Re: gdba probs

[Nick Roberts <nick@nick.uklinux.net>]

Richard Stallman writes:

 > > The totalview debugger starts with 6 windows. But, hey!, lets be open
 > >  minded about this. How do you know you don't want them before you know
 > >  what they do ?

 > Is there a way to make it more self-evident what these windows do?
 > What measures are taken in the code as it is now
 > to show the user what these windows do and how to use them?

At the moment there's only what you get from `C-h f gdba' (reproduced below).
As far as layout goes, I share some of Miles' reservations. There are a
further 3 buffers (assembler, registers, display) that the user might want to
display and each user will have his/her own preferences. I have looked at trying
to save a window configuration and I note that this concept has been on the
TODO list of desktop.el for a long time. I can imagine this is not an easy
thing to do.

As for what each buffer does I could start to document it in info format but
its still evolving and I don't know if there is sufficient interest yet. Apart
from the errors, I like to think much of the functionality is self evident. What
do others think ?

Nick

---------------------------

gdba is an interactive compiled Lisp function in `gdb-ui'.
(gdba COMMAND-LINE)

Run gdb on program FILE in buffer *gdb-FILE*.
The directory containing FILE becomes the initial working directory
and source-file directory for your debugger.

If `gdb-many-windows' is set to t this works best in X (depending on the size
of your monitor) using most of the screen. After a short delay the following
layout will appear (keybindings given in relevant buffer) :

---------------------------------------------------------------------
                               GDB Toolbar
---------------------------------------------------------------------
GUD buffer (I/O of gdb)           | Locals buffer
                                  |
                                  |
                                  |
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Source buffer                     | Input/Output (of debuggee) buffer
                                  | (comint-mode)
                                  |
                                  |
                                  |
                                  |
                                  |
                                  |
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Stack buffer                      | Breakpoints buffer
[mouse-2] gdb-frames-mouse-select | SPC    gdb-toggle-bp-this-line
                                  |   g    gdb-goto-bp-this-line
                                  |   d    gdb-delete-bp-this-line
---------------------------------------------------------------------

All the buffers share the toolbar and source should always display in the same
window e.g after typing g on a breakpoint in the breakpoints buffer. Breakpoint
icons are displayed both by setting a break with gud-break and by typing break
in the GUD buffer.

Displayed expressions appear in separate frames. Arrays may be displayed
as slices and visualised using the graph program from plotutils if installed.

If `gdb-many-windows' is set to nil then gdb starts with just two windows :
the GUD and the source buffer.

The following interactive lisp functions help control operation :

`gdb-many-windows'  - Toggle the number of windows gdb uses.
`gdb-restore-windows' - to restore the layout if its lost.
`gdb-quit'            - to delete (most) of the buffers used by gdb.