Support "true" GDB console

[simark]

Some improvements were made to CDT and GDB to allow having a proper GDB console in CDT. We need to have a way to do this with the adapter too.

IIRC, CDT creates a PTY, spawns GDB in CLI mode using this PTY for its stdin/stdout/stderr. But it also creates a second PTY for MI. When spawning GDB, is passes -ex "new-ui mi /dev/pts/<id>" and uses this as the MI channel.

[dschaefer]

+1 :). In vscode we have the debug console working but it's the old style console that we had in Eclipse with the input line. Having a full pty like console would be awesome.

[paul-marechal]

Did this commit resolve issue?

[noneghost]

Some improvements were made to CDT and GDB to allow having a proper GDB console in CDT. We need to have a way to do this with the adapter too.

IIRC, CDT creates a PTY, spawns GDB in CLI mode using this PTY for its stdin/stdout/stderr. But it also creates a second PTY for MI. When spawning GDB, is passes -ex "new-ui mi /dev/pts/<id>" and uses this as the MI channel.

why no use DEBUG CONSOLE user input edit send gdb commands?

[jonahgraham]

Coincidentally I am going through all the old bugs to see what is relevant, this one certainly still is.

I am curious as to the current state of this. Not sure where this work was left off a few years ago. This is a very desirable feature.

why no use DEBUG CONSOLE user input edit send gdb commands?

A full GDB console using new-ui cli where possible would give best user experience as you get 100% features of GDB at command line. As a fallback on GDB/OS where that doesn't work, using the Debug Console to do -interpreter-exec makes sense too, but the Debug console in VS Code has functionality that is somewhere between the two, e.g. it understands structured data.

[jonahgraham]

Reading through the comments on #47, especially #47 (comment) it seems like this may already be complete. I haven't really used it, so we should make sure it still works and is documented and then close this off.

[GitMensch]

I've just tried to use the debug console to enter GDB commands, is this expected to work (like it is with all other GDB frontends I've seen)?

show version
Evaluation of expression without frameId is not supported.
From client: evaluate({"expression":"show version","context":"repl"})
To client: {"seq":0,"type":"response","request_seq":9,"command":"evaluate","success":false,"body":{"result":"Error: could not evaluate expression","variablesReference":0,"error":{"id":1,"format":"Evaluation of expression without frameId is not supported.","showUser":true}},"message":"Evaluation of expression without frameId is not supported."}

[jonahgraham]

I've just tried to use the debug console to enter GDB commands, is this expected to work (like it is with all other GDB frontends I've seen)?

No - it isn't.

What it is supposed to do is this:

And there is an enhancement request for auto complete of those variables here eclipse-cdt-cloud/cdt-gdb-vscode#75

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What this issue covers is using new-ui to have a CLI in the terminal view. Ericsson folks have done it IIUC, but I have never tried it out. (But I am about to right now!)

[jonahgraham]

Setting "openGdbConsole": true in the launch.json does indeed open a terminal as expected. I get the following. I think that means this issue is done.

[GitMensch]

ok, so we'd ideally have:

• debug console:
  • shows output like communication (especially when running verbose
  • option to enter expressions to be resolved (exists, seems to work)
• option to enter GDB commands (currently done via extra terminal and possibly "unix-only")
• application console for stdout and stdin (missing?)

[jonahgraham]

• option to enter GDB commands (currently done via extra terminal and possibly "unix-only")

yes, it is unix-only, but since that code was written the work has been done on GDB side to support new-ui on Windows hosts.

• application console for stdout and stdin (missing?)

Yes, see #161

[GitMensch]

• option to enter GDB commands (currently done via extra terminal and possibly "unix-only")

yes, it is unix-only, but since that code was written the work has been done on GDB side to support new-ui on Windows hosts.

Can you please link to an issue to test + handle that in cdt-gdb-adapter, too?

[jonahgraham]

• option to enter GDB commands (currently done via extra terminal and possibly "unix-only")

yes, it is unix-only, but since that code was written the work has been done on GDB side to support new-ui on Windows hosts.

Can you please link to an issue to test + handle that in cdt-gdb-adapter, too?

#240