Re: [PATCH] keep-variable command

[Andrew STUBBS <andrew dot stubbs at st dot com>]

Jim Blandy wrote:
> - Converting types to strings needs to be done in a
>   language-independent manner.  It's a shame that types don't seem to
>   point to a language.  But it would be better to use LA_PRINT_TYPE
>   than to build the name by hand.

That prints to a stream. Is there a way to make it 'print' to a buffer? 
I haven't studied it in depth.

> - Types can be local to some scope.  Even if you print out a type's
>   name, how can you discover what scope to re-parse it in?  Right now
>   you're just getting whatever happens to be in
>   expression_context_block, right?

Yes, but the variables are fixed up lazily. In theory, if the user 
doesn't access it until it makes sense then there will be no problem. Of 
course, if they just say 'show conv' then some variables may well not 
find types.

> Do you really need all this?  Can you tell us more about the situation?

We have a number of scripts which want to keep values regardless of what 
happens to the symbol tables - they mostly describe the configuration of 
the target (location of memory mapped registers, that kind of thing). I 
think they are all just char, int or pointer variants of those.

This worked OK for a while without anything special (we just didn't 
delete them), but the type fixing was in response to some evil crashing 
bugs we had. I discovered it had been working more by chance than design 
and did something about it - it is always wrong to make assumptions 
about pointers into tables that are being rebuilt. The fact that made it 
work for other types was something of a freebie.

Regardless of whether I really _need_ all of it I rather _like_ the fact 
that it Just Works ... mostly.

Andrew