What has changed since GDB-3.5?
(Organized release by release)
+*** Changes in GDB-4.6:
+
+ * Better support for C++ function names
+
+GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
+names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
+(using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
+single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
+Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
+
+GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
+the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
+You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
+lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
+for the list of formats.
+
+ * G++ symbol mangling problem
+
+Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
+C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
+directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
+can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
+usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
+about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
+this problem.)
+
+ * New 'maintenance' command
+
+All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
+the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
+can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
+
+ dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
+ info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
+ printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
+ printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
+ printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
+ printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
+
+The following commands are new:
+
+ maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
+ demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
+ maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
+
+ * Change to .gdbinit file processing
+
+We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
+(e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
+be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
+read after argv processing.
+
+ * New hosts supported
+
+Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
+
+Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
+
+We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
+is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
+for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
+masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
+fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
+It costs extra.
+
+ * New targets supported
+
+Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
+
+ * More smarts about finding #include files
+
+GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
+all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
+greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
+especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
+the one that contains your sources.
+
+We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
+breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
+try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
+
+ * Interesting infernals change
+
+GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
+section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
+target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
+stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
+
+ * Bug fixes (of course!)
+
+There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
+ mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
+ i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
+
+See the ChangeLog for details.
+
+*** Changes in GDB-4.5:
+
+ * New machines supported (host and target)
+
+IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
+
+SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
+
+ * New malloc package
+
+GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
+Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
+capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
+This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
+pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
+more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
+
+ * info proc
+
+The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
+'help info proc' for details.
+
+ * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
+
+The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
+Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
+possible.
+
+ * File name changes for MS-DOS
+
+Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
+support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
+conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
+environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
+that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
+in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
+
+ * Cross byte order fixes
+
+Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
+targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
+
+ * New -mapped and -readnow options
+
+If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
+system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
+`symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
+program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
+called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
+Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
+and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
+the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
+option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
+starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
+
+You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
+the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
+information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
+slower, but makes future operations faster.
+
+The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
+build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
+A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
+use is:
+
+ gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
+
+The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
+It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
+shared across multiple host platforms.
+
+ * longjmp() handling
+
+GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
+siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
+all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
+platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
+
+ * Solaris 2.0
+
+Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
+this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
+reading symbols.
+
+ * Bug fixes
+
+As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
+People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
+crashes and trashed symbol tables.
+
*** Changes in GDB-4.4:
* New machines supported (host and target)
SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
(except core files)
+BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
+Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
* New machines supported (target)
AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
- * Improved ELF and DWARF support
+ * C++ support
-GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
-debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
-is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
-send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
-reqired (if any).
+GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
+The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
+per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
- * New Readline
+GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
+`ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
+extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
+good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
+will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
+released.
-GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
-is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
-required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
+ * New features for SVR4
+
+GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
+shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
+only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
+
+The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
+on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
+it prints the address mappings of the process.
+
+If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
+bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
+
+ * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
+
+Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
+now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
+skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
+make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
+same code linked statically.
+
+ * New Getopt
+
+GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
+version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
+continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
+Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
+added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
+future by other options that begin with the same letter.
* Bugs fixed
-The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
-Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
+The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
+Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
- * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
-
-blah blah blah.....................................
*** Changes in GDB-4.3:
GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
-Host is the machine where gdb will run; targ is the machine
+Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
where the program that you are debugging will run.
projects / deliverable / binutils-gdb.git / blobdiff