[lldb-dev] Command Objects and code re-use

[Bruce Mitchener]

Something that has come up now in a couple of contexts is the re-use of the
command objects.

I'm working on an alternate user interface which has a richer form of
output than the current CLI. I'm not able to use some of the existing
commands due to this.  The same is true of someone who might want to do an
alternate command system with a WinDbg style approach.

I guess I have a couple of questions:


   - Is there something that we can do to improve code re-use at this
   level? Are there requirements for code-level compatibility here?
   - Is there much interest in making command parsing or command output
   formats more flexible?  (In one system that I use, we effectively have a
   tree of commands and can splice in new subcommands very easily, much like
   the Lisp Machine command line or that of a router. This way, the Objective
   C runtime could, for example, create a subcommand for "breakpoint set -s"
   for selector-based breakpoints without this having to be something global.)
   - Would it make sense for commands to be more directly implemented using
   the SB* APIs so that it is clear that everything that commands do can be
   done without using the lower level APIs?


For an example of something that is done in a command that isn't as easily
doable via SB* APIs is the use of Args::StringToAddress by various
commands, notably "breakpoint set -a". Something like that might be a nice
addition to SBTarget or SBAddress perhaps?

Cheers,

 - Bruce
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