[m-dev.] Suggestions for mdb

Mark Anthony BROWN dougl at cs.mu.OZ.AU
Fri Aug 25 02:36:23 AEST 2000


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?

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.

Cheers,
Mark.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
mercury-developers mailing list
Post messages to:       mercury-developers at cs.mu.oz.au
Administrative Queries: owner-mercury-developers at cs.mu.oz.au
Subscriptions:          mercury-developers-request at cs.mu.oz.au
--------------------------------------------------------------------------



More information about the developers mailing list