Re: [commit] Tighten memory read/write methods

Eli Zaretskii
2005-01-28T11:43:18Z

> Date: Fri, 28 Jan 2005 09:45:46 +0100 (CET)
> From: Mark Kettenis <kettenis@gnu.org>
> CC: gdb-patches@sources.redhat.com
>
> OK, I can understand your rationale for seperating const-correctness
> from other transformations; but then why don't you seperate the
> (unsigned) char -> bfd_byte transformation too? I'm all for
> consistent use of 'bfd_byte *' as the canonical way to point to a
> buffer interpreted as seperate bytes. However, I think that pointers
> to generic bits of memory should be 'void *' (which specific bits of
> code might want to cast to 'bfd_byte *' if they're going to interpret
> the bytes individually). Doing the mind-numbing conversion means that
> we'll have to re-evaluate all occurances of 'bfd_byte' again later.

I don't like the use of bfd_byte either. I think we shouldn't use BFD
types in our sources for data types that don't have anything to do
with the BFD library. If, for some reason, "void *" somehow doesn't
fit the bill (and I'd like to see evidence to that before I agree),
I'd suggest our own data type, like gdb_byte or some such.

P.S. IMHO, this is one more example of a situation where a discussion
that preceded commits would be in order. I don't know about others,
but as far as I'm concerned, when such controversial changes are
committed without discussions, it doesn't help me to feel a part of a
team. (And please don't tell me that Andrew had a right to do this:
this is not about rights, but about using them indiscriminantly.)