Re: PR11067 patch

[Pedro Alves <pedro@codesourcery.com>]

On Monday 08 February 2010 21:54:22, Tom Tromey wrote:
> >>>>> "Chris" == Chris Moller <cmoller@redhat.com> writes:
> 
> Chris> The attached patch fixes bug 11067 "p <enum constant> should print the
> Chris> constant's value" by providing a means of setting a format string to
> Chris> be used in printing enums.  The string is set with
> 
> Chris>    set enum-fmt <string>
> 
> I would rather not introduce a new option for this, particularly a
> formatting option.  We don't have this sort of thing elsewhere in gdb --
> we just pick a printing format or two.

Ditto.

> I re-read the thread on the archer list.  I propose having it print
> like:
> 
> $2 = ENUMERATOR = (enum tag) 23
> 
> However, i would suppress the extra stuff in structs and when printing
> in summary mode.

I seriously don't want to start a bikeshed, but,
IMO, I don't think it's a good idea to to invent new
output syntax for this.  There's no need to print the type of
the enum, that's what ptype is for.  And we don't do it for any
other type.

We can look at enum's as having both a numeric facet, and
a symbolic facet, just like "char"s, and those we print as

(gdb) p 'a'
$1 = 97 'a'

If I had a choice, I would make printing enums exactly like:

 $2 = 23 'ENUMERATOR'

This is short, concise, and models existing output.  It
should look obvious what that output means.

And then users don't have to learn to recognize/identify
different outputs depending on where the type is
embedded or printed.  That sounds important usability
wise to me.

Has this option seriously been discarded?

-- 
Pedro Alves