Re: PING: [V3 00/21] Fortran dynamic array support

[Joel Brobecker <brobecker@adacore.com>]

> I would like to ping the Fortran patch series at
>   https://sourceware.org/ml/gdb-patches/2014-09/threads.html#00259
> 
> I think it would be useful if Sourceware's gdb would finally get
> support for Fortran 90 arrays.
> 
> The patch might be not as clean as hoped for,* but it is the best
> what we currently have. Thus, I would be happy if someone could
> review it.

I started looking at them a while ago, but unfortunately I am
in the middle of a lot of things, and I don't expect to have
much time until probably Dec.

My main issue about the patch series is that it adds new fields
in struct type which are only used occasionally. The problem with
that is that it is a memory-sensitive type, for which a lot of
work has gone into making as small as possible. It would be OK
if most instances were benefiting from it, but it's a lot less
attractive when you know it's only occasionally non-null.

Ideally, we'd want to keep the type structure untouched, so that
only entities needing dynamic property handling get the size
increase, and only for those attributes that are in fact dynamic.
One idea I had was to manage that info right past the end of
struct type. But that may be very hacky, and I am not sure if
it is actually practical. The next idea is to add one pointer
to handle all future dynamic props. Either way, I need to explore
things a bit.

Once we have the above figured out, one thing which I think
would help a lot is modify the way the patches have been
submitted. Instead of sending 20 patches, where we get a series
of code changes followed by a series of testsuite changes,
it would be useful to provide a testsuite change for every
patch that brings an improvement. This way, the testsuite change
shows what the patch does, and that way, I can review both changes
at the same time.

-- 
Joel