| 1 | What has changed in GDB? |
| 2 | (Organized release by release) |
| 3 | |
| 4 | *** Changes since GDB-4.17: |
| 5 | |
| 6 | * New native configurations |
| 7 | |
| 8 | M68K Linux m68*-*-linux* |
| 9 | |
| 10 | * New targets |
| 11 | |
| 12 | Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf* |
| 13 | Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-* |
| 14 | |
| 15 | * GDB Remote protocol |
| 16 | |
| 17 | For 64 bit targets, the memory packets ("M" and "m") can now contain a |
| 18 | full 64 bit address. The class-obscure gdb command: |
| 19 | set targetaddresssize 32 |
| 20 | can be used to revert to the old behavour. For existing remote stubs |
| 21 | the change should not be noticed as the additional address information |
| 22 | will be discarded. |
| 23 | |
| 24 | |
| 25 | *** Changes in GDB-4.17: |
| 26 | |
| 27 | * New native configurations |
| 28 | |
| 29 | Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux* |
| 30 | Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2* |
| 31 | Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6* |
| 32 | PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux* |
| 33 | PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris* |
| 34 | Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux* |
| 35 | Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv |
| 36 | |
| 37 | * New targets |
| 38 | |
| 39 | Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-* |
| 40 | Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-* |
| 41 | Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-* |
| 42 | Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-* |
| 43 | MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf* |
| 44 | MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf* |
| 45 | MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf* |
| 46 | Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-* |
| 47 | Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf* |
| 48 | Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-* |
| 49 | NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-* |
| 50 | |
| 51 | * New debugging protocols |
| 52 | |
| 53 | ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-* |
| 54 | M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf} |
| 55 | DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-* |
| 56 | PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi |
| 57 | PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi |
| 58 | Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi |
| 59 | |
| 60 | * DWARF 2 |
| 61 | |
| 62 | All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging |
| 63 | format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2 |
| 64 | information. |
| 65 | |
| 66 | start-sanitize-java |
| 67 | * Java frontend |
| 68 | |
| 69 | GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is |
| 70 | only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code. |
| 71 | |
| 72 | end-sanitize-java |
| 73 | * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path |
| 74 | |
| 75 | For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for |
| 76 | loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for |
| 77 | locating non-absolute shared library symbol files. |
| 78 | |
| 79 | * Live range splitting |
| 80 | |
| 81 | GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live |
| 82 | range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for |
| 83 | more details on the expected format of the stabs information. |
| 84 | |
| 85 | * Hurd support |
| 86 | |
| 87 | GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been |
| 88 | updated to work with current versions of the Hurd. |
| 89 | |
| 90 | * ARM Thumb support |
| 91 | |
| 92 | GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit |
| 93 | instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb |
| 94 | instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing |
| 95 | accordingly. |
| 96 | |
| 97 | * MIPS16 support |
| 98 | |
| 99 | GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit |
| 100 | instruction set. |
| 101 | |
| 102 | * Overlay support |
| 103 | |
| 104 | GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been |
| 105 | linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB |
| 106 | will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to |
| 107 | control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement |
| 108 | additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring |
| 109 | in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail. |
| 110 | |
| 111 | * info symbol |
| 112 | |
| 113 | The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about |
| 114 | the symbol at the specified address. |
| 115 | |
| 116 | * Trace support |
| 117 | |
| 118 | The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows |
| 119 | asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires |
| 120 | extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode |
| 121 | includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the |
| 122 | file tracepoint.c for more details. |
| 123 | |
| 124 | * MIPS simulator |
| 125 | |
| 126 | Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed |
| 127 | by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets |
| 128 | of most MIPS variants. |
| 129 | |
| 130 | * Sparc simulator |
| 131 | |
| 132 | Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed |
| 133 | by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into |
| 134 | Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it. |
| 135 | |
| 136 | * set architecture |
| 137 | |
| 138 | For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a |
| 139 | basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the |
| 140 | architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists |
| 141 | the possible architectures. |
| 142 | |
| 143 | *** Changes in GDB-4.16: |
| 144 | |
| 145 | * New native configurations |
| 146 | |
| 147 | Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32 |
| 148 | M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd* |
| 149 | PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix* |
| 150 | PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos* |
| 151 | PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32 |
| 152 | RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4* |
| 153 | |
| 154 | * New targets |
| 155 | |
| 156 | ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-* |
| 157 | I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff |
| 158 | MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks* |
| 159 | MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf* |
| 160 | PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi* |
| 161 | Hitachi SH3 sh-*-* |
| 162 | Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-* |
| 163 | |
| 164 | * PowerPC simulator |
| 165 | |
| 166 | The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator, |
| 167 | contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner. |
| 168 | PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only |
| 169 | basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit |
| 170 | performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details. |
| 171 | |
| 172 | * Solaris 2.5 |
| 173 | |
| 174 | GDB now works with Solaris 2.5. |
| 175 | |
| 176 | * Windows 95/NT native |
| 177 | |
| 178 | GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT. |
| 179 | To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment, |
| 180 | which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools. |
| 181 | Further information, binaries, and sources are available at |
| 182 | ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32. |
| 183 | |
| 184 | * dont-repeat command |
| 185 | |
| 186 | If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the |
| 187 | command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is |
| 188 | useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental |
| 189 | extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times. |
| 190 | |
| 191 | * Send break instead of ^C |
| 192 | |
| 193 | The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break |
| 194 | rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default, |
| 195 | GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1. |
| 196 | |
| 197 | * Remote protocol timeout |
| 198 | |
| 199 | The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout' |
| 200 | that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying |
| 201 | to read from the target. The default value is 2. |
| 202 | |
| 203 | * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only) |
| 204 | |
| 205 | By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are |
| 206 | loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set |
| 207 | stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior |
| 208 | when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints |
| 209 | in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior. |
| 210 | |
| 211 | Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link |
| 212 | /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work |
| 213 | automatically on hpux10. |
| 214 | |
| 215 | * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support |
| 216 | |
| 217 | Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints. |
| 218 | |
| 219 | * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit" |
| 220 | |
| 221 | When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you |
| 222 | may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting |
| 223 | the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore |
| 224 | every character. The default value is 1050. |
| 225 | |
| 226 | * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions |
| 227 | |
| 228 | If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it |
| 229 | a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be |
| 230 | replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for |
| 231 | details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing |
| 232 | remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it |
| 233 | to someone else, who can then recreate the problem. |
| 234 | |
| 235 | * Speedups for remote debugging |
| 236 | |
| 237 | GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using |
| 238 | the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator, |
| 239 | and more efficient S-record downloading. |
| 240 | |
| 241 | * Memory use reductions and statistics collection |
| 242 | |
| 243 | GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage. |
| 244 | Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example. |
| 245 | |
| 246 | *** Changes in GDB-4.15: |
| 247 | |
| 248 | * Psymtabs for XCOFF |
| 249 | |
| 250 | The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This |
| 251 | can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables. |
| 252 | |
| 253 | * Remote targets use caching |
| 254 | |
| 255 | Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the |
| 256 | remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because |
| 257 | it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to |
| 258 | debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache |
| 259 | off' turns the the data cache off. |
| 260 | |
| 261 | * Remote targets may have threads |
| 262 | |
| 263 | The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads |
| 264 | in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See |
| 265 | gdb/remote.c for details. |
| 266 | |
| 267 | * NetROM support |
| 268 | |
| 269 | If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include |
| 270 | support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM |
| 271 | acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can |
| 272 | write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of |
| 273 | support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use |
| 274 | another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual |
| 275 | sequence is something like |
| 276 | |
| 277 | target nrom <netrom-hostname> |
| 278 | load <prog> |
| 279 | target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235 |
| 280 | |
| 281 | * Macintosh host |
| 282 | |
| 283 | GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It |
| 284 | may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and |
| 285 | it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are |
| 286 | available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the |
| 287 | device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main |
| 288 | directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration |
| 289 | scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the |
| 290 | mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested. |
| 291 | |
| 292 | * Autoconf |
| 293 | |
| 294 | GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible, |
| 295 | but does simplify configuration and building. |
| 296 | |
| 297 | * hpux10 |
| 298 | |
| 299 | GDB now supports hpux10. |
| 300 | |
| 301 | *** Changes in GDB-4.14: |
| 302 | |
| 303 | * New native configurations |
| 304 | |
| 305 | x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd |
| 306 | x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd |
| 307 | NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd |
| 308 | Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd |
| 309 | |
| 310 | * New targets |
| 311 | |
| 312 | A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks |
| 313 | HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro* |
| 314 | CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est* |
| 315 | PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf |
| 316 | WDC 65816 w65-*-* |
| 317 | |
| 318 | * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs |
| 319 | |
| 320 | GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it |
| 321 | possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc |
| 322 | filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines |
| 323 | the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems |
| 324 | if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started. |
| 325 | |
| 326 | * Arguments to user-defined commands |
| 327 | |
| 328 | User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace. |
| 329 | Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A |
| 330 | trivial example: |
| 331 | define adder |
| 332 | print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2 |
| 333 | |
| 334 | To execute the command use: |
| 335 | adder 1 2 3 |
| 336 | |
| 337 | Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments. |
| 338 | Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables, |
| 339 | use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls. |
| 340 | |
| 341 | * New `if' and `while' commands |
| 342 | |
| 343 | This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined |
| 344 | commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the |
| 345 | expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to |
| 346 | execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being |
| 347 | terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an |
| 348 | `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only |
| 349 | if the expression is zero. |
| 350 | |
| 351 | * Fortran source language mode |
| 352 | |
| 353 | GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize |
| 354 | Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but |
| 355 | variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work |
| 356 | with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other |
| 357 | Fortran compilers. |
| 358 | |
| 359 | * Better HPUX support |
| 360 | |
| 361 | Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs |
| 362 | running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked |
| 363 | processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so |
| 364 | for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change |
| 365 | that behavior do the following before running the program: |
| 366 | |
| 367 | adb -w a.out |
| 368 | __dld_flags?W 0x5 |
| 369 | control-d |
| 370 | |
| 371 | This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write. |
| 372 | To revert to the normal behavior, do this: |
| 373 | |
| 374 | adb -w a.out |
| 375 | __dld_flags?W 0x4 |
| 376 | control-d |
| 377 | |
| 378 | You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after |
| 379 | the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have |
| 380 | external linkage. |
| 381 | |
| 382 | GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on |
| 383 | HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support). |
| 384 | |
| 385 | * Target byte order now dynamically selectable |
| 386 | |
| 387 | You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the |
| 388 | commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the |
| 389 | current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command |
| 390 | "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order |
| 391 | associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS |
| 392 | configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order. |
| 393 | |
| 394 | * New DOS host serial code |
| 395 | |
| 396 | This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you |
| 397 | no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to |
| 398 | a PC's serial port. |
| 399 | |
| 400 | *** Changes in GDB-4.13: |
| 401 | |
| 402 | * New "complete" command |
| 403 | |
| 404 | This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it |
| 405 | were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs. |
| 406 | |
| 407 | * Trailing space optional in prompt |
| 408 | |
| 409 | "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This |
| 410 | allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not. |
| 411 | |
| 412 | * Breakpoint hit counts |
| 413 | |
| 414 | "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint |
| 415 | has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you |
| 416 | can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info |
| 417 | to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one |
| 418 | less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of |
| 419 | that breakpoint. |
| 420 | |
| 421 | * Ability to stop printing at NULL character |
| 422 | |
| 423 | "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of |
| 424 | an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large |
| 425 | arrays actually contain only short strings. |
| 426 | |
| 427 | * Shared library breakpoints |
| 428 | |
| 429 | In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set |
| 430 | breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run. |
| 431 | |
| 432 | * Hardware watchpoints |
| 433 | |
| 434 | There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite |
| 435 | targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note. |
| 436 | |
| 437 | Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under Linux. |
| 438 | |
| 439 | * Annotations |
| 440 | |
| 441 | Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces, |
| 442 | and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these. |
| 443 | |
| 444 | * Improved Irix 5 support |
| 445 | |
| 446 | GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2. |
| 447 | |
| 448 | * Improved HPPA support |
| 449 | |
| 450 | GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS. |
| 451 | |
| 452 | * New native configurations |
| 453 | |
| 454 | Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4 |
| 455 | HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf* |
| 456 | Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4* |
| 457 | RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos* |
| 458 | |
| 459 | * New targets |
| 460 | |
| 461 | OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k |
| 462 | MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf} |
| 463 | Sparc64 sparc64-*-* |
| 464 | |
| 465 | * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support |
| 466 | |
| 467 | There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE. |
| 468 | This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH. |
| 469 | |
| 470 | * Fixes |
| 471 | |
| 472 | As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic |
| 473 | and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail. |
| 474 | |
| 475 | *** Changes in GDB-4.12: |
| 476 | |
| 477 | * Irix 5 is now supported |
| 478 | |
| 479 | * HPPA support |
| 480 | |
| 481 | GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable |
| 482 | to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and |
| 483 | GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release |
| 484 | of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12 |
| 485 | can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist. |
| 486 | |
| 487 | |
| 488 | *** Changes in GDB-4.11: |
| 489 | |
| 490 | * User visible changes: |
| 491 | |
| 492 | * Remote Debugging |
| 493 | |
| 494 | The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote |
| 495 | target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's |
| 496 | debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an |
| 497 | integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more |
| 498 | debugging info for the mips target). |
| 499 | |
| 500 | * DEC Alpha native support |
| 501 | |
| 502 | GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable |
| 503 | debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should |
| 504 | work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few |
| 505 | Alpha-specific notes. |
| 506 | |
| 507 | * Preliminary thread implementation |
| 508 | |
| 509 | GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS. |
| 510 | |
| 511 | * LynxOS native and target support for 386 |
| 512 | |
| 513 | This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured |
| 514 | to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README |
| 515 | for details). |
| 516 | |
| 517 | * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling. |
| 518 | |
| 519 | This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name |
| 520 | mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table, |
| 521 | call methods, ...etc. |
| 522 | |
| 523 | *** Changes in GDB-4.10: |
| 524 | |
| 525 | * User visible changes: |
| 526 | |
| 527 | Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now |
| 528 | supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some |
| 529 | other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it |
| 530 | somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download. |
| 531 | |
| 532 | Filename completion now works. |
| 533 | |
| 534 | When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the |
| 535 | arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints |
| 536 | addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex). |
| 537 | |
| 538 | All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called |
| 539 | vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb |
| 540 | should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if |
| 541 | your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens |
| 542 | to be on the far side of a thin network line. |
| 543 | |
| 544 | * DEC alpha support |
| 545 | |
| 546 | This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for |
| 547 | cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet. |
| 548 | |
| 549 | |
| 550 | *** Changes in GDB-4.9: |
| 551 | |
| 552 | * Testsuite |
| 553 | |
| 554 | This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite. |
| 555 | The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available |
| 556 | via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software. |
| 557 | |
| 558 | * C++ demangling |
| 559 | |
| 560 | 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to |
| 561 | emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated |
| 562 | Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite |
| 563 | disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to |
| 564 | use gdb with AT&T cfront. |
| 565 | |
| 566 | * Simulators |
| 567 | |
| 568 | GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library. |
| 569 | So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the |
| 570 | Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H. |
| 571 | |
| 572 | * New targets supported |
| 573 | |
| 574 | H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms |
| 575 | H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms |
| 576 | SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh |
| 577 | Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim |
| 578 | IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff |
| 579 | |
| 580 | Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom |
| 581 | version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the |
| 582 | GO32 memory extender. |
| 583 | |
| 584 | * New remote protocols |
| 585 | |
| 586 | MIPS remote debugging protocol. |
| 587 | |
| 588 | * New source languages supported |
| 589 | |
| 590 | This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language |
| 591 | used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated |
| 592 | into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available. |
| 593 | |
| 594 | |
| 595 | *** Changes in GDB-4.8: |
| 596 | |
| 597 | * HP Precision Architecture supported |
| 598 | |
| 599 | GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary |
| 600 | version of this support was available as a set of patches from the |
| 601 | University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs |
| 602 | compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file |
| 603 | format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS |
| 604 | (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z). |
| 605 | |
| 606 | Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed. |
| 607 | |
| 608 | * Faster and better demangling |
| 609 | |
| 610 | We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style |
| 611 | demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide |
| 612 | character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now |
| 613 | only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in. |
| 614 | This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate |
| 615 | increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in |
| 616 | symbol lookups. |
| 617 | |
| 618 | `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written |
| 619 | from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's |
| 620 | compiler does not actually implement. |
| 621 | |
| 622 | * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem |
| 623 | |
| 624 | In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple |
| 625 | inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We |
| 626 | recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a |
| 627 | very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes. |
| 628 | The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to |
| 629 | circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete |
| 630 | fix. |
| 631 | |
| 632 | The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7 |
| 633 | release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2. |
| 634 | |
| 635 | * Improved configure script |
| 636 | |
| 637 | The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if |
| 638 | you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a |
| 639 | host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is |
| 640 | done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details. |
| 641 | |
| 642 | We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's |
| 643 | version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular, |
| 644 | `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller. |
| 645 | The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats -- |
| 646 | only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system. |
| 647 | We hope to make this the default in a future release. |
| 648 | |
| 649 | * Documentation improvements |
| 650 | |
| 651 | There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to |
| 652 | produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it |
| 653 | before submitting changes. |
| 654 | |
| 655 | The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane |
| 656 | M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built |
| 657 | `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch, |
| 658 | you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in |
| 659 | a future texinfo-X.Y release. |
| 660 | |
| 661 | *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang. |
| 662 | We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has |
| 663 | been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141 |
| 664 | or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in |
| 665 | `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work |
| 666 | around this problem. |
| 667 | |
| 668 | * New features |
| 669 | |
| 670 | GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by |
| 671 | the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type |
| 672 | `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in |
| 673 | the target program. |
| 674 | |
| 675 | The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates |
| 676 | how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor. |
| 677 | |
| 678 | * New native hosts supported |
| 679 | |
| 680 | HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux |
| 681 | 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4 |
| 682 | |
| 683 | * New targets supported |
| 684 | |
| 685 | AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k |
| 686 | |
| 687 | * New file formats supported |
| 688 | |
| 689 | BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?), |
| 690 | HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files. |
| 691 | |
| 692 | * Major bug fixes |
| 693 | |
| 694 | Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports. |
| 695 | |
| 696 | We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by |
| 697 | printf_filtered("%s") problems. |
| 698 | |
| 699 | We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files |
| 700 | for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7 |
| 701 | release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB. |
| 702 | |
| 703 | You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This |
| 704 | will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB. |
| 705 | |
| 706 | We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors |
| 707 | for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was |
| 708 | especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared |
| 709 | libraries. |
| 710 | |
| 711 | The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number |
| 712 | information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next' |
| 713 | command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was |
| 714 | any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems |
| 715 | when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines. |
| 716 | |
| 717 | * Internal improvements |
| 718 | |
| 719 | GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support |
| 720 | debugging of multiple languages in the future. |
| 721 | |
| 722 | GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally. |
| 723 | Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial |
| 724 | symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols |
| 725 | contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write |
| 726 | shared code that handles any of them. |
| 727 | |
| 728 | * New command line options |
| 729 | |
| 730 | We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet. |
| 731 | |
| 732 | * Mmalloc licensing |
| 733 | |
| 734 | The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library |
| 735 | General Public License. |
| 736 | |
| 737 | *** Changes in GDB-4.7: |
| 738 | |
| 739 | * Host/native/target split |
| 740 | |
| 741 | GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for |
| 742 | hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote |
| 743 | target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging |
| 744 | local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will |
| 745 | ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible. |
| 746 | |
| 747 | The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in |
| 748 | GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB |
| 749 | is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific |
| 750 | code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on |
| 751 | any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be |
| 752 | built when the host and target are the same system. Child process |
| 753 | handling and core file support are two common `native' examples. |
| 754 | |
| 755 | GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner. |
| 756 | It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector, |
| 757 | plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc. |
| 758 | |
| 759 | * New hosts supported |
| 760 | |
| 761 | HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd |
| 762 | 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd |
| 763 | 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco |
| 764 | |
| 765 | * New targets supported |
| 766 | |
| 767 | Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite |
| 768 | 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-* |
| 769 | |
| 770 | * New native hosts supported |
| 771 | |
| 772 | 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd |
| 773 | (386bsd is not well tested yet) |
| 774 | 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco |
| 775 | |
| 776 | * New file formats supported |
| 777 | |
| 778 | BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It |
| 779 | supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out |
| 780 | format extended with minimal information about multiple sections. |
| 781 | |
| 782 | * New commands |
| 783 | |
| 784 | `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'. |
| 785 | `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'. |
| 786 | These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work. |
| 787 | |
| 788 | `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'. |
| 789 | |
| 790 | You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command |
| 791 | scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed |
| 792 | prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be |
| 793 | executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo. |
| 794 | |
| 795 | * C++ improvements |
| 796 | |
| 797 | We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type |
| 798 | info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which |
| 799 | symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses. |
| 800 | |
| 801 | Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well. |
| 802 | |
| 803 | * Major bug fixes |
| 804 | |
| 805 | The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is |
| 806 | fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output |
| 807 | by the compiler. |
| 808 | |
| 809 | We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file |
| 810 | support, with help from a dozen people on the net. |
| 811 | |
| 812 | John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so |
| 813 | slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was |
| 814 | that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal |
| 815 | purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing |
| 816 | the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++ |
| 817 | mangled symbol sped things up a great deal. |
| 818 | |
| 819 | Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter |
| 820 | about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol |
| 821 | completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as |
| 822 | we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6. |
| 823 | |
| 824 | * AMD 29k support |
| 825 | |
| 826 | A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can |
| 827 | specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB |
| 828 | calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the |
| 829 | usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work |
| 830 | in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces. |
| 831 | |
| 832 | We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger |
| 833 | Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all |
| 834 | of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to |
| 835 | resolve this, and hope to have it available soon. |
| 836 | |
| 837 | * Remote interfaces |
| 838 | |
| 839 | We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets |
| 840 | with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T') |
| 841 | message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message. |
| 842 | This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB |
| 843 | needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional |
| 844 | breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for |
| 845 | each instruction being stepped through. |
| 846 | |
| 847 | The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for |
| 848 | registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run. |
| 849 | |
| 850 | There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can |
| 851 | find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the |
| 852 | Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC |
| 853 | processor with a serial port. |
| 854 | |
| 855 | * Configuration |
| 856 | |
| 857 | Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new |
| 858 | `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are |
| 859 | supported, and what files each one uses. |
| 860 | |
| 861 | * Library changes |
| 862 | |
| 863 | There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the |
| 864 | disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains |
| 865 | Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and |
| 866 | disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines. |
| 867 | |
| 868 | The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General |
| 869 | Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++ |
| 870 | can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License |
| 871 | grants all the rights from the General Public License. |
| 872 | |
| 873 | * Documentation |
| 874 | |
| 875 | The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete |
| 876 | reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far |
| 877 | as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We |
| 878 | encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your |
| 879 | system, and send improvements on the document in general (to |
| 880 | bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu). |
| 881 | |
| 882 | And, of course, many bugs have been fixed. |
| 883 | |
| 884 | |
| 885 | *** Changes in GDB-4.6: |
| 886 | |
| 887 | * Better support for C++ function names |
| 888 | |
| 889 | GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function |
| 890 | names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names |
| 891 | (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of |
| 892 | single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'. |
| 893 | Make use of command completion, it is your friend. |
| 894 | |
| 895 | GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are |
| 896 | the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style. |
| 897 | You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu, |
| 898 | lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo' |
| 899 | for the list of formats. |
| 900 | |
| 901 | * G++ symbol mangling problem |
| 902 | |
| 903 | Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for |
| 904 | C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this |
| 905 | directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you |
| 906 | can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The |
| 907 | usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains |
| 908 | about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has |
| 909 | this problem.) |
| 910 | |
| 911 | * New 'maintenance' command |
| 912 | |
| 913 | All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of |
| 914 | the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This |
| 915 | can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made: |
| 916 | |
| 917 | dump-me -> maintenance dump-me |
| 918 | info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints |
| 919 | printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms |
| 920 | printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles |
| 921 | printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols |
| 922 | printsyms -> maintenance print symbols |
| 923 | |
| 924 | The following commands are new: |
| 925 | |
| 926 | maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to |
| 927 | demangle a C++ link name and prints the result. |
| 928 | maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol |
| 929 | |
| 930 | * Change to .gdbinit file processing |
| 931 | |
| 932 | We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments |
| 933 | (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to |
| 934 | be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still |
| 935 | read after argv processing. |
| 936 | |
| 937 | * New hosts supported |
| 938 | |
| 939 | Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2 |
| 940 | |
| 941 | Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux |
| 942 | |
| 943 | We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This |
| 944 | is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it |
| 945 | for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or |
| 946 | masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the |
| 947 | fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option. |
| 948 | It costs extra. |
| 949 | |
| 950 | * New targets supported |
| 951 | |
| 952 | Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms |
| 953 | |
| 954 | * More smarts about finding #include files |
| 955 | |
| 956 | GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for |
| 957 | all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This |
| 958 | greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files, |
| 959 | especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from |
| 960 | the one that contains your sources. |
| 961 | |
| 962 | We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting |
| 963 | breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to |
| 964 | try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.) |
| 965 | |
| 966 | * Interesting infernals change |
| 967 | |
| 968 | GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each |
| 969 | section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the |
| 970 | target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded |
| 971 | stabs used by Solaris-2.0. |
| 972 | |
| 973 | * Bug fixes (of course!) |
| 974 | |
| 975 | There have been loads of fixes for the following things: |
| 976 | mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k, |
| 977 | i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc... |
| 978 | |
| 979 | See the ChangeLog for details. |
| 980 | |
| 981 | *** Changes in GDB-4.5: |
| 982 | |
| 983 | * New machines supported (host and target) |
| 984 | |
| 985 | IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000 |
| 986 | |
| 987 | SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4 |
| 988 | |
| 989 | * New malloc package |
| 990 | |
| 991 | GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc. |
| 992 | Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also |
| 993 | capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later. |
| 994 | This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a |
| 995 | pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For |
| 996 | more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi. |
| 997 | |
| 998 | * info proc |
| 999 | |
| 1000 | The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See |
| 1001 | 'help info proc' for details. |
| 1002 | |
| 1003 | * MIPS ecoff symbol table format |
| 1004 | |
| 1005 | The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts. |
| 1006 | Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this |
| 1007 | possible. |
| 1008 | |
| 1009 | * File name changes for MS-DOS |
| 1010 | |
| 1011 | Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to |
| 1012 | support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name |
| 1013 | conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32 |
| 1014 | environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note |
| 1015 | that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations |
| 1016 | in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging. |
| 1017 | |
| 1018 | * Cross byte order fixes |
| 1019 | |
| 1020 | Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS |
| 1021 | targets from hosts whose byte order differs. |
| 1022 | |
| 1023 | * New -mapped and -readnow options |
| 1024 | |
| 1025 | If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap' |
| 1026 | system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or |
| 1027 | `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your |
| 1028 | program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is |
| 1029 | called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'. |
| 1030 | Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file, |
| 1031 | and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading |
| 1032 | the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped' |
| 1033 | option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as |
| 1034 | starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option. |
| 1035 | |
| 1036 | You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using |
| 1037 | the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table |
| 1038 | information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command |
| 1039 | slower, but makes future operations faster. |
| 1040 | |
| 1041 | The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to |
| 1042 | build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information. |
| 1043 | A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future |
| 1044 | use is: |
| 1045 | |
| 1046 | gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname |
| 1047 | |
| 1048 | The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run. |
| 1049 | It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be |
| 1050 | shared across multiple host platforms. |
| 1051 | |
| 1052 | * longjmp() handling |
| 1053 | |
| 1054 | GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and |
| 1055 | siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to |
| 1056 | all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based |
| 1057 | platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4. |
| 1058 | |
| 1059 | * Solaris 2.0 |
| 1060 | |
| 1061 | Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At |
| 1062 | this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of |
| 1063 | reading symbols. |
| 1064 | |
| 1065 | * Bug fixes |
| 1066 | |
| 1067 | As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread. |
| 1068 | People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious |
| 1069 | crashes and trashed symbol tables. |
| 1070 | |
| 1071 | *** Changes in GDB-4.4: |
| 1072 | |
| 1073 | * New machines supported (host and target) |
| 1074 | |
| 1075 | SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco |
| 1076 | (except core files) |
| 1077 | BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd |
| 1078 | Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix |
| 1079 | |
| 1080 | * New machines supported (target) |
| 1081 | |
| 1082 | AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none |
| 1083 | |
| 1084 | * C++ support |
| 1085 | |
| 1086 | GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better. |
| 1087 | The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as |
| 1088 | per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide. |
| 1089 | |
| 1090 | GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS |
| 1091 | `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily |
| 1092 | extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a |
| 1093 | good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option |
| 1094 | will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is |
| 1095 | released. |
| 1096 | |
| 1097 | * New features for SVR4 |
| 1098 | |
| 1099 | GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS |
| 1100 | shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present |
| 1101 | only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs. |
| 1102 | |
| 1103 | The `info proc' command will print out information about any process |
| 1104 | on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment, |
| 1105 | it prints the address mappings of the process. |
| 1106 | |
| 1107 | If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to |
| 1108 | bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any). |
| 1109 | |
| 1110 | * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS |
| 1111 | |
| 1112 | Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols |
| 1113 | now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic |
| 1114 | skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which |
| 1115 | make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the |
| 1116 | same code linked statically. |
| 1117 | |
| 1118 | * New Getopt |
| 1119 | |
| 1120 | GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This |
| 1121 | version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will |
| 1122 | continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well. |
| 1123 | Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity |
| 1124 | added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the |
| 1125 | future by other options that begin with the same letter. |
| 1126 | |
| 1127 | * Bugs fixed |
| 1128 | |
| 1129 | The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed. |
| 1130 | Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled. |
| 1131 | See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details. |
| 1132 | |
| 1133 | |
| 1134 | *** Changes in GDB-4.3: |
| 1135 | |
| 1136 | * New machines supported (host and target) |
| 1137 | |
| 1138 | Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix |
| 1139 | NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000 |
| 1140 | Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88 |
| 1141 | |
| 1142 | * Almost SCO Unix support |
| 1143 | |
| 1144 | We had hoped to support: |
| 1145 | SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco |
| 1146 | (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release |
| 1147 | that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry |
| 1148 | about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes. |
| 1149 | |
| 1150 | * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support |
| 1151 | |
| 1152 | GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle |
| 1153 | debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support |
| 1154 | is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please |
| 1155 | send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were |
| 1156 | reqired (if any). |
| 1157 | |
| 1158 | * New Readline |
| 1159 | |
| 1160 | GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change |
| 1161 | is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously |
| 1162 | required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?). |
| 1163 | |
| 1164 | * Bugs fixed |
| 1165 | |
| 1166 | The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed. |
| 1167 | Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled. |
| 1168 | See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details. |
| 1169 | |
| 1170 | * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered): |
| 1171 | |
| 1172 | GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers |
| 1173 | supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These |
| 1174 | symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses. |
| 1175 | |
| 1176 | Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called |
| 1177 | mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level |
| 1178 | debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship |
| 1179 | mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc |
| 1180 | version 2. |
| 1181 | |
| 1182 | Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not |
| 1183 | really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get |
| 1184 | line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local |
| 1185 | variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the |
| 1186 | situation somewhat. |
| 1187 | |
| 1188 | When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck. |
| 1189 | However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and |
| 1190 | methods. |
| 1191 | |
| 1192 | We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on |
| 1193 | DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff |
| 1194 | encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet. |
| 1195 | |
| 1196 | |
| 1197 | *** Changes in GDB-4.2: |
| 1198 | |
| 1199 | * Improved configuration |
| 1200 | |
| 1201 | Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying. |
| 1202 | Porting BFD is simpler. |
| 1203 | |
| 1204 | * Stepping improved |
| 1205 | |
| 1206 | The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction |
| 1207 | of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur |
| 1208 | in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a |
| 1209 | function that has debugging information is called within the line. |
| 1210 | |
| 1211 | * Bug fixing |
| 1212 | |
| 1213 | Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain. |
| 1214 | |
| 1215 | * New host supported (not target) |
| 1216 | |
| 1217 | Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach |
| 1218 | |
| 1219 | |
| 1220 | *** Changes in GDB-4.1: |
| 1221 | |
| 1222 | * Multiple source language support |
| 1223 | |
| 1224 | GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages. |
| 1225 | It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension, |
| 1226 | and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the |
| 1227 | language of the function in the currently selected stack frame. |
| 1228 | You can also specifically set the language to be used, with |
| 1229 | `set language c' or `set language modula-2'. |
| 1230 | |
| 1231 | * GDB and Modula-2 |
| 1232 | |
| 1233 | GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler, |
| 1234 | currently under development at the State University of New York at |
| 1235 | Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will |
| 1236 | continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992. |
| 1237 | |
| 1238 | Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to |
| 1239 | debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the |
| 1240 | symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though! |
| 1241 | |
| 1242 | There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking, |
| 1243 | in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work. |
| 1244 | |
| 1245 | * set write on/off |
| 1246 | |
| 1247 | GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch |
| 1248 | a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify |
| 1249 | the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g. |
| 1250 | by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take |
| 1251 | effect immediately. |
| 1252 | |
| 1253 | * Automatic SunOS shared library reading |
| 1254 | |
| 1255 | When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its |
| 1256 | shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols. |
| 1257 | The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when |
| 1258 | examining core files. |
| 1259 | |
| 1260 | * set listsize |
| 1261 | |
| 1262 | You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows. |
| 1263 | The default is 10. |
| 1264 | |
| 1265 | * New machines supported (host and target) |
| 1266 | |
| 1267 | SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris |
| 1268 | Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news |
| 1269 | Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3 |
| 1270 | |
| 1271 | * New hosts supported (not targets) |
| 1272 | |
| 1273 | IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc |
| 1274 | |
| 1275 | * New targets supported (not hosts) |
| 1276 | |
| 1277 | AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff |
| 1278 | AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout |
| 1279 | Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern |
| 1280 | |
| 1281 | * New remote interfaces |
| 1282 | |
| 1283 | AMD 29000 Adapt |
| 1284 | AMD 29000 Minimon |
| 1285 | |
| 1286 | |
| 1287 | *** Changes in GDB-4.0: |
| 1288 | |
| 1289 | * New Facilities |
| 1290 | |
| 1291 | Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable. |
| 1292 | |
| 1293 | Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a |
| 1294 | target machine of another type. Communication with the target system |
| 1295 | is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the |
| 1296 | remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the |
| 1297 | remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb |
| 1298 | also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks, |
| 1299 | using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger |
| 1300 | stub on the target system. |
| 1301 | |
| 1302 | New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960. |
| 1303 | |
| 1304 | GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file'' |
| 1305 | library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple |
| 1306 | object file types such as a.out and coff. |
| 1307 | |
| 1308 | There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets |
| 1309 | refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it). |
| 1310 | |
| 1311 | |
| 1312 | * Control-Variable user interface simplified |
| 1313 | |
| 1314 | All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set |
| 1315 | by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command. |
| 1316 | |
| 1317 | For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>. |
| 1318 | ``Show prompt'' produces the response: |
| 1319 | Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>. |
| 1320 | |
| 1321 | What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will |
| 1322 | print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO'' |
| 1323 | will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show |
| 1324 | all of the variable descriptions and their current settings. |
| 1325 | |
| 1326 | confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are |
| 1327 | hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while |
| 1328 | it is already running. Default is ON. |
| 1329 | |
| 1330 | editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing |
| 1331 | of input. Previous lines can be recalled with |
| 1332 | control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B, |
| 1333 | you can search for commands with control-R, etc. |
| 1334 | Default is ON. |
| 1335 | |
| 1336 | history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history |
| 1337 | will be stored. The default is .gdb_history, |
| 1338 | or the value of the environment variable |
| 1339 | GDBHISTFILE. |
| 1340 | |
| 1341 | history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The |
| 1342 | default is 256, or the value of the environment variable |
| 1343 | HISTSIZE. |
| 1344 | |
| 1345 | history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will |
| 1346 | be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the |
| 1347 | file will not be saved. The default is OFF. |
| 1348 | |
| 1349 | history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like |
| 1350 | history expansion will be performed on |
| 1351 | command line input. The default is OFF. |
| 1352 | |
| 1353 | radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set |
| 1354 | to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted |
| 1355 | in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op. |
| 1356 | |
| 1357 | height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default |
| 1358 | is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#'' |
| 1359 | setting from the termcap entry matching the environment |
| 1360 | variable TERM. |
| 1361 | |
| 1362 | width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line. |
| 1363 | Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#'' |
| 1364 | setting from the termcap entry matching the environment |
| 1365 | variable TERM. |
| 1366 | |
| 1367 | Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and |
| 1368 | ``set width'' instead. |
| 1369 | |
| 1370 | print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays, |
| 1371 | such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks |
| 1372 | more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more |
| 1373 | ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON. |
| 1374 | |
| 1375 | print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default |
| 1376 | is OFF. |
| 1377 | |
| 1378 | print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on, |
| 1379 | "raw" form if off. |
| 1380 | |
| 1381 | print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts |
| 1382 | like instructions. |
| 1383 | |
| 1384 | print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF. |
| 1385 | |
| 1386 | |
| 1387 | * Support for Epoch Environment. |
| 1388 | |
| 1389 | The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One |
| 1390 | new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you |
| 1391 | are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own |
| 1392 | window. |
| 1393 | |
| 1394 | |
| 1395 | * Support for Shared Libraries |
| 1396 | |
| 1397 | GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries. |
| 1398 | Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced |
| 1399 | before the shared library has been linked with the program (this |
| 1400 | happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered). |
| 1401 | At any time after this linking (including when examining core files |
| 1402 | from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each |
| 1403 | shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command. |
| 1404 | It can be abbreviated ``share''. |
| 1405 | |
| 1406 | sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files |
| 1407 | matching a unix regular expression. No argument |
| 1408 | indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries. |
| 1409 | |
| 1410 | info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries. |
| 1411 | |
| 1412 | |
| 1413 | * Watchpoints |
| 1414 | |
| 1415 | A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an |
| 1416 | expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution |
| 1417 | tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is |
| 1418 | quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse |
| 1419 | problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this |
| 1420 | more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware. |
| 1421 | |
| 1422 | watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression. |
| 1423 | |
| 1424 | info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints. |
| 1425 | |
| 1426 | delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints). |
| 1427 | disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints). |
| 1428 | enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints). |
| 1429 | |
| 1430 | |
| 1431 | * C++ multiple inheritance |
| 1432 | |
| 1433 | When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance |
| 1434 | for C++ programs. |
| 1435 | |
| 1436 | * C++ exception handling |
| 1437 | |
| 1438 | Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing |
| 1439 | ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on |
| 1440 | the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the |
| 1441 | handler's context). |
| 1442 | |
| 1443 | catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope, |
| 1444 | set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there. |
| 1445 | Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught. |
| 1446 | |
| 1447 | info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the |
| 1448 | current stack frame. |
| 1449 | |
| 1450 | |
| 1451 | * Minor command changes |
| 1452 | |
| 1453 | The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print |
| 1454 | command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result |
| 1455 | is void. This is similar to dbx usage. |
| 1456 | |
| 1457 | The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up |
| 1458 | at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change |
| 1459 | frames without printing. |
| 1460 | |
| 1461 | * New directory command |
| 1462 | |
| 1463 | 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path. |
| 1464 | The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information |
| 1465 | about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even |
| 1466 | with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't |
| 1467 | find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .". |
| 1468 | |
| 1469 | * Configuring GDB for compilation |
| 1470 | |
| 1471 | For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo |
| 1472 | for more details. |
| 1473 | |
| 1474 | GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between |
| 1475 | two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''. |
| 1476 | Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine |
| 1477 | where the program that you are debugging will run. |