GDB/MI Output Syntax

[Paul Schlie]

> Bob Rossi wrote:
>> Michael Chastain wrote:
>> ...
>> It would be much better to use TCL data structures to parse MI rather
>> than regular expressions.  I had a great experience getting away from
>> regular expressions with cp_test_ptype_class.
>> 
>> It's still a dozen host arches (actually, a dozen build arches,
>> TCL runs on build machine).  But we're not debugging a target program
>> with shared libraries, we're just using one as a host.
>> ...
>
> Hey, has anything ever evolved out of this?
> 
> Here is my road map for developing an MI parser for CGDB.
>   
>   1. Create a grammar that is easily translated into LR(1)
>   2. Generate the parser with flex and bison
>   3. Have the parser test the output of the GDB MI testsuite
>      (Don't know how to do this)
>   4. Have the parser verify the semantics of GDB's output.
> ...

Or how about a basic scheme (<keyword> <expression> ...) syntax, can't get
much simpler or more flexible than that, not to mention it's fairly straight
forward easy to read/parse/extend and may realativly easily accomplished by
imbedding an open-source basic scheme interpreter, vs re-inventing the
wheel; nearly eliminating the necessity for steps 1, 2; and longer term
could easily eliminate gdb's present less than flexible command interpreter,
as there's truly no good reason for the two to be distinct. (Not a new
notion; but possibly timely and arguably far more productive than developing
yet another yet another syntax/language/intepreter/etc.)