Fix Ada 'ptype' of access to array
ptype is a bit funny, in that it accepts both expressions and type
names. It also evaluates the resulting expression using
EVAL_AVOID_SIDE_EFFECTS -- which both seems sensible (as a user would
you expect ptype to possibly cause inferior execution?), but is also a
historical artifact of how expressions are implemented (there's no
EVAL_FOR_TYPE).
In Ada, calling a function with an array will sometimes result in a
"thick pointer" array descriptor being made. This is essentially a
structure holding a pointer and bounds information.
Currently, in such a callee, printing the type of the array will yield
funny results:
(gdb) print str.all
$1 = "Hello World"
(gdb) ptype str
type = array (<>) of character
(gdb) ptype str.all
type = array (1 .. 0) of character
That "1 .. 0" is the result of an EVAL_AVOID_SIDE_EFFECTS branch
trying to do "something" with an array descriptor, without doing too
much.
I tried briefly to make this code really dereference the array
descriptor and get the correct runtime type. However, that proved to
be tricky; it certainly can't be done for all access types, because
that will cause dynamic type resolution and end up printing just the
runtime type -- which with variants may be pretty far from what the
user may expect.
Instead, this patch arranges to just leave such types alone in this
situation. I don't think this should have an extra effects, because
things like array subscripting still work on thick pointers.
This patch also touches arrayptr.exp, because in that case the access
type is a "thin pointer", and this ensures that the output does not
change in that scenario.
3 files changed
