Re: [dsdp-dd-dev] Re: [cdt-dev] CDI-GDB features missing from the DSF-GD

[Vladimir Prus <vladimir@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Wednesday 01 October 2008 20:25:03 Pawel Piech wrote:
> Currently the CLI support in DSF-GDB is very close in features (and 
> bugs) to CDI-GDB.  We basically ported the CDI solution trying not to 
> break anything.  We also have discussed on several occasions improving 
> this support in various ways.  Unfortunately, the fundamental problem 
> with supporting CLI debugging (concurrent with MI debugging) is that GDB 
> does not emit events for all the different state changes that CLI 
> commands can produce.  This often leaves the IDE out of sync with target 
> producing erratic behavior.

I don't think this is exactly accurate statement. I think the only two
bits that can cause messes are current thread and current frame. GDB does
not report changes in current frame due to CLI commands, so something can
be messed up. But there's easy solution for now -- use --thread and --frame
options for all MI commands, except for commands issued from CLI console.
This will guarantee that operations done by GUI will work fine. The drawback
is that the current thread and frame as set in GUI and passed vi --thread
and --frame options will be different from the current thread and frame
for CLI commands; this may be confusing.

As for all other changes that CLI commands can do -- for example changing
breakpoints -- it would be nice to emit notifications, but refreshing the
entire UI state after each CLI command is not so bad.

> > - make the console visible upon launching debug session
> > - add (gdb) prompt. This makes the developer feel more at home.
> > - tab-completion(I'm not sure this is available from the MI protocol).

It is not, and I don't think it's on anybody's agenda, but anybody motivated
to do that should find this straightforward.

- Volodya