Fix the date of the last entry.
[deliverable/binutils-gdb.git] / gdb / NEWS
CommitLineData
c906108c
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1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
3
9debab2f 4*** Changes in GDB 5.0:
7a292a7a 5
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6* Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
7
8Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
9programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
10displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
11greater level of detail.
12
13* Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
14
15It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
16bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
17on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
18written.
19
20* Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
21
22The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
23necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
24machines ``out of the box''.
25
26The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
27possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
28signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
29would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
30interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
31
32It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
33standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
34even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
35and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
36terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
37
38The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
39enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
40also works.
41
42DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
43GDB.
44
45It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
46directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
47times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
48breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
49
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50* New native configurations
51
52ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
afc05dd4 53PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
ed9a39eb 54
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55* New targets
56
96baa820 57Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
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58x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
59PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
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60TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
61
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62* OBSOLETE configurations
63
64Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
65Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
9846de1b 66Pyramid pyramid-*-*
ed9a39eb 67ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
104c1213 68Tahoe tahoe-*-*
7a292a7a 69
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70Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
71but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
72these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
73be permanently REMOVED.
74
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75* New features for SVR4
76
77On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
78without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
79load symbols from the running process's executable file.
80
81* Many C++ enhancements
82
83C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
84in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
85
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86* Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
87
88A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
89sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
90with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
91``|<program> <args>'' vis:
92
93 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
94 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
95
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96* MIPS 64 remote protocol
97
98A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
99expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
100instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
101
102The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
103added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
104
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105* ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
106
107The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
108``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
109include ``set remote P-packet''.
110
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111* Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
112
113The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
114accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
115``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
116
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117* ``apropos'' command added.
118
119The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
120documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
121try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
122
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123* New MI interface
124
125A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
126interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
127process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See
128gdb/mi/gdbmi.texinfo for further information. It can be enabled by
129configuring with:
130
131 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
132
c906108c
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133*** Changes in GDB-4.18:
134
135* New native configurations
136
137HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
138HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
139M68K Linux m68*-*-linux*
140
141* New targets
142
143Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
144Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
145Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
146
147* OBSOLETE configurations
148
149Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
150
151Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
152but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
153these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
154be permanently REMOVED.
155
156* ANSI/ISO C
157
158As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
159buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
160containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
161use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
162available. If this is not true, please report the affected
163configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
164information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
165already.
166
167* Readline 2.2
168
169GDB now uses readline 2.2.
170
171* set extension-language
172
173You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
174languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
175you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
176 set extension-language .c c++
177The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
178and their associated languages.
179
180* Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
181
182When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
183you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
184PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
185
186 set processor NAME
187
188sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
189following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
190
191 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
192 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
193 403 IBM PowerPC 403
194 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
195 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
196 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
197 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
198 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
199 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
200 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
201 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
202
203At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
204special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
205registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
206only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
207
208* HP-UX support
209
210Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
211more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
212library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
213support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
214for xdb and dbx commands.
215
216* Catchpoints
217
218HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
219generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
220to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
221
222This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
223argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
224output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
225
226* Debugging across forks
227
228On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
229in the inferior.
230
231* TUI
232
233HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
234it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
235configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
236
237* GDB remote protocol additions
238
239A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
240Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
241fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
242allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
243
244For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
245full 64-bit address. The command
246
247 set remoteaddresssize 32
248
249can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
250the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
251will be discarded.
252
253In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
254command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
255
256 maint packet heythere
257
258sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
259disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
260time.
261
262The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
263target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
264downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
265
266* Tracing can collect general expressions
267
268You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
269further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
270doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
271
272* mask-address variable for Mips
273
274For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
275a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
276of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
277
278* Higher serial baud rates
279
280GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
281230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
282to achieve all of these rates.)
283
284* i960 simulator
285
286The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
287builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
288
289
290*** Changes in GDB-4.17:
291
292* New native configurations
293
294Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
295Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
296Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
297PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
298PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
299Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
300Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
301
302* New targets
303
304Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
305Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
306Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
307Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
308MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
309MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
310MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
311Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
312Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
313Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
314NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
315
316* New debugging protocols
317
318ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
319M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
320DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
321PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
322PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
323Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
324
325* DWARF 2
326
327All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
328format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
329information.
330
331* Java frontend
332
333GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
334only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
335
336* solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
337
338For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
339loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
340locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
341
342* Live range splitting
343
344GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
345range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
346more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
347
348* Hurd support
349
350GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
351updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
352
353* ARM Thumb support
354
355GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
356instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
357instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
358accordingly.
359
360* MIPS16 support
361
362GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
363instruction set.
364
365* Overlay support
366
367GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
368linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
369will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
370control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
371additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
372in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
373
374* info symbol
375
376The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
377the symbol at the specified address.
378
379* Trace support
380
381The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
382asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
383extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
384includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
385file tracepoint.c for more details.
386
387* MIPS simulator
388
389Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
390by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
391of most MIPS variants.
392
393* Sparc simulator
394
395Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
396by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
397Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
398
399* set architecture
400
401For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
402basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
403architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
404the possible architectures.
405
406*** Changes in GDB-4.16:
407
408* New native configurations
409
410Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
411M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
412PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
413PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
414PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
415RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
416
417* New targets
418
419ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
420I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
421MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
422MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
423PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
424Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
425Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
426
427* PowerPC simulator
428
429The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
430contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
431PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
432basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
433performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
434
435* Solaris 2.5
436
437GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
438
439* Windows 95/NT native
440
441GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
442To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
443which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
444Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
445ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
446
447* dont-repeat command
448
449If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
450command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
451useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
452extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
453
454* Send break instead of ^C
455
456The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
457rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
458GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
459
460* Remote protocol timeout
461
462The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
463that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
464to read from the target. The default value is 2.
465
466* Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
467
468By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
469loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
470stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
471when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
472in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
473
474Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
475/usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
476automatically on hpux10.
477
478* Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
479
480Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
481
482* Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
483
484When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
485may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
486the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
487every character. The default value is 1050.
488
489* Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
490
491If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
492a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
493replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
494details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
495remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
496to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
497
498* Speedups for remote debugging
499
500GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
501the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
502and more efficient S-record downloading.
503
504* Memory use reductions and statistics collection
505
506GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
507Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
508
509*** Changes in GDB-4.15:
510
511* Psymtabs for XCOFF
512
513The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
514can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
515
516* Remote targets use caching
517
518Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
519remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
520it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
521debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
522off' turns the the data cache off.
523
524* Remote targets may have threads
525
526The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
527in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
528gdb/remote.c for details.
529
530* NetROM support
531
532If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
533support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
534acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
535write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
536support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
537another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
538sequence is something like
539
540 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
541 load <prog>
542 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
543
544* Macintosh host
545
546GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
547may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
548it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
549available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
550device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
551directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
552scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
553mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
554
555* Autoconf
556
557GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
558but does simplify configuration and building.
559
560* hpux10
561
562GDB now supports hpux10.
563
564*** Changes in GDB-4.14:
565
566* New native configurations
567
568x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
569x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
570NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
571Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
572
573* New targets
574
575A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
576HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
577CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
578PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
579WDC 65816 w65-*-*
580
581* Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
582
583GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
584possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
585filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
586the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
587if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
588
589* Arguments to user-defined commands
590
591User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
592Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
593trivial example:
594define adder
595 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
596
597To execute the command use:
598adder 1 2 3
599
600Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
601Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
602use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
603
604* New `if' and `while' commands
605
606This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
607commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
608expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
609execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
610terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
611`else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
612if the expression is zero.
613
614* Fortran source language mode
615
616GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
617Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
618variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
619with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
620Fortran compilers.
621
622* Better HPUX support
623
624Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
625running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
626processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
627for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
628that behavior do the following before running the program:
629
630 adb -w a.out
631 __dld_flags?W 0x5
632 control-d
633
634This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
635To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
636
637 adb -w a.out
638 __dld_flags?W 0x4
639 control-d
640
641You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
642the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
643external linkage.
644
645GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
646HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
647
648* Target byte order now dynamically selectable
649
650You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
651commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
652current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
653"set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
654associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
655configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
656
657* New DOS host serial code
658
659This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
660no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
661a PC's serial port.
662
663*** Changes in GDB-4.13:
664
665* New "complete" command
666
667This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
668were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
669
670* Trailing space optional in prompt
671
672"set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
673allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
674
675* Breakpoint hit counts
676
677"info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
678has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
679can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
680to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
681less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
682that breakpoint.
683
684* Ability to stop printing at NULL character
685
686"set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
687an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
688arrays actually contain only short strings.
689
690* Shared library breakpoints
691
692In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
693breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
694
695* Hardware watchpoints
696
697There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
698targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
699
700Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under Linux.
701
702* Annotations
703
704Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
705and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
706
707* Improved Irix 5 support
708
709GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
710
711* Improved HPPA support
712
713GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
714
715* New native configurations
716
717Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
718HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
719Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
720RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
721
722* New targets
723
724OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
725MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
726Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
727
728* Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
729
730There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
731This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
732
733* Fixes
734
735As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
736and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
737
738*** Changes in GDB-4.12:
739
740* Irix 5 is now supported
741
742* HPPA support
743
744GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
745to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
746GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
747of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
748can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
749
750
751*** Changes in GDB-4.11:
752
753* User visible changes:
754
755* Remote Debugging
756
757The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
758target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
759debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
760integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
761debugging info for the mips target).
762
763* DEC Alpha native support
764
765GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
766debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
767work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
768Alpha-specific notes.
769
770* Preliminary thread implementation
771
772GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
773
774* LynxOS native and target support for 386
775
776This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
777to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
778for details).
779
780* Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
781
782This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
783mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
784call methods, ...etc.
785
786*** Changes in GDB-4.10:
787
788 * User visible changes:
789
790Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
791supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
792other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
793somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
794
795Filename completion now works.
796
797When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
798arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
799addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
800
801All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
802vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
803should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
804your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
805to be on the far side of a thin network line.
806
807 * DEC alpha support
808
809This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
810cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
811
812
813*** Changes in GDB-4.9:
814
815 * Testsuite
816
817This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
818The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
819via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
820
821 * C++ demangling
822
823'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
824emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
825Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
826disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
827use gdb with AT&T cfront.
828
829 * Simulators
830
831GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
832So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
833Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
834
835 * New targets supported
836
837H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
838H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
839SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
840Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
841IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
842
843Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
844version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
845GO32 memory extender.
846
847 * New remote protocols
848
849MIPS remote debugging protocol.
850
851 * New source languages supported
852
853This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
854used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
855into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
856
857
858*** Changes in GDB-4.8:
859
860 * HP Precision Architecture supported
861
862GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
863version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
864University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
865compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
866format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
867(as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
868
869Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
870
871 * Faster and better demangling
872
873We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
874demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
875character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
876only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
877This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
878increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
879symbol lookups.
880
881`Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
882from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
883compiler does not actually implement.
884
885 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
886
887In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
888inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
889recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
890very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
891The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
892circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
893fix.
894
895The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
896release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
897
898 * Improved configure script
899
900The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
901you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
902host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
903done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
904
905We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
906version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
907`--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
908The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
909only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
910We hope to make this the default in a future release.
911
912 * Documentation improvements
913
914There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
915produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
916before submitting changes.
917
918The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
919M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
920`info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
921you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
922a future texinfo-X.Y release.
923
924*NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
925We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
926been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
927or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
928`texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
929around this problem.
930
931 * New features
932
933GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
934the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
935`print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
936the target program.
937
938The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
939how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
940
941 * New native hosts supported
942
943HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
944386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
945
946 * New targets supported
947
948AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
949
950 * New file formats supported
951
952BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
953HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
954
955 * Major bug fixes
956
957Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
958
959We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
960printf_filtered("%s") problems.
961
962We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
963for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
964release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
965
966You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
967will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
968
969We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
970for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
971especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
972libraries.
973
974The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
975information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
976command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
977any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
978when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
979
980 * Internal improvements
981
982GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
983debugging of multiple languages in the future.
984
985GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
986Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
987symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
988contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
989shared code that handles any of them.
990
991 * New command line options
992
993We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
994
995 * Mmalloc licensing
996
997The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
998General Public License.
999
1000*** Changes in GDB-4.7:
1001
1002 * Host/native/target split
1003
1004GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
1005hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
1006target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
1007local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
1008ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
1009
1010The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
1011GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
1012is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
1013code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
1014any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
1015built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
1016handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
1017
1018GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
1019It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
1020plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
1021
1022 * New hosts supported
1023
1024HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
1025386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1026386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
1027
1028 * New targets supported
1029
1030Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
103168030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
1032
1033 * New native hosts supported
1034
1035386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1036 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
1037386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
1038
1039 * New file formats supported
1040
1041BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
1042supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
1043format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
1044
1045 * New commands
1046
1047`show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
1048`show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
1049These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
1050
1051`info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
1052
1053You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
1054scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
1055prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
1056executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
1057
1058 * C++ improvements
1059
1060We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
1061info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
1062symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
1063
1064Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
1065
1066 * Major bug fixes
1067
1068The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
1069fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
1070by the compiler.
1071
1072We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
1073support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
1074
1075John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
1076slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
1077that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
1078purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
1079the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
1080mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
1081
1082Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
1083about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
1084completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
1085we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
1086
1087 * AMD 29k support
1088
1089A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
1090specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
1091calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
1092usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
1093in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
1094
1095We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
1096Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
1097of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
1098resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
1099
1100 * Remote interfaces
1101
1102We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
1103with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
1104message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
1105This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
1106needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
1107breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
1108each instruction being stepped through.
1109
1110The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
1111registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
1112
1113There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
1114find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
1115Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
1116processor with a serial port.
1117
1118 * Configuration
1119
1120Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
1121`table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
1122supported, and what files each one uses.
1123
1124 * Library changes
1125
1126There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
1127disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
1128Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
1129disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
1130
1131The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
1132Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
1133can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
1134grants all the rights from the General Public License.
1135
1136 * Documentation
1137
1138The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
1139reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
1140as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
1141encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
1142system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
1143bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
1144
1145And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
1146
1147
1148*** Changes in GDB-4.6:
1149
1150 * Better support for C++ function names
1151
1152GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
1153names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
1154(using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
1155single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
1156Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
1157
1158GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
1159the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
1160You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
1161lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
1162for the list of formats.
1163
1164 * G++ symbol mangling problem
1165
1166Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
1167C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
1168directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
1169can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
1170usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
1171about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
1172this problem.)
1173
1174 * New 'maintenance' command
1175
1176All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
1177the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
1178can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
1179
1180 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
1181 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
1182 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
1183 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
1184 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
1185 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
1186
1187The following commands are new:
1188
1189 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
1190 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
1191 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
1192
1193 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
1194
1195We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
1196(e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
1197be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
1198read after argv processing.
1199
1200 * New hosts supported
1201
1202Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
1203
1204Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
1205
1206We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
1207is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
1208for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
1209masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
1210fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
1211It costs extra.
1212
1213 * New targets supported
1214
1215Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1216
1217 * More smarts about finding #include files
1218
1219GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
1220all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
1221greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
1222especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
1223the one that contains your sources.
1224
1225We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
1226breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
1227try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
1228
1229 * Interesting infernals change
1230
1231GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
1232section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
1233target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
1234stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
1235
1236 * Bug fixes (of course!)
1237
1238There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
1239 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
1240 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
1241
1242See the ChangeLog for details.
1243
1244*** Changes in GDB-4.5:
1245
1246 * New machines supported (host and target)
1247
1248IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
1249
1250SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
1251
1252 * New malloc package
1253
1254GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
1255Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
1256capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
1257This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
1258pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
1259more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
1260
1261 * info proc
1262
1263The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
1264'help info proc' for details.
1265
1266 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
1267
1268The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
1269Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
1270possible.
1271
1272 * File name changes for MS-DOS
1273
1274Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
1275support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
1276conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
1277environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
1278that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
1279in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
1280
1281 * Cross byte order fixes
1282
1283Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
1284targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
1285
1286 * New -mapped and -readnow options
1287
1288If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
1289system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
1290`symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
1291program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
1292called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
1293Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
1294and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
1295the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
1296option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
1297starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
1298
1299You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
1300the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
1301information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
1302slower, but makes future operations faster.
1303
1304The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
1305build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
1306A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
1307use is:
1308
1309 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
1310
1311The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
1312It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
1313shared across multiple host platforms.
1314
1315 * longjmp() handling
1316
1317GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
1318siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
1319all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
1320platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
1321
1322 * Solaris 2.0
1323
1324Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
1325this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
1326reading symbols.
1327
1328 * Bug fixes
1329
1330As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
1331People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
1332crashes and trashed symbol tables.
1333
1334*** Changes in GDB-4.4:
1335
1336 * New machines supported (host and target)
1337
1338SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
1339 (except core files)
1340BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
1341Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
1342
1343 * New machines supported (target)
1344
1345AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1346
1347 * C++ support
1348
1349GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
1350The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
1351per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
1352
1353GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
1354`ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
1355extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
1356good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
1357will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
1358released.
1359
1360 * New features for SVR4
1361
1362GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
1363shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
1364only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
1365
1366The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
1367on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
1368it prints the address mappings of the process.
1369
1370If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
1371bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
1372
1373 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
1374
1375Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
1376now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
1377skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
1378make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
1379same code linked statically.
1380
1381 * New Getopt
1382
1383GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
1384version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
1385continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
1386Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
1387added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
1388future by other options that begin with the same letter.
1389
1390 * Bugs fixed
1391
1392The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
1393Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
1394See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
1395
1396
1397*** Changes in GDB-4.3:
1398
1399 * New machines supported (host and target)
1400
1401Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
1402NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
1403Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
1404
1405 * Almost SCO Unix support
1406
1407We had hoped to support:
1408SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
1409(except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
1410that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
1411about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
1412
1413 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
1414
1415GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
1416debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
1417is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
1418send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
1419reqired (if any).
1420
1421 * New Readline
1422
1423GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
1424is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
1425required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
1426
1427 * Bugs fixed
1428
1429The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
1430Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
1431See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
1432
1433 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
1434
1435GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
1436supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
1437symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
1438
1439Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
1440mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
1441debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
1442mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
1443version 2.
1444
1445Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
1446really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
1447line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
1448variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
1449situation somewhat.
1450
1451When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
1452However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
1453methods.
1454
1455We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
1456DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
1457encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
1458
1459
1460*** Changes in GDB-4.2:
1461
1462 * Improved configuration
1463
1464Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
1465Porting BFD is simpler.
1466
1467 * Stepping improved
1468
1469The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
1470of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
1471in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
1472function that has debugging information is called within the line.
1473
1474 * Bug fixing
1475
1476Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
1477
1478 * New host supported (not target)
1479
1480Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
1481
1482
1483*** Changes in GDB-4.1:
1484
1485 * Multiple source language support
1486
1487GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
1488It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
1489and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
1490language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
1491You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
1492`set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
1493
1494 * GDB and Modula-2
1495
1496GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
1497currently under development at the State University of New York at
1498Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
1499continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
1500
1501Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
1502debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
1503symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
1504
1505There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
1506in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
1507
1508 * set write on/off
1509
1510GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
1511a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
1512the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
1513by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
1514effect immediately.
1515
1516 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
1517
1518When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
1519shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
1520The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
1521examining core files.
1522
1523 * set listsize
1524
1525You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
1526The default is 10.
1527
1528 * New machines supported (host and target)
1529
1530SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
1531Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
1532Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
1533
1534 * New hosts supported (not targets)
1535
1536IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
1537
1538 * New targets supported (not hosts)
1539
1540AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1541AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1542Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
1543
1544 * New remote interfaces
1545
1546AMD 29000 Adapt
1547AMD 29000 Minimon
1548
1549
1550*** Changes in GDB-4.0:
1551
1552 * New Facilities
1553
1554Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
1555
1556Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
1557target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
1558is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
1559remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
1560remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
1561also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
1562using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
1563stub on the target system.
1564
1565New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
1566
1567GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
1568library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
1569object file types such as a.out and coff.
1570
1571There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
1572refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
1573
1574
1575 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
1576
1577All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
1578by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
1579
1580For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
1581``Show prompt'' produces the response:
1582Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
1583
1584What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
1585print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
1586will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
1587all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
1588
1589confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
1590 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
1591 it is already running. Default is ON.
1592
1593editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
1594 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
1595 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
1596 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
1597 Default is ON.
1598
1599history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
1600 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
1601 or the value of the environment variable
1602 GDBHISTFILE.
1603
1604history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
1605 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
1606 HISTSIZE.
1607
1608history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
1609 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
1610 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
1611
1612history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
1613 history expansion will be performed on
1614 command line input. The default is OFF.
1615
1616radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
1617 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
1618 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
1619
1620height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
1621 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
1622 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
1623 variable TERM.
1624
1625width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
1626 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
1627 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
1628 variable TERM.
1629
1630Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
1631``set width'' instead.
1632
1633print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
1634 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
1635 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
1636 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
1637
1638print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
1639 is OFF.
1640
1641print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
1642 "raw" form if off.
1643
1644print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
1645 like instructions.
1646
1647print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
1648
1649
1650 * Support for Epoch Environment.
1651
1652The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
1653new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
1654are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
1655window.
1656
1657
1658 * Support for Shared Libraries
1659
1660GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
1661Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
1662before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
1663happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
1664At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
1665from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
1666shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
1667It can be abbreviated ``share''.
1668
1669sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
1670 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
1671 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
1672
1673info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
1674
1675
1676 * Watchpoints
1677
1678A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
1679expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
1680tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
1681quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
1682problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
1683more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
1684
1685watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
1686
1687info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
1688
1689delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
1690disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
1691enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
1692
1693
1694 * C++ multiple inheritance
1695
1696When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
1697for C++ programs.
1698
1699 * C++ exception handling
1700
1701Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
1702ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
1703the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
1704handler's context).
1705
1706catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
1707 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
1708 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
1709
1710info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
1711 current stack frame.
1712
1713
1714 * Minor command changes
1715
1716The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
1717command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
1718is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
1719
1720The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
1721at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
1722frames without printing.
1723
1724 * New directory command
1725
1726'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
1727The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
1728about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
1729with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
1730find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
1731
1732 * Configuring GDB for compilation
1733
1734For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
1735for more details.
1736
1737GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
1738two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
1739Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
1740where the program that you are debugging will run.
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