Re: Windows DLL support update (a bit slimmer version)

Joel Brobecker
2007-10-12T22:07:24Z

> > Given the growing importance that XML is taking in GDB, maybe there
> > will be a day when it is worth having a copy of the expat sources in
> > GDB, and always build with expat.
>
> I was told that importing expat was unacceptable. I was also told
> that requiring it be installed to build GDB was unacceptable. This
> is about the best I can manage given those restrictions.

Yes, I remember too. That's the best decision we could all make
given these restrictions. I'm not trying to change the situation
today, more like thinking aloud that for future directions.

DLL support is pretty important in my opinion, and some users might
be surprised to see it disappear silently because their system does
not have libexpat installed. That being said, I am wondering if
there are that many users that are savvy enough to build GDB themselves.

Perhaps I should document that fact, but I see that there is already
a paragraph in README regarding this. Is it worth keeping a list of
the "target-specific" features that require expat? Not really sure,
but I don't mind starting the list with documenting that requirement
for DLL support.

> Could you explain why you want to avoid expat? It's not like you have
> to use a DLL version; it should not complicate shipping GDB at all.
> It just has to be in CPPFLAGS and LDFLAGS when you're building GDB.

You're right, and I've already started working in that direction.
It's just a little bit extra sysadmin & script work which I would
have liked to avoid just because I'm so hopelessly lazy :).

Thanks for the feedback, Daniel.

--
Joel