Re: [patch] -iex and -ix: Execute them _after_ gdbinits

[Eli Zaretskii <eliz at gnu dot org>]

> Date: Sat, 16 Jun 2012 22:13:12 +0200
> From: Jan Kratochvil <jan.kratochvil@redhat.com>
> Cc: gdb-patches@sourceware.org
> 
> > > I would like to swap 1 <-> 2:
> > >  1. /etc/gdbinit, ~/.gdbinit
> > >  2. -iex and -ix
> > >  2. inferior load
> > >  3. -ex and -x etc.
> > 
> > That would make it impossible to run a command before loading
> > .gdbinit, right?
> 
> There is additionally:
> 4. load .gdbinit from the inferior's directory

My concern is about what happens before ~/.gdbinit is loaded, so
nothing that happens after that can resolve that.

> If you are in directory ~ then the .gdbinit file is considered to be
> ~/.gdbinit (and not inferior .gdbinit).
> 
> Does it answer your question?

No, see above.

> > > In practice I found I need to override 'set auto-load safe-path ...' pre-set
> > > by ~/.gdbinit for specific GDB runs by -iex.  There is no other way to do it.
> > 
> > We could invent some other way of doing that, but without taking away
> > what users can do now.
> 
> I have not found a use case where the current behavior is better.

It doesn't have to be better.  It has the advantage of being there
first.  It's the new behavior that must have a significant advantage
to justify an incompatible change of behavior.

> > > Contrary to it I cannot imagine why one would want to get -iex commands
> > > overriden by /etc/gdbinit and ~/.gdbinit.
> > 
> > Not overriden by, _executed_before_.
> 
> I also agree with "executed before" but in practice it means that if distro
> for example (Fedora does not) puts into /etc/gdbinit:
> 	set auto-load safe-path /opt:/distro-dir:/bin
> 
> Then there is no chance to use -iex 'set auto-load safe-path ...' currently.

But setting auto-load is not the only thing I can do with -iex.  I can
have any number of commands there which have nothing to do with
safe-path and stuff.

We are removing a potentially useful feature for reasons that were not
justified well enough.  Are there any reasons beyond the auto-load
issue?  If not, I submit the reasons are not grave enough for the
change, certainly not in a minor release.

And I don't see why we should pay so much attention to what Fedora
does in its GDB distribution.  For example, I always build my own GDB,
on any platform I work, and I don't see why I should be punished
because Fedora does something.