From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (qmail 30661 invoked by alias); 23 Jul 2006 23:18:38 -0000 Received: (qmail 30651 invoked by uid 22791); 23 Jul 2006 23:18:37 -0000 X-Spam-Check-By: sourceware.org Received: from sibelius.xs4all.nl (HELO sibelius.xs4all.nl) (82.92.89.47) by sourceware.org (qpsmtpd/0.31) with ESMTP; Sun, 23 Jul 2006 23:18:35 +0000 Received: from elgar.sibelius.xs4all.nl (root@elgar.sibelius.xs4all.nl [192.168.0.2]) by sibelius.xs4all.nl (8.13.4/8.13.4) with ESMTP id k6NNIVAE024132; Mon, 24 Jul 2006 01:18:31 +0200 (CEST) Received: from elgar.sibelius.xs4all.nl (kettenis@localhost.sibelius.xs4all.nl [127.0.0.1]) by elgar.sibelius.xs4all.nl (8.13.6/8.13.6) with ESMTP id k6NNIVWs028087; Mon, 24 Jul 2006 01:18:31 +0200 (CEST) Received: (from kettenis@localhost) by elgar.sibelius.xs4all.nl (8.13.6/8.13.6/Submit) id k6NNIV28004376; Mon, 24 Jul 2006 01:18:31 +0200 (CEST) Date: Sun, 23 Jul 2006 23:18:00 -0000 Message-Id: <200607232318.k6NNIV28004376@elgar.sibelius.xs4all.nl> From: Mark Kettenis To: cgf-gdb-patches@sourceware.org CC: gdb-patches@sourceware.org In-reply-to: <20060723224032.GA5168@trixie.casa.cgf.cx> (message from Christopher Faylor on Sun, 23 Jul 2006 18:40:32 -0400) Subject: Re: [RFC] Add expat to the GDB sources References: <20060718134048.GA15685@nevyn.them.org> <20060723224032.GA5168@trixie.casa.cgf.cx> Mailing-List: contact gdb-patches-help@sourceware.org; run by ezmlm Precedence: bulk List-Subscribe: List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: , Sender: gdb-patches-owner@sourceware.org X-SW-Source: 2006-07/txt/msg00326.txt.bz2 > Date: Sun, 23 Jul 2006 18:40:32 -0400 > From: Christopher Faylor > > 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. > > ...and, FWIW, there's already an expat directory at the top-level of src > which exists entirely as a branch (which you announced). > > Just as a meta-issue, I have to wonder at the precedent of one of the > projects which shares 'src' adding directories to the top-level. > > I just built gdb on linux and I see that it pulls in ncurses but there > is no ncurses directory in src. Why can't we just say that "building > gdb requires a native expat library >= some version" like we do with > ncurses? Any other project which uses expat would just add detection of > the expat library to the configure phase. Any UNIX-like system shipped within the last decade comes with a decent curses implementation, wo we consider it to be a part of the operating system. Apart from Linux there are probably no systems that ship with expat. And even on most Linux systems expat won't be usable because the bloody expat "development" package isn't installed. Depending on an external expat package comes with the additional maintenance cost of testing the detection code and handling additional bug reports from people who can't build gdb because of problems with expat. > I've really always hated the habit of duplicating (and essentially forking) > other project's source code in 'src' and putting expat there just seems > like a step backwards to me. Well, I really detest that many software packages have so many dependencies that I spent an hour hunting down the dependency chain before I get actually to building the package I want. Depending on an external expat would be acceptable for me if the bits of GDB that depend on it would become optional, such that we can choose not to build them if expat is not available. Mark