[Bug gdb/16360] Provide a --shortversion flag

["marc.khouzam at ericsson dot com" <sourceware-bugzilla at sourceware dot org>]

https://sourceware.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=16360

--- Comment #2 from Marc Khouzam <marc.khouzam at ericsson dot com> ---
(In reply to Tom Tromey from comment #1)
> I'm curious why you use versions and what you use them for.

Eclipse CDT bases itself on the GDB version to know what features are available
or not.  For example, Reverse debugging will only be possible to enable if we
are dealing with GDB version >= 7.0; multi-process needs >= 7.2; showing
information on cores needs >= 7.1

> On the whole I think it would be better if you could use
> feature tests instead.

Yes, the solution we use works for FSF GDB but will not work so well for any
modified GDB.  However, I'm not sure there is a reliable way to figure out
feature availability for everything CDT uses from GDB.  Futhermore, there are
many drawbacks to test for features in a 'brute force' fashion: error printouts
visible to the user (or the complexity of silencing them), affecting the GDB
state, delayed startup time to run through the many feature tests.

> In theory I think the allowable versions are defined in the
> internals manual: https://sourceware.org/gdb/wiki/Internals%20Versions
> I'm afraid I don't know how closely reality conforms to this.
> Also see the vendor branch page:
> https://sourceware.org/gdb/wiki/Internals%20Vendor-Branches

Over the years, this is the list of formats we've seen in the wild.

GNU gdb 6.8.50.20080730
GNU gdb (GDB) 6.8.50.20080730-cvs
GNU gdb (Ericsson GDB 1.0-10) 6.8.50.20080730-cvs
GNU gdb (GDB) Fedora (7.0-3.fc12)
GNU gdb 6.8.0.20080328-cvs (cygwin-special)
GNU gdb 7.0
GNU gdb Fedora (6.8-27.el5)
GNU gdb Red Hat Linux (6.3.0.0-1.162.el4rh)
GNU gdb (GDB) STMicroelectronics/Linux Base 7.4-71 [build Mar  1 2013]

and then there's Apple's GDB, but I'm not sure this one has a future:
GNU gdb 6.3.50-20050815 (Apple version gdb-696) (Sat Oct 20 18:20:28 GMT 2007)
GNU gdb 6.3.50-20050815 (Apple version gdb-966) (Tue Mar 10 02:43:13 UTC 2009)
GNU gdb 6.3.50-20050815 (Apple version gdb-1346) (Fri Sep 18 20:40:51 UTC 2009)
GNU gdb 6.3.50-20050815 (Apple version gdb-1461.2) (Fri Mar  5 04:43:10 UTC
2010)
GNU gdb 7.0 (Apple version gdb-1) (Fri Sep 18 20:40:51 UTC 2009)
GNU gdb 7.0-20050815 (Apple version gdb-01) (Fri Sep 18 20:40:51 UTC 2009)

Having a --shortversion option would reduce the risk of some unexpected format
with special characters or interchanged ordering.

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