George Vasick writes:
> >>> Rather than list all files and directories in SUNWgdb, it would be better
> >>> to list the exported (and imported) interfaces and their stability.
> >> exported interfaces:
> >> * CLI commands: volatile
> >> * MI commands: volatile
> >
> > You need to list the commands explicitly, I think. And I don't think
> > volatile matches reality for GDB: while there are changes, I don't think
> > there are many (if at all) incompatible ones. Maybe Uncommitted is more
> > appropriate, but this would need to be investigated.
>
> OK, in this case, the exported interfaces would be:
>
> /usr/bin/gdb
> /usr/bin/gdbtui
>
> Gdb 6.3 was declared volatile. I reviewed the Interface Taxonomy
> document again. Uncommitted could probably be OK as well but we at Sun
> actually have no control over these interfaces.
Sun control is not the point here and never was; this is a common
misunderstanding. This is all about the actual stability of the
interfaces, which is all the user cares about, not who controls them. If
the project has a track record of keeping interfaces stable, non-Sun
projects can easily be Uncommitted or even Committed.
> >> imported interfaces:
> >> * ELF
> >> * DWARF
> >> * /proc
> >> * libdl.so.1
> >> * libcurses.so.1
> >> * libsocket.so.1
> >> * libnsl.so.1
> >> * libm.so.2
> >> * libexpat.so.1
> >> * libc.so.1
> >> * libmp.so.2
> >> * libmd.so.1
> >> * libscf.so.1
> >> * libuutil.so.1
> >> * libgen.so.1
> >> * libsmbios.so.1
> >
> > There are not interfaces per se: you'd rather list the corresponding ARC
> > cases (if any) and their stability. Apart from that, the list seems
> > strange as is: I won't believe gdb links to libsmbios.so.1 directly. I
> > suppose you took the ldd output, which also lists indirect dependencies
> > which are of no concern here. If I check /usr/bin/gdb on snv_121 (SPARC),
> > I find that libmp, libmd, libscf, libuutil and libgen are in that
> > category.
>
> Here is the pared down list taken from directly link line:
>
> libdl
> libcurses
> libsocket
> libnsl
> libm
> libexpat
> libc
Ok, thanks.
What about the following two questions, though?
> Is there any reason to switch from libncurses as used in gdb 6.3
> > to libcurses?
> >
> >> > In
> >>> particular, what about readline support? Will it be included?
> >> readline support is present. gdb 6.8 includes its own copy of
> >> readline-5.1 source which is used during the build.
> >
> > I think this is unfortunate: since we now include libreadline.so, it would
> > be much better to use that one rather than to statically link a private
> > copy.
Rainer
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Rainer Orth, Center for Biotechnology, Bielefeld University
