1 What has changed since GDB-3.5?
2 (Organized release by release)
4 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
5 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, and the 88k
6 bug monitor. It is now an integer specifying a debug level (normally
7 0 or 1, but 2 means more debugging info for the mips target).
9 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
11 * User visible changes:
13 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
14 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
15 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
16 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
18 Filename completion now works.
20 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
21 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
22 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
24 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
25 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
26 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
27 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
28 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
32 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
33 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
36 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
40 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
41 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
42 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
46 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
47 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
48 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
49 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
50 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
54 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
55 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
56 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
58 * New targets supported
60 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
61 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
62 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
63 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
64 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
66 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
67 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
70 * New remote protocols
72 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
74 * New source languages supported
76 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
77 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
78 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
81 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
83 * HP Precision Architecture supported
85 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
86 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
87 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
88 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
89 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
90 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
92 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
94 * Faster and better demangling
96 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
97 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
98 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
99 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
100 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
101 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
104 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
105 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
106 compiler does not actually implement.
108 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
110 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
111 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
112 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
113 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
114 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
115 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
118 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
119 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
121 * Improved configure script
123 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
124 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
125 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
126 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
128 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
129 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
130 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
131 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
132 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
133 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
135 * Documentation improvements
137 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
138 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
139 before submitting changes.
141 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
142 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
143 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
144 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
145 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
147 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
148 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
149 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
150 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
151 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
156 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
157 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
158 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
161 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
162 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
164 * New native hosts supported
166 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
167 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
169 * New targets supported
171 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
173 * New file formats supported
175 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
176 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
180 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
182 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
183 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
185 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
186 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
187 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
189 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
190 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
192 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
193 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
194 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
197 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
198 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
199 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
200 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
201 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
203 * Internal improvements
205 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
206 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
208 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
209 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
210 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
211 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
212 shared code that handles any of them.
214 * New command line options
216 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
220 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
221 General Public License.
223 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
225 * Host/native/target split
227 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
228 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
229 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
230 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
231 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
233 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
234 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
235 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
236 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
237 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
238 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
239 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
241 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
242 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
243 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
245 * New hosts supported
247 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
248 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
249 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
251 * New targets supported
253 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
254 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
256 * New native hosts supported
258 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
259 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
260 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
262 * New file formats supported
264 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
265 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
266 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
270 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
271 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
272 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
274 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
276 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
277 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
278 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
279 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
283 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
284 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
285 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
287 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
291 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
292 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
295 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
296 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
298 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
299 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
300 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
301 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
302 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
303 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
305 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
306 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
307 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
308 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
312 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
313 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
314 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
315 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
316 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
318 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
319 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
320 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
321 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
325 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
326 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
327 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
328 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
329 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
330 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
331 each instruction being stepped through.
333 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
334 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
336 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
337 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
338 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
339 processor with a serial port.
343 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
344 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
345 supported, and what files each one uses.
349 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
350 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
351 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
352 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
354 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
355 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
356 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
357 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
361 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
362 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
363 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
364 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
365 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
366 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
368 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
371 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
373 * Better support for C++ function names
375 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
376 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
377 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
378 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
379 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
381 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
382 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
383 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
384 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
385 for the list of formats.
387 * G++ symbol mangling problem
389 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
390 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
391 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
392 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
393 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
394 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
397 * New 'maintenance' command
399 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
400 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
401 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
403 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
404 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
405 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
406 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
407 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
408 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
410 The following commands are new:
412 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
413 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
414 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
416 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
418 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
419 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
420 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
421 read after argv processing.
423 * New hosts supported
425 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
427 Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
429 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
430 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
431 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
432 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
433 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
436 * New targets supported
438 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
440 * More smarts about finding #include files
442 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
443 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
444 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
445 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
446 the one that contains your sources.
448 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
449 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
450 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
452 * Interesting infernals change
454 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
455 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
456 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
457 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
459 * Bug fixes (of course!)
461 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
462 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
463 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
465 See the ChangeLog for details.
467 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
469 * New machines supported (host and target)
471 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
473 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
477 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
478 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
479 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
480 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
481 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
482 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
486 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
487 'help info proc' for details.
489 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
491 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
492 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
495 * File name changes for MS-DOS
497 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
498 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
499 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
500 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
501 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
502 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
504 * Cross byte order fixes
506 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
507 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
509 * New -mapped and -readnow options
511 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
512 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
513 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
514 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
515 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
516 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
517 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
518 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
519 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
520 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
522 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
523 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
524 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
525 slower, but makes future operations faster.
527 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
528 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
529 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
532 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
534 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
535 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
536 shared across multiple host platforms.
540 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
541 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
542 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
543 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
547 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
548 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
553 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
554 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
555 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
557 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
559 * New machines supported (host and target)
561 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
563 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
564 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
566 * New machines supported (target)
568 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
572 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
573 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
574 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
576 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
577 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
578 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
579 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
580 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
583 * New features for SVR4
585 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
586 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
587 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
589 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
590 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
591 it prints the address mappings of the process.
593 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
594 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
596 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
598 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
599 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
600 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
601 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
602 same code linked statically.
606 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
607 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
608 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
609 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
610 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
611 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
615 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
616 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
617 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
620 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
622 * New machines supported (host and target)
624 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
625 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
626 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
628 * Almost SCO Unix support
630 We had hoped to support:
631 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
632 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
633 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
634 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
636 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
638 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
639 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
640 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
641 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
646 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
647 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
648 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
652 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
653 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
654 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
656 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
658 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
659 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
660 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
662 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
663 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
664 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
665 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
668 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
669 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
670 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
671 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
674 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
675 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
678 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
679 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
680 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
683 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
685 * Improved configuration
687 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
688 Porting BFD is simpler.
692 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
693 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
694 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
695 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
699 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
701 * New host supported (not target)
703 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
706 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
708 * Multiple source language support
710 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
711 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
712 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
713 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
714 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
715 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
719 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
720 currently under development at the State University of New York at
721 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
722 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
724 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
725 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
726 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
728 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
729 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
733 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
734 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
735 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
736 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
739 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
741 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
742 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
743 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
744 examining core files.
748 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
751 * New machines supported (host and target)
753 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
754 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
755 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
757 * New hosts supported (not targets)
759 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
761 * New targets supported (not hosts)
763 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
764 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
765 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
767 * New remote interfaces
773 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
777 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
779 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
780 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
781 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
782 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
783 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
784 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
785 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
786 stub on the target system.
788 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
790 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
791 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
792 object file types such as a.out and coff.
794 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
795 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
798 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
800 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
801 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
803 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
804 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
805 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
807 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
808 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
809 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
810 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
812 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
813 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
814 it is already running. Default is ON.
816 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
817 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
818 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
819 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
822 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
823 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
824 or the value of the environment variable
827 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
828 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
831 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
832 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
833 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
835 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
836 history expansion will be performed on
837 command line input. The default is OFF.
839 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
840 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
841 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
843 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
844 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
845 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
848 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
849 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
850 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
853 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
854 ``set width'' instead.
856 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
857 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
858 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
859 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
861 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
864 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
867 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
870 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
873 * Support for Epoch Environment.
875 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
876 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
877 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
881 * Support for Shared Libraries
883 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
884 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
885 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
886 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
887 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
888 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
889 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
890 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
892 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
893 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
894 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
896 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
901 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
902 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
903 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
904 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
905 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
906 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
908 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
910 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
912 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
913 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
914 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
917 * C++ multiple inheritance
919 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
922 * C++ exception handling
924 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
925 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
926 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
929 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
930 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
931 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
933 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
937 * Minor command changes
939 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
940 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
941 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
943 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
944 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
945 frames without printing.
947 * New directory command
949 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
950 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
951 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
952 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
953 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
955 * Configuring GDB for compilation
957 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
960 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
961 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
962 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
963 where the program that you are debugging will run.
projects / deliverable / binutils-gdb.git / blob