gdbtk ...completely broken?

[Simon Sobisch]

Am 27.07.2022 um 16:14 schrieb Keith Seitz:
> On 7/26/22 01:07, Simon Sobisch via Gdb wrote:
>> After checking gdb --help I've wondered about the following:
>>
>>    -w                 Use the GUI interface.
>>    --nw               Do not use the GUI interface.
>>
>> it took a while to find out that `-w` only applies if GDB is 
>> configured with the GUI option and much more that this relates to 
>> --enable-gdbtk.
> 
> "gdbtk" refers to Insight, which is now located in a different GIT 
> repository.

Ah - I'd say there was a near zero chance to even guess that.

Could you please try to add notes about this in gdb's configure.ac (a 
note on --enable-gdbtk about both the project Insight and about "only 
for using GDB as Insight submodule" - would help a lot) and possibly on 
GDBs mode options docs (something along "-w  start GDB in GUI mode 
(Insight)") and help output, too?
> 
>> Where are the necessary source files?
> 
> Clone sourceware.org/git/insight.git and follow the README. It uses 
> submodules
> to pull in binutils-gdb.

How to get the files without git (newest insight + GDB [12.1] I've 
already on the harddisk)? Is the build info [1] still up-to-date that I 
need to build it with a specific tcl/tk version?


https://sourceware.org/insight/downloads.php seems to be quite outdated, 
too (ftp links don't work here, instead of git web frontend it points to 
cvs)

>> Should gdb's configure assume they exist or test for them (and again: 
>> error on --enable-gdbtk)?
> 
> That's probably something that needs better documentation and perhaps 
> the error.

Thanks, just checking for the necessary source files (before even 
checking tcl/tk), then abort looks most reasonable to me.

I guess this is all rooted in the mentioned TODO 2

 > Get Insight integrated and accepted into the GDB mainline.

Question on that: Is it likely that this will happen someday?


> I'll put it on my TODO list.
> 
> Keith

Thanks again for taking the time to answer!
Simon

[1]: https://sourceware.org/insight/faq.php#q-2.1