MI varobj properties

MI varobj properties

[Vladimir Prus]

It looks like MI has grown way to many ways to report properties of a variable 
object:

	- When a variable object is created, the gdb response reports some
          properties (like expression and the number of children).
        - There's -var-info-expression that returns the expression (basically
          the same as above) and also language.
        - There's -var-show-attributes that returns "editable" attribute.
	- Apple branch has -var-info-path-expression that returns full expression

This is somewhat complicated, and there are no clear rationale how do get any 
new bit of information.

Except for getting the value of a variable objects, all those properties are 
computed by gdb, and there are no complex algorithms. How about the following 
change:


        - The commands that create new variable object always return full
          list of properties.
        - There's a new command that also returns the full list of properties
        - For backward compatibility, existing commands just forward
          to the new command.

Comments?

- Volodya

Re: MI varobj properties

[Jim Ingham]

I did -var-info-path-expression lazily, since these can be pretty long  
strings, and most of the time they aren't used.  So hanging one off  
each varobj when it's not needed seems wasteful.

Jim

On Nov 15, 2006, at 8:42 AM, Vladimir Prus wrote:

>
> It looks like MI has grown way to many ways to report properties of  
> a variable
> object:
>
> 	- When a variable object is created, the gdb response reports some
>           properties (like expression and the number of children).
>         - There's -var-info-expression that returns the expression  
> (basically
>           the same as above) and also language.
>         - There's -var-show-attributes that returns "editable"  
> attribute.
> 	- Apple branch has -var-info-path-expression that returns full  
> expression
>
> This is somewhat complicated, and there are no clear rationale how  
> do get any
> new bit of information.
>
> Except for getting the value of a variable objects, all those  
> properties are
> computed by gdb, and there are no complex algorithms. How about the  
> following
> change:
>
>
>         - The commands that create new variable object always return  
> full
>           list of properties.
>         - There's a new command that also returns the full list of  
> properties
>         - For backward compatibility, existing commands just forward
>           to the new command.
>
> Comments?
>
> - Volodya

Re: MI varobj properties

[Nick Roberts]

 > Except for getting the value of a variable objects, all those properties are
 > computed by gdb, and there are no complex algorithms. How about the
 > following change:
 > 
 > 
 >        - The commands that create new variable object always return full
 >          list of properties.
 >        - There's a new command that also returns the full list of properties
 >        - For backward compatibility, existing commands just forward
 >          to the new command.
 > 
 > Comments?

I only use the properties currently output with -var-create.  I think first you
need to consider carefully how you would use any new command and which
properties change after creation (if there are none then they could all be
accessed from -var-create).  I'm not sure what you mean by forward to the new
command, presumably you can add a new command and leave the old ones as they
are.

-- 
Nick                                           http://www.inet.net.nz/~nickrob