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Subject: Re: [Qemu-devel] [PATCH 06/29] monitor: New format for handlers
	argument types
References: <1250723280-3509-1-git-send-email-lcapitulino@redhat.com>
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From: Markus Armbruster <armbru@redhat.com>
Date: Mon, 24 Aug 2009 18:21:17 +0200
In-Reply-To: <1250723280-3509-7-git-send-email-lcapitulino@redhat.com> (Luiz
	Capitulino's message of "Wed\, 19 Aug 2009 20\:07\:37 -0300")
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To: Luiz Capitulino <lcapitulino@redhat.com>
Cc: aliguori@us.ibm.com, qemu-devel@nongnu.org, avi@redhat.com

Luiz Capitulino <lcapitulino@redhat.com> writes:

> Current handlers argument types, as defined in qemu-monitor.hx file,
> are a sequence of chars where each one represents one argument type
> of the command handler. The number of chars is also used to know how
> many arguments a given handler accepts.
>
> This commit defines a new format, which makes mandatory the use of
> a name for each argument.
>
> For example, do_eject() command handler is currently defined as:
>
> { "eject", "-fB", do_eject, ... }
>
> With the new format it becomes:
>
> { "eject", "force:-f,filename:B", do_eject, ... }
>
> This way the Monitor will be capable of setting up a dictionary, using
> each argument's name as the key and the argument itself as the value.
>
> This commit also adds two new functions: key_get_info() and
> next_arg_type(), both are used to parse the new format.
>
> Currently key_get_info() consumes the 'key' part of the new format and
> discards it, this way the current parsing code is not affected by this
> change.
>
> Signed-off-by: Luiz Capitulino <lcapitulino@redhat.com>

Encoding the parameter list in a single args_type made perfect sense
when a parameter was encoded in one or two characters.  But having
syntax and a parser... I don't know.  Switch to an array of parameter
descriptions that don't need to be parsed?

There's some overlap between args_type (machine-readable description)
and params (human readable help text).  Could the latter be assembled
from the former?

Just ideas...