From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (qmail 31167 invoked by alias); 14 Jul 2008 14:54:10 -0000 Received: (qmail 31151 invoked by uid 22791); 14 Jul 2008 14:54:09 -0000 X-Spam-Check-By: sourceware.org Received: from mx1.redhat.com (HELO mx1.redhat.com) (66.187.233.31) by sourceware.org (qpsmtpd/0.31) with ESMTP; Mon, 14 Jul 2008 14:53:52 +0000 Received: from int-mx1.corp.redhat.com (int-mx1.corp.redhat.com [172.16.52.254]) by mx1.redhat.com (8.13.8/8.13.8) with ESMTP id m6EEraaI024733; Mon, 14 Jul 2008 10:53:36 -0400 Received: from pobox.corp.redhat.com (pobox.corp.redhat.com [10.11.255.20]) by int-mx1.corp.redhat.com (8.13.1/8.13.1) with ESMTP id m6EEraia010990; Mon, 14 Jul 2008 10:53:36 -0400 Received: from [127.0.0.1] (sebastian-int.corp.redhat.com [172.16.52.221]) by pobox.corp.redhat.com (8.13.1/8.13.1) with ESMTP id m6EErTOI010937; Mon, 14 Jul 2008 10:53:35 -0400 Message-ID: <487B6884.6010702@gnu.org> Date: Mon, 14 Jul 2008 14:54:00 -0000 From: Andrew Cagney User-Agent: Thunderbird 2.0.0.14 (X11/20080501) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Michael Snyder CC: Stan Shebs , gdb@sourceware.org Subject: Re: Move GDB to C++ ? References: <487658F7.1090508@earthlink.net> <1215833394.3549.261.camel@localhost.localdomain> In-Reply-To: <1215833394.3549.261.camel@localhost.localdomain> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit 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: 2008-07/txt/msg00152.txt.bz2 Michael Snyder wrote: > On Thu, 2008-07-10 at 11:46 -0700, Stan Shebs wrote: > >> As many know, there is a project afoot to investigate the recoding of >> GCC from C into C++. I believe the C++ idea was briefly touched on for >> GDB at the summit, although I don't remember much discussion. Anyway, >> this would be a good time to start thinking about it, and if people are >> generally in favor of the idea, we can start small by tweaking the >> sources to be C++-friendly, avoiding keywords and so forth; GCC has a >> new warning flag -Wcxx-compat that can help. >> >> For my part, I think we should do it. GDB has quite a bit of object-like >> structure internally, and while in the past it was taking a bit of a >> chance to rely on the availability and reliability of C++ compilers, >> those concerns are now generally outdated; I'm not sure any of the >> potential problem hosts are even supported any longer. >> > > While I do not love C++, I can see no harm in this suggestion. > Even if the full transition never happens, gdb will be no worse. > This is complicated. As Robert's pointed out, some of the costs are up-front. If the full transition never happens then we'll have still paid that price. This is why I think, initially, should consider running an experiment in parallel, it will let us see what happens without those up-front penelties. Then, with concrete code, we'll be able to better access things and determining if there is a true advantage. It will also let those interested in this figure out all the issues such as coding et.al. without creating unnecessary entropy here in mainline GDB.