Re: RFC: AArch64 Disassembler: Annotate undefined instructions
Project / Subsystem
binutils / binutils
Date
2026-05-04
Proposer
Nick Clifton <nickc@redhat.com>
Source type
public_inbox
Consensus
Proposed
Sentiment
—/10
Technical tradeoffs
- • The change would add complexity to the disassembler's logic.
- • There's a risk of false positives, where valid instructions are incorrectly identified as undefined.
- • The benefit is improved readability and understanding of disassembled code.
All attributes
- project
- binutils
- subsystem
- binutils
- patch_id
- —
- discussion_id
- 20ba1c89-62e7-481e-b512-6db305b32094@redhat.com
- source_type
- public_inbox
- title
- Re: RFC: AArch64 Disassembler: Annotate undefined instructions
- headline
- RFC: AArch64 Disassembler: Annotate undefined instructions
- tldr
- Nick Clifton clarifies that the RFC to annotate undefined AArch64 instructions is driven by a desire for more informative disassembler output, not a specific u…
- proposer
- Nick Clifton <nickc@redhat.com>
- consensus
- Proposed
- outcome
- proposed
- sentiment_score
- —
- technical_tradeoffs
-
- • The change would add complexity to the disassembler's logic.
- • There's a risk of false positives, where valid instructions are incorrectly identified as undefined.
- • The benefit is improved readability and understanding of disassembled code.
- series_id
- —
- series_role
- standalone
- series_parts
- []
- tags
-
- • disassembler
- • AArch64
- • annotation
- • undefined instructions
- bugzilla_url
- —
- date
- 2026-05-04T00:00:00.000Z
Re: RFC: AArch64 Disassembler: Annotate undefined instructions
Nick Clifton clarifies that his RFC to annotate undefined AArch64 instructions in the disassembler isn’t driven by a specific user-reported case, but rather by a desire to improve the disassembler’s output. He also acknowledges a mistake regarding the size of AArch64 instructions and agrees that creating a test case to trigger unintended annotation of .inst values is difficult.