Re: naming command arguments

[Andrew Cagney <ac131313@ges.redhat.com>]

> I've been talking to some GDB users who are frustrated with some of
> GDB's command syntax.  My understanding is that optional command
> arguments must be the last possible arguments, and they get dropped off
> right to left.  The problem is that some GDB commands have multiple
> arguments, all of which make sense to be optional, but in no particular
> order.
> 
> So, for instance, the restore command looks something like:
> 
> 	restore FILENAME [OFFSET [START [STOP]]]
> 
> In this case, if you only want to specify the START argument, your
> forced to give OFFSET argument.
> 
> They're suggestion, which seems to make sense to me, is to introduce the
> concept of named parameters for GDB commands.  So, in my previous
> example, they could simply write...
> 
> 	restore FILENAME start:VALUE
> 
> ...and let GDB make reasonable assumptions about OFFSET and STOP
> 
> How do people feel about introducing these kinds of arguments to certain
> GDB commands (like restore)?

For this specific case, how does one differentiate between:

	start:1

the source and line specification and:

	start:1

the start:VALUE?

GDB desperatly needs a command line syntax that better allows the 
specification of optional information but it needs to be chosen very 
carefully.

Other options to consider:

	restore/start:VALUE FILE
	restore --start=VALUE FILE

etc.

Andrew