* Rename remote-es1800.c to remote-es.c
[deliverable/binutils-gdb.git] / gdb / NEWS
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1 What has changed since GDB-3.5?
2 (Organized release by release)
3
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4*** Changes in GDB-4.9:
5
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6 * Testsuite
7
8This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
9The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
10via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
11
12 * C++ demangling
13
45364c8a 14'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
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15emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
16Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
17disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
18use gdb with AT&T cfront.
45364c8a 19
c787ca55 20 * Simulators
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21
22GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
23So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
24Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
25
26 * New targets supported
27
28H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
29H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
30SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
31Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
8b946797 32IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
8ae56378 33
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34Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
35version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
0a4a0f09 36GO32 memory extender.
cb46c402 37
0a4a0f09 38 * New remote protocols
cb46c402 39
0a4a0f09 40MIPS remote debugging protocol.
cb46c402 41
0a4a0f09 42 * New source languages supported
cb46c402 43
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44This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
45used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
46into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
cb46c402 47
cb46c402 48
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49*** Changes in GDB-4.8:
50
3421ec35 51 * HP Precision Architecture supported
c5cc95b1 52
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53GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
54version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
55University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
56compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
6d0380ee 57format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
3421ec35 58(as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
c5cc95b1 59
3421ec35 60Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
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61
62 * Faster and better demangling
63
64We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
65demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
66character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
67only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
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68This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
69increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
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70symbol lookups.
71
72`Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
73from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
74compiler does not actually implement.
75
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76 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
77
78In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
79inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
80recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
81very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
82The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
83circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
84fix.
85
86The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
87release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
88
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89 * Improved configure script
90
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91The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
92you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
93host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
94done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
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95
96We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
97version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
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98`--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
99The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
100only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
101We hope to make this the default in a future release.
102
103 * Documentation improvements
104
105There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
106produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
107before submitting changes.
108
109The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
110M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
111`info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
112you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
113a future texinfo-X.Y release.
114
115*NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
116We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
117been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
118or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
119`texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
120around this problem.
c5cc95b1 121
3421ec35 122 * New features
c5cc95b1 123
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124GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
125the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
126`print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
127the target program.
c5cc95b1 128
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129The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
130how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
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131
132 * New native hosts supported
133
134HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
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135386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
136
137 * New targets supported
138
139AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
140
141 * New file formats supported
142
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143BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
144HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
145
146 * Major bug fixes
147
148Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
149
150We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
151printf_filtered("%s") problems.
152
153We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
154for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
155release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
156
157You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
158will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
159
160We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
161for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
162especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
163libraries.
c5cc95b1 164
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165The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
166information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
167command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
168any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
169when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
170
171 * Internal improvements
172
173GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
174debugging of multiple languages in the future.
175
176GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
177Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
178symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
179contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
180shared code that handles any of them.
181
182 * New command line options
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183
184We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
185
3421ec35 186 * Mmalloc licensing
c5cc95b1 187
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188The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
189General Public License.
c5cc95b1 190
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191*** Changes in GDB-4.7:
192
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193 * Host/native/target split
194
195GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
196hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
197target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
198local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
199ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
200
201The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
202GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
203is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
204code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
205any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
206built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
207handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
208
209GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
210It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
211plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
212
213 * New hosts supported
214
215HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
216386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
217386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
218
219 * New targets supported
76ba9b5b 220
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221Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
22268030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
5f5be54c 223
c00d8242 224 * New native hosts supported
5f5be54c 225
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226386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
227 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
228386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
5f5be54c 229
c00d8242 230 * New file formats supported
5f5be54c 231
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232BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
233supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
234format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
5f5be54c 235
c00d8242 236 * New commands
5f5be54c 237
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238`show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
239`show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
240These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
5f5be54c 241
c00d8242 242`info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
5f5be54c 243
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244You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
245scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
246prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
247executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
248
249 * C++ improvements
250
251We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
252info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
253symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
254
255Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
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256
257 * Major bug fixes
258
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259The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
260fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
261by the compiler.
5f5be54c 262
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263We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
264support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
265
266John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
267slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
268that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
269purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
270the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
271mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
272
273Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
274about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
275completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
276we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
277
278 * AMD 29k support
5f5be54c 279
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280A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
281specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
282calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
283usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
284in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
285
286We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
287Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
288of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
289resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
290
291 * Remote interfaces
292
293We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
294with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
295message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
296This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
297needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
298breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
299each instruction being stepped through.
300
301The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
302registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
303
304There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
305find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
306Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
307processor with a serial port.
308
309 * Configuration
310
311Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
312`table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
313supported, and what files each one uses.
314
315 * Library changes
316
317There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
318disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
319Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
320disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
321
322The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
323Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
324can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
325grants all the rights from the General Public License.
326
327 * Documentation
328
329The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
330reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
331as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
332encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
333system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
334bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
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335
336And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
76ba9b5b 337
c00d8242 338
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339*** Changes in GDB-4.6:
340
341 * Better support for C++ function names
342
343GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
344names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
345(using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
346single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
347Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
348
349GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
350the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
351You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
352lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
353for the list of formats.
354
355 * G++ symbol mangling problem
356
357Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
358C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
359directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
360can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
361usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
362about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
363this problem.)
364
365 * New 'maintenance' command
366
367All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
368the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
369can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
370
371 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
372 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
373 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
374 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
375 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
376 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
377
378The following commands are new:
379
380 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
381 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
382 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
383
384 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
385
386We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
387(e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
388be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
389read after argv processing.
390
391 * New hosts supported
392
393Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
394
395Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
396
397We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
398is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
399for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
400masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
401fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
402It costs extra.
403
404 * New targets supported
405
406Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
407
408 * More smarts about finding #include files
409
410GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
411all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
412greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
413especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
414the one that contains your sources.
415
416We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
417breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
418try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
419
420 * Interesting infernals change
421
422GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
423section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
424target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
425stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
426
427 * Bug fixes (of course!)
428
429There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
430 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
431 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
432
433See the ChangeLog for details.
434
435*** Changes in GDB-4.5:
436
437 * New machines supported (host and target)
438
439IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
440
441SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
442
443 * New malloc package
444
445GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
446Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
447capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
448This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
449pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
450more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
451
452 * info proc
453
454The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
455'help info proc' for details.
456
457 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
458
459The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
460Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
461possible.
462
463 * File name changes for MS-DOS
464
465Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
466support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
467conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
468environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
469that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
470in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
471
472 * Cross byte order fixes
473
474Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
475targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
476
477 * New -mapped and -readnow options
478
479If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
480system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
481`symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
482program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
483called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
484Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
485and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
486the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
487option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
488starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
489
490You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
491the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
492information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
493slower, but makes future operations faster.
494
495The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
496build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
497A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
498use is:
499
500 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
501
502The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
503It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
504shared across multiple host platforms.
505
506 * longjmp() handling
507
508GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
509siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
510all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
511platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
512
513 * Solaris 2.0
514
515Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
516this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
517reading symbols.
518
519 * Bug fixes
520
521As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
522People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
523crashes and trashed symbol tables.
524
525*** Changes in GDB-4.4:
526
527 * New machines supported (host and target)
528
529SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
530 (except core files)
531BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
532Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
533
534 * New machines supported (target)
535
536AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
537
538 * C++ support
539
540GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
541The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
542per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
543
544GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
545`ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
546extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
547good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
548will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
549released.
550
551 * New features for SVR4
552
553GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
554shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
555only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
556
557The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
558on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
559it prints the address mappings of the process.
560
561If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
562bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
563
564 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
565
566Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
567now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
568skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
569make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
570same code linked statically.
571
572 * New Getopt
573
574GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
575version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
576continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
577Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
578added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
579future by other options that begin with the same letter.
580
581 * Bugs fixed
582
583The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
584Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
585See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
586
587
588*** Changes in GDB-4.3:
589
590 * New machines supported (host and target)
591
592Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
593NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
594Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
595
596 * Almost SCO Unix support
597
598We had hoped to support:
599SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
600(except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
601that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
602about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
603
604 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
605
606GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
607debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
608is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
609send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
610reqired (if any).
611
612 * New Readline
613
614GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
615is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
616required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
617
618 * Bugs fixed
619
620The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
621Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
622See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
623
624 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
625
626GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
627supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
628symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
629
630Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
631mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
632debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
633mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
634version 2.
635
636Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
637really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
638line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
639variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
640situation somewhat.
641
642When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
643However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
644methods.
645
646We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
647DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
648encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
649
650
651*** Changes in GDB-4.2:
652
653 * Improved configuration
654
655Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
656Porting BFD is simpler.
657
658 * Stepping improved
659
660The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
661of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
662in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
663function that has debugging information is called within the line.
664
665 * Bug fixing
666
667Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
668
669 * New host supported (not target)
670
671Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
672
673
674*** Changes in GDB-4.1:
675
676 * Multiple source language support
677
678GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
679It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
680and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
681language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
682You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
683`set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
684
685 * GDB and Modula-2
686
687GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
688currently under development at the State University of New York at
689Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
690continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
691
692Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
693debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
694symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
695
696There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
697in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
698
699 * set write on/off
700
701GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
702a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
703the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
704by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
705effect immediately.
706
707 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
708
709When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
710shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
711The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
712examining core files.
713
714 * set listsize
715
716You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
717The default is 10.
718
719 * New machines supported (host and target)
720
721SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
722Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
723Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
724
725 * New hosts supported (not targets)
726
727IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
728
729 * New targets supported (not hosts)
730
731AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
732AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
733Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
734
735 * New remote interfaces
736
737AMD 29000 Adapt
738AMD 29000 Minimon
739
740
741*** Changes in GDB-4.0:
742
743 * New Facilities
744
745Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
746
747Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
748target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
749is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
750remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
751remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
752also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
753using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
754stub on the target system.
755
756New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
757
758GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
759library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
760object file types such as a.out and coff.
761
762There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
763refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
764
765
766 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
767
768All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
769by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
770
771For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
772``Show prompt'' produces the response:
773Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
774
775What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
776print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
777will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
778all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
779
780confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
781 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
782 it is already running. Default is ON.
783
784editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
785 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
786 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
787 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
788 Default is ON.
789
790history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
791 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
792 or the value of the environment variable
793 GDBHISTFILE.
794
795history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
796 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
797 HISTSIZE.
798
799history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
800 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
801 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
802
803history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
804 history expansion will be performed on
805 command line input. The default is OFF.
806
807radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
808 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
809 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
810
811height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
812 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
813 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
814 variable TERM.
815
816width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
817 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
818 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
819 variable TERM.
820
821Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
822``set width'' instead.
823
824print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
825 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
826 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
827 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
828
829print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
830 is OFF.
831
832print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
833 "raw" form if off.
834
835print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
836 like instructions.
837
838print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
839
840
841 * Support for Epoch Environment.
842
843The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
844new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
845are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
846window.
847
848
849 * Support for Shared Libraries
850
851GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
852Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
853before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
854happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
855At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
856from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
857shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
858It can be abbreviated ``share''.
859
860sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
861 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
862 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
863
864info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
865
866
867 * Watchpoints
868
869A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
870expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
871tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
872quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
873problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
874more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
875
876watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
877
878info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
879
880delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
881disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
882enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
883
884
885 * C++ multiple inheritance
886
887When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
888for C++ programs.
889
890 * C++ exception handling
891
892Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
893ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
894the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
895handler's context).
896
897catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
898 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
899 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
900
901info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
902 current stack frame.
903
904
905 * Minor command changes
906
907The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
908command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
909is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
910
911The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
912at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
913frames without printing.
914
915 * New directory command
916
917'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
918The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
919about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
920with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
921find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
922
923 * Configuring GDB for compilation
924
925For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
926for more details.
927
928GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
929two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
930Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
931where the program that you are debugging will run.
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