Re: [PATCH:doc] GDB/MI attribute names

Vladimir Prus
2009-09-28T16:25:51Z

On Saturday 26 September 2009 Nick Roberts wrote:

> > ...I can guess what it
> > means but why are there three pairs of double quotes?
>
> I see why now. Perhaps something like:
>
> <fieldchar> ::== <letter> | <digit> | "_"
> <variable> ::== """ <letter> ( <fieldchar> )+ """

I would say it's better to inline 'fieldchar' inside 'variable' here, since
we're not using it elsewhere. E.g.:

variable ==> """ letter ( letter | digit | "_" ) * """

> I would prefer to use BNF as it seems quite widespread and I've not seen
>
> `COMMAND ==>'
> `CLI-COMMAND | MI-COMMAND'
>
> as a syntax anywhere else.

I'd suggest we first fix the direct problem that hand -- which is documenting
that field names may not use random characters. And for that, can we use the
syntax that is already used?

We can discuss global change of grammar notation. I don't have a well-formed
opinion about the specific characters used to express the grammar -- I
found the current one fairly clear, and the difference between :== and
==> seems insignificant.

- Volodya