Re: Move GDB to C++ ?

[Andrew STUBBS <andrew dot stubbs at st dot com>]

Tom Tromey wrote:
> I think GDB is nearly written in a dialect of C++ already:

...

> In all these cases, the C++ code is, in my opinion, simpler to read
> and write than the corresponding gdb code.  It is also more regular;
> whereas in gdb some "virtual methods" take a 'this' pointer, some do
> not; some classes have destructors, some do not (these are both things
> I ran into on the Python branch).  Finally, C++ provides better
> support for abstraction, specifically via access control.

I tend to agree with this statement. In particular I would say that 
destructors would be much easier to follow than cleanups.

I'm not going to make any judgement about whether there's a business 
case for doing the work, but here's a question:

A while ago there was some idea of a libgdb that would abstract the 
debugger back end from the interface (or I may have totally 
misunderstood what the whole thing was about). I haven't heard much 
about it recently, and the libgdb that exists seems to be something of a 
build artefact, rather than a useful abstraction. If such an idea still 
exists, what affect would switching to C++ have on that plan? Would it 
make it easier? Or would it just make it incompatible with non-C++ projects?

Andrew