Re: [patch] Indirect access to GDB history variables

Daniel Jacobowitz
2006-12-16T18:45:21Z

On Sat, Dec 16, 2006 at 08:40:02PM +0200, Eli Zaretskii wrote:
> > Changing the CLI is touchy because of how weakly specified it is.
>
> Do we have a substantial body of test cases for CLI in the test suite?
> If we do, and if this change doesn't break anything there, I think we
> can reasonably expect it to be safe.

I'm worried primarily about interactions with the expression parser,
which changes for every language we support. I don't know if the test
coverage is adequate or not.

> > I think that we should take the long-postponed jump to embedding
> > scripting languages, rather than adding more complexity to the existing
> > CLI.
>
> If we leave the current CLI available in non-interactive sessions, and

Definitely. I don't suggest removing anything here.

> if the embedded language will satisfy Steve's needs, I'm for it. But
> I fear that agreeing on the language will take time, in which case
> postponing this change will be just that.

It may be so. My tentative plan was to offer a selection, probably
Perl and Python and Guile; once the common infrastructure is in place,
it's really not hard to add languages and enable them at configure
time. The alternative would be to add only Guile, since that's the
language the FSF officially recommends for such things - I don't want
to take that alternative, though, since I'm practically useless in
Guile. I have implemented Guile embedding, by the way, though never
finished it up.

Just musing, for the moment.

--
Daniel Jacobowitz
CodeSourcery