Re: Compiling the latest GDB on cygwin

[Keith Seitz <keiths at redhat dot com>]

Jingzhao Ou wrote:

> First of all, I am a newbie to GDB and am now seeking advice,
> suggestions and, if possible, discussions. I may ask some very silly
> questions as a newbie. But please be understanding that I have NO in
> tension to offend any one on this mailing list. I just want to enjoy
> the fun and freedom offered by a great piece of open source program.

No offense taken -- and I certainly hope that my reply didn't come off 
that way, either. Anyway, we all agree not to be offended, so let's move 
on! :-)

> The reason why I raised the libgui question is because I suspect that
> due to libgui, the compilation of Insight requires the source code of
> Tcl and Tk. That might be the reason Insight ships with its own
> version of Tcl/Tk.

libgui only requires the Tcl/Tk headers and library -- no source files. 
The reason insight ships with its own version of Tcl and Tk (and 
Itcl/Iwidgets) is largely arcane. Back many, many years ago, Tcl/Tk 
didn't do a few of the things we wanted, so we hacked it to do it. Of 
course, it was a big mistake, and insight has been dragging it around 
ever since.

However, a year or two (or three) ago, all that changed. The standard 
Tcl/Tk/Itcl sources were imported, removing our dependency on a 
non-standard/hacked Tcl/Tk. As a result, we should be able to move away 
from the built-in versions to standard, net-released versions.

To the best of my understanding, libgui should not interfere with this goal.

The big thing to try is to hack the configure scripts for libgui, gdb, 
and gdb/gdbtk and see how painful this transistion will be. I admit, I 
have been hesitant to do it (or any insight work for that matter): I 
believe insight has outlived its usefulness, and most people are moving 
onto other gdb front-ends.

Keith