Re: RFA: >, >>, and "tee" operators

[Daniel Jacobowitz <drow at mvista dot com>]

On Thu, Jul 25, 2002 at 11:46:24AM -0400, Andrew Cagney wrote:
> >Does the `transcript FILE' command send both the user input (prompts?) 
> >>and output to the file (output also to the console)?  Like unix script?
> >
> >
> >[Speaking for my patch]
> >
> >Nope.  Prompts and user input are not logged.  Output goes only to a
> >file.  Something like `script' might be useful but that's a patch for
> >another day.
> 
> My understanding of a transcript is that it records all details of the 
> exchange - both input and output.  Unless the command is recording the 
> input, I don't think it should be called ``transcript''.
> 
> The name ``transcript'' came about (I think) from an earlier discussion 
> where a command to record both input and output was proposed.  See:
> http://sources.redhat.com/cgi-bin/gnatsweb.pl?cmd=view%20audit-trail&database=gdb&pr=114
> for its bug report.

OK.  Let's hold the name 'transcript' in reserve for something that can
log both.

> >> I guess the corresponding ``tee FILE'' command just writes output?
> >
> >
> >Output goes to the file and to the normal output channel.  Still no
> >prompts or input.
> 
> Ok.
> 
> >I think there is also a need for a tempoary redirection.  So I guess 
> >>either the obscure:
> >>	>FILE <command> ...
> >>maybe?
> >>	log FILE <command> .....
> >
> >
> >How about "transcript FILE <command>"?  There's some quoting badness but
> >for the moment I'm willing to just disallow spaces in the filename. 
> >Much more straightforward that way.
> 
> (See above for problem I see with the name ``transcript''.)
> 
> For whitespace in filenames, see:
> http://sources.redhat.com/cgi-bin/gnatsweb.pl?cmd=view%20audit-trail&database=gdb&pr=535
> So yes, you get to use strchr (' ') .... :-(
> 
> >GDB's option identifier is ``/'' and not ``-''.  See the print/<FMT> 
> >>commands.  ``-'' has the problem of being a valid expression operator.
> >>I should note that the current parser is pretty broken.  It can't 
> >>differentiate between:
> >>	transcript/f
> >>	transcript /f
> >>(sigh) but that is a fixable problem.
> >
> >
> >GDB's option identifier varies, actually; symbol-file -readnow,
> >add-symbol-file -s <section> <address> are the only two I see offhand. 
> >We only use / for print format characters.  Mostly we just drop them
> >all on one line.
> >
> >I'd rather stick with '-' as it's more familiar to most of our
> >audience, particularly with 'tee -a'.
> 
> I think this was raised before (fernando and I discussed it somewhere on 
> gdb@).  GDB is used on systems that are not even UNIX like (namely 
> DJGPP), trying to tie the syntax to UNIX is such a good idea.  GDB needs 
> a syntax spec, the current piece meal aproach is regrettable :-(
> 
> If the command was called ``log'' rather than ``tee'' then I don't think 
> we would have problems with ``log -a''.  (I'm not saying that log is the 
> right name mind.)

Well, I find the DOS-ish '/' separator much nastier than '-' options. 
A question of personal taste.  ``log'' unfortunately is more like
``tee'' than it is like redirection; how about a simple ``redirect''
command?

  redirect [-a[ppend]] FILE [COMMAND]
  log [-a[ppend]] FILE [COMMAND]

I like the sound of those two.

-- 
Daniel Jacobowitz                           Carnegie Mellon University
MontaVista Software                         Debian GNU/Linux Developer