From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (qmail 9365 invoked by alias); 29 Apr 2005 16:52:09 -0000 Mailing-List: contact gdb-help@sources.redhat.com; run by ezmlm Precedence: bulk List-Subscribe: List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: , Sender: gdb-owner@sources.redhat.com Received: (qmail 9087 invoked from network); 29 Apr 2005 16:51:48 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO cgf.cx) (66.30.17.189) by sourceware.org with SMTP; 29 Apr 2005 16:51:48 -0000 Received: by cgf.cx (Postfix, from userid 201) id 6275213C1C8; Fri, 29 Apr 2005 12:51:48 -0400 (EDT) Date: Fri, 29 Apr 2005 16:56:00 -0000 From: Christopher Faylor To: Mark Mitchell , paul@codesourcery.com, gdb@sourceware.org Subject: Re: Windows support in GDB Message-ID: <20050429165148.GD12864@trixie.casa.cgf.cx> Mail-Followup-To: Mark Mitchell , paul@codesourcery.com, gdb@sourceware.org References: <200504291513.j3TFDhjx021040@elgar.sibelius.xs4all.nl> <20050429153146.GA27362@nevyn.them.org> <20050429160040.GH10017@trixie.casa.cgf.cx> <42725D6A.7040103@codesourcery.com> <20050429162732.GA12864@trixie.casa.cgf.cx> <42726437.9050208@codesourcery.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <42726437.9050208@codesourcery.com> User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.8i X-SW-Source: 2005-04/txt/msg00229.txt.bz2 On Fri, Apr 29, 2005 at 09:43:35AM -0700, Mark Mitchell wrote: >Christopher Faylor wrote: >>However, now that the patches are finally here, I have to say that I >>sort of share Mark K's concerns. I'm wondering if we are on a slippery >>slope and (to mix a metaphor) will be subjecting gdb to a >>death-by-inches as we slowly add ifdefs throughout the configury and >>code. > >I think it's a funny time to get concerned -- we're done. For now. Didn't you just theorize more involvement from the MinGW community now that your patch is in? I have to admit that I've got incredibly mixed feelings about this. After years of asking for patches, I'm happy that they are finally in. Now I find myself mildly dreading the support aspect. But, I guess we can see how it goes. >There are no more cuts coming, so as long as we're not bleeding to >death yet, we're not going to die. Plenty of GNU software has similar >patches to support running on MinGW. GDB itself already has 2500 lines >of code in win32-nat.c, some of which I would imagine is rather more >opaque to POSIX programmers than anything we've added. > >We made these changes with no algorithmic modifications to GDB, no >perversions of its core design, etc. > >What's the failure mode going to be? If a POSIX person adds a use of >non-Windows function, without appropriate #ifdef, then the Windows side >of things will break. At that point, assuming that people are noticing >(which we will!), we'll fix that. I guess the failure mode will be roughly similar to DJGPP. Every time someone decides that it would be nice to use signal(), select(), fifos, inodes, unix-domain sockets, or some other non-msdos construct there will have to be a discussion about how to make things work. But, I guess we'd already be having this discussion to with DJGPP so maybe it won't be a big deal. >I certainly don't think the entire codebase will be littered with >HANDLEs and ReadFileEx, or transformed into a multi-threaded application >with a Windows event loop in the middle of it, or anything like that. No, but maybe we should rewrite gdb in c++. That sounds like it would solve everything. :-) cgf