Re: [RFA, doc RFA] Add gdb.add_command_alias

[Eli Zaretskii <eliz at gnu dot org>]

> Date: Fri,  9 Sep 2011 11:36:36 -0700 (PDT)
> From: dje@google.com (Doug Evans)
> 
> Per discussion on IRC, here is a patch to add support for adding
> command aliases.

I wish people would discuss such issues here, not on IRC.  These
discussions should be recorded, for one thing.

Me, I don't understand the need for this feature, especially not why
it should be a Python-only feature.  Moreover, why do we need to have
this, when one can easily write a command that just calls an existing
one, to have the same effect.

> valid_cmd_name_p is more restrictive than it could be.
> E.g. gdb allows a user-defined command named "42", but
> "it's easier to relax restrictions than it is to impose them after the fact",
> so I'm going with this.

Sorry, I don't understand what this is about.  I guess that was again
discussed "on IRC" or wherever.

> +   NOTE: TUI has a few special commands, +, <, >.
> +   We don't watch for those here.  */

Why not?  And what does that mean in terms of user expectations?

> +This is useful, for example, when you want to be able to type a command
> +with a long name using fewer characters, and the contraction is otherwise
> +ambiguous.  It can also we used when you want to give a command an alternate
                           ^^
"be"

> +@var{name} is the name of the new command.
> [..]
> +Command names must begin with a letter, dash or underscore,
> +and must consist of letters, numbers, dashes and underscores.

  @var{name} is the name of the new command; it must begin with a
  letter, dash or underscore, and must consist of letters, numbers,
  dashes and underscores.

> +@var{command_class} should be one of the @samp{COMMAND_} constants.

Please add here a cross-reference to where these constants are
documented.