Re: [mi] -list-features

[Vladimir Prus <ghost@cs.msu.su>]

On Wednesday 29 August 2007 21:55:28 Eli Zaretskii wrote:
> > From: Vladimir Prus <ghost@cs.msu.su>
> > Date: Tue, 28 Aug 2007 21:47:17 +0400
> > Cc: gdb-patches@sources.redhat.com
> > 
> > 	-list-features
> > 		Returns a list of particular features of the MI protocol that
> > 		this version of gdb implements.  A feature can be a command,
> > 		or a new field in an output of some command, or even an
> > 		important bugfix.  While a frontend can sometimes detect presence
> > 		of a feature at runtime, it is easier to perform detection at debugger
> > 		startup. The current list of features is:
> > 
> > 		- 'frozen-varobjs' -- indicates presence of -var-set-frozen command,
> > 		as well as possible presense of the 'frozen' field in the output of
> > 		-varobj-create.
> > 		.........
> 
> This is fine, but for it to be useful to front ends, I think you need
> to tell more about the format of the output, because a program will
> need to parse and understand it.  Let's say I want to test for the
> support of a feature name "frobnicate", how would I go about it?

How about this:

        -list-features
                Returns a list of particular features of the MI protocol that
                this version of gdb implements.  A feature can be a command,
                or a new field in an output of some command, or even an
                important bugfix.  While a frontend can sometimes detect presence
                of a feature at runtime, it is easier to perform detection at debugger
                startup. 

		The command returns a list of strings, with each string naming an
		available feature. Each returned string is just a name, it does not
		have any internal structure. The list of possible feature names 
		is given below.

		The current list of features is:

                - 'frozen-varobjs' -- indicates presence of -var-set-frozen command,
                as well as possible presense of the 'frozen' field in the output of
                -varobj-create.

- Volodya