probing GDB for MI versions (summary)

[Bob Rossi <bob@brasko.net>]

Hi,

It seems that at this point, everyone agrees there needs to be a command
in GDB that allows it to output the official versions of MI that it supports. 
I think this is very good, since it addresses many of the problems that I
am facing.

So far there have been several proposals,

   * A command line switch
   * A new interpreter that outputs the interpreters that GDB supports
   * A new MI command
   * Starting GDB with every possible interpreter, until one is found.

I originally like the command line switch, which Eli disapproved of
because of the general public having access to useless information.

I agree with Eli on this point, and I came up with the idea from
Nathan's Email that a new interpreter could be invoked, and the
interpreter was only capable of outputting the interpreters that the
current GDB supports. This is a simple solution and I would prefer to
see it implemented. It avoids the problem that Eli had.

Adding a new MI command is the worst case scenario in my opinion. The
reason is because a front end that understands all of the MI protocols
can not use any of them to ask GDB what protocols it supports. The front
end has to come up with some new parser, that has to understand future
protocols that have not been invented.

Starting GDB with every possible interpreter. This solution is workable
but is ugly and could make the user wait for GDB to be started several
times for no reason at all. Also, the problem with developmental
versions is still an issue on this approach.

Any comments?

Thanks,
Bob Rossi