2000-12-06 Fernando Nasser <fnasser@redhat.com>
[deliverable/binutils-gdb.git] / gdb / NEWS
CommitLineData
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1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
3
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4*** Changes since GDB 5.0:
5
6* New native configurations
7
8Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
9x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
10
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11* New targets
12
13* OBSOLETE configurations
14
15x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
16
17* Deleted configurations
18
19* Other news:
20
21* All MIPS configurations are multi-arched.
22
23Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
24
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25* gdba.el deleted
26
27GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
139760b7 28
9debab2f 29*** Changes in GDB 5.0:
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31* Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
32
33Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
34programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
35displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
36greater level of detail.
37
38* Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
39
40It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
41bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
42on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
43written.
44
45* Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
46
47The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
48necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
49machines ``out of the box''.
50
51The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
52possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
53signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
54would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
55interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
56
57It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
58standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
59even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
60and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
61terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
62
63The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
64enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
65also works.
66
67DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
68GDB.
69
70It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
71directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
72times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
73breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
74
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75* New native configurations
76
77ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
afc05dd4 78PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
ed9a39eb 79
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80* New targets
81
96baa820 82Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
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83x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
84PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
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85TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
86
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87* OBSOLETE configurations
88
89Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
90Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
9846de1b 91Pyramid pyramid-*-*
ed9a39eb 92ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
104c1213 93Tahoe tahoe-*-*
7a292a7a 94
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95Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
96but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
97these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
98be permanently REMOVED.
99
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100* Gould support removed
101
102Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
103
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104* New features for SVR4
105
106On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
107without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
108load symbols from the running process's executable file.
109
110* Many C++ enhancements
111
112C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
113in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
114
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115* Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
116
117A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
118sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
119with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
120``|<program> <args>'' vis:
121
122 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
123 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
124
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125* MIPS 64 remote protocol
126
127A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
128expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
129instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
130
131The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
132added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
133
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134* ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
135
136The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
137``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
138include ``set remote P-packet''.
139
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140* Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
141
142The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
143accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
144``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
145
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146* ``apropos'' command added.
147
148The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
149documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
150try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
151
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152* New MI interface
153
154A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
155interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
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156process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
157"GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
158enabled by configuring with:
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159
160 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
161
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162*** Changes in GDB-4.18:
163
164* New native configurations
165
166HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
167HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
168M68K Linux m68*-*-linux*
169
170* New targets
171
172Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
173Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
174Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
175
176* OBSOLETE configurations
177
178Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
179
180Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
181but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
182these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
183be permanently REMOVED.
184
185* ANSI/ISO C
186
187As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
188buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
189containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
190use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
191available. If this is not true, please report the affected
192configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
193information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
194already.
195
196* Readline 2.2
197
198GDB now uses readline 2.2.
199
200* set extension-language
201
202You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
203languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
204you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
205 set extension-language .c c++
206The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
207and their associated languages.
208
209* Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
210
211When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
212you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
213PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
214
215 set processor NAME
216
217sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
218following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
219
220 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
221 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
222 403 IBM PowerPC 403
223 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
224 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
225 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
226 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
227 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
228 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
229 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
230 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
231
232At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
233special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
234registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
235only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
236
237* HP-UX support
238
239Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
240more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
241library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
242support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
243for xdb and dbx commands.
244
245* Catchpoints
246
247HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
248generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
249to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
250
251This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
252argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
253output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
254
255* Debugging across forks
256
257On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
258in the inferior.
259
260* TUI
261
262HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
263it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
264configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
265
266* GDB remote protocol additions
267
268A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
269Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
270fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
271allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
272
273For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
274full 64-bit address. The command
275
276 set remoteaddresssize 32
277
278can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
279the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
280will be discarded.
281
282In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
283command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
284
285 maint packet heythere
286
287sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
288disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
289time.
290
291The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
292target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
293downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
294
295* Tracing can collect general expressions
296
297You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
298further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
299doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
300
301* mask-address variable for Mips
302
303For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
304a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
305of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
306
307* Higher serial baud rates
308
309GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
310230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
311to achieve all of these rates.)
312
313* i960 simulator
314
315The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
316builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
317
318
319*** Changes in GDB-4.17:
320
321* New native configurations
322
323Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
324Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
325Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
326PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
327PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
328Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
329Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
330
331* New targets
332
333Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
334Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
335Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
336Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
337MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
338MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
339MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
340Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
341Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
342Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
343NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
344
345* New debugging protocols
346
347ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
348M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
349DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
350PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
351PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
352Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
353
354* DWARF 2
355
356All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
357format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
358information.
359
360* Java frontend
361
362GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
363only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
364
365* solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
366
367For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
368loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
369locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
370
371* Live range splitting
372
373GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
374range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
375more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
376
377* Hurd support
378
379GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
380updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
381
382* ARM Thumb support
383
384GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
385instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
386instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
387accordingly.
388
389* MIPS16 support
390
391GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
392instruction set.
393
394* Overlay support
395
396GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
397linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
398will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
399control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
400additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
401in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
402
403* info symbol
404
405The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
406the symbol at the specified address.
407
408* Trace support
409
410The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
411asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
412extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
413includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
414file tracepoint.c for more details.
415
416* MIPS simulator
417
418Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
419by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
420of most MIPS variants.
421
422* Sparc simulator
423
424Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
425by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
426Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
427
428* set architecture
429
430For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
431basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
432architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
433the possible architectures.
434
435*** Changes in GDB-4.16:
436
437* New native configurations
438
439Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
440M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
441PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
442PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
443PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
444RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
445
446* New targets
447
448ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
449I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
450MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
451MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
452PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
453Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
454Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
455
456* PowerPC simulator
457
458The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
459contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
460PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
461basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
462performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
463
464* Solaris 2.5
465
466GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
467
468* Windows 95/NT native
469
470GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
471To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
472which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
473Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
474ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
475
476* dont-repeat command
477
478If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
479command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
480useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
481extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
482
483* Send break instead of ^C
484
485The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
486rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
487GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
488
489* Remote protocol timeout
490
491The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
492that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
493to read from the target. The default value is 2.
494
495* Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
496
497By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
498loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
499stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
500when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
501in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
502
503Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
504/usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
505automatically on hpux10.
506
507* Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
508
509Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
510
511* Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
512
513When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
514may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
515the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
516every character. The default value is 1050.
517
518* Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
519
520If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
521a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
522replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
523details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
524remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
525to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
526
527* Speedups for remote debugging
528
529GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
530the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
531and more efficient S-record downloading.
532
533* Memory use reductions and statistics collection
534
535GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
536Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
537
538*** Changes in GDB-4.15:
539
540* Psymtabs for XCOFF
541
542The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
543can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
544
545* Remote targets use caching
546
547Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
548remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
549it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
550debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
551off' turns the the data cache off.
552
553* Remote targets may have threads
554
555The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
556in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
557gdb/remote.c for details.
558
559* NetROM support
560
561If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
562support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
563acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
564write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
565support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
566another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
567sequence is something like
568
569 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
570 load <prog>
571 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
572
573* Macintosh host
574
575GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
576may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
577it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
578available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
579device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
580directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
581scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
582mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
583
584* Autoconf
585
586GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
587but does simplify configuration and building.
588
589* hpux10
590
591GDB now supports hpux10.
592
593*** Changes in GDB-4.14:
594
595* New native configurations
596
597x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
598x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
599NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
600Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
601
602* New targets
603
604A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
605HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
606CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
607PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
608WDC 65816 w65-*-*
609
610* Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
611
612GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
613possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
614filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
615the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
616if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
617
618* Arguments to user-defined commands
619
620User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
621Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
622trivial example:
623define adder
624 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
625
626To execute the command use:
627adder 1 2 3
628
629Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
630Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
631use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
632
633* New `if' and `while' commands
634
635This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
636commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
637expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
638execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
639terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
640`else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
641if the expression is zero.
642
643* Fortran source language mode
644
645GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
646Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
647variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
648with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
649Fortran compilers.
650
651* Better HPUX support
652
653Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
654running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
655processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
656for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
657that behavior do the following before running the program:
658
659 adb -w a.out
660 __dld_flags?W 0x5
661 control-d
662
663This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
664To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
665
666 adb -w a.out
667 __dld_flags?W 0x4
668 control-d
669
670You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
671the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
672external linkage.
673
674GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
675HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
676
677* Target byte order now dynamically selectable
678
679You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
680commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
681current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
682"set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
683associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
684configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
685
686* New DOS host serial code
687
688This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
689no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
690a PC's serial port.
691
692*** Changes in GDB-4.13:
693
694* New "complete" command
695
696This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
697were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
698
699* Trailing space optional in prompt
700
701"set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
702allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
703
704* Breakpoint hit counts
705
706"info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
707has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
708can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
709to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
710less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
711that breakpoint.
712
713* Ability to stop printing at NULL character
714
715"set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
716an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
717arrays actually contain only short strings.
718
719* Shared library breakpoints
720
721In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
722breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
723
724* Hardware watchpoints
725
726There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
727targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
728
729Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under Linux.
730
731* Annotations
732
733Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
734and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
735
736* Improved Irix 5 support
737
738GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
739
740* Improved HPPA support
741
742GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
743
744* New native configurations
745
746Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
747HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
748Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
749RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
750
751* New targets
752
753OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
754MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
755Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
756
757* Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
758
759There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
760This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
761
762* Fixes
763
764As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
765and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
766
767*** Changes in GDB-4.12:
768
769* Irix 5 is now supported
770
771* HPPA support
772
773GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
774to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
775GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
776of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
777can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
778
779
780*** Changes in GDB-4.11:
781
782* User visible changes:
783
784* Remote Debugging
785
786The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
787target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
788debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
789integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
790debugging info for the mips target).
791
792* DEC Alpha native support
793
794GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
795debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
796work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
797Alpha-specific notes.
798
799* Preliminary thread implementation
800
801GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
802
803* LynxOS native and target support for 386
804
805This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
806to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
807for details).
808
809* Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
810
811This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
812mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
813call methods, ...etc.
814
815*** Changes in GDB-4.10:
816
817 * User visible changes:
818
819Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
820supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
821other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
822somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
823
824Filename completion now works.
825
826When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
827arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
828addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
829
830All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
831vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
832should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
833your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
834to be on the far side of a thin network line.
835
836 * DEC alpha support
837
838This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
839cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
840
841
842*** Changes in GDB-4.9:
843
844 * Testsuite
845
846This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
847The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
848via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
849
850 * C++ demangling
851
852'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
853emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
854Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
855disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
856use gdb with AT&T cfront.
857
858 * Simulators
859
860GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
861So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
862Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
863
864 * New targets supported
865
866H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
867H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
868SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
869Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
870IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
871
872Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
873version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
874GO32 memory extender.
875
876 * New remote protocols
877
878MIPS remote debugging protocol.
879
880 * New source languages supported
881
882This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
883used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
884into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
885
886
887*** Changes in GDB-4.8:
888
889 * HP Precision Architecture supported
890
891GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
892version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
893University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
894compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
895format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
896(as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
897
898Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
899
900 * Faster and better demangling
901
902We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
903demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
904character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
905only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
906This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
907increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
908symbol lookups.
909
910`Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
911from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
912compiler does not actually implement.
913
914 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
915
916In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
917inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
918recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
919very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
920The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
921circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
922fix.
923
924The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
925release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
926
927 * Improved configure script
928
929The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
930you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
931host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
932done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
933
934We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
935version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
936`--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
937The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
938only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
939We hope to make this the default in a future release.
940
941 * Documentation improvements
942
943There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
944produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
945before submitting changes.
946
947The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
948M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
949`info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
950you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
951a future texinfo-X.Y release.
952
953*NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
954We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
955been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
956or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
957`texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
958around this problem.
959
960 * New features
961
962GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
963the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
964`print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
965the target program.
966
967The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
968how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
969
970 * New native hosts supported
971
972HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
973386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
974
975 * New targets supported
976
977AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
978
979 * New file formats supported
980
981BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
982HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
983
984 * Major bug fixes
985
986Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
987
988We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
989printf_filtered("%s") problems.
990
991We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
992for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
993release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
994
995You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
996will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
997
998We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
999for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
1000especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
1001libraries.
1002
1003The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
1004information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
1005command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
1006any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
1007when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
1008
1009 * Internal improvements
1010
1011GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
1012debugging of multiple languages in the future.
1013
1014GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
1015Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
1016symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
1017contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
1018shared code that handles any of them.
1019
1020 * New command line options
1021
1022We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
1023
1024 * Mmalloc licensing
1025
1026The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
1027General Public License.
1028
1029*** Changes in GDB-4.7:
1030
1031 * Host/native/target split
1032
1033GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
1034hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
1035target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
1036local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
1037ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
1038
1039The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
1040GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
1041is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
1042code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
1043any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
1044built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
1045handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
1046
1047GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
1048It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
1049plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
1050
1051 * New hosts supported
1052
1053HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
1054386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1055386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
1056
1057 * New targets supported
1058
1059Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
106068030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
1061
1062 * New native hosts supported
1063
1064386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1065 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
1066386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
1067
1068 * New file formats supported
1069
1070BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
1071supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
1072format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
1073
1074 * New commands
1075
1076`show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
1077`show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
1078These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
1079
1080`info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
1081
1082You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
1083scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
1084prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
1085executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
1086
1087 * C++ improvements
1088
1089We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
1090info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
1091symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
1092
1093Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
1094
1095 * Major bug fixes
1096
1097The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
1098fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
1099by the compiler.
1100
1101We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
1102support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
1103
1104John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
1105slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
1106that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
1107purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
1108the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
1109mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
1110
1111Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
1112about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
1113completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
1114we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
1115
1116 * AMD 29k support
1117
1118A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
1119specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
1120calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
1121usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
1122in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
1123
1124We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
1125Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
1126of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
1127resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
1128
1129 * Remote interfaces
1130
1131We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
1132with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
1133message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
1134This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
1135needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
1136breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
1137each instruction being stepped through.
1138
1139The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
1140registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
1141
1142There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
1143find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
1144Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
1145processor with a serial port.
1146
1147 * Configuration
1148
1149Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
1150`table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
1151supported, and what files each one uses.
1152
1153 * Library changes
1154
1155There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
1156disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
1157Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
1158disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
1159
1160The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
1161Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
1162can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
1163grants all the rights from the General Public License.
1164
1165 * Documentation
1166
1167The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
1168reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
1169as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
1170encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
1171system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
1172bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
1173
1174And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
1175
1176
1177*** Changes in GDB-4.6:
1178
1179 * Better support for C++ function names
1180
1181GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
1182names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
1183(using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
1184single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
1185Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
1186
1187GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
1188the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
1189You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
1190lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
1191for the list of formats.
1192
1193 * G++ symbol mangling problem
1194
1195Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
1196C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
1197directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
1198can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
1199usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
1200about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
1201this problem.)
1202
1203 * New 'maintenance' command
1204
1205All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
1206the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
1207can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
1208
1209 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
1210 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
1211 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
1212 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
1213 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
1214 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
1215
1216The following commands are new:
1217
1218 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
1219 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
1220 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
1221
1222 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
1223
1224We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
1225(e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
1226be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
1227read after argv processing.
1228
1229 * New hosts supported
1230
1231Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
1232
1233Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
1234
1235We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
1236is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
1237for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
1238masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
1239fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
1240It costs extra.
1241
1242 * New targets supported
1243
1244Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1245
1246 * More smarts about finding #include files
1247
1248GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
1249all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
1250greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
1251especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
1252the one that contains your sources.
1253
1254We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
1255breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
1256try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
1257
1258 * Interesting infernals change
1259
1260GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
1261section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
1262target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
1263stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
1264
1265 * Bug fixes (of course!)
1266
1267There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
1268 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
1269 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
1270
1271See the ChangeLog for details.
1272
1273*** Changes in GDB-4.5:
1274
1275 * New machines supported (host and target)
1276
1277IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
1278
1279SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
1280
1281 * New malloc package
1282
1283GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
1284Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
1285capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
1286This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
1287pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
1288more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
1289
1290 * info proc
1291
1292The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
1293'help info proc' for details.
1294
1295 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
1296
1297The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
1298Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
1299possible.
1300
1301 * File name changes for MS-DOS
1302
1303Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
1304support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
1305conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
1306environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
1307that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
1308in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
1309
1310 * Cross byte order fixes
1311
1312Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
1313targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
1314
1315 * New -mapped and -readnow options
1316
1317If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
1318system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
1319`symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
1320program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
1321called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
1322Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
1323and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
1324the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
1325option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
1326starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
1327
1328You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
1329the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
1330information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
1331slower, but makes future operations faster.
1332
1333The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
1334build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
1335A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
1336use is:
1337
1338 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
1339
1340The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
1341It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
1342shared across multiple host platforms.
1343
1344 * longjmp() handling
1345
1346GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
1347siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
1348all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
1349platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
1350
1351 * Solaris 2.0
1352
1353Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
1354this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
1355reading symbols.
1356
1357 * Bug fixes
1358
1359As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
1360People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
1361crashes and trashed symbol tables.
1362
1363*** Changes in GDB-4.4:
1364
1365 * New machines supported (host and target)
1366
1367SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
1368 (except core files)
1369BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
1370Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
1371
1372 * New machines supported (target)
1373
1374AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1375
1376 * C++ support
1377
1378GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
1379The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
1380per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
1381
1382GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
1383`ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
1384extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
1385good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
1386will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
1387released.
1388
1389 * New features for SVR4
1390
1391GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
1392shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
1393only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
1394
1395The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
1396on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
1397it prints the address mappings of the process.
1398
1399If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
1400bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
1401
1402 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
1403
1404Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
1405now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
1406skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
1407make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
1408same code linked statically.
1409
1410 * New Getopt
1411
1412GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
1413version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
1414continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
1415Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
1416added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
1417future by other options that begin with the same letter.
1418
1419 * Bugs fixed
1420
1421The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
1422Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
1423See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
1424
1425
1426*** Changes in GDB-4.3:
1427
1428 * New machines supported (host and target)
1429
1430Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
1431NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
1432Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
1433
1434 * Almost SCO Unix support
1435
1436We had hoped to support:
1437SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
1438(except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
1439that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
1440about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
1441
1442 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
1443
1444GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
1445debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
1446is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
1447send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
1448reqired (if any).
1449
1450 * New Readline
1451
1452GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
1453is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
1454required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
1455
1456 * Bugs fixed
1457
1458The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
1459Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
1460See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
1461
1462 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
1463
1464GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
1465supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
1466symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
1467
1468Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
1469mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
1470debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
1471mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
1472version 2.
1473
1474Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
1475really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
1476line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
1477variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
1478situation somewhat.
1479
1480When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
1481However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
1482methods.
1483
1484We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
1485DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
1486encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
1487
1488
1489*** Changes in GDB-4.2:
1490
1491 * Improved configuration
1492
1493Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
1494Porting BFD is simpler.
1495
1496 * Stepping improved
1497
1498The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
1499of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
1500in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
1501function that has debugging information is called within the line.
1502
1503 * Bug fixing
1504
1505Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
1506
1507 * New host supported (not target)
1508
1509Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
1510
1511
1512*** Changes in GDB-4.1:
1513
1514 * Multiple source language support
1515
1516GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
1517It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
1518and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
1519language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
1520You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
1521`set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
1522
1523 * GDB and Modula-2
1524
1525GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
1526currently under development at the State University of New York at
1527Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
1528continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
1529
1530Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
1531debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
1532symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
1533
1534There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
1535in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
1536
1537 * set write on/off
1538
1539GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
1540a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
1541the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
1542by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
1543effect immediately.
1544
1545 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
1546
1547When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
1548shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
1549The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
1550examining core files.
1551
1552 * set listsize
1553
1554You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
1555The default is 10.
1556
1557 * New machines supported (host and target)
1558
1559SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
1560Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
1561Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
1562
1563 * New hosts supported (not targets)
1564
1565IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
1566
1567 * New targets supported (not hosts)
1568
1569AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1570AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1571Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
1572
1573 * New remote interfaces
1574
1575AMD 29000 Adapt
1576AMD 29000 Minimon
1577
1578
1579*** Changes in GDB-4.0:
1580
1581 * New Facilities
1582
1583Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
1584
1585Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
1586target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
1587is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
1588remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
1589remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
1590also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
1591using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
1592stub on the target system.
1593
1594New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
1595
1596GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
1597library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
1598object file types such as a.out and coff.
1599
1600There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
1601refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
1602
1603
1604 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
1605
1606All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
1607by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
1608
1609For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
1610``Show prompt'' produces the response:
1611Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
1612
1613What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
1614print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
1615will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
1616all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
1617
1618confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
1619 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
1620 it is already running. Default is ON.
1621
1622editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
1623 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
1624 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
1625 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
1626 Default is ON.
1627
1628history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
1629 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
1630 or the value of the environment variable
1631 GDBHISTFILE.
1632
1633history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
1634 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
1635 HISTSIZE.
1636
1637history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
1638 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
1639 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
1640
1641history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
1642 history expansion will be performed on
1643 command line input. The default is OFF.
1644
1645radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
1646 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
1647 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
1648
1649height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
1650 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
1651 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
1652 variable TERM.
1653
1654width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
1655 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
1656 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
1657 variable TERM.
1658
1659Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
1660``set width'' instead.
1661
1662print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
1663 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
1664 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
1665 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
1666
1667print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
1668 is OFF.
1669
1670print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
1671 "raw" form if off.
1672
1673print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
1674 like instructions.
1675
1676print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
1677
1678
1679 * Support for Epoch Environment.
1680
1681The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
1682new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
1683are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
1684window.
1685
1686
1687 * Support for Shared Libraries
1688
1689GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
1690Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
1691before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
1692happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
1693At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
1694from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
1695shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
1696It can be abbreviated ``share''.
1697
1698sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
1699 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
1700 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
1701
1702info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
1703
1704
1705 * Watchpoints
1706
1707A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
1708expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
1709tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
1710quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
1711problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
1712more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
1713
1714watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
1715
1716info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
1717
1718delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
1719disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
1720enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
1721
1722
1723 * C++ multiple inheritance
1724
1725When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
1726for C++ programs.
1727
1728 * C++ exception handling
1729
1730Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
1731ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
1732the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
1733handler's context).
1734
1735catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
1736 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
1737 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
1738
1739info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
1740 current stack frame.
1741
1742
1743 * Minor command changes
1744
1745The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
1746command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
1747is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
1748
1749The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
1750at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
1751frames without printing.
1752
1753 * New directory command
1754
1755'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
1756The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
1757about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
1758with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
1759find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
1760
1761 * Configuring GDB for compilation
1762
1763For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
1764for more details.
1765
1766GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
1767two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
1768Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
1769where the program that you are debugging will run.
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