RE: [PATCH v3] Change message when reaching end of reverse history.

["Metzger, Markus T" <markus.t.metzger@intel.com>]

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It comes down to a matter of personal taste and I believe the most important part of this is consistency throughout GDB.  I would leave the final decision on the wording to Eli.

Regards,
Markus.

From: Guinevere Larsen <blarsen@redhat.com>
Sent: Monday, May 6, 2024 4:51 PM
To: Metzger, Markus T <markus.t.metzger@intel.com>; Alex Chronopoulos <achronop@gmail.com>; gdb-patches@sourceware.org
Cc: Pedro Alves <pedro@palves.net>
Subject: Re: [PATCH v3] Change message when reaching end of reverse history.

On 5/6/24 02:19, Metzger, Markus T wrote:
I’d prefer compact, one-line (error) messages.  A longer explanation can go into the manual or in the help text.  E.g.

    Stopping replaying at end of execution history

This simple message brings us all the way back around to the original problem. It's not obvious to a new user that they can keep going and things will continue to be recorded.

If you really want something very short, a "check 'help record'" hint and some text explaining that forward execution can always be resumed (if using record full or record btrace), and if you're executing further new forward execution is added to history, that's ok too.

I don't think the manual is enough, if nothing else, because new users are unlikely to find and read the manual in my experience.

--

Cheers,

Guinevere Larsen

She/Her/Hers

and

    Stopping at beginning of execution history

Markus.

From: Alex Chronopoulos <achronop@gmail.com><mailto:achronop@gmail.com>
Sent: Friday, May 3, 2024 7:17 PM
To: gdb-patches@sourceware.org<mailto:gdb-patches@sourceware.org>
Cc: Pedro Alves <pedro@palves.net><mailto:pedro@palves.net>; Metzger, Markus T <markus.t.metzger@intel.com><mailto:markus.t.metzger@intel.com>; Guinevere Larsen <blarsen@redhat.com><mailto:blarsen@redhat.com>
Subject: Re: [PATCH v3] Change message when reaching end of reverse history.


Thank you, Pedro. No worries, it's still early enough :)

I like your suggestions and would happily follow them. I believe they are clear and leave fewer questions for the user.

I also prefer the extended version for the backward case. However, I don't want to make the final call. I'll wait for others to comment, and I'll update the patch when we have the final version.


On Tue, Apr 23, 2024 at 10:36 PM Pedro Alves <pedro@palves.net<mailto:pedro@palves.net>> wrote:
Sorry for not chiming in earlier...

On 2024-04-14 20:36, Alex Chronopoulos wrote:
> In a record session, when we move backward, GDB switches from normal
> execution to simulation. Moving forward again, the emulation continues
> until the end of the reverse history. When the end is reached, the
> execution stops, and a warning message is shown. This message has been
> modified to indicate that the forward emulation has reached the end, but
> the execution can continue as normal, and the recording will also continue.
>
> Before this patch, the warning message shown in that case was the same as
> in the reverse case. This meant that when the end of history was reached in
> either backward or forward emulation, the same message was displayed:
>
> "No more reverse-execution history."
>
> This message remains for backward emulation. However, in forward emulation,
> it has been modified to:
>
> "End of recorded history; following steps will be added to history."
>

IMO, "steps" here is confusing.  It's ambiguous with stepping.  Like as if
you're saying that the following "step" commands will be added to history.
"But what about if I continue??"

It also isn't true that "following steps will be added to history.".  If
the user does "reverse-continue" for example, they won't, they're
already there...

The following tweak would be more accurate and not have that "step" confusion, IMO:

 "End of recorded history; following forward execution will be added to history."

and it's still under 80 chars.

Except it fells a bit awkward, for not stating that we're stopping before
talking about following execution.  This would be clearer to me:

  Reached end of recorded history; stopping.
  Following forward execution will be added to history.


Also, with the patch, we have these two messages, for the forward case:

 End of recorded history; following steps will be added to history.

and for the reverse case:

 No more reverse-execution history.

I read the v1/v2 discussions, and I have to say that I don't understand how
the potential user confusion that led to changing the "No more reverse-execution"
wording in the forward case doesn't apply to the reverse case...  I think
we should be consistent.

With my suggestion above, we could have:

forward:

  Reached end of recorded history; stopping.
  Following forward execution will be added to history.

backward:

  Reached end of recorded history; stopping.

or, backward:

  Reached end of recorded history; stopping.
  Backward execution from here not possible.

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