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Date: Fri, 26 Jul 2002 15:02:00 -0000
From: Michael Snyder <msnyder@redhat.com>
Organization: Red Hat, Inc.
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To: Andrew Cagney <ac131313@ges.redhat.com>
CC: Anthony Green <green@redhat.com>, gdb@sources.redhat.com
Subject: Re: naming command arguments
References: <1027556059.2082.179.camel@dhcppc2> <3D408887.70003@ges.redhat.com>
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Andrew Cagney wrote:
> 
> > 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?

For this specific case, the command doesn't accept line specs.
Only integer expressions interpretted as addresses.


> 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