PING Re: [RFAv3 0/3] Allow the user to define default leading args for commands and aliases

[Philippe Waroquiers <philippe dot waroquiers at skynet dot be>]

Ping
Thanks
Philippe

On Sun, 2019-09-15 at 21:26 +0200, Philippe Waroquiers wrote:
> Allow the user to define default leading args for commands and aliases.
> 
> This patch series implements, tests and documents the following commands:
> 
>   set leading-args COMMAND [LEADING-ARGS...]
>   show leading-args [COMMAND]
>   set enable-leading-args [on|off]
>   show enable-leading-args
> 
> 
> It also changes the alias command to be:
>   alias [-a] [--] ALIAS = COMMAND [LEADING-ARGS...]
> 
> 
> Using the above leading-args commands and arguments, you can
> define default arguments for commands or define powerful aliases.
> 
> For example:
> 
>   alias bt_ALL = backtrace -entry-values both -frame-arg all -past-main -past-entry -full
> 
> defines the alias bt_ALL that will give as much information as possible
> in a backtrace.
> 
> Leading args can usefully be combined with the 'with' command, such as:
> 
> Make "wLapPeu" an alias of 2 nested "with":
>   alias wLapPeu = with language pascal -- with print elements unlimited --
> 
> or have an alias pp10 to pretty print an expression with a maximum of
> 10 elements:
> 
>   alias pp10 = with print pretty -- with print elem 10 -- print
> 
> This patch series also adds a completer for 'alias'.
> 
> 
> This is the 3rd version ot the patch series.
> 
> Compared to the second version, it handles the preliminary comments
> of Pedro (and is rebased to the last master).
> I have for the moment kept the wording 'leading-args' but can change
> it to default-args if that is preferrable.
> The reason I have used leading-args is because these are default leading
> args: the user can add specific arguments after these leading args.
> 
> For what concerns changing 'alias -a' to 'alias -abbreviation":
> This can for sure be done (and be backward compatible).  This can however
> be done as a separate patch (I still also need to do a similar change
> for the 'qcs' flags).
> 
> The second version changes were:
>   * Removed the = separator between COMMAND and LEADING-ARGS
>   * Converted alias command to use the option framework.
>   * Show the leading args of aliases in 'help aliases'.
> 
> Note 1: a preliminary version of this idea (using a command called
> 'add-args') was discussed in
> https://sourceware.org/ml/gdb-patches/2019-06/msg00395.html
> where Tom suggested to make it more GDB like, using 'set' command.
> 
> Note 2: Following another comment of Tom, there is no '=' character
> to separate COMMAND from its leading args.
> If ever this would be ambiguous in some cases, we could introduce
> an optional '=' character to separate COMMAND from its LEADING-ARGS.
> Similarly, the alias command has no separator between COMMAND
> and its LEADING-ARGS.
> 
> 
>