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