From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (qmail 19686 invoked by alias); 30 Jan 2008 00:21:31 -0000 Received: (qmail 19672 invoked by uid 22791); 30 Jan 2008 00:21:30 -0000 X-Spam-Check-By: sourceware.org Received: from vms042pub.verizon.net (HELO vms042pub.verizon.net) (206.46.252.42) by sourceware.org (qpsmtpd/0.31) with ESMTP; Wed, 30 Jan 2008 00:21:11 +0000 Received: from black ([96.238.9.21]) by vms042.mailsrvcs.net (Sun Java System Messaging Server 6.2-6.01 (built Apr 3 2006)) with ESMTPA id <0JVF00MNNKZ46BN1@vms042.mailsrvcs.net> for gdb@sources.redhat.com; Tue, 29 Jan 2008 18:21:05 -0600 (CST) Received: from bob by black with local (Exim 4.67) (envelope-from ) id 1JK0hM-0007lG-1M; Tue, 29 Jan 2008 19:21:04 -0500 Date: Wed, 30 Jan 2008 00:21:00 -0000 From: Bob Rossi Subject: Re: GDB Annotations : support plan In-reply-to: <18335.47450.501387.805867@kahikatea.snap.net.nz> To: Nick Roberts Cc: "Jain, Rohit" , gdb@sources.redhat.com Mail-followup-to: Nick Roberts , "Jain, Rohit" , gdb@sources.redhat.com Message-id: <20080130002103.GC28482@brasko.net> MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-disposition: inline References: <18335.47450.501387.805867@kahikatea.snap.net.nz> User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.15+20070412 (2007-04-11) X-IsSubscribed: yes Mailing-List: contact gdb-help@sourceware.org; run by ezmlm Precedence: bulk List-Id: List-Subscribe: List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: , Sender: gdb-owner@sourceware.org X-SW-Source: 2008-01/txt/msg00324.txt.bz2 On Wed, Jan 30, 2008 at 12:40:10PM +1300, Nick Roberts wrote: > Jain, Rohit writes: > > Hi, > > > > GDB is now supporting GDB/MI interface, and the annotation mechanism has > > now become obsolete. > > > > Is there any plan to completely discontinue the support for annotations > > in future? > > Yes. Agreed. > > If yes, and if you know approximate release period that annotations are > > going to exist, please let me know. > > AFAIK here is no timescale. Hopefully not to soon. I still use them in my front end, but will hopefully in 2008 switch to MI. > > If no, then is it safe to assume that GDB/MI interface and annotations > > (although obsolete!) are going to co-exist? > > Building frontends that use annotations is actively discouraged. If > GDB/MI does not currently meet all your requirements then please contribute > to its development. I have to say, it would be a really bad idea to use the annotations. Really bad. It's hard to do much of anything with what they provide. However, GDB/MI will waste a lot of your time if your requirements aren't meet through what it provides already. I'm just warning you. Someone in the GDB development area basically decided to create GDB/MI as a nice protocol for GDB front ends. However, they didn't write a client to demostrate it's purposes. Each client reimplements all the work necessary to parse and interpret the protocol. Furthermore, every client wants something different and so has different expectations of what the interface should provide. Finally, if it doesn't do something you need, the standard answer is - do it yourself. Just for the icing on the cake, don't expect your patch to get reviewed for 6 months. This is my experience. I have a bison parser that parses the GDB/MI protocol, however, it only works with a bison version in CVS. Contact me if you care. Bob Rossi