Re: LSP based on GCC

[Alexandre Oliva <oliva@adacore.com>]

On May 17, 2023, Arsen Arsenović <arsen@aarsen.me> wrote:

> ISTR Alexandre Oliva (CC added) mentioning leveraging GDB to implement
> various bits of LSP functionality, such as handling multiple TUs.  This
> sounds like a good idea to me (at least at a high level), as it could
> lead to the hypothetical GNU toolchain LSP implementation being
> partially language-agnostic (naturally, some things like candidate lists
> would still need language support, as well as documentation parsing,
> ...), which would be quite handy.

> Do you happen to have any memory of that?

I recall advancing that suggestion, reasoning that GDB was capable of
combining information from multiple translation units and of reloading
debug information, which GCC doesn't.  But that was mainly a hunch that
it could work, not something based on extensive knowledge of GDB or LSP.
Details were all yet to be figured out.  I expected there'd be a need
for additional debug information to be emitted.  I wasn't sure how to
approach the issue of translation units that wouldn't compile or link
successfully yet.  There are many thorny issues to be sorted out.

-- 
Alexandre Oliva, happy hacker                https://FSFLA.org/blogs/lxo/
   Free Software Activist                       GNU Toolchain Engineer
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