Re: [RFC] Changes to signed char and unsigned char handling

[Eli Zaretskii <eliz at gnu dot org>]

> Date: Thu, 5 Jul 2007 09:54:02 -0400
> From: Daniel Jacobowitz <drow@false.org>
> 
>  3.  Treat "char" as a character, but "unsigned char" and "signed char"
>  as numbers

Didn't RMS object to this change?

> Then I updated NEWS, the manual, and the testsuite to match.  What do
> you think - is this an appropriate resolution for GDB 6.7?  All
> comments welcome.

The change for NEWS is okay with me.

The changes for the manual are also okay, but I have a few
comments/requests:

> +@item s
> +@cindex printing strings

Please add here a @cindex entry for something like ``printing byte
arrays''.

> +as strings.  @code{unsigned char} and @code{signed char} are displayed as

Please include multi-word @code-marked-up text in @w.

> @@ -5932,8 +5946,7 @@ displays you request manually using @cod
>  specify the output format you prefer; in fact, @code{display} decides
>  whether to use @code{print} or @code{x} depending on how elaborate your
>  format specification is---it uses @code{x} if you specify a unit size,
> -or one of the two formats (@samp{i} and @samp{s}) that are only
> -supported by @code{x}; otherwise it uses @code{print}.
> +the @samp{i} format, or the @samp{s} format; otherwise it uses @code{print}.

This change produces a sentence that is hard to parse:

  in fact, @code{display} decides
  whether to use @code{print} or @code{x} depending on how elaborate your
  format specification is---it uses @code{x} if you specify a unit size,
  the @samp{i} format, or the @samp{s} format; otherwise it uses @code{print}.

The conditions under which `x' is used are described, but the
conditions under which we use `i' or `s' are left unspecified.

The old text was a bit better, I think, but only a bit:

  in fact, @code{display} decides
  whether to use @code{print} or @code{x} depending on how elaborate your
  format specification is---it uses @code{x} if you specify a unit size,
  or one of the two formats (@samp{i} and @samp{s}) that are only
  supported by @code{x}; otherwise it uses @code{print}.

In addition, the beginning of the sentence promises some relation
between the format used and how elaborate is the format specification,
but that relation is left somewhat unclear (this was unclear in the
old text as well).  I'm guessing that the only relation is whether the
unit size is or is not specified, but if that's indeed the only
relation, we should make the text less general and talk explicitly
about unit size specification.

Thanks.