Re: [RFC] Add expat to the GDB sources

[Mark Kettenis <mark.kettenis@xs4all.nl>]

> Date: Tue, 18 Jul 2006 09:57:18 -0400
> From: Daniel Jacobowitz <drow@false.org>
> 
> On Tue, Jul 18, 2006 at 09:40:48AM -0400, Daniel Jacobowitz wrote:
> > At the beginning of the year, I proposed adding an XML parsing library to
> > GDB.  There was some discussion, and a few alternatives were proposed which
> > would accomplish the same goals, but neither substantially better nor
> > substantially worse.  Since then, we've fleshed out the project the XML
> > descriptions were originally intended for (targets which can inform the
> > debugger about their registers), and added another (memory maps, used to
> > control flash writing).
> > 
> > I chose expat as the C XML library to use in GDB.  It's a bit frustrating
> > (it's a stream-oriented binding, and I find DOM (tree-oriented) bindings
> > much more natural), but it's also useful and of a reasonable size.  The most
> > logical candidate for a DOM binding would have been libxml2, and the source
> > for that is excessive to include in GDB.
> > 
> > Here is a patch to add an expat directory to the src repository, gdb builds,
> > and gdb release tarballs.  Not shown is expat itself.
> > 
> > Any comments?  I will hold off on this patch for a little while, at least
> > until one of the expat clients is ready.

My main concern here, is how much the new xml-based developments this
will grow GDB.  Linking the final gdb executable is already getting
problematic on small memory systems.  How big is libexpat.a, and how
much does a flash-enabled GDB grow?

Another question I have is about how we think to handle expat in the
future.  Is expat still undergoing much development?  Are you planning
to update expat regularly?

Mark