xref: /freebsd-10.2-release/contrib/gdb/gdb/doc/observer.texi

@c -*-texinfo-*-
@node GDB Observers
@appendix @value{GDBN} Currently available observers

@section Implementation rationale
@cindex observers implementation rationale

An @dfn{observer} is an entity which is interested in being notified
when GDB reaches certain states, or certain events occur in GDB.
The entity being observed is called the @dfn{subject}.  To receive
notifications, the observer attaches a callback to the subject.
One subject can have several observers.

@file{observer.c} implements an internal generic low-level event
notification mechanism.  This generic event notification mechanism is
then re-used to implement the exported high-level notification
management routines for all possible notifications.

The current implementation of the generic observer provides support
for contextual data.  This contextual data is given to the subject
when attaching the callback.  In return, the subject will provide
this contextual data back to the observer as a parameter of the
callback.

Note that the current support for the contextual data is only partial,
as it lacks a mechanism that would deallocate this data when the
callback is detached.  This is not a problem so far, as this contextual
data is only used internally to hold a function pointer.  Later on, if
a certain observer needs to provide support for user-level contextual
data, then the generic notification mechanism will need to be
enhanced to allow the observer to provide a routine to deallocate the
data when attaching the callback.

The observer implementation is also currently not reentrant.
In particular, it is therefore not possible to call the attach
or detach routines during a notification.

@section @code{normal_stop} Notifications
@cindex @code{normal_stop} observer
@cindex notification about inferior execution stop

@value{GDBN} notifies all @code{normal_stop} observers when the
inferior execution has just stopped, the associated messages and
annotations have been printed, and the control is about to be returned
to the user. 

Note that the @code{normal_stop} notification is not emitted when
the execution stops due to a breakpoint, and this breakpoint has
a condition that is not met.  If the breakpoint has any associated
commands list, the commands are executed after the notification
is emitted.

The following interface is available to manage @code{normal_stop}
observers:

@deftypefun extern struct observer *observer_attach_normal_stop (observer_normal_stop_ftype *@var{f})
Attach the given @code{normal_stop} callback function @var{f} and
return the associated observer.
@end deftypefun

@deftypefun extern void observer_detach_normal_stop (struct observer *@var{observer});
Remove @var{observer} from the list of observers to be notified when
a @code{normal_stop} event occurs.
@end deftypefun

@deftypefun extern void observer_notify_normal_stop (void);
Send a notification to all @code{normal_stop} observers.
@end deftypefun