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### Directives for debugging information

MIPS ECOFF `as` supports several directives used for generating debugging information which are not support by traditional MIPS assemblers. These are `.def`, `.endef`, `.dim`, `.file`, `.scl`, `.size`, `.tag`, `.type`, `.val`, `.stabd`, `.stabn`, and `.stabs`. The debugging information generated by the three `.stab` directives can only be read by GDB, not by traditional MIPS debuggers (this enhancement is required to fully support C++ debugging). These directives are primarily used by compilers, not assembly language programmers!