Re: RFC: GDB as a loader 1/3: silent batch mode

[Eli Zaretskii <eliz at gnu dot org>]

> Date: Fri, 28 Oct 2005 10:48:19 +0100
> From: Andrew STUBBS <andrew.stubbs@st.com>
> Cc: gdb@sources.redhat.com
> 
> Out of interest, why does 'GDB' have to be '@value{GDBN}'? What does 
> that do?

It gives us a simple way to change the name of GDB in the manual.
This is sometimes needed when one wants to produce a tailored GDB
package specific to some host/target configuration, for a specific
client, and call it by some other name to distinguish from the
standard edition.

The "@value{GDBN}" construct is a simple string substitution
mechanism: it causes makeinfo, the program that produces the Info
manual from its Texinfo sources, to replace "@value{GDBN}" with the
string that is the value of the GDBN variable.  The default value is
set in the gdb-cfg.texi file:

    @set GDBN @sc{gdb}

which is included by gdb.texinfo.  However, one could replace this
value, either in gdb-cfg.texi or by invoking makeinfo with the -D
switch, for example:

	makeinfo -DGDBN="my@sc{gdb}" gdb.texinfo

> I can create the info file fine, but the PDF has errors.

What command did you use to produce the PDF file?  Also, please send
the error messages you saw.

> The only thing 
> I can see wrong with the produced file is that the index is missing. Is 
> this a known problem or am I using the wrong version of something? I 
> have Texinfo 4.5.

I don't think it's a known problem, but perhaps you should upgrade
your Texinfo.

> Still nobody has given an opinion on any of the three patches I sent 
> adding new options. What do you want to do with them? Do we know if 
> Daniel is back from holiday yet?

I'll let Daniel answer that ;-)

> I'll do the docs for the other two options soon.

Thanks.

> +@item -batch-silent
> +@cindex @code{--batch-silent}
> +Run in batch mode exactly like @samp{-batch}, but totally silently. All
> +@value{GDBN} output to @code{stdout} is prevented (@code{stderr} is
> +unaffected).  This is much quieter than @samp{-silent} and would be useless
> +for an interactive session.
> +
> +This is particularly useful when using targets that give @samp{Loading section} messages, for example.
> +
> +Note that targets that give their output via @value{GDBN}, as opposed to
> +writing directly to @code{stdout}, will also be made silent.

This is okay, but still the first sentence has only one space after
the period that ends it.