DDD 3.2.91 bug report

[Colin Browell]

There appears to be a change of behaviour when using the ddd --tty option in
DDD version 3.2.91.

Previously we have been using DDD 3.1.6 (and before that, version 2.2.3) with
the --tty option so that we could drive DDD from a parent program.

In these versions the DDD GUI always appears IMMEDIATELY after DDD is invoked
when the --tty option has been used.

But now in DDD 3.2.91 the GUI does NOT appear until a valid source code file 
can be loaded into the DDD source-code pane. If the source file containing
the main() function is available then the DDD GUI will appear immediately on
invokation and the source file is loaded into the source pane. HOWEVER if the
file containing main() is NOT available, then a source file is NOT loaded into
the source pane, and consequently the DDD GUI does NOT appear on invokation. 

This change in behaviour causes us considerable problems, because the processes
we build have their main() function in a pre-built library for which the
source code is NOT readily available. Consequently when DDD 3.2.91 is started
up with the --tty option, DDD can not load the main() source code into the
DDD source code pane, and so IT DOES NOT BOTHER TO DISPLAY THE GUI.

We have always used the fact that past versions of DDD will ALWAYS display
the GUI immediately on invocation, even if it can not load an initial source
code file. But this new version 3.2.91 will now NOT display the GUI on startup.

We believe that the previous behaviour of DDD should be reinstated for the final
version 3.3 of DDD - i.e. that the GUI should always be displayed if invoked
with the --tty option even if an initial source code file can not be found.
Alternatively an additional command line option should be provided which FORCES
the GUI to appear under ANY circumstance. We hope you'll take these comments on
board as this is causing us considerable problems.

It should be possible for you to reproduce this behaviour very easily for your
investigations.

We are running a LynxOS port of DDD which has very few source code changes -
and which certainly should not effect the GUI-appearance logic.

Here is the output from:

  sh-2.02$ /usr/bin/ddd --check-configuration
  Checking for XKeysymDB... /usr/lib/X11/XKeysymDB
  No configuration problems found.
  sh-2.02$ /usr/bin/ddd  --configuration
  GNU DDD 3.2.91 (i386-coff-lynxos)
  Copyright (C) 1995-1999 Technische Universitdt Braunschweig, Germany.
  Copyright (C) 1999-2000 Universitdt Passau, Germany.
  
  Compiled with GCC 2.9-gnupro-98r2, libstdc++ 2.8-gnupro-98r2
  Requires X11R6, Xt11R6, Motif 2.0.1 (OSF/Motif Version 2.0.1)
  Includes XPM 3.4.6, Athena Panner, DDD core
  Built 2000-10-11 by Colin Browell  <unknown>.
  sh-2.02$

Thanks for your efforts on an excellent debugger! We just hope that you can fix
this bug.

Regards

Colin Browell