This is the mail archive of the
gdb@sources.redhat.com
mailing list for the GDB project.
Re: Bob's MI objective
- From: Bob Rossi <bob at brasko dot net>
- To: Andrew Cagney <cagney at gnu dot org>
- Cc: gdb at sources dot redhat dot com
- Date: Wed, 6 Oct 2004 17:26:52 -0400
- Subject: Re: Bob's MI objective
- References: <416451B0.3060306@gnu.org>
On Wed, Oct 06, 2004 at 04:12:32PM -0400, Andrew Cagney wrote:
> Bob, what's your overall objective here? Perhaphs our lack of
> appreciation of your overriding goals is the reason that some (at least
> I) are feeling somewhat puzzled and confused.
I want an MI version named after myself, specifically 'gdb -i=bobmi'
No seriously,
I already have a front end that works off of GDB's annotate two feature.
I understand that the annotate two interface could be removed from GDB.
I asked you a year or two ago to wait until MI is capable of replacing the
annotations. I personally wrote the two commands to MI
-file-list-exec-source-file
-file-list-exec-source-files
that make MI capable of replacing the annotations interface for front
ends that do not already know what files are involved in the users
applications. I appreciate your patience in this matter. I feel that I
have done my part in this matter to prove to you that I am interested
and involved with the MI interface evolving for small front ends.
Now I am beginning to add the MI interface to my front end. I spent the
last few weeks looking at the grammar of the currently documented MI
output syntax. The documentation is incorrect, but mostly correct and I
suggested some changes to it so that others could benefit.
I have come up with the rules and generated a parser that is capable of
parsing an MI output command. I would like to validate the output of
GDB's MI commands in the testsuite to prove to us all that every MI command
obeys the protocol. This is something I am interested in doing for the
benefit of all front end developers. Not just myself.
Now, my next objective is to figure these things,
* I would like to know what GDB's policy is in regards to supporting old
MI protocols. ( I have received several opposing views on this )
* I would like to ensure that my front end works well with snapshots
of GDB. I do not want to work with the MI development protocol, I
just want to work with the last officially supported protocol.
* I would like to make sure that development protocols are never used
by my front end and that I can figure out all of the officially
supported MI protocols that a given GDB supports.
By being able to understand the highest officially supported protocol
that both GDB and my front end understand is critical to me. I think it is
safe to say that a front end needs to know the MI protocols that a given
GDB supports. The way we get that info from GDB to the front end is the
question in debate.
Thanks,
Bob Rossi