From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (qmail 29877 invoked by alias); 6 Nov 2002 17:14:07 -0000 Mailing-List: contact gdb-patches-help@sources.redhat.com; run by ezmlm Precedence: bulk List-Subscribe: List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: , Sender: gdb-patches-owner@sources.redhat.com Received: (qmail 29851 invoked from network); 6 Nov 2002 17:14:04 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO localhost.redhat.com) (216.138.202.10) by sources.redhat.com with SMTP; 6 Nov 2002 17:14:04 -0000 Received: from redhat.com (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by localhost.redhat.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 57B0D3E60; Wed, 6 Nov 2002 12:14:00 -0500 (EST) Message-ID: <3DC94DD8.10009@redhat.com> Date: Wed, 06 Nov 2002 09:14:00 -0000 From: Andrew Cagney User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; NetBSD macppc; en-US; rv:1.0.0) Gecko/20020824 X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Scott Moser Cc: Jelmer Vernooij , Eli Zaretskii , gdb-patches@sources.redhat.com Subject: Re: [PATCH] plugin patch References: <20021106145415.GA2350@charis.vernstok> <20021106155151.GA2522@charis.vernstok> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-SW-Source: 2002-11/txt/msg00101.txt.bz2 > Plugins won't "know" the API that is used in newer versions of GDB, so > they can't really decide whether they are or are not compatible with > it. Only allowing plugins to be loaded with _exactly_ the same version > as the gdb they are loaded into works well (same way the linux kernel > does). That is correct. Scott, GDB's internals are undergoing massive change(1) and the various GDB interfaces reflect this. A plug-in architecture only works when there is a stable published interface and GDB's current internal interfaces and mechanisms are about as far from `stable' and `published' as you can get :-/ Accepting this patch will create a situtation (actually very like the Linux kernel) where either: - The plug-in developers play constant catch-up with GDB's evolving interfaces - every new release will require new plug-in. - GDB's development stagnates because the plug-in developers depand the specification and support of an additional external interface (over and above MI(2)). With regard to the modules that IBM and other vendors are planning on writing, can I encourage you to contribute them to the FSF? That way, the entire Free Software Community would benefit (and this plug-in issue would be mute :-). Andrew (1) Don't believe me? I'm currently commiting patches that eliminates registers[] from the core of GDB. That interface, for too many many years, formed part of the foundation on which GDB was built. (2) A long term MI objective is to define a set of interfaces that both MI and the CLI can use. FernandoN made reference to this in responce to your original post. > If the plugins are using a small number of functions only, you > might want to consider using an API version number - whenever one of > these functions changes, you increase the version number. This would > allow plugins from various gdb versions (but with the same API > version) to be used without the need of recompiling. > > Jelmer >