* config/tc-i386.c: Add INFER_ADDR_PREFIX code. Fix 16 bit mode nop.
[deliverable/binutils-gdb.git] / gdb / NEWS
CommitLineData
c906108c
SS
1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
3
7a292a7a
SS
4*** Changes since GDB-4.18:
5
6* New targets
7
adf40b2e
JM
8x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
9PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
7a292a7a
SS
10TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
11
085dd6e6
JM
12* OBSOLETE configurations
13
14Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
15Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
9846de1b 16Pyramid pyramid-*-*
7a292a7a 17
adf40b2e
JM
18* Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
19
20A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
21sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
22with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
23``|<program> <args>'' vis:
24
25 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
26 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
27
43e526b9
JM
28* MIPS 64 remote protocol
29
30A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
31expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
32instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
33
34The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
35added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
36
c906108c
SS
37*** Changes in GDB-4.18:
38
39* New native configurations
40
41HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
42HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
43M68K Linux m68*-*-linux*
44
45* New targets
46
47Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
48Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
49Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
50
51* OBSOLETE configurations
52
53Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
54
55Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
56but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
57these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
58be permanently REMOVED.
59
60* ANSI/ISO C
61
62As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
63buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
64containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
65use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
66available. If this is not true, please report the affected
67configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
68information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
69already.
70
71* Readline 2.2
72
73GDB now uses readline 2.2.
74
75* set extension-language
76
77You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
78languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
79you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
80 set extension-language .c c++
81The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
82and their associated languages.
83
84* Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
85
86When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
87you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
88PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
89
90 set processor NAME
91
92sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
93following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
94
95 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
96 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
97 403 IBM PowerPC 403
98 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
99 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
100 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
101 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
102 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
103 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
104 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
105 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
106
107At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
108special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
109registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
110only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
111
112* HP-UX support
113
114Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
115more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
116library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
117support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
118for xdb and dbx commands.
119
120* Catchpoints
121
122HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
123generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
124to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
125
126This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
127argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
128output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
129
130* Debugging across forks
131
132On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
133in the inferior.
134
135* TUI
136
137HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
138it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
139configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
140
141* GDB remote protocol additions
142
143A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
144Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
145fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
146allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
147
148For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
149full 64-bit address. The command
150
151 set remoteaddresssize 32
152
153can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
154the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
155will be discarded.
156
157In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
158command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
159
160 maint packet heythere
161
162sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
163disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
164time.
165
166The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
167target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
168downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
169
170* Tracing can collect general expressions
171
172You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
173further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
174doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
175
176* mask-address variable for Mips
177
178For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
179a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
180of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
181
182* Higher serial baud rates
183
184GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
185230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
186to achieve all of these rates.)
187
188* i960 simulator
189
190The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
191builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
192
193
194*** Changes in GDB-4.17:
195
196* New native configurations
197
198Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
199Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
200Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
201PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
202PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
203Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
204Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
205
206* New targets
207
208Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
209Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
210Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
211Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
212MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
213MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
214MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
215Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
216Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
217Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
218NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
219
220* New debugging protocols
221
222ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
223M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
224DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
225PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
226PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
227Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
228
229* DWARF 2
230
231All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
232format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
233information.
234
235* Java frontend
236
237GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
238only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
239
240* solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
241
242For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
243loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
244locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
245
246* Live range splitting
247
248GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
249range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
250more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
251
252* Hurd support
253
254GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
255updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
256
257* ARM Thumb support
258
259GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
260instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
261instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
262accordingly.
263
264* MIPS16 support
265
266GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
267instruction set.
268
269* Overlay support
270
271GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
272linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
273will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
274control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
275additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
276in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
277
278* info symbol
279
280The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
281the symbol at the specified address.
282
283* Trace support
284
285The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
286asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
287extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
288includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
289file tracepoint.c for more details.
290
291* MIPS simulator
292
293Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
294by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
295of most MIPS variants.
296
297* Sparc simulator
298
299Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
300by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
301Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
302
303* set architecture
304
305For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
306basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
307architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
308the possible architectures.
309
310*** Changes in GDB-4.16:
311
312* New native configurations
313
314Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
315M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
316PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
317PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
318PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
319RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
320
321* New targets
322
323ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
324I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
325MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
326MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
327PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
328Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
329Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
330
331* PowerPC simulator
332
333The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
334contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
335PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
336basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
337performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
338
339* Solaris 2.5
340
341GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
342
343* Windows 95/NT native
344
345GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
346To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
347which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
348Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
349ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
350
351* dont-repeat command
352
353If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
354command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
355useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
356extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
357
358* Send break instead of ^C
359
360The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
361rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
362GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
363
364* Remote protocol timeout
365
366The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
367that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
368to read from the target. The default value is 2.
369
370* Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
371
372By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
373loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
374stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
375when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
376in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
377
378Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
379/usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
380automatically on hpux10.
381
382* Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
383
384Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
385
386* Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
387
388When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
389may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
390the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
391every character. The default value is 1050.
392
393* Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
394
395If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
396a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
397replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
398details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
399remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
400to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
401
402* Speedups for remote debugging
403
404GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
405the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
406and more efficient S-record downloading.
407
408* Memory use reductions and statistics collection
409
410GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
411Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
412
413*** Changes in GDB-4.15:
414
415* Psymtabs for XCOFF
416
417The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
418can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
419
420* Remote targets use caching
421
422Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
423remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
424it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
425debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
426off' turns the the data cache off.
427
428* Remote targets may have threads
429
430The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
431in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
432gdb/remote.c for details.
433
434* NetROM support
435
436If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
437support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
438acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
439write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
440support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
441another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
442sequence is something like
443
444 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
445 load <prog>
446 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
447
448* Macintosh host
449
450GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
451may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
452it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
453available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
454device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
455directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
456scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
457mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
458
459* Autoconf
460
461GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
462but does simplify configuration and building.
463
464* hpux10
465
466GDB now supports hpux10.
467
468*** Changes in GDB-4.14:
469
470* New native configurations
471
472x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
473x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
474NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
475Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
476
477* New targets
478
479A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
480HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
481CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
482PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
483WDC 65816 w65-*-*
484
485* Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
486
487GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
488possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
489filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
490the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
491if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
492
493* Arguments to user-defined commands
494
495User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
496Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
497trivial example:
498define adder
499 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
500
501To execute the command use:
502adder 1 2 3
503
504Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
505Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
506use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
507
508* New `if' and `while' commands
509
510This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
511commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
512expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
513execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
514terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
515`else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
516if the expression is zero.
517
518* Fortran source language mode
519
520GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
521Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
522variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
523with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
524Fortran compilers.
525
526* Better HPUX support
527
528Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
529running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
530processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
531for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
532that behavior do the following before running the program:
533
534 adb -w a.out
535 __dld_flags?W 0x5
536 control-d
537
538This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
539To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
540
541 adb -w a.out
542 __dld_flags?W 0x4
543 control-d
544
545You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
546the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
547external linkage.
548
549GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
550HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
551
552* Target byte order now dynamically selectable
553
554You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
555commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
556current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
557"set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
558associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
559configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
560
561* New DOS host serial code
562
563This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
564no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
565a PC's serial port.
566
567*** Changes in GDB-4.13:
568
569* New "complete" command
570
571This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
572were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
573
574* Trailing space optional in prompt
575
576"set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
577allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
578
579* Breakpoint hit counts
580
581"info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
582has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
583can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
584to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
585less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
586that breakpoint.
587
588* Ability to stop printing at NULL character
589
590"set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
591an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
592arrays actually contain only short strings.
593
594* Shared library breakpoints
595
596In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
597breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
598
599* Hardware watchpoints
600
601There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
602targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
603
604Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under Linux.
605
606* Annotations
607
608Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
609and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
610
611* Improved Irix 5 support
612
613GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
614
615* Improved HPPA support
616
617GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
618
619* New native configurations
620
621Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
622HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
623Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
624RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
625
626* New targets
627
628OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
629MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
630Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
631
632* Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
633
634There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
635This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
636
637* Fixes
638
639As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
640and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
641
642*** Changes in GDB-4.12:
643
644* Irix 5 is now supported
645
646* HPPA support
647
648GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
649to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
650GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
651of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
652can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
653
654
655*** Changes in GDB-4.11:
656
657* User visible changes:
658
659* Remote Debugging
660
661The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
662target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
663debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
664integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
665debugging info for the mips target).
666
667* DEC Alpha native support
668
669GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
670debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
671work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
672Alpha-specific notes.
673
674* Preliminary thread implementation
675
676GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
677
678* LynxOS native and target support for 386
679
680This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
681to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
682for details).
683
684* Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
685
686This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
687mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
688call methods, ...etc.
689
690*** Changes in GDB-4.10:
691
692 * User visible changes:
693
694Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
695supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
696other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
697somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
698
699Filename completion now works.
700
701When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
702arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
703addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
704
705All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
706vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
707should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
708your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
709to be on the far side of a thin network line.
710
711 * DEC alpha support
712
713This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
714cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
715
716
717*** Changes in GDB-4.9:
718
719 * Testsuite
720
721This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
722The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
723via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
724
725 * C++ demangling
726
727'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
728emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
729Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
730disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
731use gdb with AT&T cfront.
732
733 * Simulators
734
735GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
736So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
737Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
738
739 * New targets supported
740
741H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
742H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
743SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
744Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
745IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
746
747Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
748version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
749GO32 memory extender.
750
751 * New remote protocols
752
753MIPS remote debugging protocol.
754
755 * New source languages supported
756
757This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
758used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
759into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
760
761
762*** Changes in GDB-4.8:
763
764 * HP Precision Architecture supported
765
766GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
767version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
768University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
769compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
770format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
771(as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
772
773Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
774
775 * Faster and better demangling
776
777We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
778demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
779character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
780only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
781This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
782increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
783symbol lookups.
784
785`Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
786from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
787compiler does not actually implement.
788
789 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
790
791In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
792inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
793recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
794very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
795The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
796circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
797fix.
798
799The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
800release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
801
802 * Improved configure script
803
804The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
805you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
806host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
807done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
808
809We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
810version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
811`--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
812The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
813only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
814We hope to make this the default in a future release.
815
816 * Documentation improvements
817
818There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
819produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
820before submitting changes.
821
822The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
823M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
824`info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
825you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
826a future texinfo-X.Y release.
827
828*NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
829We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
830been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
831or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
832`texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
833around this problem.
834
835 * New features
836
837GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
838the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
839`print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
840the target program.
841
842The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
843how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
844
845 * New native hosts supported
846
847HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
848386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
849
850 * New targets supported
851
852AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
853
854 * New file formats supported
855
856BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
857HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
858
859 * Major bug fixes
860
861Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
862
863We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
864printf_filtered("%s") problems.
865
866We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
867for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
868release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
869
870You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
871will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
872
873We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
874for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
875especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
876libraries.
877
878The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
879information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
880command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
881any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
882when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
883
884 * Internal improvements
885
886GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
887debugging of multiple languages in the future.
888
889GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
890Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
891symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
892contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
893shared code that handles any of them.
894
895 * New command line options
896
897We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
898
899 * Mmalloc licensing
900
901The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
902General Public License.
903
904*** Changes in GDB-4.7:
905
906 * Host/native/target split
907
908GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
909hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
910target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
911local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
912ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
913
914The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
915GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
916is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
917code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
918any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
919built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
920handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
921
922GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
923It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
924plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
925
926 * New hosts supported
927
928HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
929386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
930386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
931
932 * New targets supported
933
934Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
93568030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
936
937 * New native hosts supported
938
939386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
940 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
941386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
942
943 * New file formats supported
944
945BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
946supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
947format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
948
949 * New commands
950
951`show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
952`show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
953These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
954
955`info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
956
957You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
958scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
959prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
960executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
961
962 * C++ improvements
963
964We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
965info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
966symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
967
968Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
969
970 * Major bug fixes
971
972The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
973fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
974by the compiler.
975
976We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
977support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
978
979John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
980slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
981that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
982purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
983the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
984mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
985
986Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
987about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
988completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
989we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
990
991 * AMD 29k support
992
993A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
994specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
995calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
996usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
997in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
998
999We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
1000Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
1001of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
1002resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
1003
1004 * Remote interfaces
1005
1006We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
1007with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
1008message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
1009This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
1010needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
1011breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
1012each instruction being stepped through.
1013
1014The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
1015registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
1016
1017There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
1018find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
1019Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
1020processor with a serial port.
1021
1022 * Configuration
1023
1024Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
1025`table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
1026supported, and what files each one uses.
1027
1028 * Library changes
1029
1030There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
1031disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
1032Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
1033disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
1034
1035The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
1036Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
1037can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
1038grants all the rights from the General Public License.
1039
1040 * Documentation
1041
1042The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
1043reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
1044as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
1045encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
1046system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
1047bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
1048
1049And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
1050
1051
1052*** Changes in GDB-4.6:
1053
1054 * Better support for C++ function names
1055
1056GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
1057names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
1058(using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
1059single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
1060Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
1061
1062GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
1063the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
1064You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
1065lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
1066for the list of formats.
1067
1068 * G++ symbol mangling problem
1069
1070Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
1071C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
1072directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
1073can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
1074usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
1075about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
1076this problem.)
1077
1078 * New 'maintenance' command
1079
1080All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
1081the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
1082can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
1083
1084 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
1085 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
1086 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
1087 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
1088 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
1089 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
1090
1091The following commands are new:
1092
1093 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
1094 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
1095 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
1096
1097 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
1098
1099We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
1100(e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
1101be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
1102read after argv processing.
1103
1104 * New hosts supported
1105
1106Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
1107
1108Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
1109
1110We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
1111is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
1112for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
1113masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
1114fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
1115It costs extra.
1116
1117 * New targets supported
1118
1119Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1120
1121 * More smarts about finding #include files
1122
1123GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
1124all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
1125greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
1126especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
1127the one that contains your sources.
1128
1129We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
1130breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
1131try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
1132
1133 * Interesting infernals change
1134
1135GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
1136section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
1137target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
1138stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
1139
1140 * Bug fixes (of course!)
1141
1142There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
1143 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
1144 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
1145
1146See the ChangeLog for details.
1147
1148*** Changes in GDB-4.5:
1149
1150 * New machines supported (host and target)
1151
1152IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
1153
1154SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
1155
1156 * New malloc package
1157
1158GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
1159Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
1160capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
1161This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
1162pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
1163more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
1164
1165 * info proc
1166
1167The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
1168'help info proc' for details.
1169
1170 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
1171
1172The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
1173Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
1174possible.
1175
1176 * File name changes for MS-DOS
1177
1178Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
1179support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
1180conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
1181environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
1182that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
1183in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
1184
1185 * Cross byte order fixes
1186
1187Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
1188targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
1189
1190 * New -mapped and -readnow options
1191
1192If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
1193system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
1194`symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
1195program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
1196called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
1197Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
1198and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
1199the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
1200option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
1201starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
1202
1203You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
1204the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
1205information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
1206slower, but makes future operations faster.
1207
1208The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
1209build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
1210A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
1211use is:
1212
1213 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
1214
1215The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
1216It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
1217shared across multiple host platforms.
1218
1219 * longjmp() handling
1220
1221GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
1222siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
1223all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
1224platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
1225
1226 * Solaris 2.0
1227
1228Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
1229this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
1230reading symbols.
1231
1232 * Bug fixes
1233
1234As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
1235People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
1236crashes and trashed symbol tables.
1237
1238*** Changes in GDB-4.4:
1239
1240 * New machines supported (host and target)
1241
1242SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
1243 (except core files)
1244BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
1245Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
1246
1247 * New machines supported (target)
1248
1249AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1250
1251 * C++ support
1252
1253GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
1254The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
1255per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
1256
1257GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
1258`ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
1259extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
1260good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
1261will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
1262released.
1263
1264 * New features for SVR4
1265
1266GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
1267shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
1268only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
1269
1270The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
1271on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
1272it prints the address mappings of the process.
1273
1274If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
1275bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
1276
1277 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
1278
1279Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
1280now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
1281skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
1282make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
1283same code linked statically.
1284
1285 * New Getopt
1286
1287GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
1288version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
1289continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
1290Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
1291added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
1292future by other options that begin with the same letter.
1293
1294 * Bugs fixed
1295
1296The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
1297Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
1298See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
1299
1300
1301*** Changes in GDB-4.3:
1302
1303 * New machines supported (host and target)
1304
1305Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
1306NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
1307Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
1308
1309 * Almost SCO Unix support
1310
1311We had hoped to support:
1312SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
1313(except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
1314that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
1315about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
1316
1317 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
1318
1319GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
1320debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
1321is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
1322send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
1323reqired (if any).
1324
1325 * New Readline
1326
1327GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
1328is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
1329required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
1330
1331 * Bugs fixed
1332
1333The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
1334Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
1335See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
1336
1337 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
1338
1339GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
1340supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
1341symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
1342
1343Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
1344mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
1345debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
1346mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
1347version 2.
1348
1349Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
1350really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
1351line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
1352variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
1353situation somewhat.
1354
1355When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
1356However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
1357methods.
1358
1359We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
1360DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
1361encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
1362
1363
1364*** Changes in GDB-4.2:
1365
1366 * Improved configuration
1367
1368Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
1369Porting BFD is simpler.
1370
1371 * Stepping improved
1372
1373The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
1374of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
1375in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
1376function that has debugging information is called within the line.
1377
1378 * Bug fixing
1379
1380Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
1381
1382 * New host supported (not target)
1383
1384Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
1385
1386
1387*** Changes in GDB-4.1:
1388
1389 * Multiple source language support
1390
1391GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
1392It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
1393and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
1394language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
1395You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
1396`set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
1397
1398 * GDB and Modula-2
1399
1400GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
1401currently under development at the State University of New York at
1402Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
1403continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
1404
1405Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
1406debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
1407symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
1408
1409There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
1410in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
1411
1412 * set write on/off
1413
1414GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
1415a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
1416the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
1417by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
1418effect immediately.
1419
1420 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
1421
1422When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
1423shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
1424The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
1425examining core files.
1426
1427 * set listsize
1428
1429You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
1430The default is 10.
1431
1432 * New machines supported (host and target)
1433
1434SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
1435Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
1436Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
1437
1438 * New hosts supported (not targets)
1439
1440IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
1441
1442 * New targets supported (not hosts)
1443
1444AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1445AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1446Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
1447
1448 * New remote interfaces
1449
1450AMD 29000 Adapt
1451AMD 29000 Minimon
1452
1453
1454*** Changes in GDB-4.0:
1455
1456 * New Facilities
1457
1458Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
1459
1460Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
1461target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
1462is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
1463remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
1464remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
1465also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
1466using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
1467stub on the target system.
1468
1469New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
1470
1471GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
1472library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
1473object file types such as a.out and coff.
1474
1475There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
1476refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
1477
1478
1479 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
1480
1481All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
1482by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
1483
1484For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
1485``Show prompt'' produces the response:
1486Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
1487
1488What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
1489print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
1490will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
1491all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
1492
1493confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
1494 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
1495 it is already running. Default is ON.
1496
1497editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
1498 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
1499 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
1500 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
1501 Default is ON.
1502
1503history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
1504 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
1505 or the value of the environment variable
1506 GDBHISTFILE.
1507
1508history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
1509 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
1510 HISTSIZE.
1511
1512history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
1513 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
1514 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
1515
1516history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
1517 history expansion will be performed on
1518 command line input. The default is OFF.
1519
1520radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
1521 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
1522 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
1523
1524height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
1525 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
1526 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
1527 variable TERM.
1528
1529width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
1530 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
1531 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
1532 variable TERM.
1533
1534Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
1535``set width'' instead.
1536
1537print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
1538 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
1539 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
1540 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
1541
1542print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
1543 is OFF.
1544
1545print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
1546 "raw" form if off.
1547
1548print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
1549 like instructions.
1550
1551print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
1552
1553
1554 * Support for Epoch Environment.
1555
1556The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
1557new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
1558are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
1559window.
1560
1561
1562 * Support for Shared Libraries
1563
1564GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
1565Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
1566before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
1567happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
1568At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
1569from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
1570shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
1571It can be abbreviated ``share''.
1572
1573sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
1574 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
1575 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
1576
1577info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
1578
1579
1580 * Watchpoints
1581
1582A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
1583expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
1584tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
1585quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
1586problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
1587more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
1588
1589watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
1590
1591info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
1592
1593delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
1594disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
1595enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
1596
1597
1598 * C++ multiple inheritance
1599
1600When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
1601for C++ programs.
1602
1603 * C++ exception handling
1604
1605Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
1606ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
1607the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
1608handler's context).
1609
1610catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
1611 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
1612 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
1613
1614info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
1615 current stack frame.
1616
1617
1618 * Minor command changes
1619
1620The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
1621command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
1622is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
1623
1624The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
1625at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
1626frames without printing.
1627
1628 * New directory command
1629
1630'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
1631The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
1632about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
1633with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
1634find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
1635
1636 * Configuring GDB for compilation
1637
1638For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
1639for more details.
1640
1641GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
1642two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
1643Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
1644where the program that you are debugging will run.
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