Re: MI: type prefixes for values

[Eli Zaretskii <eliz at gnu dot org>]

> From: Vladimir Prus <ghost@cs.msu.su>
> Date: Fri, 17 Feb 2006 14:50:16 +0300
> 
> On Friday 17 February 2006 14:26, Eli Zaretskii wrote:
> > > From: Vladimir Prus <ghost@cs.msu.su>
> > > Date: Fri, 17 Feb 2006 13:29:33 +0300
> > > Cc: gdb@sources.redhat.com
> > >
> > > > Are you saying that you don't want to show your users the fact that
> > > > the pointed object is a function?
> > >
> > > At the very least, not in the way that gdb assumes.
> >
> > In what way, then?
> 
> It's only avaiable in tooltip text for a variable. So far, no complaints.

I don't see how is this contrary to what GDB assumes.  GDB passes the
information to the front end; how the front end displays it, is
entirely up to the front end.

The important thing is, you do use this information.

> In the output of print, the type of variable is sometimes wrapped in
> {}, sometimes in (), and there are no formal rules a frontend author
> can use to extract type from this information.

The formal rules can be stated, if that's what is missing.  The code
that produces the parentheses is deterministic, so the rules for when
they are used can be defined.

> > and why should we force the front end to send 
> > yet another command to get this information?  
> 
> Because it has to do this anyway -- the type is embedded in value only for 
> some special types, and frontend needs type information anyway.

Then perhaps we should add the type info to all arguments, instead of
removing it from where it exists now.