From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (qmail 15022 invoked by alias); 30 Sep 2004 20:55:16 -0000 Mailing-List: contact gdb-help@sources.redhat.com; run by ezmlm Precedence: bulk List-Subscribe: List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: , Sender: gdb-owner@sources.redhat.com Received: (qmail 15015 invoked from network); 30 Sep 2004 20:55:15 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO lakermmtao02.cox.net) (68.230.240.37) by sourceware.org with SMTP; 30 Sep 2004 20:55:15 -0000 Received: from white ([68.9.64.121]) by lakermmtao02.cox.net (InterMail vM.6.01.03.04 201-2131-111-106-20040729) with ESMTP id <20040930205513.UTQF15594.lakermmtao02.cox.net@white>; Thu, 30 Sep 2004 16:55:13 -0400 Received: from bob by white with local (Exim 3.35 #1 (Debian)) id 1CD7xK-0000oB-00; Thu, 30 Sep 2004 16:55:14 -0400 Date: Thu, 30 Sep 2004 20:55:00 -0000 From: Bob Rossi To: Eli Zaretskii Cc: Cenedese@indel.ch, gdb@sources.redhat.com Subject: Re: MI documentation Message-ID: <20040930205514.GF2271@white> Mail-Followup-To: Eli Zaretskii , Cenedese@indel.ch, gdb@sources.redhat.com References: <20040929173133.GB1054@white> <5.2.0.9.1.20040930082856.01cf3990@NT_SERVER> <20040930114917.GA2181@white> <01c4a6f5$Blat.v2.2.2$930393a0@zahav.net.il> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <01c4a6f5$Blat.v2.2.2$930393a0@zahav.net.il> User-Agent: Mutt/1.3.28i X-SW-Source: 2004-09/txt/msg00278.txt.bz2 On Thu, Sep 30, 2004 at 03:57:31PM +0200, Eli Zaretskii wrote: > > Date: Thu, 30 Sep 2004 07:49:17 -0400 > > From: Bob Rossi > > Cc: gdb@sources.redhat.com > > > > It still doesn't tell you the asyncronous commands like you mentioned or > > the fields that are available for input commands or anything else that I > > would need to know for certain versions. > > > > I feel that knowing these things are a minimum requirement for having a > > protocol between 2 processes. > > Upon thinking about this issue, I came to a conclusion that, as > surprising as it might sound, I don't understand the problem that bugs > you. > > All the MI versions except the latest are kept for one reason only: > backward compatibility. So an already existing front end should use > the version it was written to support, while a new front end should > use the latest version, the one invoked by "-interpreter=mi". Doesn't > this solve the problem? If not, why not, and what solutions you can > suggest to solve that? I guess the *real* problem is how we expect a front end and multiple versions of GDB work together. I think there needs to be a section in the documentation that describes backwards compatibility. For instance, I think that a front end programmed to understand mi1 should always work with a GDB that is capable of outputting mi1. For instance, here are some example GDB's and MI versions for demonstration, GDB version with MI versions GDB 1.0 -> mi1 GDB 2.0 -> mi1,mi2 GDB 3.0 -> mi1,mi2 GDB 4.0 -> mi1,mi2,mi3 GDB 5.0 -> mi1,mi2,mi3,mi4 Front end version which understands MI version FE 1.0 -> mi2 FE 2.0 -> mi2,mi3 FE 3.0 -> mi2,mi3,mi4 So, here is an example that I don't see to far fetched within the next few years. The question is, what does backwards compatibility mean? This is what I expect, FE 1.0 or after to never work with GDB 1.0 FE 1.0 to work with GDB 2.0 on using mi2. FE 2.0 to work with GDB 2.0 and 3.0 using mi2 and with GDB 4.0 on with mi3 FE 3.0 to work with GDB 2.0 and 3.0 using mi2 and with GDB 4.0 with mi3 and with GDB 5.0 with mi4 Is this what everyone else expects? Thanks, Bob Rossi