Re: gdb and iso-c

[Guenther Grau <Guenther dot Grau at marconicomms dot com>]

Hi,

Philippe De Muyter wrote:
> Up to some years ago, gdb could be compiled by a K&R C compiler.
> Now, it can not anymore, and the change seems to be deliberate.

Well, you have to move forward, even if you don't see it
as a step forwad ;-)

> It seems to me that the freedom of the gdb users is now restricted compared
> to the previous versions because of the need of an ISO-C compiler instead
> of any C compiler to compile it.
> 
> And I do not understand why the same reasons that apply to binutils and gcc
> do not hold for gdb.  gdb, because it is better than the debugger you get
> with your operating system, is needed to bootstrap the installation of
> gas, gld, or gcc in the likely case that not everything works well
> the first time.

All major operating systems I know come with a reasonable modern
iso-c compiler (or at least you can get one for it). And even if
this weren't the case, you can always crosscompile gdb on a different
platform (This feature needs more testing anyways ;-)

Just my 0,02 EUR,

  Guenther