Re: Remote Debugging Protocol - hex case

[Daniel Jacobowitz <drow@false.org>]

On Tue, Feb 13, 2007 at 09:45:41PM +0000, Tim Auton wrote:
> As far as I can see, making remote debugging support upper-case hex
> properly won't be much trouble. It pretty much amounts to replacing the
> disparate error checking in remote.c with calls to
> packet_check_result(). But it's quite possible that I'm missing wider
> repercussions which are obvious to someone who knows GDB and the source
> much better than me (which is probably most of you).

As far as I know, you are correct - it's just a matter of cleanup.
The "more correct" functions you mention are much newer, and it's hard
to test some of the older bits of the file - that's why not much has
happened.

> 1) Patch remote.c to support upper-case hex consistently, update docs to
> suggest lower-case for backward compatibility.
> 
> 	Pros: Consistent with the rest of GDB, which generally supports
> 	upper-case hex.
> 
> 	Cons: Any stubs which don't provide a two-digit errno or a 
> 	E.something
> 	string will break. (Do any exist?)

I think they are sufficiently broken that we should not bend over
backwards to support them (though recognizing "ENN" as an error might
be useful - a recent PR was at least the second time I've seen someone
do that.)

> I'm happy to write and submit the patches once the maintainers decide on
> the best course of action, though as I'm not intimate with GDB's
> internals and don't (yet) have the first clue about texinfo (but am
> wiling to learn), the maintainers may wish to be more circumspect than
> ususal in checking them. I've found the GNU coding standards, but
> pointers to anything else relevant would be well received (off-list, if
> appropriate).

That, and the list archives, should be fine as references.  I'd be
glad to review patches in this area.  Please note that this would be
non-trivial work, so it would require an FSF copyright assignment for
GDB - let me know if you're able and willing to do that (or have one
already).

-- 
Daniel Jacobowitz
CodeSourcery