From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (qmail 21818 invoked by alias); 27 Jan 2006 17:41:30 -0000 Received: (qmail 21810 invoked by uid 22791); 27 Jan 2006 17:41:29 -0000 X-Spam-Check-By: sourceware.org Received: from romy.inter.net.il (HELO romy.inter.net.il) (192.114.186.66) by sourceware.org (qpsmtpd/0.31) with ESMTP; Fri, 27 Jan 2006 17:41:27 +0000 Received: from HOME-C4E4A596F7 (IGLD-83-130-255-5.inter.net.il [83.130.255.5]) by romy.inter.net.il (MOS 3.7.3-GA) with ESMTP id DLH66512 (AUTH halo1); Fri, 27 Jan 2006 19:41:24 +0200 (IST) Date: Fri, 27 Jan 2006 18:04:00 -0000 Message-Id: From: Eli Zaretskii To: gdb@sourceware.org In-reply-to: <20060126055744.GA29647@nevyn.them.org> (message from Daniel Jacobowitz on Thu, 26 Jan 2006 00:57:44 -0500) Subject: Re: Using XML in GDB? Reply-to: Eli Zaretskii References: <20060126055744.GA29647@nevyn.them.org> X-IsSubscribed: yes Mailing-List: contact gdb-help@sourceware.org; run by ezmlm Precedence: bulk List-Subscribe: List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: , Sender: gdb-owner@sourceware.org X-SW-Source: 2006-01/txt/msg00309.txt.bz2 > Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2006 00:57:44 -0500 > From: Daniel Jacobowitz > > Does anyone have a good reason why GDB should not make use of this > well-standardized format instead of inventing additional ad-hoc formats? I'd like to see some spec, if you please. It's hard to make up one's mind without at least that, since XML is not the ideal format for all and every type of communications. It has disadvantages, some of them were already mentioned in this thread: it's very wordy, and existing implementations are not guaranteed to exist on every supported platform (telling users to download and install additional packages as a prerequisite to building GDB is a mild nuisance). So I'd like to weigh these demerits against the advantages, and that is only possible if some kind of specification for this specific interface which we are discussing is available. I've read your description from May (and just re-read it now), and it sounds like the number of different entities we need to communicate is quite small and their structure is simple. So why did you come to the conclusion that you needed something like XML to express that interface?