Update copyright date.
[deliverable/binutils-gdb.git] / gdb / NEWS
CommitLineData
c906108c
SS
1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
3
139760b7
MK
4*** Changes since GDB 5.0:
5
65d5a54a
EZ
6* "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
7
139760b7
MK
8* New native configurations
9
10Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
11x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
12
bf64bfd6
AC
13* New targets
14
17e78a56 15* OBSOLETE configurations and files
bf64bfd6
AC
16
17x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
9b9c068d 18Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
bb19ff3b
AC
19Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
20 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
76f4ea53
AC
21TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
22WDC 65816 w65-*-*
4a1968f4 23Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1b2b2c16
AC
24PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
25PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
26PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
24f89b68 27SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
514e603d
AC
28Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
29ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
d036b4d9 30Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
bf64bfd6 31
17e78a56
AC
32stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
33kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
34
7fcca85b
AC
35Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
36been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
37configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
38permanently REMOVED.
39
40* REMOVED configurations
41
42Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
43Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
44Pyramid pyramid-*-*
45ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
46Tahoe tahoe-*-*
bf64bfd6
AC
47
48* Other news:
49
50* All MIPS configurations are multi-arched.
51
52Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
53
5d6640b1
AC
54* GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
55
56The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
57``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
58contents of this file.
59
1a1d8446
AC
60* gdba.el deleted
61
62GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
139760b7 63
9debab2f 64*** Changes in GDB 5.0:
7a292a7a 65
c63ce875
EZ
66* Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
67
68Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
69programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
70displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
71greater level of detail.
72
73* Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
74
75It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
76bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
77on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
78written.
79
80* Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
81
82The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
83necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
84machines ``out of the box''.
85
86The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
87possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
88signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
89would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
90interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
91
92It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
93standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
94even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
95and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
96terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
97
98The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
99enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
100also works.
101
102DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
103GDB.
104
105It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
106directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
107times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
108breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
109
ed9a39eb
JM
110* New native configurations
111
112ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
afc05dd4 113PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
ed9a39eb 114
7a292a7a
SS
115* New targets
116
96baa820 117Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
adf40b2e
JM
118x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
119PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
7a292a7a
SS
120TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
121
085dd6e6
JM
122* OBSOLETE configurations
123
124Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
125Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
9846de1b 126Pyramid pyramid-*-*
ed9a39eb 127ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
104c1213 128Tahoe tahoe-*-*
7a292a7a 129
9debab2f
AC
130Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
131but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
132these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
133be permanently REMOVED.
134
5330533d
SS
135* Gould support removed
136
137Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
138
bc9e5bbf
AC
139* New features for SVR4
140
141On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
142without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
143load symbols from the running process's executable file.
144
145* Many C++ enhancements
146
147C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
148in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
149
adf40b2e
JM
150* Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
151
152A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
153sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
154with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
155``|<program> <args>'' vis:
156
157 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
158 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
159
43e526b9
JM
160* MIPS 64 remote protocol
161
162A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
163expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
164instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
165
166The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
167added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
168
96baa820
JM
169* ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
170
171The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
172``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
173include ``set remote P-packet''.
174
11cf8741
JM
175* Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
176
177The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
178accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
179``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
180
7876dd43
DB
181* ``apropos'' command added.
182
183The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
184documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
185try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
186
bc9e5bbf
AC
187* New MI interface
188
189A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
190interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
7162c0ca
EZ
191process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
192"GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
193enabled by configuring with:
bc9e5bbf
AC
194
195 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
196
c906108c
SS
197*** Changes in GDB-4.18:
198
199* New native configurations
200
201HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
202HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
203M68K Linux m68*-*-linux*
204
205* New targets
206
207Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
208Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
209Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
210
211* OBSOLETE configurations
212
213Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
214
215Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
216but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
217these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
218be permanently REMOVED.
219
220* ANSI/ISO C
221
222As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
223buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
224containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
225use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
226available. If this is not true, please report the affected
227configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
228information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
229already.
230
231* Readline 2.2
232
233GDB now uses readline 2.2.
234
235* set extension-language
236
237You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
238languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
239you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
240 set extension-language .c c++
241The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
242and their associated languages.
243
244* Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
245
246When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
247you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
248PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
249
250 set processor NAME
251
252sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
253following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
254
255 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
256 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
257 403 IBM PowerPC 403
258 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
259 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
260 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
261 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
262 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
263 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
264 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
265 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
266
267At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
268special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
269registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
270only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
271
272* HP-UX support
273
274Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
275more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
276library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
277support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
278for xdb and dbx commands.
279
280* Catchpoints
281
282HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
283generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
284to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
285
286This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
287argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
288output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
289
290* Debugging across forks
291
292On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
293in the inferior.
294
295* TUI
296
297HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
298it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
299configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
300
301* GDB remote protocol additions
302
303A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
304Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
305fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
306allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
307
308For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
309full 64-bit address. The command
310
311 set remoteaddresssize 32
312
313can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
314the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
315will be discarded.
316
317In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
318command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
319
320 maint packet heythere
321
322sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
323disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
324time.
325
326The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
327target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
328downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
329
330* Tracing can collect general expressions
331
332You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
333further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
334doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
335
336* mask-address variable for Mips
337
338For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
339a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
340of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
341
342* Higher serial baud rates
343
344GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
345230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
346to achieve all of these rates.)
347
348* i960 simulator
349
350The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
351builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
352
353
354*** Changes in GDB-4.17:
355
356* New native configurations
357
358Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
359Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
360Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
361PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
362PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
363Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
364Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
365
366* New targets
367
368Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
369Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
370Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
371Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
372MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
373MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
374MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
375Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
376Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
377Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
378NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
379
380* New debugging protocols
381
382ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
383M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
384DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
385PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
386PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
387Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
388
389* DWARF 2
390
391All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
392format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
393information.
394
395* Java frontend
396
397GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
398only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
399
400* solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
401
402For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
403loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
404locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
405
406* Live range splitting
407
408GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
409range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
410more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
411
412* Hurd support
413
414GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
415updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
416
417* ARM Thumb support
418
419GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
420instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
421instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
422accordingly.
423
424* MIPS16 support
425
426GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
427instruction set.
428
429* Overlay support
430
431GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
432linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
433will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
434control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
435additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
436in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
437
438* info symbol
439
440The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
441the symbol at the specified address.
442
443* Trace support
444
445The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
446asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
447extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
448includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
449file tracepoint.c for more details.
450
451* MIPS simulator
452
453Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
454by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
455of most MIPS variants.
456
457* Sparc simulator
458
459Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
460by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
461Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
462
463* set architecture
464
465For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
466basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
467architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
468the possible architectures.
469
470*** Changes in GDB-4.16:
471
472* New native configurations
473
474Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
475M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
476PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
477PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
478PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
479RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
480
481* New targets
482
483ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
484I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
485MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
486MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
487PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
488Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
489Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
490
491* PowerPC simulator
492
493The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
494contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
495PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
496basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
497performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
498
499* Solaris 2.5
500
501GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
502
503* Windows 95/NT native
504
505GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
506To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
507which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
508Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
509ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
510
511* dont-repeat command
512
513If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
514command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
515useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
516extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
517
518* Send break instead of ^C
519
520The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
521rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
522GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
523
524* Remote protocol timeout
525
526The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
527that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
528to read from the target. The default value is 2.
529
530* Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
531
532By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
533loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
534stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
535when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
536in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
537
538Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
539/usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
540automatically on hpux10.
541
542* Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
543
544Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
545
546* Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
547
548When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
549may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
550the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
551every character. The default value is 1050.
552
553* Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
554
555If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
556a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
557replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
558details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
559remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
560to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
561
562* Speedups for remote debugging
563
564GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
565the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
566and more efficient S-record downloading.
567
568* Memory use reductions and statistics collection
569
570GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
571Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
572
573*** Changes in GDB-4.15:
574
575* Psymtabs for XCOFF
576
577The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
578can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
579
580* Remote targets use caching
581
582Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
583remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
584it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
585debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
586off' turns the the data cache off.
587
588* Remote targets may have threads
589
590The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
591in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
592gdb/remote.c for details.
593
594* NetROM support
595
596If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
597support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
598acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
599write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
600support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
601another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
602sequence is something like
603
604 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
605 load <prog>
606 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
607
608* Macintosh host
609
610GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
611may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
612it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
613available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
614device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
615directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
616scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
617mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
618
619* Autoconf
620
621GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
622but does simplify configuration and building.
623
624* hpux10
625
626GDB now supports hpux10.
627
628*** Changes in GDB-4.14:
629
630* New native configurations
631
632x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
633x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
634NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
635Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
636
637* New targets
638
639A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
640HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
641CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
642PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
643WDC 65816 w65-*-*
644
645* Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
646
647GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
648possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
649filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
650the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
651if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
652
653* Arguments to user-defined commands
654
655User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
656Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
657trivial example:
658define adder
659 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
660
661To execute the command use:
662adder 1 2 3
663
664Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
665Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
666use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
667
668* New `if' and `while' commands
669
670This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
671commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
672expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
673execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
674terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
675`else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
676if the expression is zero.
677
678* Fortran source language mode
679
680GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
681Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
682variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
683with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
684Fortran compilers.
685
686* Better HPUX support
687
688Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
689running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
690processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
691for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
692that behavior do the following before running the program:
693
694 adb -w a.out
695 __dld_flags?W 0x5
696 control-d
697
698This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
699To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
700
701 adb -w a.out
702 __dld_flags?W 0x4
703 control-d
704
705You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
706the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
707external linkage.
708
709GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
710HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
711
712* Target byte order now dynamically selectable
713
714You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
715commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
716current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
717"set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
718associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
719configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
720
721* New DOS host serial code
722
723This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
724no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
725a PC's serial port.
726
727*** Changes in GDB-4.13:
728
729* New "complete" command
730
731This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
732were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
733
734* Trailing space optional in prompt
735
736"set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
737allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
738
739* Breakpoint hit counts
740
741"info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
742has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
743can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
744to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
745less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
746that breakpoint.
747
748* Ability to stop printing at NULL character
749
750"set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
751an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
752arrays actually contain only short strings.
753
754* Shared library breakpoints
755
756In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
757breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
758
759* Hardware watchpoints
760
761There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
762targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
763
764Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under Linux.
765
766* Annotations
767
768Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
769and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
770
771* Improved Irix 5 support
772
773GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
774
775* Improved HPPA support
776
777GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
778
779* New native configurations
780
781Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
782HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
783Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
784RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
785
786* New targets
787
788OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
789MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
790Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
791
792* Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
793
794There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
795This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
796
797* Fixes
798
799As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
800and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
801
802*** Changes in GDB-4.12:
803
804* Irix 5 is now supported
805
806* HPPA support
807
808GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
809to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
810GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
811of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
812can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
813
814
815*** Changes in GDB-4.11:
816
817* User visible changes:
818
819* Remote Debugging
820
821The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
822target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
823debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
824integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
825debugging info for the mips target).
826
827* DEC Alpha native support
828
829GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
830debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
831work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
832Alpha-specific notes.
833
834* Preliminary thread implementation
835
836GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
837
838* LynxOS native and target support for 386
839
840This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
841to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
842for details).
843
844* Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
845
846This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
847mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
848call methods, ...etc.
849
850*** Changes in GDB-4.10:
851
852 * User visible changes:
853
854Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
855supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
856other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
857somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
858
859Filename completion now works.
860
861When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
862arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
863addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
864
865All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
866vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
867should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
868your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
869to be on the far side of a thin network line.
870
871 * DEC alpha support
872
873This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
874cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
875
876
877*** Changes in GDB-4.9:
878
879 * Testsuite
880
881This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
882The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
883via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
884
885 * C++ demangling
886
887'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
888emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
889Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
890disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
891use gdb with AT&T cfront.
892
893 * Simulators
894
895GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
896So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
897Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
898
899 * New targets supported
900
901H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
902H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
903SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
904Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
905IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
906
907Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
908version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
909GO32 memory extender.
910
911 * New remote protocols
912
913MIPS remote debugging protocol.
914
915 * New source languages supported
916
917This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
918used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
919into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
920
921
922*** Changes in GDB-4.8:
923
924 * HP Precision Architecture supported
925
926GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
927version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
928University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
929compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
930format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
931(as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
932
933Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
934
935 * Faster and better demangling
936
937We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
938demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
939character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
940only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
941This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
942increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
943symbol lookups.
944
945`Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
946from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
947compiler does not actually implement.
948
949 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
950
951In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
952inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
953recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
954very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
955The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
956circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
957fix.
958
959The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
960release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
961
962 * Improved configure script
963
964The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
965you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
966host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
967done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
968
969We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
970version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
971`--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
972The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
973only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
974We hope to make this the default in a future release.
975
976 * Documentation improvements
977
978There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
979produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
980before submitting changes.
981
982The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
983M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
984`info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
985you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
986a future texinfo-X.Y release.
987
988*NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
989We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
990been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
991or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
992`texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
993around this problem.
994
995 * New features
996
997GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
998the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
999`print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
1000the target program.
1001
1002The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
1003how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
1004
1005 * New native hosts supported
1006
1007HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
1008386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
1009
1010 * New targets supported
1011
1012AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
1013
1014 * New file formats supported
1015
1016BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
1017HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
1018
1019 * Major bug fixes
1020
1021Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
1022
1023We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
1024printf_filtered("%s") problems.
1025
1026We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
1027for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
1028release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
1029
1030You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
1031will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
1032
1033We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
1034for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
1035especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
1036libraries.
1037
1038The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
1039information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
1040command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
1041any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
1042when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
1043
1044 * Internal improvements
1045
1046GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
1047debugging of multiple languages in the future.
1048
1049GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
1050Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
1051symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
1052contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
1053shared code that handles any of them.
1054
1055 * New command line options
1056
1057We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
1058
1059 * Mmalloc licensing
1060
1061The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
1062General Public License.
1063
1064*** Changes in GDB-4.7:
1065
1066 * Host/native/target split
1067
1068GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
1069hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
1070target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
1071local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
1072ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
1073
1074The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
1075GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
1076is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
1077code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
1078any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
1079built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
1080handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
1081
1082GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
1083It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
1084plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
1085
1086 * New hosts supported
1087
1088HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
1089386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1090386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
1091
1092 * New targets supported
1093
1094Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
109568030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
1096
1097 * New native hosts supported
1098
1099386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1100 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
1101386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
1102
1103 * New file formats supported
1104
1105BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
1106supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
1107format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
1108
1109 * New commands
1110
1111`show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
1112`show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
1113These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
1114
1115`info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
1116
1117You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
1118scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
1119prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
1120executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
1121
1122 * C++ improvements
1123
1124We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
1125info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
1126symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
1127
1128Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
1129
1130 * Major bug fixes
1131
1132The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
1133fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
1134by the compiler.
1135
1136We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
1137support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
1138
1139John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
1140slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
1141that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
1142purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
1143the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
1144mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
1145
1146Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
1147about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
1148completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
1149we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
1150
1151 * AMD 29k support
1152
1153A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
1154specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
1155calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
1156usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
1157in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
1158
1159We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
1160Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
1161of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
1162resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
1163
1164 * Remote interfaces
1165
1166We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
1167with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
1168message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
1169This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
1170needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
1171breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
1172each instruction being stepped through.
1173
1174The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
1175registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
1176
1177There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
1178find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
1179Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
1180processor with a serial port.
1181
1182 * Configuration
1183
1184Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
1185`table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
1186supported, and what files each one uses.
1187
1188 * Library changes
1189
1190There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
1191disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
1192Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
1193disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
1194
1195The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
1196Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
1197can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
1198grants all the rights from the General Public License.
1199
1200 * Documentation
1201
1202The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
1203reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
1204as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
1205encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
1206system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
1207bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
1208
1209And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
1210
1211
1212*** Changes in GDB-4.6:
1213
1214 * Better support for C++ function names
1215
1216GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
1217names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
1218(using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
1219single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
1220Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
1221
1222GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
1223the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
1224You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
1225lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
1226for the list of formats.
1227
1228 * G++ symbol mangling problem
1229
1230Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
1231C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
1232directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
1233can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
1234usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
1235about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
1236this problem.)
1237
1238 * New 'maintenance' command
1239
1240All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
1241the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
1242can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
1243
1244 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
1245 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
1246 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
1247 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
1248 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
1249 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
1250
1251The following commands are new:
1252
1253 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
1254 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
1255 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
1256
1257 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
1258
1259We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
1260(e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
1261be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
1262read after argv processing.
1263
1264 * New hosts supported
1265
1266Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
1267
1268Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
1269
1270We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
1271is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
1272for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
1273masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
1274fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
1275It costs extra.
1276
1277 * New targets supported
1278
1279Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1280
1281 * More smarts about finding #include files
1282
1283GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
1284all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
1285greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
1286especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
1287the one that contains your sources.
1288
1289We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
1290breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
1291try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
1292
1293 * Interesting infernals change
1294
1295GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
1296section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
1297target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
1298stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
1299
1300 * Bug fixes (of course!)
1301
1302There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
1303 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
1304 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
1305
1306See the ChangeLog for details.
1307
1308*** Changes in GDB-4.5:
1309
1310 * New machines supported (host and target)
1311
1312IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
1313
1314SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
1315
1316 * New malloc package
1317
1318GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
1319Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
1320capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
1321This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
1322pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
1323more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
1324
1325 * info proc
1326
1327The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
1328'help info proc' for details.
1329
1330 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
1331
1332The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
1333Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
1334possible.
1335
1336 * File name changes for MS-DOS
1337
1338Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
1339support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
1340conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
1341environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
1342that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
1343in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
1344
1345 * Cross byte order fixes
1346
1347Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
1348targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
1349
1350 * New -mapped and -readnow options
1351
1352If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
1353system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
1354`symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
1355program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
1356called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
1357Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
1358and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
1359the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
1360option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
1361starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
1362
1363You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
1364the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
1365information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
1366slower, but makes future operations faster.
1367
1368The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
1369build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
1370A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
1371use is:
1372
1373 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
1374
1375The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
1376It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
1377shared across multiple host platforms.
1378
1379 * longjmp() handling
1380
1381GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
1382siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
1383all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
1384platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
1385
1386 * Solaris 2.0
1387
1388Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
1389this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
1390reading symbols.
1391
1392 * Bug fixes
1393
1394As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
1395People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
1396crashes and trashed symbol tables.
1397
1398*** Changes in GDB-4.4:
1399
1400 * New machines supported (host and target)
1401
1402SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
1403 (except core files)
1404BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
1405Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
1406
1407 * New machines supported (target)
1408
1409AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1410
1411 * C++ support
1412
1413GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
1414The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
1415per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
1416
1417GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
1418`ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
1419extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
1420good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
1421will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
1422released.
1423
1424 * New features for SVR4
1425
1426GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
1427shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
1428only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
1429
1430The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
1431on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
1432it prints the address mappings of the process.
1433
1434If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
1435bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
1436
1437 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
1438
1439Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
1440now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
1441skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
1442make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
1443same code linked statically.
1444
1445 * New Getopt
1446
1447GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
1448version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
1449continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
1450Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
1451added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
1452future by other options that begin with the same letter.
1453
1454 * Bugs fixed
1455
1456The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
1457Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
1458See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
1459
1460
1461*** Changes in GDB-4.3:
1462
1463 * New machines supported (host and target)
1464
1465Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
1466NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
1467Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
1468
1469 * Almost SCO Unix support
1470
1471We had hoped to support:
1472SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
1473(except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
1474that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
1475about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
1476
1477 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
1478
1479GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
1480debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
1481is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
1482send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
1483reqired (if any).
1484
1485 * New Readline
1486
1487GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
1488is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
1489required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
1490
1491 * Bugs fixed
1492
1493The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
1494Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
1495See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
1496
1497 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
1498
1499GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
1500supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
1501symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
1502
1503Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
1504mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
1505debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
1506mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
1507version 2.
1508
1509Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
1510really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
1511line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
1512variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
1513situation somewhat.
1514
1515When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
1516However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
1517methods.
1518
1519We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
1520DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
1521encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
1522
1523
1524*** Changes in GDB-4.2:
1525
1526 * Improved configuration
1527
1528Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
1529Porting BFD is simpler.
1530
1531 * Stepping improved
1532
1533The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
1534of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
1535in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
1536function that has debugging information is called within the line.
1537
1538 * Bug fixing
1539
1540Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
1541
1542 * New host supported (not target)
1543
1544Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
1545
1546
1547*** Changes in GDB-4.1:
1548
1549 * Multiple source language support
1550
1551GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
1552It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
1553and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
1554language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
1555You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
1556`set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
1557
1558 * GDB and Modula-2
1559
1560GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
1561currently under development at the State University of New York at
1562Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
1563continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
1564
1565Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
1566debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
1567symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
1568
1569There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
1570in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
1571
1572 * set write on/off
1573
1574GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
1575a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
1576the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
1577by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
1578effect immediately.
1579
1580 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
1581
1582When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
1583shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
1584The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
1585examining core files.
1586
1587 * set listsize
1588
1589You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
1590The default is 10.
1591
1592 * New machines supported (host and target)
1593
1594SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
1595Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
1596Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
1597
1598 * New hosts supported (not targets)
1599
1600IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
1601
1602 * New targets supported (not hosts)
1603
1604AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1605AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1606Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
1607
1608 * New remote interfaces
1609
1610AMD 29000 Adapt
1611AMD 29000 Minimon
1612
1613
1614*** Changes in GDB-4.0:
1615
1616 * New Facilities
1617
1618Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
1619
1620Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
1621target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
1622is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
1623remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
1624remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
1625also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
1626using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
1627stub on the target system.
1628
1629New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
1630
1631GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
1632library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
1633object file types such as a.out and coff.
1634
1635There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
1636refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
1637
1638
1639 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
1640
1641All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
1642by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
1643
1644For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
1645``Show prompt'' produces the response:
1646Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
1647
1648What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
1649print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
1650will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
1651all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
1652
1653confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
1654 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
1655 it is already running. Default is ON.
1656
1657editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
1658 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
1659 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
1660 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
1661 Default is ON.
1662
1663history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
1664 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
1665 or the value of the environment variable
1666 GDBHISTFILE.
1667
1668history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
1669 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
1670 HISTSIZE.
1671
1672history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
1673 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
1674 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
1675
1676history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
1677 history expansion will be performed on
1678 command line input. The default is OFF.
1679
1680radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
1681 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
1682 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
1683
1684height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
1685 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
1686 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
1687 variable TERM.
1688
1689width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
1690 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
1691 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
1692 variable TERM.
1693
1694Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
1695``set width'' instead.
1696
1697print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
1698 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
1699 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
1700 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
1701
1702print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
1703 is OFF.
1704
1705print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
1706 "raw" form if off.
1707
1708print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
1709 like instructions.
1710
1711print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
1712
1713
1714 * Support for Epoch Environment.
1715
1716The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
1717new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
1718are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
1719window.
1720
1721
1722 * Support for Shared Libraries
1723
1724GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
1725Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
1726before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
1727happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
1728At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
1729from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
1730shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
1731It can be abbreviated ``share''.
1732
1733sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
1734 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
1735 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
1736
1737info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
1738
1739
1740 * Watchpoints
1741
1742A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
1743expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
1744tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
1745quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
1746problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
1747more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
1748
1749watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
1750
1751info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
1752
1753delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
1754disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
1755enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
1756
1757
1758 * C++ multiple inheritance
1759
1760When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
1761for C++ programs.
1762
1763 * C++ exception handling
1764
1765Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
1766ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
1767the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
1768handler's context).
1769
1770catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
1771 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
1772 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
1773
1774info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
1775 current stack frame.
1776
1777
1778 * Minor command changes
1779
1780The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
1781command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
1782is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
1783
1784The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
1785at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
1786frames without printing.
1787
1788 * New directory command
1789
1790'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
1791The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
1792about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
1793with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
1794find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
1795
1796 * Configuring GDB for compilation
1797
1798For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
1799for more details.
1800
1801GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
1802two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
1803Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
1804where the program that you are debugging will run.
This page took 0.148202 seconds and 4 git commands to generate.