On 12/26/11 10:29 PM, Eli Zaretskii wrote:
>> Date: Mon, 26 Dec 2011 20:28:43 -0800 From: Stan
>> Shebs<stanshebs@earthlink.net>
>>
>> Here is a third revision of the 'info os' additions for Linux;
>> it rolls up Kwok's original patch plus requested edits, plus a
>> few more comments and tweaks. I plan to commit this in a day or
>> so, if there are no objections.
> I already voiced an objection the first time: I think
> Linux-specific OS information doesn't belong to "info os", which
> should be for commands generally available on all supported
> systems. I would support an "info linux" command for what you
> want here.
>
Yeah, I see that went by without comment at the time, but it's a
fair point.
I think the answer is that there would be few if any "info os"
subcommands that would be genuinely common to all operating systems
that GDB supports; embedded OSes may not even have a well-defined
concept of processes. On the other hand, one could argue that
anything that is not totally general should be given a OS-specific
subcommand, a la "info dos".
For my part, I would tend to favor "info os" for those kinds of data
that are generic enough to be found on more than one target OS.
Things like processes, semaphores, and sockets are found across a
broad range of systems large and small, and it seems unduly pedantic
to require users to do "info linux semaphores" when targeting Linux,
but "info bsd sem" for BSD - or worse, "info freebsd sem" vs "info
openbsd sem" - and which flavor of BSD is Darwin most like, again?
:-) Putting things under "info os" means less detail for users to
remember.