[m-dev.] Suggestions for mdb

[Fergus Henderson]

On 25-Aug-2000, Mark Anthony BROWN <dougl at cs.mu.OZ.AU> wrote:
> Ralph Becket writes:
> > I have a few ideas for simple improvements to the debugger.
> > 
> ...
> 
> > 2. The print command, or some variant thereof, should act
> > like `ls' in the browser - e.g. pretty printing to depth 5
> > or whatever has been set in the browser.
> 
> We could allow the following options to 'print':
> 
> 	-f	portray in "flat" format (it currently does this)
> 	-p	portray in "pretty" format
> 	-v	portray in "verbose" format
> 
> How does that sound?

Sounds good.

> A related idea for improvement is independent size and depth limits
> for the three different formats.  It doesn't make sense for the pretty
> format to have the same limits as the flat format, since the purpose of
> the latter is to fit the term on one line.  The depth limit which suits
> "flat" is generally too small for "pretty" or "verbose".
> 
> It would be fairly simple to add the extra fields to the browser state.
> The question is, how should the fields be set?  Some options are:
> 
> i) Keep the 'set size/depth n' commands, and have them apply to the
> current format.
> ii) Add commands like 'set verbose depth 9', etc.
> iii) Both of the above.

Option iii sounds good to me.

-- 
Fergus Henderson <fjh at cs.mu.oz.au>  |  "I have always known that the pursuit
WWW: <http://www.cs.mu.oz.au/~fjh>  |  of excellence is a lethal habit"
PGP: finger fjh at 128.250.37.3        |     -- the last words of T. S. Garp.
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