* hppa-tdep.c (pa_print_registers): Extract register values stored
[deliverable/binutils-gdb.git] / gdb / NEWS
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1 What has changed since GDB-3.5?
2 (Organized release by release)
3
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4* New "if" and "while" commands. This makes it possible to write
5somewhat more sophisticated user-defined commands.
7de5c5e2 6
e3581971 7* Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
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8running hpux9 or later. See the GDB manual for the few minor problems
9and potential workarounds.
e3581971 10
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11* GDB can now read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on HPPAs
12(sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
13
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14*** Changes in GDB-4.13:
15
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16* New "complete" command
17
18This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
19were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
72e35288 20
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21* Trailing space optional in prompt
22
23"set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
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24allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
25
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26* Breakpoint hit counts
27
28"info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
29has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
30can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
31to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
32less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
33that breakpoint.
34
35* Ability to stop printing at NULL character
36
37"set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
38an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
39arrays actually contain only short strings.
40
41* Shared library breakpoints
42
43In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
44breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
45
46* Hardware watchpoints
47
48There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
49targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
50
51Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under Linux.
52
53* Annotations
54
55Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
56and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
57
58* Improved Irix 5 support
59
60GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
61
62* Improved HPPA support
63
64GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
65
66* New native configurations
67
68Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
69HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
70Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
71RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
72
73* New targets
74
75OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
76MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
77Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
78
79* Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
80
81There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
82This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
83
84* Fixes
85
86As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
87and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
88
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89*** Changes in GDB-4.12:
90
91* Irix 5 is now supported
92
93* HPPA support
94
95GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
96to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
97GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
98of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
99can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
100
101
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102*** Changes in GDB-4.11:
103
104* User visible changes:
105
106* Remote Debugging
803f7af5 107
41a6194d 108The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
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109target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
110debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
111integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
112debugging info for the mips target).
41a6194d 113
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114* DEC Alpha native support
115
116GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
117debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
118work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
119Alpha-specific notes.
120
121* Preliminary thread implementation
122
123GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
124
125* LynxOS native and target support for 386
126
127This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
128to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
129for details).
130
131* Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
132
133This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
134mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
135call methods, ...etc.
136
41a6194d 137*** Changes in GDB-4.10:
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138
139 * User visible changes:
140
5b336d29 141Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
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142supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
143other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
144somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
5b336d29 145
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146Filename completion now works.
147
148When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
149arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
be9af13c 150addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
a32ebcfd 151
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152All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
153vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
154should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
155your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
156to be on the far side of a thin network line.
157
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158 * DEC alpha support
159
160This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
161cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
162
163
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164*** Changes in GDB-4.9:
165
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166 * Testsuite
167
168This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
169The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
170via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
171
172 * C++ demangling
173
45364c8a 174'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
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175emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
176Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
177disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
178use gdb with AT&T cfront.
45364c8a 179
c787ca55 180 * Simulators
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181
182GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
183So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
184Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
185
186 * New targets supported
187
188H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
189H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
190SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
191Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
8b946797 192IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
8ae56378 193
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194Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
195version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
0a4a0f09 196GO32 memory extender.
cb46c402 197
0a4a0f09 198 * New remote protocols
cb46c402 199
0a4a0f09 200MIPS remote debugging protocol.
cb46c402 201
0a4a0f09 202 * New source languages supported
cb46c402 203
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204This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
205used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
206into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
cb46c402 207
cb46c402 208
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209*** Changes in GDB-4.8:
210
3421ec35 211 * HP Precision Architecture supported
c5cc95b1 212
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213GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
214version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
215University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
216compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
6d0380ee 217format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
3421ec35 218(as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
c5cc95b1 219
3421ec35 220Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
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221
222 * Faster and better demangling
223
224We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
225demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
226character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
227only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
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228This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
229increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
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230symbol lookups.
231
232`Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
233from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
234compiler does not actually implement.
235
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236 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
237
238In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
239inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
240recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
241very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
242The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
243circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
244fix.
245
246The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
247release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
248
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249 * Improved configure script
250
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251The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
252you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
253host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
254done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
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255
256We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
257version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
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258`--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
259The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
260only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
261We hope to make this the default in a future release.
262
263 * Documentation improvements
264
265There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
266produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
267before submitting changes.
268
269The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
270M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
271`info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
272you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
273a future texinfo-X.Y release.
274
275*NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
276We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
277been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
278or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
279`texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
280around this problem.
c5cc95b1 281
3421ec35 282 * New features
c5cc95b1 283
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284GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
285the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
286`print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
287the target program.
c5cc95b1 288
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289The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
290how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
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291
292 * New native hosts supported
293
294HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
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295386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
296
297 * New targets supported
298
299AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
300
301 * New file formats supported
302
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303BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
304HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
305
306 * Major bug fixes
307
308Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
309
310We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
311printf_filtered("%s") problems.
312
313We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
314for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
315release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
316
317You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
318will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
319
320We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
321for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
322especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
323libraries.
c5cc95b1 324
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325The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
326information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
327command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
328any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
329when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
330
331 * Internal improvements
332
333GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
334debugging of multiple languages in the future.
335
336GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
337Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
338symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
339contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
340shared code that handles any of them.
341
342 * New command line options
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343
344We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
345
3421ec35 346 * Mmalloc licensing
c5cc95b1 347
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348The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
349General Public License.
c5cc95b1 350
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351*** Changes in GDB-4.7:
352
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353 * Host/native/target split
354
355GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
356hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
357target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
358local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
359ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
360
361The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
362GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
363is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
364code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
365any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
366built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
367handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
368
369GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
370It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
371plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
372
373 * New hosts supported
374
375HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
376386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
377386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
378
379 * New targets supported
76ba9b5b 380
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381Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
38268030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
5f5be54c 383
c00d8242 384 * New native hosts supported
5f5be54c 385
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386386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
387 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
388386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
5f5be54c 389
c00d8242 390 * New file formats supported
5f5be54c 391
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392BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
393supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
394format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
5f5be54c 395
c00d8242 396 * New commands
5f5be54c 397
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398`show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
399`show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
400These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
5f5be54c 401
c00d8242 402`info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
5f5be54c 403
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404You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
405scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
406prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
407executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
408
409 * C++ improvements
410
411We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
412info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
413symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
414
415Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
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416
417 * Major bug fixes
418
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419The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
420fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
421by the compiler.
5f5be54c 422
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423We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
424support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
425
426John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
427slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
428that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
429purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
430the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
431mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
432
433Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
434about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
435completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
436we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
437
438 * AMD 29k support
5f5be54c 439
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440A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
441specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
442calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
443usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
444in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
445
446We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
447Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
448of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
449resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
450
451 * Remote interfaces
452
453We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
454with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
455message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
456This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
457needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
458breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
459each instruction being stepped through.
460
461The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
462registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
463
464There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
465find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
466Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
467processor with a serial port.
468
469 * Configuration
470
471Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
472`table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
473supported, and what files each one uses.
474
475 * Library changes
476
477There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
478disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
479Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
480disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
481
482The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
483Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
484can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
485grants all the rights from the General Public License.
486
487 * Documentation
488
489The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
490reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
491as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
492encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
493system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
494bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
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495
496And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
76ba9b5b 497
c00d8242 498
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499*** Changes in GDB-4.6:
500
501 * Better support for C++ function names
502
503GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
504names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
505(using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
506single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
507Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
508
509GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
510the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
511You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
512lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
513for the list of formats.
514
515 * G++ symbol mangling problem
516
517Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
518C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
519directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
520can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
521usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
522about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
523this problem.)
524
525 * New 'maintenance' command
526
527All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
528the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
529can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
530
531 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
532 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
533 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
534 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
535 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
536 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
537
538The following commands are new:
539
540 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
541 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
542 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
543
544 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
545
546We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
547(e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
548be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
549read after argv processing.
550
551 * New hosts supported
552
553Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
554
555Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
556
557We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
558is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
559for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
560masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
561fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
562It costs extra.
563
564 * New targets supported
565
566Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
567
568 * More smarts about finding #include files
569
570GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
571all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
572greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
573especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
574the one that contains your sources.
575
576We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
577breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
578try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
579
580 * Interesting infernals change
581
582GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
583section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
584target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
585stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
586
587 * Bug fixes (of course!)
588
589There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
590 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
591 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
592
593See the ChangeLog for details.
594
595*** Changes in GDB-4.5:
596
597 * New machines supported (host and target)
598
599IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
600
601SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
602
603 * New malloc package
604
605GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
606Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
607capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
608This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
609pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
610more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
611
612 * info proc
613
614The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
615'help info proc' for details.
616
617 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
618
619The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
620Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
621possible.
622
623 * File name changes for MS-DOS
624
625Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
626support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
627conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
628environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
629that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
630in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
631
632 * Cross byte order fixes
633
634Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
635targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
636
637 * New -mapped and -readnow options
638
639If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
640system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
641`symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
642program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
643called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
644Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
645and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
646the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
647option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
648starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
649
650You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
651the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
652information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
653slower, but makes future operations faster.
654
655The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
656build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
657A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
658use is:
659
660 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
661
662The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
663It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
664shared across multiple host platforms.
665
666 * longjmp() handling
667
668GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
669siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
670all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
671platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
672
673 * Solaris 2.0
674
675Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
676this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
677reading symbols.
678
679 * Bug fixes
680
681As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
682People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
683crashes and trashed symbol tables.
684
685*** Changes in GDB-4.4:
686
687 * New machines supported (host and target)
688
689SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
690 (except core files)
691BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
692Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
693
694 * New machines supported (target)
695
696AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
697
698 * C++ support
699
700GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
701The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
702per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
703
704GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
705`ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
706extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
707good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
708will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
709released.
710
711 * New features for SVR4
712
713GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
714shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
715only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
716
717The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
718on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
719it prints the address mappings of the process.
720
721If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
722bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
723
724 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
725
726Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
727now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
728skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
729make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
730same code linked statically.
731
732 * New Getopt
733
734GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
735version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
736continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
737Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
738added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
739future by other options that begin with the same letter.
740
741 * Bugs fixed
742
743The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
744Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
745See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
746
747
748*** Changes in GDB-4.3:
749
750 * New machines supported (host and target)
751
752Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
753NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
754Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
755
756 * Almost SCO Unix support
757
758We had hoped to support:
759SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
760(except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
761that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
762about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
763
764 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
765
766GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
767debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
768is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
769send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
770reqired (if any).
771
772 * New Readline
773
774GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
775is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
776required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
777
778 * Bugs fixed
779
780The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
781Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
782See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
783
784 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
785
786GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
787supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
788symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
789
790Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
791mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
792debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
793mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
794version 2.
795
796Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
797really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
798line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
799variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
800situation somewhat.
801
802When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
803However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
804methods.
805
806We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
807DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
808encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
809
810
811*** Changes in GDB-4.2:
812
813 * Improved configuration
814
815Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
816Porting BFD is simpler.
817
818 * Stepping improved
819
820The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
821of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
822in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
823function that has debugging information is called within the line.
824
825 * Bug fixing
826
827Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
828
829 * New host supported (not target)
830
831Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
832
833
834*** Changes in GDB-4.1:
835
836 * Multiple source language support
837
838GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
839It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
840and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
841language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
842You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
843`set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
844
845 * GDB and Modula-2
846
847GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
848currently under development at the State University of New York at
849Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
850continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
851
852Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
853debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
854symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
855
856There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
857in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
858
859 * set write on/off
860
861GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
862a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
863the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
864by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
865effect immediately.
866
867 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
868
869When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
870shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
871The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
872examining core files.
873
874 * set listsize
875
876You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
877The default is 10.
878
879 * New machines supported (host and target)
880
881SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
882Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
883Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
884
885 * New hosts supported (not targets)
886
887IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
888
889 * New targets supported (not hosts)
890
891AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
892AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
893Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
894
895 * New remote interfaces
896
897AMD 29000 Adapt
898AMD 29000 Minimon
899
900
901*** Changes in GDB-4.0:
902
903 * New Facilities
904
905Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
906
907Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
908target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
909is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
910remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
911remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
912also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
913using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
914stub on the target system.
915
916New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
917
918GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
919library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
920object file types such as a.out and coff.
921
922There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
923refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
924
925
926 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
927
928All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
929by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
930
931For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
932``Show prompt'' produces the response:
933Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
934
935What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
936print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
937will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
938all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
939
940confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
941 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
942 it is already running. Default is ON.
943
944editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
945 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
946 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
947 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
948 Default is ON.
949
950history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
951 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
952 or the value of the environment variable
953 GDBHISTFILE.
954
955history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
956 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
957 HISTSIZE.
958
959history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
960 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
961 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
962
963history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
964 history expansion will be performed on
965 command line input. The default is OFF.
966
967radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
968 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
969 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
970
971height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
972 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
973 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
974 variable TERM.
975
976width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
977 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
978 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
979 variable TERM.
980
981Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
982``set width'' instead.
983
984print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
985 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
986 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
987 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
988
989print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
990 is OFF.
991
992print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
993 "raw" form if off.
994
995print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
996 like instructions.
997
998print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
999
1000
1001 * Support for Epoch Environment.
1002
1003The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
1004new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
1005are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
1006window.
1007
1008
1009 * Support for Shared Libraries
1010
1011GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
1012Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
1013before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
1014happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
1015At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
1016from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
1017shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
1018It can be abbreviated ``share''.
1019
1020sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
1021 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
1022 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
1023
1024info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
1025
1026
1027 * Watchpoints
1028
1029A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
1030expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
1031tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
1032quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
1033problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
1034more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
1035
1036watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
1037
1038info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
1039
1040delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
1041disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
1042enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
1043
1044
1045 * C++ multiple inheritance
1046
1047When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
1048for C++ programs.
1049
1050 * C++ exception handling
1051
1052Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
1053ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
1054the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
1055handler's context).
1056
1057catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
1058 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
1059 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
1060
1061info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
1062 current stack frame.
1063
1064
1065 * Minor command changes
1066
1067The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
1068command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
1069is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
1070
1071The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
1072at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
1073frames without printing.
1074
1075 * New directory command
1076
1077'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
1078The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
1079about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
1080with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
1081find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
1082
1083 * Configuring GDB for compilation
1084
1085For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
1086for more details.
1087
1088GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
1089two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
1090Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
1091where the program that you are debugging will run.
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