Re: RFA: >, >>, and "tee" operators

Andrew Cagney
2002-07-25T15:46:26Z

> Does the `transcript FILE' command send both the user input (prompts?)
>> and output to the file (output also to the console)? Like unix script?
>
>
> [Speaking for my patch]
>
> Nope. Prompts and user input are not logged. Output goes only to a
> file. Something like `script' might be useful but that's a patch for
> another day.

My understanding of a transcript is that it records all details of the
exchange - both input and output. Unless the command is recording the
input, I don't think it should be called ``transcript''.

The name ``transcript'' came about (I think) from an earlier discussion
where a command to record both input and output was proposed. See:
http://sources.redhat.com/cgi-bin/gnatsweb.pl?cmd=view%20audit-trail&database=gdb&pr=114
for its bug report.

> > I guess the corresponding ``tee FILE'' command just writes output?
>
>
> Output goes to the file and to the normal output channel. Still no
> prompts or input.

Ok.

> I think there is also a need for a tempoary redirection. So I guess
>> either the obscure:
>> >FILE <command> ...
>> maybe?
>> log FILE <command> .....
>
>
> How about "transcript FILE <command>"? There's some quoting badness but
> for the moment I'm willing to just disallow spaces in the filename.
> Much more straightforward that way.

(See above for problem I see with the name ``transcript''.)

For whitespace in filenames, see:
http://sources.redhat.com/cgi-bin/gnatsweb.pl?cmd=view%20audit-trail&database=gdb&pr=535
So yes, you get to use strchr (' ') .... :-(

> GDB's option identifier is ``/'' and not ``-''. See the print/<FMT>
>> commands. ``-'' has the problem of being a valid expression operator.
>> I should note that the current parser is pretty broken. It can't
>> differentiate between:
>> transcript/f
>> transcript /f
>> (sigh) but that is a fixable problem.
>
>
> GDB's option identifier varies, actually; symbol-file -readnow,
> add-symbol-file -s are the only two I see offhand.
> We only use / for print format characters. Mostly we just drop them
> all on one line.
>
> I'd rather stick with '-' as it's more familiar to most of our
> audience, particularly with 'tee -a'.

I think this was raised before (fernando and I discussed it somewhere on
gdb@). GDB is used on systems that are not even UNIX like (namely
DJGPP), trying to tie the syntax to UNIX is such a good idea. GDB needs
a syntax spec, the current piece meal aproach is regrettable :-(

If the command was called ``log'' rather than ``tee'' then I don't think
we would have problems with ``log -a''. (I'm not saying that log is the
right name mind.)

enjoy,
Andrew