Re: RFC: AArch64 Disassembler: Annotate undefined instructions
Project / Subsystem
binutils / rfc
Date
2026-07-29
Proposer
Alice Carlotti <alice.carlotti@arm.com>
Source type
public_inbox
Consensus
Proposed
Sentiment
—/10
Technical tradeoffs
- • Providing more informative disassembly vs. potential for misinterpretation.
- • Handling of undefined instructions and their addresses.
- • Distinguishing between instruction encodings and arbitrary data.
All attributes
- project
- binutils
- subsystem
- rfc
- patch_id
- —
- discussion_id
- b966f89a-d3c9-1116-da51-867d2e7f144c@e124511.cambridge.arm.com
- source_type
- public_inbox
- title
- Re: RFC: AArch64 Disassembler: Annotate undefined instructions
- headline
- AArch64 Disassembler: Annotate undefined instructions
- tldr
- Discussion questions the recent commit of an AArch64 disassembler feature that annotates undefined instructions, citing potential misinterpretations and limita…
- proposer
- Alice Carlotti <alice.carlotti@arm.com>
- consensus
- Proposed
- outcome
- proposed
- sentiment_score
- —
- technical_tradeoffs
-
- • Providing more informative disassembly vs. potential for misinterpretation.
- • Handling of undefined instructions and their addresses.
- • Distinguishing between instruction encodings and arbitrary data.
- series_id
- —
- series_role
- standalone
- series_parts
- []
- tags
-
- • binutils
- • aarch64
- • disassembler
- • debugging
- • rfc
- url
- https://inbox.sourceware.org/binutils/b966f89a-d3c9-1116-da51-867d2e7f144c@e124511.cambridge.arm.com
- bugzilla_url
- —
- date
- 2026-07-29T00:00:00.000Z
Re: RFC: AArch64 Disassembler: Annotate undefined instructions
Alice Carlotti expresses concern that a recently committed feature in the AArch64 disassembler, which annotates undefined instructions, was accepted despite perceived issues. She argues it conflates 32-bit values with 64-bit addresses, has limited symbol address support, and may misinterpret instruction contents as data, questioning the value of the annotations.