs in compiler output.
 By default, GDB does not notify you of such problems, since they are
 relatively common and primarily of interest to people debugging
 compilers.  If you are interested in seeing information about
 ill-constructed symbol tables, you can either ask GDB to print only one
 message about each such type of problem, no matter how many times the
 problem occurs; or you can ask GDB to print more messages, to see how
 many times the problems occur, with the 'set complaints' command (
 Optional Warnings and Messages Messages/Warnings.).
 
    The messages currently printed, and their meanings, include:
 
 'inner block not inside outer block in SYMBOL'
 
      The symbol information shows where symbol scopes begin and end
      (such as at the start of a function or a block of statements).
      This error indicates that an inner scope block is not fully
      contained in its outer scope blocks.
 
      GDB circumvents the problem by treating the inner block as if it
      had the same scope as the outer block.  In the error message,
      SYMBOL may be shown as "'(don't know)'" if the outer block is not a
      function.
 
 'block at ADDRESS out of order'
 
      The symbol information for symbol scope blocks should occur in
      order of increasing addresses.  This error indicates that it does
      not do so.
 
      GDB does not circumvent this problem, and has trouble locating
      symbols in the source file whose symbols it is reading.  (You can
      often determine what source file is affected by specifying 'set
      verbose on'.  Optional Warnings and Messages
      Messages/Warnings.)
 
 'bad block start address patched'
 
      The symbol information for a symbol scope block has a start address
      smaller than the address of the preceding source line.  This is
      known to occur in the SunOS 4.1.1 (and earlier) C compiler.
 
      GDB circumvents the problem by treating the symbol scope block as
      starting on the previous source line.
 
 'bad string table offset in symbol N'
 
      Symbol number N contains a pointer into the string table which is
      larger than the size of the string table.
 
      GDB circumvents the problem by considering the symbol to have the
      name 'foo', which may cause other problems if many symbols end up
      with this name.
 
 'unknown symbol type 0xNN'
 
      The symbol information contains new data types that GDB does not
      yet know how to read.  '0xNN' is the symbol type of the
      uncomprehended information, in hexadecimal.
 
      GDB circumvents the error by ignoring this symbol information.
      This usually allows you to debug your program, though certain
      symbols are not accessible.  If you encounter such a problem and
      feel like debugging it, you can debug 'gdb' with itself, breakpoint
      on 'complain', then go up to the function 'read_dbx_symtab' and
      examine '*bufp' to see the symbol.
 
 'stub type has NULL name'
 
      GDB could not find the full definition for a struct or class.
 
 'const/volatile indicator missing (ok if using g++ v1.x), got...'
      The symbol information for a C++ member function is missing some
      information that recent versions of the compiler should have output
      for it.
 
 'info mismatch between compiler and debugger'
 
      GDB could not parse a type specification output by the compiler.
 

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