Include regcache.h
[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* New native configurations
9
10Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
11x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
12
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13* New targets
14
15* OBSOLETE configurations
16
17x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
18
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19Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
20been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
21configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
22permanently REMOVED.
23
24* REMOVED configurations
25
26Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
27Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
28Pyramid pyramid-*-*
29ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
30Tahoe tahoe-*-*
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31
32* Other news:
33
34* All MIPS configurations are multi-arched.
35
36Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
37
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38* gdba.el deleted
39
40GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
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9debab2f 42*** Changes in GDB 5.0:
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44* Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
45
46Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
47programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
48displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
49greater level of detail.
50
51* Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
52
53It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
54bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
55on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
56written.
57
58* Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
59
60The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
61necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
62machines ``out of the box''.
63
64The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
65possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
66signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
67would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
68interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
69
70It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
71standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
72even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
73and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
74terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
75
76The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
77enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
78also works.
79
80DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
81GDB.
82
83It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
84directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
85times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
86breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
87
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88* New native configurations
89
90ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
afc05dd4 91PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
ed9a39eb 92
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93* New targets
94
96baa820 95Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
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96x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
97PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
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98TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
99
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100* OBSOLETE configurations
101
102Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
103Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
9846de1b 104Pyramid pyramid-*-*
ed9a39eb 105ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
104c1213 106Tahoe tahoe-*-*
7a292a7a 107
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108Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
109but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
110these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
111be permanently REMOVED.
112
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113* Gould support removed
114
115Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
116
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117* New features for SVR4
118
119On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
120without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
121load symbols from the running process's executable file.
122
123* Many C++ enhancements
124
125C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
126in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
127
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128* Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
129
130A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
131sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
132with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
133``|<program> <args>'' vis:
134
135 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
136 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
137
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138* MIPS 64 remote protocol
139
140A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
141expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
142instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
143
144The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
145added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
146
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147* ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
148
149The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
150``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
151include ``set remote P-packet''.
152
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153* Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
154
155The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
156accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
157``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
158
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159* ``apropos'' command added.
160
161The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
162documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
163try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
164
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165* New MI interface
166
167A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
168interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
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169process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
170"GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
171enabled by configuring with:
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172
173 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
174
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175*** Changes in GDB-4.18:
176
177* New native configurations
178
179HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
180HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
181M68K Linux m68*-*-linux*
182
183* New targets
184
185Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
186Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
187Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
188
189* OBSOLETE configurations
190
191Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
192
193Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
194but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
195these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
196be permanently REMOVED.
197
198* ANSI/ISO C
199
200As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
201buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
202containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
203use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
204available. If this is not true, please report the affected
205configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
206information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
207already.
208
209* Readline 2.2
210
211GDB now uses readline 2.2.
212
213* set extension-language
214
215You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
216languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
217you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
218 set extension-language .c c++
219The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
220and their associated languages.
221
222* Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
223
224When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
225you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
226PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
227
228 set processor NAME
229
230sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
231following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
232
233 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
234 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
235 403 IBM PowerPC 403
236 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
237 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
238 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
239 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
240 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
241 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
242 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
243 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
244
245At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
246special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
247registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
248only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
249
250* HP-UX support
251
252Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
253more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
254library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
255support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
256for xdb and dbx commands.
257
258* Catchpoints
259
260HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
261generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
262to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
263
264This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
265argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
266output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
267
268* Debugging across forks
269
270On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
271in the inferior.
272
273* TUI
274
275HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
276it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
277configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
278
279* GDB remote protocol additions
280
281A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
282Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
283fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
284allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
285
286For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
287full 64-bit address. The command
288
289 set remoteaddresssize 32
290
291can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
292the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
293will be discarded.
294
295In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
296command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
297
298 maint packet heythere
299
300sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
301disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
302time.
303
304The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
305target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
306downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
307
308* Tracing can collect general expressions
309
310You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
311further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
312doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
313
314* mask-address variable for Mips
315
316For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
317a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
318of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
319
320* Higher serial baud rates
321
322GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
323230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
324to achieve all of these rates.)
325
326* i960 simulator
327
328The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
329builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
330
331
332*** Changes in GDB-4.17:
333
334* New native configurations
335
336Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
337Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
338Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
339PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
340PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
341Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
342Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
343
344* New targets
345
346Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
347Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
348Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
349Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
350MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
351MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
352MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
353Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
354Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
355Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
356NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
357
358* New debugging protocols
359
360ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
361M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
362DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
363PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
364PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
365Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
366
367* DWARF 2
368
369All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
370format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
371information.
372
373* Java frontend
374
375GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
376only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
377
378* solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
379
380For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
381loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
382locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
383
384* Live range splitting
385
386GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
387range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
388more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
389
390* Hurd support
391
392GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
393updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
394
395* ARM Thumb support
396
397GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
398instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
399instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
400accordingly.
401
402* MIPS16 support
403
404GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
405instruction set.
406
407* Overlay support
408
409GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
410linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
411will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
412control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
413additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
414in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
415
416* info symbol
417
418The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
419the symbol at the specified address.
420
421* Trace support
422
423The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
424asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
425extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
426includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
427file tracepoint.c for more details.
428
429* MIPS simulator
430
431Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
432by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
433of most MIPS variants.
434
435* Sparc simulator
436
437Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
438by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
439Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
440
441* set architecture
442
443For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
444basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
445architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
446the possible architectures.
447
448*** Changes in GDB-4.16:
449
450* New native configurations
451
452Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
453M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
454PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
455PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
456PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
457RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
458
459* New targets
460
461ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
462I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
463MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
464MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
465PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
466Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
467Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
468
469* PowerPC simulator
470
471The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
472contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
473PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
474basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
475performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
476
477* Solaris 2.5
478
479GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
480
481* Windows 95/NT native
482
483GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
484To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
485which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
486Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
487ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
488
489* dont-repeat command
490
491If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
492command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
493useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
494extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
495
496* Send break instead of ^C
497
498The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
499rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
500GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
501
502* Remote protocol timeout
503
504The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
505that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
506to read from the target. The default value is 2.
507
508* Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
509
510By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
511loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
512stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
513when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
514in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
515
516Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
517/usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
518automatically on hpux10.
519
520* Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
521
522Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
523
524* Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
525
526When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
527may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
528the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
529every character. The default value is 1050.
530
531* Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
532
533If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
534a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
535replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
536details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
537remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
538to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
539
540* Speedups for remote debugging
541
542GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
543the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
544and more efficient S-record downloading.
545
546* Memory use reductions and statistics collection
547
548GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
549Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
550
551*** Changes in GDB-4.15:
552
553* Psymtabs for XCOFF
554
555The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
556can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
557
558* Remote targets use caching
559
560Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
561remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
562it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
563debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
564off' turns the the data cache off.
565
566* Remote targets may have threads
567
568The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
569in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
570gdb/remote.c for details.
571
572* NetROM support
573
574If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
575support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
576acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
577write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
578support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
579another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
580sequence is something like
581
582 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
583 load <prog>
584 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
585
586* Macintosh host
587
588GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
589may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
590it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
591available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
592device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
593directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
594scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
595mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
596
597* Autoconf
598
599GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
600but does simplify configuration and building.
601
602* hpux10
603
604GDB now supports hpux10.
605
606*** Changes in GDB-4.14:
607
608* New native configurations
609
610x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
611x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
612NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
613Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
614
615* New targets
616
617A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
618HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
619CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
620PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
621WDC 65816 w65-*-*
622
623* Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
624
625GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
626possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
627filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
628the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
629if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
630
631* Arguments to user-defined commands
632
633User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
634Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
635trivial example:
636define adder
637 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
638
639To execute the command use:
640adder 1 2 3
641
642Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
643Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
644use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
645
646* New `if' and `while' commands
647
648This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
649commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
650expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
651execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
652terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
653`else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
654if the expression is zero.
655
656* Fortran source language mode
657
658GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
659Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
660variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
661with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
662Fortran compilers.
663
664* Better HPUX support
665
666Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
667running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
668processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
669for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
670that behavior do the following before running the program:
671
672 adb -w a.out
673 __dld_flags?W 0x5
674 control-d
675
676This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
677To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
678
679 adb -w a.out
680 __dld_flags?W 0x4
681 control-d
682
683You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
684the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
685external linkage.
686
687GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
688HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
689
690* Target byte order now dynamically selectable
691
692You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
693commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
694current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
695"set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
696associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
697configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
698
699* New DOS host serial code
700
701This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
702no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
703a PC's serial port.
704
705*** Changes in GDB-4.13:
706
707* New "complete" command
708
709This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
710were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
711
712* Trailing space optional in prompt
713
714"set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
715allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
716
717* Breakpoint hit counts
718
719"info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
720has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
721can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
722to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
723less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
724that breakpoint.
725
726* Ability to stop printing at NULL character
727
728"set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
729an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
730arrays actually contain only short strings.
731
732* Shared library breakpoints
733
734In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
735breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
736
737* Hardware watchpoints
738
739There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
740targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
741
742Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under Linux.
743
744* Annotations
745
746Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
747and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
748
749* Improved Irix 5 support
750
751GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
752
753* Improved HPPA support
754
755GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
756
757* New native configurations
758
759Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
760HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
761Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
762RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
763
764* New targets
765
766OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
767MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
768Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
769
770* Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
771
772There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
773This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
774
775* Fixes
776
777As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
778and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
779
780*** Changes in GDB-4.12:
781
782* Irix 5 is now supported
783
784* HPPA support
785
786GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
787to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
788GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
789of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
790can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
791
792
793*** Changes in GDB-4.11:
794
795* User visible changes:
796
797* Remote Debugging
798
799The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
800target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
801debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
802integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
803debugging info for the mips target).
804
805* DEC Alpha native support
806
807GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
808debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
809work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
810Alpha-specific notes.
811
812* Preliminary thread implementation
813
814GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
815
816* LynxOS native and target support for 386
817
818This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
819to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
820for details).
821
822* Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
823
824This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
825mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
826call methods, ...etc.
827
828*** Changes in GDB-4.10:
829
830 * User visible changes:
831
832Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
833supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
834other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
835somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
836
837Filename completion now works.
838
839When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
840arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
841addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
842
843All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
844vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
845should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
846your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
847to be on the far side of a thin network line.
848
849 * DEC alpha support
850
851This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
852cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
853
854
855*** Changes in GDB-4.9:
856
857 * Testsuite
858
859This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
860The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
861via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
862
863 * C++ demangling
864
865'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
866emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
867Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
868disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
869use gdb with AT&T cfront.
870
871 * Simulators
872
873GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
874So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
875Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
876
877 * New targets supported
878
879H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
880H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
881SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
882Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
883IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
884
885Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
886version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
887GO32 memory extender.
888
889 * New remote protocols
890
891MIPS remote debugging protocol.
892
893 * New source languages supported
894
895This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
896used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
897into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
898
899
900*** Changes in GDB-4.8:
901
902 * HP Precision Architecture supported
903
904GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
905version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
906University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
907compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
908format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
909(as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
910
911Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
912
913 * Faster and better demangling
914
915We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
916demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
917character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
918only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
919This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
920increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
921symbol lookups.
922
923`Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
924from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
925compiler does not actually implement.
926
927 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
928
929In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
930inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
931recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
932very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
933The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
934circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
935fix.
936
937The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
938release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
939
940 * Improved configure script
941
942The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
943you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
944host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
945done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
946
947We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
948version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
949`--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
950The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
951only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
952We hope to make this the default in a future release.
953
954 * Documentation improvements
955
956There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
957produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
958before submitting changes.
959
960The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
961M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
962`info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
963you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
964a future texinfo-X.Y release.
965
966*NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
967We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
968been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
969or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
970`texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
971around this problem.
972
973 * New features
974
975GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
976the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
977`print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
978the target program.
979
980The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
981how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
982
983 * New native hosts supported
984
985HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
986386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
987
988 * New targets supported
989
990AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
991
992 * New file formats supported
993
994BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
995HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
996
997 * Major bug fixes
998
999Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
1000
1001We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
1002printf_filtered("%s") problems.
1003
1004We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
1005for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
1006release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
1007
1008You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
1009will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
1010
1011We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
1012for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
1013especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
1014libraries.
1015
1016The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
1017information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
1018command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
1019any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
1020when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
1021
1022 * Internal improvements
1023
1024GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
1025debugging of multiple languages in the future.
1026
1027GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
1028Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
1029symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
1030contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
1031shared code that handles any of them.
1032
1033 * New command line options
1034
1035We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
1036
1037 * Mmalloc licensing
1038
1039The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
1040General Public License.
1041
1042*** Changes in GDB-4.7:
1043
1044 * Host/native/target split
1045
1046GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
1047hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
1048target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
1049local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
1050ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
1051
1052The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
1053GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
1054is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
1055code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
1056any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
1057built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
1058handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
1059
1060GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
1061It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
1062plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
1063
1064 * New hosts supported
1065
1066HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
1067386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1068386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
1069
1070 * New targets supported
1071
1072Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
107368030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
1074
1075 * New native hosts supported
1076
1077386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1078 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
1079386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
1080
1081 * New file formats supported
1082
1083BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
1084supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
1085format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
1086
1087 * New commands
1088
1089`show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
1090`show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
1091These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
1092
1093`info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
1094
1095You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
1096scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
1097prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
1098executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
1099
1100 * C++ improvements
1101
1102We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
1103info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
1104symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
1105
1106Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
1107
1108 * Major bug fixes
1109
1110The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
1111fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
1112by the compiler.
1113
1114We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
1115support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
1116
1117John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
1118slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
1119that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
1120purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
1121the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
1122mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
1123
1124Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
1125about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
1126completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
1127we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
1128
1129 * AMD 29k support
1130
1131A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
1132specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
1133calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
1134usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
1135in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
1136
1137We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
1138Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
1139of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
1140resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
1141
1142 * Remote interfaces
1143
1144We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
1145with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
1146message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
1147This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
1148needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
1149breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
1150each instruction being stepped through.
1151
1152The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
1153registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
1154
1155There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
1156find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
1157Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
1158processor with a serial port.
1159
1160 * Configuration
1161
1162Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
1163`table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
1164supported, and what files each one uses.
1165
1166 * Library changes
1167
1168There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
1169disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
1170Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
1171disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
1172
1173The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
1174Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
1175can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
1176grants all the rights from the General Public License.
1177
1178 * Documentation
1179
1180The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
1181reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
1182as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
1183encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
1184system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
1185bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
1186
1187And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
1188
1189
1190*** Changes in GDB-4.6:
1191
1192 * Better support for C++ function names
1193
1194GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
1195names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
1196(using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
1197single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
1198Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
1199
1200GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
1201the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
1202You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
1203lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
1204for the list of formats.
1205
1206 * G++ symbol mangling problem
1207
1208Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
1209C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
1210directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
1211can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
1212usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
1213about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
1214this problem.)
1215
1216 * New 'maintenance' command
1217
1218All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
1219the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
1220can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
1221
1222 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
1223 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
1224 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
1225 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
1226 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
1227 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
1228
1229The following commands are new:
1230
1231 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
1232 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
1233 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
1234
1235 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
1236
1237We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
1238(e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
1239be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
1240read after argv processing.
1241
1242 * New hosts supported
1243
1244Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
1245
1246Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
1247
1248We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
1249is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
1250for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
1251masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
1252fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
1253It costs extra.
1254
1255 * New targets supported
1256
1257Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1258
1259 * More smarts about finding #include files
1260
1261GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
1262all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
1263greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
1264especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
1265the one that contains your sources.
1266
1267We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
1268breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
1269try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
1270
1271 * Interesting infernals change
1272
1273GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
1274section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
1275target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
1276stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
1277
1278 * Bug fixes (of course!)
1279
1280There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
1281 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
1282 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
1283
1284See the ChangeLog for details.
1285
1286*** Changes in GDB-4.5:
1287
1288 * New machines supported (host and target)
1289
1290IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
1291
1292SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
1293
1294 * New malloc package
1295
1296GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
1297Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
1298capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
1299This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
1300pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
1301more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
1302
1303 * info proc
1304
1305The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
1306'help info proc' for details.
1307
1308 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
1309
1310The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
1311Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
1312possible.
1313
1314 * File name changes for MS-DOS
1315
1316Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
1317support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
1318conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
1319environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
1320that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
1321in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
1322
1323 * Cross byte order fixes
1324
1325Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
1326targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
1327
1328 * New -mapped and -readnow options
1329
1330If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
1331system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
1332`symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
1333program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
1334called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
1335Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
1336and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
1337the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
1338option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
1339starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
1340
1341You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
1342the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
1343information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
1344slower, but makes future operations faster.
1345
1346The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
1347build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
1348A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
1349use is:
1350
1351 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
1352
1353The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
1354It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
1355shared across multiple host platforms.
1356
1357 * longjmp() handling
1358
1359GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
1360siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
1361all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
1362platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
1363
1364 * Solaris 2.0
1365
1366Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
1367this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
1368reading symbols.
1369
1370 * Bug fixes
1371
1372As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
1373People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
1374crashes and trashed symbol tables.
1375
1376*** Changes in GDB-4.4:
1377
1378 * New machines supported (host and target)
1379
1380SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
1381 (except core files)
1382BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
1383Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
1384
1385 * New machines supported (target)
1386
1387AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1388
1389 * C++ support
1390
1391GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
1392The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
1393per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
1394
1395GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
1396`ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
1397extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
1398good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
1399will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
1400released.
1401
1402 * New features for SVR4
1403
1404GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
1405shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
1406only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
1407
1408The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
1409on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
1410it prints the address mappings of the process.
1411
1412If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
1413bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
1414
1415 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
1416
1417Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
1418now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
1419skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
1420make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
1421same code linked statically.
1422
1423 * New Getopt
1424
1425GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
1426version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
1427continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
1428Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
1429added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
1430future by other options that begin with the same letter.
1431
1432 * Bugs fixed
1433
1434The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
1435Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
1436See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
1437
1438
1439*** Changes in GDB-4.3:
1440
1441 * New machines supported (host and target)
1442
1443Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
1444NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
1445Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
1446
1447 * Almost SCO Unix support
1448
1449We had hoped to support:
1450SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
1451(except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
1452that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
1453about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
1454
1455 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
1456
1457GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
1458debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
1459is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
1460send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
1461reqired (if any).
1462
1463 * New Readline
1464
1465GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
1466is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
1467required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
1468
1469 * Bugs fixed
1470
1471The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
1472Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
1473See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
1474
1475 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
1476
1477GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
1478supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
1479symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
1480
1481Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
1482mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
1483debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
1484mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
1485version 2.
1486
1487Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
1488really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
1489line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
1490variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
1491situation somewhat.
1492
1493When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
1494However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
1495methods.
1496
1497We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
1498DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
1499encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
1500
1501
1502*** Changes in GDB-4.2:
1503
1504 * Improved configuration
1505
1506Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
1507Porting BFD is simpler.
1508
1509 * Stepping improved
1510
1511The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
1512of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
1513in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
1514function that has debugging information is called within the line.
1515
1516 * Bug fixing
1517
1518Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
1519
1520 * New host supported (not target)
1521
1522Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
1523
1524
1525*** Changes in GDB-4.1:
1526
1527 * Multiple source language support
1528
1529GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
1530It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
1531and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
1532language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
1533You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
1534`set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
1535
1536 * GDB and Modula-2
1537
1538GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
1539currently under development at the State University of New York at
1540Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
1541continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
1542
1543Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
1544debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
1545symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
1546
1547There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
1548in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
1549
1550 * set write on/off
1551
1552GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
1553a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
1554the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
1555by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
1556effect immediately.
1557
1558 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
1559
1560When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
1561shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
1562The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
1563examining core files.
1564
1565 * set listsize
1566
1567You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
1568The default is 10.
1569
1570 * New machines supported (host and target)
1571
1572SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
1573Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
1574Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
1575
1576 * New hosts supported (not targets)
1577
1578IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
1579
1580 * New targets supported (not hosts)
1581
1582AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1583AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1584Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
1585
1586 * New remote interfaces
1587
1588AMD 29000 Adapt
1589AMD 29000 Minimon
1590
1591
1592*** Changes in GDB-4.0:
1593
1594 * New Facilities
1595
1596Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
1597
1598Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
1599target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
1600is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
1601remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
1602remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
1603also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
1604using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
1605stub on the target system.
1606
1607New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
1608
1609GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
1610library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
1611object file types such as a.out and coff.
1612
1613There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
1614refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
1615
1616
1617 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
1618
1619All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
1620by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
1621
1622For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
1623``Show prompt'' produces the response:
1624Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
1625
1626What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
1627print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
1628will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
1629all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
1630
1631confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
1632 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
1633 it is already running. Default is ON.
1634
1635editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
1636 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
1637 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
1638 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
1639 Default is ON.
1640
1641history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
1642 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
1643 or the value of the environment variable
1644 GDBHISTFILE.
1645
1646history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
1647 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
1648 HISTSIZE.
1649
1650history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
1651 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
1652 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
1653
1654history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
1655 history expansion will be performed on
1656 command line input. The default is OFF.
1657
1658radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
1659 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
1660 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
1661
1662height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
1663 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
1664 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
1665 variable TERM.
1666
1667width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
1668 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
1669 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
1670 variable TERM.
1671
1672Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
1673``set width'' instead.
1674
1675print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
1676 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
1677 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
1678 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
1679
1680print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
1681 is OFF.
1682
1683print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
1684 "raw" form if off.
1685
1686print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
1687 like instructions.
1688
1689print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
1690
1691
1692 * Support for Epoch Environment.
1693
1694The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
1695new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
1696are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
1697window.
1698
1699
1700 * Support for Shared Libraries
1701
1702GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
1703Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
1704before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
1705happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
1706At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
1707from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
1708shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
1709It can be abbreviated ``share''.
1710
1711sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
1712 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
1713 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
1714
1715info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
1716
1717
1718 * Watchpoints
1719
1720A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
1721expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
1722tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
1723quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
1724problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
1725more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
1726
1727watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
1728
1729info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
1730
1731delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
1732disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
1733enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
1734
1735
1736 * C++ multiple inheritance
1737
1738When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
1739for C++ programs.
1740
1741 * C++ exception handling
1742
1743Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
1744ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
1745the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
1746handler's context).
1747
1748catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
1749 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
1750 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
1751
1752info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
1753 current stack frame.
1754
1755
1756 * Minor command changes
1757
1758The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
1759command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
1760is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
1761
1762The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
1763at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
1764frames without printing.
1765
1766 * New directory command
1767
1768'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
1769The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
1770about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
1771with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
1772find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
1773
1774 * Configuring GDB for compilation
1775
1776For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
1777for more details.
1778
1779GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
1780two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
1781Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
1782where the program that you are debugging will run.
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