fix m68k-linux build
[deliverable/binutils-gdb.git] / gdb / NEWS
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1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
3
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4*** Changes since GDB 5.0:
5
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6* "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
7
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8* The MI enabled.
9
10The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
11revised and enabled.
12
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13* New native configurations
14
15Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
16x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
2aa830e4 17MIPS Linux mips*-*-linux*
139760b7 18
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19* New targets
20
17e78a56 21* OBSOLETE configurations and files
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22
23x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
9b9c068d 24Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
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25Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
26 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
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27TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
28WDC 65816 w65-*-*
4a1968f4 29Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
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30PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
31PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
32PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
24f89b68 33SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
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34Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
35ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
d036b4d9 36Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
bf64bfd6 37
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38stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
39kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
40
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41Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
42been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
43configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
44permanently REMOVED.
45
a196c81c 46* REMOVED configurations and files
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47
48Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
49Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
50Pyramid pyramid-*-*
51ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
52Tahoe tahoe-*-*
a196c81c 53ser-ocd.c *-*-*
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54
55* Other news:
56
57* All MIPS configurations are multi-arched.
58
59Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
60
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61* GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
62
63The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
64``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
65contents of this file.
66
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67* gdba.el deleted
68
69GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
139760b7 70
9debab2f 71*** Changes in GDB 5.0:
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73* Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
74
75Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
76programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
77displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
78greater level of detail.
79
80* Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
81
82It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
83bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
84on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
85written.
86
87* Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
88
89The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
90necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
91machines ``out of the box''.
92
93The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
94possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
95signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
96would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
97interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
98
99It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
100standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
101even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
102and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
103terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
104
105The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
106enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
107also works.
108
109DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
110GDB.
111
112It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
113directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
114times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
115breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
116
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117* New native configurations
118
119ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
afc05dd4 120PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
ed9a39eb 121
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122* New targets
123
96baa820 124Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
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125x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
126PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
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127TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
128
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129* OBSOLETE configurations
130
131Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
132Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
9846de1b 133Pyramid pyramid-*-*
ed9a39eb 134ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
104c1213 135Tahoe tahoe-*-*
7a292a7a 136
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137Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
138but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
139these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
140be permanently REMOVED.
141
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142* Gould support removed
143
144Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
145
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146* New features for SVR4
147
148On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
149without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
150load symbols from the running process's executable file.
151
152* Many C++ enhancements
153
154C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
155in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
156
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157* Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
158
159A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
160sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
161with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
162``|<program> <args>'' vis:
163
164 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
165 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
166
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167* MIPS 64 remote protocol
168
169A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
170expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
171instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
172
173The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
174added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
175
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176* ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
177
178The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
179``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
180include ``set remote P-packet''.
181
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182* Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
183
184The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
185accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
186``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
187
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188* ``apropos'' command added.
189
190The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
191documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
192try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
193
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194* New MI interface
195
196A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
197interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
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198process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
199"GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
200enabled by configuring with:
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201
202 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
203
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204*** Changes in GDB-4.18:
205
206* New native configurations
207
208HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
209HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
210M68K Linux m68*-*-linux*
211
212* New targets
213
214Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
215Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
216Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
217
218* OBSOLETE configurations
219
220Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
221
222Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
223but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
224these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
225be permanently REMOVED.
226
227* ANSI/ISO C
228
229As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
230buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
231containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
232use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
233available. If this is not true, please report the affected
234configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
235information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
236already.
237
238* Readline 2.2
239
240GDB now uses readline 2.2.
241
242* set extension-language
243
244You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
245languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
246you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
247 set extension-language .c c++
248The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
249and their associated languages.
250
251* Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
252
253When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
254you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
255PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
256
257 set processor NAME
258
259sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
260following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
261
262 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
263 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
264 403 IBM PowerPC 403
265 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
266 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
267 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
268 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
269 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
270 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
271 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
272 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
273
274At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
275special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
276registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
277only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
278
279* HP-UX support
280
281Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
282more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
283library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
284support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
285for xdb and dbx commands.
286
287* Catchpoints
288
289HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
290generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
291to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
292
293This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
294argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
295output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
296
297* Debugging across forks
298
299On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
300in the inferior.
301
302* TUI
303
304HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
305it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
306configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
307
308* GDB remote protocol additions
309
310A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
311Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
312fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
313allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
314
315For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
316full 64-bit address. The command
317
318 set remoteaddresssize 32
319
320can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
321the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
322will be discarded.
323
324In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
325command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
326
327 maint packet heythere
328
329sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
330disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
331time.
332
333The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
334target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
335downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
336
337* Tracing can collect general expressions
338
339You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
340further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
341doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
342
343* mask-address variable for Mips
344
345For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
346a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
347of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
348
349* Higher serial baud rates
350
351GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
352230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
353to achieve all of these rates.)
354
355* i960 simulator
356
357The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
358builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
359
360
361*** Changes in GDB-4.17:
362
363* New native configurations
364
365Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
366Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
367Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
368PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
369PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
370Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
371Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
372
373* New targets
374
375Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
376Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
377Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
378Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
379MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
380MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
381MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
382Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
383Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
384Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
385NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
386
387* New debugging protocols
388
389ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
390M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
391DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
392PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
393PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
394Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
395
396* DWARF 2
397
398All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
399format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
400information.
401
402* Java frontend
403
404GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
405only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
406
407* solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
408
409For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
410loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
411locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
412
413* Live range splitting
414
415GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
416range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
417more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
418
419* Hurd support
420
421GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
422updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
423
424* ARM Thumb support
425
426GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
427instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
428instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
429accordingly.
430
431* MIPS16 support
432
433GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
434instruction set.
435
436* Overlay support
437
438GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
439linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
440will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
441control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
442additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
443in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
444
445* info symbol
446
447The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
448the symbol at the specified address.
449
450* Trace support
451
452The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
453asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
454extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
455includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
456file tracepoint.c for more details.
457
458* MIPS simulator
459
460Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
461by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
462of most MIPS variants.
463
464* Sparc simulator
465
466Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
467by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
468Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
469
470* set architecture
471
472For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
473basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
474architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
475the possible architectures.
476
477*** Changes in GDB-4.16:
478
479* New native configurations
480
481Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
482M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
483PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
484PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
485PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
486RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
487
488* New targets
489
490ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
491I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
492MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
493MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
494PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
495Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
496Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
497
498* PowerPC simulator
499
500The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
501contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
502PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
503basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
504performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
505
506* Solaris 2.5
507
508GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
509
510* Windows 95/NT native
511
512GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
513To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
514which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
515Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
516ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
517
518* dont-repeat command
519
520If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
521command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
522useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
523extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
524
525* Send break instead of ^C
526
527The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
528rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
529GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
530
531* Remote protocol timeout
532
533The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
534that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
535to read from the target. The default value is 2.
536
537* Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
538
539By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
540loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
541stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
542when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
543in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
544
545Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
546/usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
547automatically on hpux10.
548
549* Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
550
551Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
552
553* Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
554
555When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
556may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
557the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
558every character. The default value is 1050.
559
560* Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
561
562If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
563a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
564replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
565details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
566remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
567to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
568
569* Speedups for remote debugging
570
571GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
572the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
573and more efficient S-record downloading.
574
575* Memory use reductions and statistics collection
576
577GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
578Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
579
580*** Changes in GDB-4.15:
581
582* Psymtabs for XCOFF
583
584The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
585can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
586
587* Remote targets use caching
588
589Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
590remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
591it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
592debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
593off' turns the the data cache off.
594
595* Remote targets may have threads
596
597The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
598in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
599gdb/remote.c for details.
600
601* NetROM support
602
603If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
604support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
605acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
606write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
607support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
608another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
609sequence is something like
610
611 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
612 load <prog>
613 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
614
615* Macintosh host
616
617GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
618may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
619it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
620available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
621device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
622directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
623scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
624mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
625
626* Autoconf
627
628GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
629but does simplify configuration and building.
630
631* hpux10
632
633GDB now supports hpux10.
634
635*** Changes in GDB-4.14:
636
637* New native configurations
638
639x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
640x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
641NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
642Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
643
644* New targets
645
646A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
647HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
648CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
649PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
650WDC 65816 w65-*-*
651
652* Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
653
654GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
655possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
656filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
657the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
658if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
659
660* Arguments to user-defined commands
661
662User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
663Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
664trivial example:
665define adder
666 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
667
668To execute the command use:
669adder 1 2 3
670
671Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
672Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
673use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
674
675* New `if' and `while' commands
676
677This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
678commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
679expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
680execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
681terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
682`else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
683if the expression is zero.
684
685* Fortran source language mode
686
687GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
688Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
689variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
690with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
691Fortran compilers.
692
693* Better HPUX support
694
695Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
696running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
697processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
698for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
699that behavior do the following before running the program:
700
701 adb -w a.out
702 __dld_flags?W 0x5
703 control-d
704
705This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
706To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
707
708 adb -w a.out
709 __dld_flags?W 0x4
710 control-d
711
712You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
713the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
714external linkage.
715
716GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
717HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
718
719* Target byte order now dynamically selectable
720
721You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
722commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
723current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
724"set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
725associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
726configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
727
728* New DOS host serial code
729
730This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
731no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
732a PC's serial port.
733
734*** Changes in GDB-4.13:
735
736* New "complete" command
737
738This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
739were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
740
741* Trailing space optional in prompt
742
743"set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
744allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
745
746* Breakpoint hit counts
747
748"info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
749has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
750can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
751to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
752less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
753that breakpoint.
754
755* Ability to stop printing at NULL character
756
757"set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
758an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
759arrays actually contain only short strings.
760
761* Shared library breakpoints
762
763In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
764breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
765
766* Hardware watchpoints
767
768There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
769targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
770
771Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under Linux.
772
773* Annotations
774
775Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
776and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
777
778* Improved Irix 5 support
779
780GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
781
782* Improved HPPA support
783
784GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
785
786* New native configurations
787
788Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
789HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
790Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
791RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
792
793* New targets
794
795OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
796MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
797Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
798
799* Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
800
801There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
802This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
803
804* Fixes
805
806As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
807and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
808
809*** Changes in GDB-4.12:
810
811* Irix 5 is now supported
812
813* HPPA support
814
815GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
816to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
817GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
818of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
819can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
820
821
822*** Changes in GDB-4.11:
823
824* User visible changes:
825
826* Remote Debugging
827
828The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
829target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
830debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
831integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
832debugging info for the mips target).
833
834* DEC Alpha native support
835
836GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
837debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
838work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
839Alpha-specific notes.
840
841* Preliminary thread implementation
842
843GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
844
845* LynxOS native and target support for 386
846
847This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
848to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
849for details).
850
851* Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
852
853This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
854mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
855call methods, ...etc.
856
857*** Changes in GDB-4.10:
858
859 * User visible changes:
860
861Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
862supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
863other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
864somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
865
866Filename completion now works.
867
868When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
869arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
870addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
871
872All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
873vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
874should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
875your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
876to be on the far side of a thin network line.
877
878 * DEC alpha support
879
880This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
881cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
882
883
884*** Changes in GDB-4.9:
885
886 * Testsuite
887
888This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
889The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
890via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
891
892 * C++ demangling
893
894'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
895emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
896Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
897disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
898use gdb with AT&T cfront.
899
900 * Simulators
901
902GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
903So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
904Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
905
906 * New targets supported
907
908H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
909H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
910SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
911Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
912IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
913
914Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
915version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
916GO32 memory extender.
917
918 * New remote protocols
919
920MIPS remote debugging protocol.
921
922 * New source languages supported
923
924This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
925used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
926into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
927
928
929*** Changes in GDB-4.8:
930
931 * HP Precision Architecture supported
932
933GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
934version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
935University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
936compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
937format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
938(as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
939
940Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
941
942 * Faster and better demangling
943
944We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
945demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
946character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
947only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
948This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
949increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
950symbol lookups.
951
952`Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
953from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
954compiler does not actually implement.
955
956 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
957
958In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
959inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
960recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
961very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
962The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
963circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
964fix.
965
966The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
967release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
968
969 * Improved configure script
970
971The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
972you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
973host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
974done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
975
976We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
977version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
978`--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
979The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
980only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
981We hope to make this the default in a future release.
982
983 * Documentation improvements
984
985There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
986produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
987before submitting changes.
988
989The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
990M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
991`info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
992you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
993a future texinfo-X.Y release.
994
995*NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
996We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
997been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
998or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
999`texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
1000around this problem.
1001
1002 * New features
1003
1004GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
1005the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
1006`print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
1007the target program.
1008
1009The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
1010how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
1011
1012 * New native hosts supported
1013
1014HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
1015386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
1016
1017 * New targets supported
1018
1019AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
1020
1021 * New file formats supported
1022
1023BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
1024HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
1025
1026 * Major bug fixes
1027
1028Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
1029
1030We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
1031printf_filtered("%s") problems.
1032
1033We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
1034for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
1035release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
1036
1037You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
1038will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
1039
1040We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
1041for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
1042especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
1043libraries.
1044
1045The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
1046information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
1047command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
1048any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
1049when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
1050
1051 * Internal improvements
1052
1053GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
1054debugging of multiple languages in the future.
1055
1056GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
1057Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
1058symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
1059contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
1060shared code that handles any of them.
1061
1062 * New command line options
1063
1064We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
1065
1066 * Mmalloc licensing
1067
1068The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
1069General Public License.
1070
1071*** Changes in GDB-4.7:
1072
1073 * Host/native/target split
1074
1075GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
1076hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
1077target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
1078local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
1079ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
1080
1081The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
1082GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
1083is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
1084code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
1085any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
1086built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
1087handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
1088
1089GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
1090It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
1091plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
1092
1093 * New hosts supported
1094
1095HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
1096386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1097386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
1098
1099 * New targets supported
1100
1101Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
110268030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
1103
1104 * New native hosts supported
1105
1106386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1107 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
1108386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
1109
1110 * New file formats supported
1111
1112BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
1113supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
1114format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
1115
1116 * New commands
1117
1118`show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
1119`show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
1120These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
1121
1122`info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
1123
1124You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
1125scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
1126prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
1127executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
1128
1129 * C++ improvements
1130
1131We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
1132info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
1133symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
1134
1135Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
1136
1137 * Major bug fixes
1138
1139The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
1140fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
1141by the compiler.
1142
1143We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
1144support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
1145
1146John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
1147slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
1148that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
1149purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
1150the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
1151mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
1152
1153Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
1154about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
1155completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
1156we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
1157
1158 * AMD 29k support
1159
1160A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
1161specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
1162calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
1163usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
1164in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
1165
1166We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
1167Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
1168of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
1169resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
1170
1171 * Remote interfaces
1172
1173We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
1174with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
1175message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
1176This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
1177needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
1178breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
1179each instruction being stepped through.
1180
1181The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
1182registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
1183
1184There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
1185find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
1186Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
1187processor with a serial port.
1188
1189 * Configuration
1190
1191Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
1192`table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
1193supported, and what files each one uses.
1194
1195 * Library changes
1196
1197There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
1198disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
1199Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
1200disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
1201
1202The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
1203Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
1204can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
1205grants all the rights from the General Public License.
1206
1207 * Documentation
1208
1209The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
1210reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
1211as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
1212encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
1213system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
1214bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
1215
1216And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
1217
1218
1219*** Changes in GDB-4.6:
1220
1221 * Better support for C++ function names
1222
1223GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
1224names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
1225(using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
1226single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
1227Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
1228
1229GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
1230the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
1231You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
1232lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
1233for the list of formats.
1234
1235 * G++ symbol mangling problem
1236
1237Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
1238C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
1239directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
1240can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
1241usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
1242about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
1243this problem.)
1244
1245 * New 'maintenance' command
1246
1247All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
1248the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
1249can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
1250
1251 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
1252 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
1253 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
1254 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
1255 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
1256 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
1257
1258The following commands are new:
1259
1260 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
1261 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
1262 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
1263
1264 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
1265
1266We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
1267(e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
1268be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
1269read after argv processing.
1270
1271 * New hosts supported
1272
1273Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
1274
1275Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
1276
1277We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
1278is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
1279for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
1280masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
1281fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
1282It costs extra.
1283
1284 * New targets supported
1285
1286Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1287
1288 * More smarts about finding #include files
1289
1290GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
1291all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
1292greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
1293especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
1294the one that contains your sources.
1295
1296We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
1297breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
1298try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
1299
1300 * Interesting infernals change
1301
1302GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
1303section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
1304target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
1305stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
1306
1307 * Bug fixes (of course!)
1308
1309There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
1310 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
1311 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
1312
1313See the ChangeLog for details.
1314
1315*** Changes in GDB-4.5:
1316
1317 * New machines supported (host and target)
1318
1319IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
1320
1321SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
1322
1323 * New malloc package
1324
1325GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
1326Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
1327capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
1328This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
1329pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
1330more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
1331
1332 * info proc
1333
1334The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
1335'help info proc' for details.
1336
1337 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
1338
1339The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
1340Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
1341possible.
1342
1343 * File name changes for MS-DOS
1344
1345Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
1346support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
1347conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
1348environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
1349that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
1350in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
1351
1352 * Cross byte order fixes
1353
1354Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
1355targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
1356
1357 * New -mapped and -readnow options
1358
1359If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
1360system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
1361`symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
1362program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
1363called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
1364Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
1365and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
1366the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
1367option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
1368starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
1369
1370You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
1371the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
1372information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
1373slower, but makes future operations faster.
1374
1375The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
1376build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
1377A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
1378use is:
1379
1380 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
1381
1382The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
1383It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
1384shared across multiple host platforms.
1385
1386 * longjmp() handling
1387
1388GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
1389siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
1390all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
1391platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
1392
1393 * Solaris 2.0
1394
1395Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
1396this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
1397reading symbols.
1398
1399 * Bug fixes
1400
1401As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
1402People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
1403crashes and trashed symbol tables.
1404
1405*** Changes in GDB-4.4:
1406
1407 * New machines supported (host and target)
1408
1409SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
1410 (except core files)
1411BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
1412Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
1413
1414 * New machines supported (target)
1415
1416AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1417
1418 * C++ support
1419
1420GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
1421The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
1422per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
1423
1424GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
1425`ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
1426extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
1427good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
1428will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
1429released.
1430
1431 * New features for SVR4
1432
1433GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
1434shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
1435only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
1436
1437The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
1438on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
1439it prints the address mappings of the process.
1440
1441If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
1442bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
1443
1444 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
1445
1446Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
1447now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
1448skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
1449make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
1450same code linked statically.
1451
1452 * New Getopt
1453
1454GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
1455version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
1456continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
1457Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
1458added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
1459future by other options that begin with the same letter.
1460
1461 * Bugs fixed
1462
1463The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
1464Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
1465See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
1466
1467
1468*** Changes in GDB-4.3:
1469
1470 * New machines supported (host and target)
1471
1472Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
1473NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
1474Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
1475
1476 * Almost SCO Unix support
1477
1478We had hoped to support:
1479SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
1480(except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
1481that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
1482about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
1483
1484 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
1485
1486GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
1487debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
1488is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
1489send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
1490reqired (if any).
1491
1492 * New Readline
1493
1494GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
1495is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
1496required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
1497
1498 * Bugs fixed
1499
1500The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
1501Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
1502See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
1503
1504 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
1505
1506GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
1507supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
1508symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
1509
1510Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
1511mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
1512debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
1513mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
1514version 2.
1515
1516Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
1517really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
1518line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
1519variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
1520situation somewhat.
1521
1522When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
1523However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
1524methods.
1525
1526We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
1527DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
1528encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
1529
1530
1531*** Changes in GDB-4.2:
1532
1533 * Improved configuration
1534
1535Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
1536Porting BFD is simpler.
1537
1538 * Stepping improved
1539
1540The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
1541of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
1542in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
1543function that has debugging information is called within the line.
1544
1545 * Bug fixing
1546
1547Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
1548
1549 * New host supported (not target)
1550
1551Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
1552
1553
1554*** Changes in GDB-4.1:
1555
1556 * Multiple source language support
1557
1558GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
1559It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
1560and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
1561language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
1562You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
1563`set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
1564
1565 * GDB and Modula-2
1566
1567GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
1568currently under development at the State University of New York at
1569Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
1570continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
1571
1572Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
1573debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
1574symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
1575
1576There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
1577in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
1578
1579 * set write on/off
1580
1581GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
1582a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
1583the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
1584by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
1585effect immediately.
1586
1587 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
1588
1589When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
1590shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
1591The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
1592examining core files.
1593
1594 * set listsize
1595
1596You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
1597The default is 10.
1598
1599 * New machines supported (host and target)
1600
1601SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
1602Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
1603Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
1604
1605 * New hosts supported (not targets)
1606
1607IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
1608
1609 * New targets supported (not hosts)
1610
1611AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1612AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1613Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
1614
1615 * New remote interfaces
1616
1617AMD 29000 Adapt
1618AMD 29000 Minimon
1619
1620
1621*** Changes in GDB-4.0:
1622
1623 * New Facilities
1624
1625Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
1626
1627Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
1628target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
1629is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
1630remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
1631remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
1632also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
1633using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
1634stub on the target system.
1635
1636New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
1637
1638GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
1639library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
1640object file types such as a.out and coff.
1641
1642There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
1643refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
1644
1645
1646 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
1647
1648All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
1649by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
1650
1651For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
1652``Show prompt'' produces the response:
1653Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
1654
1655What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
1656print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
1657will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
1658all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
1659
1660confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
1661 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
1662 it is already running. Default is ON.
1663
1664editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
1665 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
1666 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
1667 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
1668 Default is ON.
1669
1670history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
1671 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
1672 or the value of the environment variable
1673 GDBHISTFILE.
1674
1675history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
1676 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
1677 HISTSIZE.
1678
1679history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
1680 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
1681 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
1682
1683history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
1684 history expansion will be performed on
1685 command line input. The default is OFF.
1686
1687radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
1688 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
1689 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
1690
1691height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
1692 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
1693 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
1694 variable TERM.
1695
1696width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
1697 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
1698 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
1699 variable TERM.
1700
1701Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
1702``set width'' instead.
1703
1704print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
1705 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
1706 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
1707 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
1708
1709print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
1710 is OFF.
1711
1712print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
1713 "raw" form if off.
1714
1715print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
1716 like instructions.
1717
1718print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
1719
1720
1721 * Support for Epoch Environment.
1722
1723The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
1724new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
1725are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
1726window.
1727
1728
1729 * Support for Shared Libraries
1730
1731GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
1732Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
1733before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
1734happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
1735At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
1736from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
1737shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
1738It can be abbreviated ``share''.
1739
1740sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
1741 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
1742 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
1743
1744info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
1745
1746
1747 * Watchpoints
1748
1749A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
1750expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
1751tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
1752quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
1753problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
1754more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
1755
1756watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
1757
1758info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
1759
1760delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
1761disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
1762enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
1763
1764
1765 * C++ multiple inheritance
1766
1767When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
1768for C++ programs.
1769
1770 * C++ exception handling
1771
1772Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
1773ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
1774the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
1775handler's context).
1776
1777catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
1778 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
1779 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
1780
1781info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
1782 current stack frame.
1783
1784
1785 * Minor command changes
1786
1787The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
1788command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
1789is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
1790
1791The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
1792at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
1793frames without printing.
1794
1795 * New directory command
1796
1797'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
1798The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
1799about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
1800with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
1801find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
1802
1803 * Configuring GDB for compilation
1804
1805For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
1806for more details.
1807
1808GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
1809two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
1810Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
1811where the program that you are debugging will run.
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