2003-03-30 Andrew Cagney <cagney@redhat.com>
[deliverable/binutils-gdb.git] / gdb / NEWS
1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
3
4 *** Changes since GDB 5.3:
5
6 * d10v `regs' command deprecated
7
8 The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
9 registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
10
11 * Profiling support
12
13 A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
14 be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
15 session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
16 "--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
17 data, for more informative profiling results.
18
19 * Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
20
21 The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
22 option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
23 "mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
24
25 Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
26 removed.
27
28 Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
29 Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
30 Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
31 in a subsequent -var-update.
32
33 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
34
35 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
36 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
37 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
38 permanently REMOVED.
39
40 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
41 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
42 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
43 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
44 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
45 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
46 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
47
48 * REMOVED configurations and files
49
50 V850EA ISA
51 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
52 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
53 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
54 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
55 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
56 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
57 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
58 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
59 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
60 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
61 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
62 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
63 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
64
65 * MIPS $fp behavior changed
66
67 The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
68 the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
69 context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
70 address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
71 The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
72
73 *** Changes in GDB 5.3:
74
75 * GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
76
77 When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
78 `/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
79 in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
80 library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
81 shared libs like mad''.
82
83 * ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
84
85 Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
86 the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
87 arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
88 powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
89
90 * GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
91
92 GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
93 and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
94 they expand.
95
96 The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
97 invocations in expression, and shows the result.
98
99 The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
100 macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
101
102 Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
103 information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
104 your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
105 information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
106
107 * Multi-arched targets.
108
109 DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
110 DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
111 NEC V850 v850-*-*
112 National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
113 Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
114 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
115
116 * New targets.
117
118 Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
119
120
121 * New native configurations
122
123 Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
124 SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
125 MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
126 UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
127
128 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
129
130 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
131 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
132 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
133 permanently REMOVED.
134
135 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
136 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
137 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
138 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
139 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
140 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
141 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
142 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
143 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
144 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
145 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
146 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
147 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
148
149 * OBSOLETE languages
150
151 CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
152
153 * REMOVED configurations and files
154
155 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
156 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
157 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
158 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
159 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
160
161 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
162
163 * New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
164
165 This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
166 commands. The default is 1024.
167
168 * Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
169
170 Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
171
172 * New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
173
174 These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
175 to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
176 from a file into memory (restore).
177
178 * Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
179
180 The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
181 including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
182 of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
183
184 *** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
185
186 * New targets.
187
188 Atmel AVR avr*-*-*
189
190 * Bug fixes
191
192 gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
193 mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
194 Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
195
196 gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
197 dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
198 Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
199
200 Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
201 Surprisingly enough, it works now.
202 By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
203
204 i386 hardware watchpoint support:
205 avoid misses on second run for some targets.
206 By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
207
208 *** Changes in GDB 5.2:
209
210 * New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
211
212 This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
213 really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
214 In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
215 target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
216 This can be a significant performance improvement on some
217 (notably embedded) targets.
218
219 * New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
220
221 This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
222 process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
223 GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
224 hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
225
226 * New command line option
227
228 GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
229
230 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
231
232 There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
233 command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
234 a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
235 be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
236 open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
237 issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
238 a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
239 it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
240 GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
241 is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
242
243 * Changes in ARM configurations.
244
245 Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
246 configuration is fully multi-arch.
247
248 * New native configurations
249
250 ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
251 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
252 AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
253 Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
254
255 * New targets
256
257 Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
258
259 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
260
261 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
262 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
263 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
264 permanently REMOVED.
265
266 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
267 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
268 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
269 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
270 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
271
272 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
273
274 * REMOVED configurations and files
275
276 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
277 WDC 65816 w65-*-*
278 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
279 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
280 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
281 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
282 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
283 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
284 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
285 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
286 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
287 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
288 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
289
290 * Changes to command line processing
291
292 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
293 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
294
295 * Changes to key bindings
296
297 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
298
299 *** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
300
301 Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
302
303 Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
304 corrupted.
305
306 Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
307
308 Numerous documentation fixes.
309
310 Numerous testsuite fixes.
311
312 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
313
314 * New native configurations
315
316 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
317 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
318 MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
319 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
320 ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
321 s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
322
323 * New targets
324
325 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
326 CRIS cris-axis
327 UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
328
329 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
330
331 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
332 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
333 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
334 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
335 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
336 WDC 65816 w65-*-*
337 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
338 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
339 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
340 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
341 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
342 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
343 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
344 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
345
346 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
347 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
348
349 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
350 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
351 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
352 permanently REMOVED.
353
354 * REMOVED configurations and files
355
356 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
357 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
358 Pyramid pyramid-*-*
359 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
360 Tahoe tahoe-*-*
361 ser-ocd.c *-*-*
362
363 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
364
365 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
366 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
367 present.
368
369 * Other news:
370
371 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
372
373 * The MI enabled by default.
374
375 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
376 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
377 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
378 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
379 which is now deprecated.
380
381 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
382
383 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
384 main features are supported:
385
386 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
387
388 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
389 extension;
390
391 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
392
393 - a Pascal expression parser.
394
395 However, some important features are not yet supported.
396
397 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
398
399 - there are some problems with boolean types;
400
401 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
402 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
403
404 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
405
406 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
407
408 * Changes in completion.
409
410 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
411 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
412 users expect at the shell prompt.
413
414 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
415 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
416 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
417 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
418 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
419 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
420 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
421
422 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
423
424 * New platform-independent commands:
425
426 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
427 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
428 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
429
430 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
431
432 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
433 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
434 many threads as your system allows you to have.
435
436 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
437
438 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
439 multi-threaded programs though.
440
441 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
442
443 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
444
445 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
446 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
447 supported.)
448
449 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
450
451 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
452 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
453 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
454 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
455 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
456 registers.
457
458 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
459 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
460 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
461
462 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
463
464 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
465 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
466
467 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
468 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
469 IDT.
470
471 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
472 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
473 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
474 a given linear address.
475
476 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
477 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
478 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
479
480 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
481
482 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
483
484 * Changes in documentation.
485
486 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
487 Documentation License.
488
489 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
490 manual.
491
492 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
493
494 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
495 manual.
496
497 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
498 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
499 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
500
501 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
502
503 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
504 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
505 contents of this file.
506
507 * gdba.el deleted
508
509 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
510
511 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
512
513 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
514
515 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
516 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
517 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
518 greater level of detail.
519
520 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
521
522 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
523 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
524 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
525 written.
526
527 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
528
529 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
530 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
531 machines ``out of the box''.
532
533 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
534 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
535 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
536 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
537 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
538
539 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
540 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
541 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
542 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
543 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
544
545 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
546 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
547 also works.
548
549 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
550 GDB.
551
552 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
553 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
554 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
555 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
556
557 * New native configurations
558
559 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
560 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
561
562 * New targets
563
564 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
565 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
566 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
567 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
568
569 * OBSOLETE configurations
570
571 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
572 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
573 Pyramid pyramid-*-*
574 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
575 Tahoe tahoe-*-*
576
577 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
578 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
579 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
580 be permanently REMOVED.
581
582 * Gould support removed
583
584 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
585
586 * New features for SVR4
587
588 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
589 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
590 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
591
592 * Many C++ enhancements
593
594 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
595 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
596
597 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
598
599 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
600 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
601 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
602 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
603
604 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
605 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
606
607 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
608
609 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
610 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
611 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
612
613 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
614 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
615
616 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
617
618 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
619 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
620 include ``set remote P-packet''.
621
622 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
623
624 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
625 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
626 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
627
628 * ``apropos'' command added.
629
630 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
631 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
632 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
633
634 * New MI interface
635
636 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
637 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
638 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
639 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
640 enabled by configuring with:
641
642 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
643
644 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
645
646 * New native configurations
647
648 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
649 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
650 M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
651
652 * New targets
653
654 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
655 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
656 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
657
658 * OBSOLETE configurations
659
660 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
661
662 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
663 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
664 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
665 be permanently REMOVED.
666
667 * ANSI/ISO C
668
669 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
670 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
671 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
672 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
673 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
674 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
675 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
676 already.
677
678 * Readline 2.2
679
680 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
681
682 * set extension-language
683
684 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
685 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
686 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
687 set extension-language .c c++
688 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
689 and their associated languages.
690
691 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
692
693 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
694 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
695 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
696
697 set processor NAME
698
699 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
700 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
701
702 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
703 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
704 403 IBM PowerPC 403
705 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
706 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
707 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
708 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
709 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
710 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
711 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
712 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
713
714 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
715 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
716 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
717 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
718
719 * HP-UX support
720
721 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
722 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
723 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
724 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
725 for xdb and dbx commands.
726
727 * Catchpoints
728
729 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
730 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
731 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
732
733 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
734 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
735 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
736
737 * Debugging across forks
738
739 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
740 in the inferior.
741
742 * TUI
743
744 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
745 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
746 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
747
748 * GDB remote protocol additions
749
750 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
751 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
752 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
753 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
754
755 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
756 full 64-bit address. The command
757
758 set remoteaddresssize 32
759
760 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
761 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
762 will be discarded.
763
764 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
765 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
766
767 maint packet heythere
768
769 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
770 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
771 time.
772
773 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
774 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
775 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
776
777 * Tracing can collect general expressions
778
779 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
780 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
781 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
782
783 * mask-address variable for Mips
784
785 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
786 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
787 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
788
789 * Higher serial baud rates
790
791 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
792 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
793 to achieve all of these rates.)
794
795 * i960 simulator
796
797 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
798 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
799
800
801 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
802
803 * New native configurations
804
805 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
806 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
807 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
808 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
809 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
810 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
811 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
812
813 * New targets
814
815 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
816 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
817 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
818 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
819 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
820 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
821 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
822 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
823 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
824 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
825 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
826
827 * New debugging protocols
828
829 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
830 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
831 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
832 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
833 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
834 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
835
836 * DWARF 2
837
838 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
839 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
840 information.
841
842 * Java frontend
843
844 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
845 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
846
847 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
848
849 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
850 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
851 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
852
853 * Live range splitting
854
855 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
856 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
857 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
858
859 * Hurd support
860
861 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
862 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
863
864 * ARM Thumb support
865
866 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
867 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
868 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
869 accordingly.
870
871 * MIPS16 support
872
873 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
874 instruction set.
875
876 * Overlay support
877
878 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
879 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
880 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
881 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
882 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
883 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
884
885 * info symbol
886
887 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
888 the symbol at the specified address.
889
890 * Trace support
891
892 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
893 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
894 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
895 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
896 file tracepoint.c for more details.
897
898 * MIPS simulator
899
900 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
901 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
902 of most MIPS variants.
903
904 * Sparc simulator
905
906 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
907 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
908 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
909
910 * set architecture
911
912 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
913 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
914 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
915 the possible architectures.
916
917 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
918
919 * New native configurations
920
921 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
922 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
923 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
924 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
925 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
926 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
927
928 * New targets
929
930 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
931 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
932 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
933 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
934 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
935 Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
936 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
937
938 * PowerPC simulator
939
940 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
941 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
942 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
943 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
944 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
945
946 * Solaris 2.5
947
948 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
949
950 * Windows 95/NT native
951
952 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
953 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
954 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
955 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
956 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
957
958 * dont-repeat command
959
960 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
961 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
962 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
963 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
964
965 * Send break instead of ^C
966
967 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
968 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
969 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
970
971 * Remote protocol timeout
972
973 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
974 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
975 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
976
977 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
978
979 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
980 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
981 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
982 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
983 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
984
985 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
986 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
987 automatically on hpux10.
988
989 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
990
991 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
992
993 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
994
995 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
996 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
997 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
998 every character. The default value is 1050.
999
1000 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
1001
1002 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
1003 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
1004 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
1005 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
1006 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
1007 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
1008
1009 * Speedups for remote debugging
1010
1011 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
1012 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
1013 and more efficient S-record downloading.
1014
1015 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
1016
1017 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
1018 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
1019
1020 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
1021
1022 * Psymtabs for XCOFF
1023
1024 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
1025 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
1026
1027 * Remote targets use caching
1028
1029 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
1030 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
1031 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
1032 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
1033 off' turns the the data cache off.
1034
1035 * Remote targets may have threads
1036
1037 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
1038 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
1039 gdb/remote.c for details.
1040
1041 * NetROM support
1042
1043 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
1044 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
1045 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
1046 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
1047 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
1048 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
1049 sequence is something like
1050
1051 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
1052 load <prog>
1053 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
1054
1055 * Macintosh host
1056
1057 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
1058 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
1059 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
1060 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
1061 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
1062 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
1063 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
1064 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
1065
1066 * Autoconf
1067
1068 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
1069 but does simplify configuration and building.
1070
1071 * hpux10
1072
1073 GDB now supports hpux10.
1074
1075 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
1076
1077 * New native configurations
1078
1079 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
1080 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
1081 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
1082 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
1083
1084 * New targets
1085
1086 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1087 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
1088 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
1089 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
1090 WDC 65816 w65-*-*
1091
1092 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
1093
1094 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
1095 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
1096 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
1097 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
1098 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
1099
1100 * Arguments to user-defined commands
1101
1102 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
1103 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
1104 trivial example:
1105 define adder
1106 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
1107
1108 To execute the command use:
1109 adder 1 2 3
1110
1111 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
1112 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
1113 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
1114
1115 * New `if' and `while' commands
1116
1117 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
1118 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
1119 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
1120 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
1121 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
1122 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
1123 if the expression is zero.
1124
1125 * Fortran source language mode
1126
1127 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
1128 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
1129 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
1130 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
1131 Fortran compilers.
1132
1133 * Better HPUX support
1134
1135 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
1136 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
1137 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
1138 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
1139 that behavior do the following before running the program:
1140
1141 adb -w a.out
1142 __dld_flags?W 0x5
1143 control-d
1144
1145 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
1146 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
1147
1148 adb -w a.out
1149 __dld_flags?W 0x4
1150 control-d
1151
1152 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
1153 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
1154 external linkage.
1155
1156 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
1157 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
1158
1159 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
1160
1161 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
1162 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
1163 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
1164 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
1165 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
1166 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
1167
1168 * New DOS host serial code
1169
1170 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
1171 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
1172 a PC's serial port.
1173
1174 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
1175
1176 * New "complete" command
1177
1178 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
1179 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
1180
1181 * Trailing space optional in prompt
1182
1183 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
1184 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
1185
1186 * Breakpoint hit counts
1187
1188 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
1189 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
1190 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
1191 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
1192 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
1193 that breakpoint.
1194
1195 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
1196
1197 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
1198 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
1199 arrays actually contain only short strings.
1200
1201 * Shared library breakpoints
1202
1203 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
1204 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
1205
1206 * Hardware watchpoints
1207
1208 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
1209 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
1210
1211 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
1212
1213 * Annotations
1214
1215 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
1216 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
1217
1218 * Improved Irix 5 support
1219
1220 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
1221
1222 * Improved HPPA support
1223
1224 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
1225
1226 * New native configurations
1227
1228 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
1229 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1230 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
1231 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
1232
1233 * New targets
1234
1235 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1236 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
1237 Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
1238
1239 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
1240
1241 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
1242 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
1243
1244 * Fixes
1245
1246 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
1247 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
1248
1249 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
1250
1251 * Irix 5 is now supported
1252
1253 * HPPA support
1254
1255 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
1256 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
1257 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
1258 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
1259 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
1260
1261
1262 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
1263
1264 * User visible changes:
1265
1266 * Remote Debugging
1267
1268 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
1269 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
1270 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
1271 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
1272 debugging info for the mips target).
1273
1274 * DEC Alpha native support
1275
1276 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
1277 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
1278 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
1279 Alpha-specific notes.
1280
1281 * Preliminary thread implementation
1282
1283 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
1284
1285 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
1286
1287 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
1288 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
1289 for details).
1290
1291 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
1292
1293 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
1294 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
1295 call methods, ...etc.
1296
1297 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
1298
1299 * User visible changes:
1300
1301 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
1302 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
1303 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
1304 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
1305
1306 Filename completion now works.
1307
1308 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
1309 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
1310 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
1311
1312 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
1313 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
1314 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
1315 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
1316 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
1317
1318 * DEC alpha support
1319
1320 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
1321 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
1322
1323
1324 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
1325
1326 * Testsuite
1327
1328 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
1329 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
1330 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
1331
1332 * C++ demangling
1333
1334 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
1335 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
1336 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
1337 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
1338 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
1339
1340 * Simulators
1341
1342 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
1343 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
1344 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
1345
1346 * New targets supported
1347
1348 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1349 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1350 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
1351 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1352 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
1353
1354 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
1355 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
1356 GO32 memory extender.
1357
1358 * New remote protocols
1359
1360 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
1361
1362 * New source languages supported
1363
1364 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
1365 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
1366 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
1367
1368
1369 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
1370
1371 * HP Precision Architecture supported
1372
1373 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
1374 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
1375 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
1376 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
1377 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
1378 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
1379
1380 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
1381
1382 * Faster and better demangling
1383
1384 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
1385 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
1386 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
1387 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
1388 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
1389 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
1390 symbol lookups.
1391
1392 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
1393 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
1394 compiler does not actually implement.
1395
1396 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
1397
1398 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
1399 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
1400 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
1401 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
1402 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
1403 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
1404 fix.
1405
1406 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
1407 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
1408
1409 * Improved configure script
1410
1411 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
1412 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
1413 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
1414 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
1415
1416 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
1417 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
1418 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
1419 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
1420 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
1421 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
1422
1423 * Documentation improvements
1424
1425 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
1426 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
1427 before submitting changes.
1428
1429 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
1430 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
1431 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
1432 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
1433 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
1434
1435 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
1436 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
1437 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
1438 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
1439 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
1440 around this problem.
1441
1442 * New features
1443
1444 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
1445 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
1446 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
1447 the target program.
1448
1449 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
1450 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
1451
1452 * New native hosts supported
1453
1454 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
1455 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
1456
1457 * New targets supported
1458
1459 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
1460
1461 * New file formats supported
1462
1463 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
1464 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
1465
1466 * Major bug fixes
1467
1468 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
1469
1470 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
1471 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
1472
1473 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
1474 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
1475 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
1476
1477 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
1478 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
1479
1480 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
1481 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
1482 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
1483 libraries.
1484
1485 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
1486 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
1487 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
1488 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
1489 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
1490
1491 * Internal improvements
1492
1493 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
1494 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
1495
1496 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
1497 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
1498 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
1499 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
1500 shared code that handles any of them.
1501
1502 * New command line options
1503
1504 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
1505
1506 * Mmalloc licensing
1507
1508 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
1509 General Public License.
1510
1511 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
1512
1513 * Host/native/target split
1514
1515 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
1516 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
1517 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
1518 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
1519 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
1520
1521 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
1522 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
1523 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
1524 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
1525 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
1526 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
1527 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
1528
1529 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
1530 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
1531 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
1532
1533 * New hosts supported
1534
1535 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
1536 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1537 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
1538
1539 * New targets supported
1540
1541 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
1542 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
1543
1544 * New native hosts supported
1545
1546 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1547 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
1548 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
1549
1550 * New file formats supported
1551
1552 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
1553 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
1554 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
1555
1556 * New commands
1557
1558 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
1559 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
1560 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
1561
1562 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
1563
1564 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
1565 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
1566 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
1567 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
1568
1569 * C++ improvements
1570
1571 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
1572 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
1573 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
1574
1575 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
1576
1577 * Major bug fixes
1578
1579 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
1580 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
1581 by the compiler.
1582
1583 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
1584 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
1585
1586 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
1587 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
1588 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
1589 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
1590 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
1591 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
1592
1593 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
1594 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
1595 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
1596 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
1597
1598 * AMD 29k support
1599
1600 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
1601 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
1602 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
1603 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
1604 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
1605
1606 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
1607 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
1608 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
1609 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
1610
1611 * Remote interfaces
1612
1613 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
1614 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
1615 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
1616 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
1617 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
1618 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
1619 each instruction being stepped through.
1620
1621 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
1622 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
1623
1624 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
1625 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
1626 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
1627 processor with a serial port.
1628
1629 * Configuration
1630
1631 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
1632 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
1633 supported, and what files each one uses.
1634
1635 * Library changes
1636
1637 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
1638 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
1639 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
1640 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
1641
1642 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
1643 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
1644 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
1645 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
1646
1647 * Documentation
1648
1649 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
1650 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
1651 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
1652 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
1653 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
1654 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
1655
1656 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
1657
1658
1659 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
1660
1661 * Better support for C++ function names
1662
1663 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
1664 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
1665 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
1666 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
1667 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
1668
1669 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
1670 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
1671 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
1672 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
1673 for the list of formats.
1674
1675 * G++ symbol mangling problem
1676
1677 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
1678 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
1679 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
1680 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
1681 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
1682 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
1683 this problem.)
1684
1685 * New 'maintenance' command
1686
1687 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
1688 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
1689 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
1690
1691 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
1692 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
1693 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
1694 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
1695 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
1696 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
1697
1698 The following commands are new:
1699
1700 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
1701 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
1702 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
1703
1704 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
1705
1706 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
1707 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
1708 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
1709 read after argv processing.
1710
1711 * New hosts supported
1712
1713 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
1714
1715 GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
1716
1717 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
1718 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
1719 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
1720 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
1721 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
1722 It costs extra.
1723
1724 * New targets supported
1725
1726 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1727
1728 * More smarts about finding #include files
1729
1730 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
1731 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
1732 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
1733 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
1734 the one that contains your sources.
1735
1736 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
1737 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
1738 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
1739
1740 * Interesting infernals change
1741
1742 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
1743 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
1744 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
1745 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
1746
1747 * Bug fixes (of course!)
1748
1749 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
1750 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
1751 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
1752
1753 See the ChangeLog for details.
1754
1755 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
1756
1757 * New machines supported (host and target)
1758
1759 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
1760
1761 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
1762
1763 * New malloc package
1764
1765 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
1766 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
1767 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
1768 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
1769 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
1770 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
1771
1772 * info proc
1773
1774 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
1775 'help info proc' for details.
1776
1777 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
1778
1779 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
1780 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
1781 possible.
1782
1783 * File name changes for MS-DOS
1784
1785 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
1786 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
1787 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
1788 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
1789 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
1790 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
1791
1792 * Cross byte order fixes
1793
1794 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
1795 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
1796
1797 * New -mapped and -readnow options
1798
1799 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
1800 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
1801 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
1802 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
1803 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
1804 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
1805 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
1806 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
1807 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
1808 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
1809
1810 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
1811 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
1812 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
1813 slower, but makes future operations faster.
1814
1815 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
1816 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
1817 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
1818 use is:
1819
1820 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
1821
1822 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
1823 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
1824 shared across multiple host platforms.
1825
1826 * longjmp() handling
1827
1828 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
1829 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
1830 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
1831 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
1832
1833 * Solaris 2.0
1834
1835 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
1836 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
1837 reading symbols.
1838
1839 * Bug fixes
1840
1841 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
1842 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
1843 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
1844
1845 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
1846
1847 * New machines supported (host and target)
1848
1849 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
1850 (except core files)
1851 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
1852 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
1853
1854 * New machines supported (target)
1855
1856 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1857
1858 * C++ support
1859
1860 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
1861 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
1862 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
1863
1864 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
1865 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
1866 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
1867 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
1868 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
1869 released.
1870
1871 * New features for SVR4
1872
1873 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
1874 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
1875 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
1876
1877 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
1878 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
1879 it prints the address mappings of the process.
1880
1881 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
1882 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
1883
1884 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
1885
1886 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
1887 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
1888 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
1889 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
1890 same code linked statically.
1891
1892 * New Getopt
1893
1894 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
1895 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
1896 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
1897 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
1898 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
1899 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
1900
1901 * Bugs fixed
1902
1903 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
1904 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
1905 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
1906
1907
1908 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
1909
1910 * New machines supported (host and target)
1911
1912 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
1913 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
1914 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
1915
1916 * Almost SCO Unix support
1917
1918 We had hoped to support:
1919 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
1920 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
1921 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
1922 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
1923
1924 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
1925
1926 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
1927 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
1928 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
1929 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
1930 reqired (if any).
1931
1932 * New Readline
1933
1934 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
1935 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
1936 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
1937
1938 * Bugs fixed
1939
1940 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
1941 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
1942 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
1943
1944 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
1945
1946 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
1947 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
1948 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
1949
1950 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
1951 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
1952 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
1953 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
1954 version 2.
1955
1956 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
1957 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
1958 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
1959 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
1960 situation somewhat.
1961
1962 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
1963 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
1964 methods.
1965
1966 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
1967 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
1968 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
1969
1970
1971 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
1972
1973 * Improved configuration
1974
1975 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
1976 Porting BFD is simpler.
1977
1978 * Stepping improved
1979
1980 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
1981 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
1982 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
1983 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
1984
1985 * Bug fixing
1986
1987 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
1988
1989 * New host supported (not target)
1990
1991 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
1992
1993
1994 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
1995
1996 * Multiple source language support
1997
1998 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
1999 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
2000 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
2001 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
2002 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
2003 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
2004
2005 * GDB and Modula-2
2006
2007 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
2008 currently under development at the State University of New York at
2009 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
2010 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
2011
2012 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
2013 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
2014 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
2015
2016 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
2017 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
2018
2019 * set write on/off
2020
2021 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
2022 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
2023 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
2024 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
2025 effect immediately.
2026
2027 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
2028
2029 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
2030 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
2031 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
2032 examining core files.
2033
2034 * set listsize
2035
2036 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
2037 The default is 10.
2038
2039 * New machines supported (host and target)
2040
2041 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
2042 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
2043 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
2044
2045 * New hosts supported (not targets)
2046
2047 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
2048
2049 * New targets supported (not hosts)
2050
2051 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2052 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2053 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
2054
2055 * New remote interfaces
2056
2057 AMD 29000 Adapt
2058 AMD 29000 Minimon
2059
2060
2061 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
2062
2063 * New Facilities
2064
2065 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
2066
2067 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
2068 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
2069 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
2070 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
2071 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
2072 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
2073 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
2074 stub on the target system.
2075
2076 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
2077
2078 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
2079 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
2080 object file types such as a.out and coff.
2081
2082 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
2083 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
2084
2085
2086 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
2087
2088 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
2089 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
2090
2091 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
2092 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
2093 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
2094
2095 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
2096 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
2097 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
2098 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
2099
2100 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
2101 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
2102 it is already running. Default is ON.
2103
2104 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
2105 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
2106 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
2107 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
2108 Default is ON.
2109
2110 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
2111 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
2112 or the value of the environment variable
2113 GDBHISTFILE.
2114
2115 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
2116 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
2117 HISTSIZE.
2118
2119 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
2120 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
2121 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
2122
2123 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
2124 history expansion will be performed on
2125 command line input. The default is OFF.
2126
2127 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
2128 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
2129 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
2130
2131 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
2132 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
2133 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2134 variable TERM.
2135
2136 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
2137 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
2138 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2139 variable TERM.
2140
2141 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
2142 ``set width'' instead.
2143
2144 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
2145 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
2146 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
2147 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
2148
2149 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
2150 is OFF.
2151
2152 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
2153 "raw" form if off.
2154
2155 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
2156 like instructions.
2157
2158 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
2159
2160
2161 * Support for Epoch Environment.
2162
2163 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
2164 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
2165 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
2166 window.
2167
2168
2169 * Support for Shared Libraries
2170
2171 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
2172 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
2173 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
2174 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
2175 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
2176 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
2177 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
2178 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
2179
2180 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
2181 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
2182 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
2183
2184 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
2185
2186
2187 * Watchpoints
2188
2189 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
2190 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
2191 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
2192 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
2193 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
2194 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
2195
2196 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
2197
2198 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
2199
2200 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2201 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2202 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2203
2204
2205 * C++ multiple inheritance
2206
2207 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
2208 for C++ programs.
2209
2210 * C++ exception handling
2211
2212 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
2213 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
2214 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
2215 handler's context).
2216
2217 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
2218 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
2219 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
2220
2221 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
2222 current stack frame.
2223
2224
2225 * Minor command changes
2226
2227 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
2228 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
2229 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
2230
2231 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
2232 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
2233 frames without printing.
2234
2235 * New directory command
2236
2237 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
2238 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
2239 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
2240 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
2241 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
2242
2243 * Configuring GDB for compilation
2244
2245 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
2246 for more details.
2247
2248 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
2249 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
2250 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
2251 where the program that you are debugging will run.
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