Re: [PATCH 0/3] [RFC] Load gdbinit files from a directory

["Christian Biesinger via gdb-patches" <gdb-patches@sourceware.org>]

On Wed, Aug 21, 2019 at 1:13 PM Pedro Alves <palves@redhat.com> wrote:
> On 8/20/19 11:17 PM, Christian Biesinger via gdb-patches wrote:
> > This patch series is some refactoring and then a patch to load gdbinit
> > files from a directory, instead of only allowing a single file.
> >
> > Fedora ships a system gdbinit file that does something similar; this
> > does this by default and also works if Python is disabled.
>
> Note that Fedora won't be able to replace the current mechanism with
> this, because it also loads Python files from the dir:
>
>  python
>  import glob
>  # glob.iglob is not available in python-2.4 (RHEL-5).
>  for f in glob.glob('/etc/gdbinit.d/*.gdb'):
>    gdb.execute('source %s' % f)
>  for f in glob.glob('/etc/gdbinit.d/*.py'):
>    gdb.execute('source %s' % f)
>  end
>
> So we'd need an additional "--with-system-python-scripts-dir"
> for Python scripts or some such.

That's a good point. I don't think -with-system-python-scripts-dir
would really work for Fedora either since the directory there is
currently the same but I could change the patch to use
get_ext_lang_of_file/ext_lang_script_sourcer (which is effectively
pretty similar to the current Fedora gdbinit)

> The advantage of Fedora's method IMO is that it's more flexible:
> A distro or packager can decide to load gdb scripts from more than
> one dir by default, e.g., from "~/gdbinit.d/", or to load gdb scripts and
> python scripts from different dirs, etc.  It's similar to
> /etc/bashrc loading scripts from /etc/profile.d/, etc. instead of bash
> loading the scripts from a dir itself.  Of course the difference
> here is that you can't walk directories with gdb's cli scripting.

I guess it may be possible to add glob support to the source command.

> Speaking of Python scripts, I guess Fedora's script should be
> loading Guile scripts as well.

I agree. (Certainly if GDB shipped a default gdbinit like that, it
should do that)

> That isn't to say that I object to your patchset, TBC.  I just
> see it a bit under the "why do it in C when you can script" light.
> Of course the answer can reasonably be "I need this without Python".

So there were two reasons why I liked this approach:
- This ships something with GDB, that will work on all Linux
distributions the same way, as long as they agree on a directory
location
- It works without Python enabled

I'd also be happy with shipping a default gdbinit file that does a
similar thing, especially if we were to add glob support to the source
command.

I dunno, anyone else have thoughts on this?

Christian