Re: [discuss] [PATCH] allow CONFIG_FRAME_POINTER for x86-64

[Hugh Dickins]

On Fri, 9 Sep 2005, Jan Beulich wrote:
> > But why would anyone want frame pointers on x86-64?
> 
> I'd put the question differently: Why should x86-64 not allow what
> other architectures do?
> 
> But of course, I'm not insisting on this patch to get in, it just
> seemed an obvious inconsistency...

I'm with Jan on this.  I use a similar patch for frame pointers on
x86_64 most of the time, in the hope of getting more accurate backtraces.

Is x86_64 somehow more likely to give you a less noisy backtrace than
i386?  Fewer of those stale return addresses from earlier trips down
the stack?

Frame pointers are imperfect on all(?) the supported architectures,
but I can't see any good reason to exclude them from x86_64.  Just a
couple of weeks ago LKML had a bug where enabling frame pointers on
x86_64 helped Ingo to pinpoint the origin of the problem.

Hugh
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