From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (qmail 14100 invoked by alias); 24 Jul 2006 22:08:20 -0000 Received: (qmail 14087 invoked by uid 22791); 24 Jul 2006 22:08:19 -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; Mon, 24 Jul 2006 22:08:16 +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 k6OM7iR5018590; Tue, 25 Jul 2006 00:07:44 +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 k6OM7iAu011317; Tue, 25 Jul 2006 00:07:44 +0200 (CEST) Received: (from kettenis@localhost) by elgar.sibelius.xs4all.nl (8.13.6/8.13.6/Submit) id k6OM7i2P020455; Tue, 25 Jul 2006 00:07:44 +0200 (CEST) Date: Mon, 24 Jul 2006 22:08:00 -0000 Message-Id: <200607242207.k6OM7i2P020455@elgar.sibelius.xs4all.nl> From: Mark Kettenis To: me@cgf.cx CC: cgf-gdb-patches@sourceware.org, gdb-patches@sourceware.org In-reply-to: <20060724152438.GA17094@trixie.casa.cgf.cx> (message from Christopher Faylor on Mon, 24 Jul 2006 11:24:38 -0400) Subject: Re: [RFC] Add expat to the GDB sources References: <20060718134048.GA15685@nevyn.them.org> <20060723224032.GA5168@trixie.casa.cgf.cx> <200607232318.k6NNIV28004376@elgar.sibelius.xs4all.nl> <20060724152438.GA17094@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/msg00373.txt.bz2 > Date: Mon, 24 Jul 2006 11:24:38 -0400 > From: Christopher Faylor > > On Mon, Jul 24, 2006 at 01:18:31AM +0200, Mark Kettenis wrote: > >> 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. > > I hate that too but that scenario is less of an inconvenience these days > with tools like emerge, yum, or apt. Unfortunately I'm on an rpm-based system without root access :(. Adding external dependencies to gdb would really inconvenience me. I test regularly on systems where people have given me a "guest" account. Having to install dependencies first really sucks. And since I'd have to do that in a non-default location, it means I'm not really testing the setup that people are actually going to use on those systems. > OTOH, having built hundreds of different packages for linux, one thing > that really drives me up the wall is when a package includes their own > version of a well-known library. Did they include it because there is > an incompatibility with the shipping version? Were they too lazy to add > a configure test? Did they modify the library? Will it only work with > the 0.9 version of the library? Is it going to install the library? Hey, nobody forced you to look at what you're installing in that much detailt ;-) Mark