* New R5900 COP2 test case.
[deliverable/binutils-gdb.git] / gdb / NEWS
1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
3
4 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
5
6 * New native configurations
7
8 Alpha Linux alpha*-*-linux*
9 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
10 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
11 PowerPC Linux powerpc-*-linux*
12 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
13 Sparc Linux sparc-*-linux*
14 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
15
16 * New targets
17
18 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
19 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
20 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
21 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
22 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
23 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
24 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
25 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
26 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
27 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
28 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
29
30 * New debugging protocols
31
32 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
33 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
34 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
35 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
36 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
37 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
38
39 * DWARF 2
40
41 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
42 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
43 information.
44
45 * Java frontend
46
47 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
48 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
49
50 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
51
52 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
53 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
54 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
55
56 * Live range splitting
57
58 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
59 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
60 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
61
62 * Hurd support
63
64 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
65 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
66
67 * ARM Thumb support
68
69 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
70 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
71 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
72 accordingly.
73
74 * MIPS16 support
75
76 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
77 instruction set.
78
79 * Overlay support
80
81 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
82 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
83 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
84 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
85 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
86 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
87
88 * info symbol
89
90 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
91 the symbol at the specified address.
92
93 * Trace support
94
95 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
96 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
97 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
98 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
99 file tracepoint.c for more details.
100
101 * MIPS simulator
102
103 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
104 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
105 of most MIPS variants.
106
107 * Sparc simulator
108
109 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
110 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
111 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
112
113 * set architecture
114
115 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
116 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
117 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
118 the possible architectures.
119
120 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
121
122 * New native configurations
123
124 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
125 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
126 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
127 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
128 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
129 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
130
131 * New targets
132
133 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
134 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
135 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
136 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
137 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
138 Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
139 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
140
141 * PowerPC simulator
142
143 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
144 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
145 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
146 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
147 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
148
149 * Solaris 2.5
150
151 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
152
153 * Windows 95/NT native
154
155 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
156 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
157 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
158 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
159 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
160
161 * dont-repeat command
162
163 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
164 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
165 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
166 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
167
168 * Send break instead of ^C
169
170 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
171 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
172 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
173
174 * Remote protocol timeout
175
176 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
177 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
178 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
179
180 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
181
182 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
183 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
184 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
185 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
186 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
187
188 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
189 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
190 automatically on hpux10.
191
192 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
193
194 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
195
196 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
197
198 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
199 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
200 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
201 every character. The default value is 1050.
202
203 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
204
205 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
206 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
207 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
208 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
209 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
210 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
211
212 * Speedups for remote debugging
213
214 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
215 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
216 and more efficient S-record downloading.
217
218 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
219
220 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
221 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
222
223 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
224
225 * Psymtabs for XCOFF
226
227 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
228 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
229
230 * Remote targets use caching
231
232 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
233 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
234 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
235 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
236 off' turns the the data cache off.
237
238 * Remote targets may have threads
239
240 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
241 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
242 gdb/remote.c for details.
243
244 * NetROM support
245
246 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
247 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
248 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
249 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
250 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
251 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
252 sequence is something like
253
254 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
255 load <prog>
256 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
257
258 * Macintosh host
259
260 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
261 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
262 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
263 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
264 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
265 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
266 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
267 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
268
269 * Autoconf
270
271 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
272 but does simplify configuration and building.
273
274 * hpux10
275
276 GDB now supports hpux10.
277
278 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
279
280 * New native configurations
281
282 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
283 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
284 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
285 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
286
287 * New targets
288
289 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
290 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
291 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
292 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
293 WDC 65816 w65-*-*
294
295 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
296
297 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
298 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
299 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
300 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
301 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
302
303 * Arguments to user-defined commands
304
305 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
306 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
307 trivial example:
308 define adder
309 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
310
311 To execute the command use:
312 adder 1 2 3
313
314 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
315 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
316 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
317
318 * New `if' and `while' commands
319
320 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
321 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
322 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
323 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
324 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
325 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
326 if the expression is zero.
327
328 * Fortran source language mode
329
330 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
331 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
332 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
333 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
334 Fortran compilers.
335
336 * Better HPUX support
337
338 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
339 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
340 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
341 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
342 that behavior do the following before running the program:
343
344 adb -w a.out
345 __dld_flags?W 0x5
346 control-d
347
348 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
349 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
350
351 adb -w a.out
352 __dld_flags?W 0x4
353 control-d
354
355 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
356 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
357 external linkage.
358
359 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
360 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
361
362 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
363
364 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
365 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
366 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
367 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
368 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
369 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
370
371 * New DOS host serial code
372
373 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
374 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
375 a PC's serial port.
376
377 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
378
379 * New "complete" command
380
381 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
382 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
383
384 * Trailing space optional in prompt
385
386 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
387 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
388
389 * Breakpoint hit counts
390
391 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
392 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
393 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
394 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
395 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
396 that breakpoint.
397
398 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
399
400 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
401 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
402 arrays actually contain only short strings.
403
404 * Shared library breakpoints
405
406 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
407 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
408
409 * Hardware watchpoints
410
411 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
412 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
413
414 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under Linux.
415
416 * Annotations
417
418 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
419 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
420
421 * Improved Irix 5 support
422
423 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
424
425 * Improved HPPA support
426
427 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
428
429 * New native configurations
430
431 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
432 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
433 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
434 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
435
436 * New targets
437
438 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
439 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
440 Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
441
442 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
443
444 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
445 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
446
447 * Fixes
448
449 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
450 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
451
452 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
453
454 * Irix 5 is now supported
455
456 * HPPA support
457
458 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
459 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
460 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
461 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
462 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
463
464
465 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
466
467 * User visible changes:
468
469 * Remote Debugging
470
471 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
472 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
473 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
474 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
475 debugging info for the mips target).
476
477 * DEC Alpha native support
478
479 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
480 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
481 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
482 Alpha-specific notes.
483
484 * Preliminary thread implementation
485
486 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
487
488 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
489
490 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
491 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
492 for details).
493
494 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
495
496 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
497 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
498 call methods, ...etc.
499
500 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
501
502 * User visible changes:
503
504 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
505 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
506 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
507 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
508
509 Filename completion now works.
510
511 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
512 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
513 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
514
515 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
516 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
517 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
518 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
519 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
520
521 * DEC alpha support
522
523 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
524 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
525
526
527 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
528
529 * Testsuite
530
531 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
532 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
533 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
534
535 * C++ demangling
536
537 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
538 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
539 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
540 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
541 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
542
543 * Simulators
544
545 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
546 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
547 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
548
549 * New targets supported
550
551 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
552 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
553 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
554 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
555 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
556
557 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
558 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
559 GO32 memory extender.
560
561 * New remote protocols
562
563 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
564
565 * New source languages supported
566
567 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
568 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
569 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
570
571
572 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
573
574 * HP Precision Architecture supported
575
576 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
577 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
578 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
579 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
580 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
581 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
582
583 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
584
585 * Faster and better demangling
586
587 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
588 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
589 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
590 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
591 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
592 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
593 symbol lookups.
594
595 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
596 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
597 compiler does not actually implement.
598
599 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
600
601 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
602 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
603 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
604 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
605 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
606 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
607 fix.
608
609 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
610 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
611
612 * Improved configure script
613
614 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
615 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
616 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
617 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
618
619 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
620 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
621 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
622 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
623 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
624 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
625
626 * Documentation improvements
627
628 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
629 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
630 before submitting changes.
631
632 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
633 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
634 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
635 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
636 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
637
638 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
639 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
640 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
641 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
642 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
643 around this problem.
644
645 * New features
646
647 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
648 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
649 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
650 the target program.
651
652 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
653 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
654
655 * New native hosts supported
656
657 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
658 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
659
660 * New targets supported
661
662 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
663
664 * New file formats supported
665
666 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
667 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
668
669 * Major bug fixes
670
671 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
672
673 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
674 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
675
676 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
677 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
678 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
679
680 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
681 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
682
683 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
684 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
685 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
686 libraries.
687
688 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
689 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
690 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
691 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
692 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
693
694 * Internal improvements
695
696 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
697 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
698
699 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
700 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
701 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
702 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
703 shared code that handles any of them.
704
705 * New command line options
706
707 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
708
709 * Mmalloc licensing
710
711 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
712 General Public License.
713
714 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
715
716 * Host/native/target split
717
718 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
719 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
720 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
721 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
722 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
723
724 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
725 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
726 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
727 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
728 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
729 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
730 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
731
732 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
733 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
734 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
735
736 * New hosts supported
737
738 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
739 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
740 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
741
742 * New targets supported
743
744 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
745 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
746
747 * New native hosts supported
748
749 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
750 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
751 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
752
753 * New file formats supported
754
755 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
756 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
757 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
758
759 * New commands
760
761 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
762 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
763 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
764
765 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
766
767 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
768 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
769 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
770 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
771
772 * C++ improvements
773
774 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
775 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
776 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
777
778 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
779
780 * Major bug fixes
781
782 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
783 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
784 by the compiler.
785
786 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
787 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
788
789 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
790 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
791 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
792 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
793 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
794 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
795
796 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
797 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
798 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
799 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
800
801 * AMD 29k support
802
803 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
804 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
805 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
806 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
807 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
808
809 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
810 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
811 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
812 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
813
814 * Remote interfaces
815
816 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
817 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
818 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
819 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
820 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
821 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
822 each instruction being stepped through.
823
824 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
825 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
826
827 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
828 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
829 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
830 processor with a serial port.
831
832 * Configuration
833
834 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
835 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
836 supported, and what files each one uses.
837
838 * Library changes
839
840 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
841 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
842 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
843 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
844
845 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
846 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
847 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
848 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
849
850 * Documentation
851
852 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
853 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
854 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
855 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
856 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
857 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
858
859 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
860
861
862 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
863
864 * Better support for C++ function names
865
866 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
867 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
868 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
869 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
870 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
871
872 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
873 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
874 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
875 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
876 for the list of formats.
877
878 * G++ symbol mangling problem
879
880 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
881 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
882 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
883 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
884 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
885 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
886 this problem.)
887
888 * New 'maintenance' command
889
890 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
891 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
892 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
893
894 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
895 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
896 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
897 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
898 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
899 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
900
901 The following commands are new:
902
903 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
904 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
905 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
906
907 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
908
909 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
910 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
911 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
912 read after argv processing.
913
914 * New hosts supported
915
916 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
917
918 Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
919
920 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
921 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
922 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
923 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
924 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
925 It costs extra.
926
927 * New targets supported
928
929 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
930
931 * More smarts about finding #include files
932
933 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
934 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
935 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
936 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
937 the one that contains your sources.
938
939 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
940 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
941 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
942
943 * Interesting infernals change
944
945 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
946 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
947 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
948 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
949
950 * Bug fixes (of course!)
951
952 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
953 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
954 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
955
956 See the ChangeLog for details.
957
958 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
959
960 * New machines supported (host and target)
961
962 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
963
964 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
965
966 * New malloc package
967
968 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
969 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
970 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
971 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
972 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
973 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
974
975 * info proc
976
977 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
978 'help info proc' for details.
979
980 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
981
982 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
983 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
984 possible.
985
986 * File name changes for MS-DOS
987
988 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
989 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
990 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
991 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
992 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
993 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
994
995 * Cross byte order fixes
996
997 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
998 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
999
1000 * New -mapped and -readnow options
1001
1002 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
1003 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
1004 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
1005 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
1006 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
1007 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
1008 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
1009 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
1010 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
1011 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
1012
1013 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
1014 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
1015 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
1016 slower, but makes future operations faster.
1017
1018 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
1019 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
1020 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
1021 use is:
1022
1023 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
1024
1025 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
1026 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
1027 shared across multiple host platforms.
1028
1029 * longjmp() handling
1030
1031 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
1032 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
1033 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
1034 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
1035
1036 * Solaris 2.0
1037
1038 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
1039 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
1040 reading symbols.
1041
1042 * Bug fixes
1043
1044 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
1045 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
1046 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
1047
1048 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
1049
1050 * New machines supported (host and target)
1051
1052 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
1053 (except core files)
1054 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
1055 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
1056
1057 * New machines supported (target)
1058
1059 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1060
1061 * C++ support
1062
1063 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
1064 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
1065 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
1066
1067 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
1068 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
1069 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
1070 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
1071 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
1072 released.
1073
1074 * New features for SVR4
1075
1076 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
1077 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
1078 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
1079
1080 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
1081 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
1082 it prints the address mappings of the process.
1083
1084 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
1085 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
1086
1087 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
1088
1089 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
1090 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
1091 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
1092 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
1093 same code linked statically.
1094
1095 * New Getopt
1096
1097 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
1098 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
1099 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
1100 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
1101 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
1102 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
1103
1104 * Bugs fixed
1105
1106 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
1107 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
1108 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
1109
1110
1111 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
1112
1113 * New machines supported (host and target)
1114
1115 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
1116 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
1117 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
1118
1119 * Almost SCO Unix support
1120
1121 We had hoped to support:
1122 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
1123 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
1124 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
1125 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
1126
1127 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
1128
1129 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
1130 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
1131 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
1132 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
1133 reqired (if any).
1134
1135 * New Readline
1136
1137 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
1138 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
1139 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
1140
1141 * Bugs fixed
1142
1143 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
1144 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
1145 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
1146
1147 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
1148
1149 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
1150 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
1151 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
1152
1153 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
1154 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
1155 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
1156 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
1157 version 2.
1158
1159 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
1160 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
1161 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
1162 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
1163 situation somewhat.
1164
1165 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
1166 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
1167 methods.
1168
1169 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
1170 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
1171 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
1172
1173
1174 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
1175
1176 * Improved configuration
1177
1178 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
1179 Porting BFD is simpler.
1180
1181 * Stepping improved
1182
1183 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
1184 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
1185 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
1186 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
1187
1188 * Bug fixing
1189
1190 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
1191
1192 * New host supported (not target)
1193
1194 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
1195
1196
1197 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
1198
1199 * Multiple source language support
1200
1201 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
1202 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
1203 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
1204 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
1205 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
1206 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
1207
1208 * GDB and Modula-2
1209
1210 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
1211 currently under development at the State University of New York at
1212 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
1213 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
1214
1215 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
1216 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
1217 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
1218
1219 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
1220 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
1221
1222 * set write on/off
1223
1224 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
1225 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
1226 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
1227 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
1228 effect immediately.
1229
1230 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
1231
1232 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
1233 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
1234 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
1235 examining core files.
1236
1237 * set listsize
1238
1239 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
1240 The default is 10.
1241
1242 * New machines supported (host and target)
1243
1244 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
1245 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
1246 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
1247
1248 * New hosts supported (not targets)
1249
1250 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
1251
1252 * New targets supported (not hosts)
1253
1254 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1255 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1256 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
1257
1258 * New remote interfaces
1259
1260 AMD 29000 Adapt
1261 AMD 29000 Minimon
1262
1263
1264 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
1265
1266 * New Facilities
1267
1268 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
1269
1270 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
1271 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
1272 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
1273 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
1274 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
1275 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
1276 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
1277 stub on the target system.
1278
1279 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
1280
1281 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
1282 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
1283 object file types such as a.out and coff.
1284
1285 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
1286 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
1287
1288
1289 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
1290
1291 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
1292 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
1293
1294 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
1295 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
1296 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
1297
1298 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
1299 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
1300 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
1301 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
1302
1303 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
1304 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
1305 it is already running. Default is ON.
1306
1307 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
1308 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
1309 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
1310 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
1311 Default is ON.
1312
1313 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
1314 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
1315 or the value of the environment variable
1316 GDBHISTFILE.
1317
1318 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
1319 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
1320 HISTSIZE.
1321
1322 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
1323 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
1324 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
1325
1326 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
1327 history expansion will be performed on
1328 command line input. The default is OFF.
1329
1330 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
1331 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
1332 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
1333
1334 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
1335 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
1336 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
1337 variable TERM.
1338
1339 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
1340 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
1341 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
1342 variable TERM.
1343
1344 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
1345 ``set width'' instead.
1346
1347 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
1348 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
1349 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
1350 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
1351
1352 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
1353 is OFF.
1354
1355 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
1356 "raw" form if off.
1357
1358 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
1359 like instructions.
1360
1361 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
1362
1363
1364 * Support for Epoch Environment.
1365
1366 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
1367 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
1368 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
1369 window.
1370
1371
1372 * Support for Shared Libraries
1373
1374 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
1375 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
1376 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
1377 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
1378 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
1379 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
1380 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
1381 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
1382
1383 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
1384 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
1385 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
1386
1387 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
1388
1389
1390 * Watchpoints
1391
1392 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
1393 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
1394 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
1395 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
1396 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
1397 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
1398
1399 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
1400
1401 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
1402
1403 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
1404 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
1405 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
1406
1407
1408 * C++ multiple inheritance
1409
1410 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
1411 for C++ programs.
1412
1413 * C++ exception handling
1414
1415 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
1416 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
1417 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
1418 handler's context).
1419
1420 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
1421 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
1422 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
1423
1424 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
1425 current stack frame.
1426
1427
1428 * Minor command changes
1429
1430 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
1431 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
1432 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
1433
1434 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
1435 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
1436 frames without printing.
1437
1438 * New directory command
1439
1440 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
1441 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
1442 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
1443 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
1444 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
1445
1446 * Configuring GDB for compilation
1447
1448 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
1449 for more details.
1450
1451 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
1452 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
1453 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
1454 where the program that you are debugging will run.
This page took 0.084372 seconds and 4 git commands to generate.