From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (qmail 21718 invoked by alias); 2 Dec 2005 23:32:13 -0000 Received: (qmail 21707 invoked by uid 22791); 2 Dec 2005 23:32:13 -0000 X-Spam-Check-By: sourceware.org Received: from nevyn.them.org (HELO nevyn.them.org) (66.93.172.17) by sourceware.org (qpsmtpd/0.31.1) with ESMTP; Fri, 02 Dec 2005 23:32:12 +0000 Received: from drow by nevyn.them.org with local (Exim 4.54) id 1EiKNr-0005Bz-Lk; Fri, 02 Dec 2005 18:32:07 -0500 Date: Fri, 02 Dec 2005 23:32:00 -0000 From: Daniel Jacobowitz To: Jim Blandy Cc: Mark Kettenis , gdb@sourceware.org Subject: Re: [RFC] plugin/extension interface Message-ID: <20051202233207.GA19812@nevyn.them.org> Mail-Followup-To: Jim Blandy , Mark Kettenis , gdb@sourceware.org References: <439090FE.8040502@st.com> <200512021936.jB2JaZ6n014666@elgar.sibelius.xs4all.nl> <8f2776cb0512021412n17d2a8b2rf8cb4a48daa9449e@mail.gmail.com> <200512022241.jB2Mf3Fk024314@elgar.sibelius.xs4all.nl> <8f2776cb0512021507m52b9d491gd4ddc0ceaab594ba@mail.gmail.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <8f2776cb0512021507m52b9d491gd4ddc0ceaab594ba@mail.gmail.com> User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.8i X-IsSubscribed: yes Mailing-List: contact gdb-help@sourceware.org; run by ezmlm Precedence: bulk List-Subscribe: List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: , Sender: gdb-owner@sourceware.org X-SW-Source: 2005-12/txt/msg00015.txt.bz2 On Fri, Dec 02, 2005 at 03:07:29PM -0800, Jim Blandy wrote: > I don't think you're seeing the potential here. There are a *lot* of > things people would like to do with debuggers: And every one of these things you've described doing with debuggers, would require a _DIFFERENT_ plugin interface. It would be a nightmare to add this to today's GDB! See Bob's comment for the right way to handle this problem, in my opinion also. I consider all this part of the "front end". Most of these things shouldn't be added to GDB at such a level that it gets exposed through MI; you should add it to your front end in a front end specific fashion. Often this means you need to add it to the GDB CLI also. That's a different sort of problem. Scripting languages, rather than plugin interfaces, are more viable for this. All this, of course, is moot until someone begins to implement it. But I have yet to see a binary plugin interface that doesn't have all the problems Mark described. > ... Okay, another qualification is that a well-integrated scripting > language might do everything I'm saying here, and better, because the > extension/core interface is more well-defined. Yes. I believe this will be the thing that pushes us up to version 7. I hope it will be soon, time and volunteers permitting. -- Daniel Jacobowitz CodeSourcery, LLC