: Re: [RFC] multiple breakpoints from FILE:LINE

[Cyrille Comar]

 >> Those menus have got to go.  They're (a) confusing to users (in my
 >> opinion, no real data), and (b) extremely awkward for graphical
 >> frontends.

 > Interesting.  As I said, in Ada, the multi-line feature is much more
 > important than in C.  AdaCore's version has been around for years, and
 > has simply created multiple breakpoints (controlled by menu, as for
 > overloading).  We haven't gotten loud calls for doing things
 > differently (well, point (b) has caused internal gripes), but perhaps
 > I should do some polling for soft grumbling from users.

Ok, here is some soft grumblings from a long-standing internal user of 
the AdaCore version: grumble grumble...
;-)

I agree with Daniel's (a) & (b). I have never grumbled before on this 
topic because I did not have anything constructive to contribute. This 
thread gave me an idea. Here it is:

I believe it would be worthwhile to have 2 different break commands:
     - break
     - break-multiple (or whatever other more appropriate name)

break-multiple would have the semantics advocated by Daniel (break 
automatically on all relevant locations)

break, instead of presenting a menu, would issue an error of the kind:

(gdb) break FILENAME:LINENUM
multiple choices for this breakpoint, please use any of the following:
break-multiple FILENAME:LINENUM
break FILENAME:instance1.function:LINENUM
break FILENAME:instance2.function:LINENUM
break FILENAME:instance3.function:LINENUM


That solves 4 issues:
   - an experienced user can do exactly what she wants
   - a less experienced user can copy/paste the appropriate choice from 
the error message
   - there is no more awkward interactive menu in text mode
   - a graphical interface can easily parse the error output and do 
whatever deemed appropriate in the interface (presenting a menu for 
instance)