* d10v-dis.c: Fix formatting.
[deliverable/binutils-gdb.git] / gdb / NEWS
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1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
3
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4*** Changes since GDB 5.0:
5
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6* "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
7
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8* The MI enabled.
9
10The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
11revised and enabled.
12
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13* New native configurations
14
15Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
16x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
2aa830e4 17MIPS Linux mips*-*-linux*
139760b7 18
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19* New targets
20
def90278 21Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
24be5c34 22CRIS cris-axis
def90278 23
17e78a56 24* OBSOLETE configurations and files
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25
26x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
9b9c068d 27Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
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28Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
29 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
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30TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
31WDC 65816 w65-*-*
4a1968f4 32Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
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33PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
34PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
35PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
24f89b68 36SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
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37Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
38ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
d036b4d9 39Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
bf64bfd6 40
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41stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
42kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
43
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44Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
45been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
46configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
47permanently REMOVED.
48
a196c81c 49* REMOVED configurations and files
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50
51Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
52Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
53Pyramid pyramid-*-*
54ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
55Tahoe tahoe-*-*
a196c81c 56ser-ocd.c *-*-*
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57
58* Other news:
59
60* All MIPS configurations are multi-arched.
61
62Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
63
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64* GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
65
66The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
67``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
68contents of this file.
69
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70* gdba.el deleted
71
72GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
139760b7 73
9debab2f 74*** Changes in GDB 5.0:
7a292a7a 75
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76* Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
77
78Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
79programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
80displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
81greater level of detail.
82
83* Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
84
85It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
86bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
87on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
88written.
89
90* Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
91
92The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
93necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
94machines ``out of the box''.
95
96The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
97possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
98signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
99would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
100interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
101
102It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
103standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
104even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
105and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
106terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
107
108The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
109enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
110also works.
111
112DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
113GDB.
114
115It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
116directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
117times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
118breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
119
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120* New native configurations
121
122ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
afc05dd4 123PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
ed9a39eb 124
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125* New targets
126
96baa820 127Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
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128x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
129PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
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130TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
131
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132* OBSOLETE configurations
133
134Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
135Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
9846de1b 136Pyramid pyramid-*-*
ed9a39eb 137ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
104c1213 138Tahoe tahoe-*-*
7a292a7a 139
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140Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
141but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
142these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
143be permanently REMOVED.
144
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145* Gould support removed
146
147Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
148
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149* New features for SVR4
150
151On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
152without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
153load symbols from the running process's executable file.
154
155* Many C++ enhancements
156
157C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
158in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
159
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160* Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
161
162A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
163sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
164with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
165``|<program> <args>'' vis:
166
167 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
168 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
169
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170* MIPS 64 remote protocol
171
172A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
173expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
174instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
175
176The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
177added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
178
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179* ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
180
181The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
182``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
183include ``set remote P-packet''.
184
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185* Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
186
187The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
188accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
189``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
190
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191* ``apropos'' command added.
192
193The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
194documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
195try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
196
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197* New MI interface
198
199A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
200interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
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201process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
202"GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
203enabled by configuring with:
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204
205 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
206
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207*** Changes in GDB-4.18:
208
209* New native configurations
210
211HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
212HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
213M68K Linux m68*-*-linux*
214
215* New targets
216
217Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
218Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
219Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
220
221* OBSOLETE configurations
222
223Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
224
225Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
226but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
227these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
228be permanently REMOVED.
229
230* ANSI/ISO C
231
232As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
233buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
234containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
235use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
236available. If this is not true, please report the affected
237configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
238information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
239already.
240
241* Readline 2.2
242
243GDB now uses readline 2.2.
244
245* set extension-language
246
247You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
248languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
249you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
250 set extension-language .c c++
251The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
252and their associated languages.
253
254* Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
255
256When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
257you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
258PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
259
260 set processor NAME
261
262sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
263following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
264
265 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
266 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
267 403 IBM PowerPC 403
268 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
269 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
270 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
271 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
272 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
273 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
274 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
275 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
276
277At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
278special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
279registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
280only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
281
282* HP-UX support
283
284Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
285more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
286library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
287support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
288for xdb and dbx commands.
289
290* Catchpoints
291
292HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
293generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
294to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
295
296This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
297argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
298output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
299
300* Debugging across forks
301
302On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
303in the inferior.
304
305* TUI
306
307HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
308it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
309configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
310
311* GDB remote protocol additions
312
313A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
314Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
315fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
316allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
317
318For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
319full 64-bit address. The command
320
321 set remoteaddresssize 32
322
323can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
324the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
325will be discarded.
326
327In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
328command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
329
330 maint packet heythere
331
332sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
333disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
334time.
335
336The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
337target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
338downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
339
340* Tracing can collect general expressions
341
342You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
343further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
344doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
345
346* mask-address variable for Mips
347
348For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
349a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
350of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
351
352* Higher serial baud rates
353
354GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
355230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
356to achieve all of these rates.)
357
358* i960 simulator
359
360The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
361builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
362
363
364*** Changes in GDB-4.17:
365
366* New native configurations
367
368Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
369Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
370Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
371PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
372PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
373Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
374Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
375
376* New targets
377
378Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
379Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
380Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
381Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
382MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
383MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
384MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
385Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
386Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
387Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
388NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
389
390* New debugging protocols
391
392ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
393M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
394DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
395PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
396PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
397Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
398
399* DWARF 2
400
401All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
402format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
403information.
404
405* Java frontend
406
407GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
408only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
409
410* solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
411
412For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
413loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
414locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
415
416* Live range splitting
417
418GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
419range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
420more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
421
422* Hurd support
423
424GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
425updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
426
427* ARM Thumb support
428
429GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
430instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
431instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
432accordingly.
433
434* MIPS16 support
435
436GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
437instruction set.
438
439* Overlay support
440
441GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
442linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
443will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
444control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
445additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
446in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
447
448* info symbol
449
450The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
451the symbol at the specified address.
452
453* Trace support
454
455The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
456asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
457extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
458includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
459file tracepoint.c for more details.
460
461* MIPS simulator
462
463Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
464by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
465of most MIPS variants.
466
467* Sparc simulator
468
469Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
470by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
471Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
472
473* set architecture
474
475For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
476basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
477architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
478the possible architectures.
479
480*** Changes in GDB-4.16:
481
482* New native configurations
483
484Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
485M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
486PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
487PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
488PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
489RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
490
491* New targets
492
493ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
494I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
495MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
496MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
497PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
498Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
499Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
500
501* PowerPC simulator
502
503The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
504contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
505PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
506basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
507performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
508
509* Solaris 2.5
510
511GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
512
513* Windows 95/NT native
514
515GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
516To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
517which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
518Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
519ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
520
521* dont-repeat command
522
523If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
524command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
525useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
526extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
527
528* Send break instead of ^C
529
530The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
531rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
532GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
533
534* Remote protocol timeout
535
536The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
537that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
538to read from the target. The default value is 2.
539
540* Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
541
542By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
543loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
544stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
545when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
546in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
547
548Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
549/usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
550automatically on hpux10.
551
552* Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
553
554Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
555
556* Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
557
558When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
559may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
560the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
561every character. The default value is 1050.
562
563* Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
564
565If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
566a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
567replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
568details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
569remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
570to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
571
572* Speedups for remote debugging
573
574GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
575the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
576and more efficient S-record downloading.
577
578* Memory use reductions and statistics collection
579
580GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
581Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
582
583*** Changes in GDB-4.15:
584
585* Psymtabs for XCOFF
586
587The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
588can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
589
590* Remote targets use caching
591
592Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
593remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
594it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
595debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
596off' turns the the data cache off.
597
598* Remote targets may have threads
599
600The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
601in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
602gdb/remote.c for details.
603
604* NetROM support
605
606If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
607support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
608acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
609write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
610support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
611another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
612sequence is something like
613
614 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
615 load <prog>
616 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
617
618* Macintosh host
619
620GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
621may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
622it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
623available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
624device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
625directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
626scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
627mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
628
629* Autoconf
630
631GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
632but does simplify configuration and building.
633
634* hpux10
635
636GDB now supports hpux10.
637
638*** Changes in GDB-4.14:
639
640* New native configurations
641
642x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
643x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
644NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
645Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
646
647* New targets
648
649A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
650HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
651CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
652PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
653WDC 65816 w65-*-*
654
655* Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
656
657GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
658possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
659filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
660the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
661if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
662
663* Arguments to user-defined commands
664
665User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
666Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
667trivial example:
668define adder
669 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
670
671To execute the command use:
672adder 1 2 3
673
674Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
675Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
676use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
677
678* New `if' and `while' commands
679
680This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
681commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
682expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
683execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
684terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
685`else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
686if the expression is zero.
687
688* Fortran source language mode
689
690GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
691Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
692variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
693with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
694Fortran compilers.
695
696* Better HPUX support
697
698Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
699running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
700processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
701for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
702that behavior do the following before running the program:
703
704 adb -w a.out
705 __dld_flags?W 0x5
706 control-d
707
708This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
709To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
710
711 adb -w a.out
712 __dld_flags?W 0x4
713 control-d
714
715You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
716the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
717external linkage.
718
719GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
720HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
721
722* Target byte order now dynamically selectable
723
724You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
725commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
726current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
727"set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
728associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
729configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
730
731* New DOS host serial code
732
733This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
734no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
735a PC's serial port.
736
737*** Changes in GDB-4.13:
738
739* New "complete" command
740
741This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
742were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
743
744* Trailing space optional in prompt
745
746"set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
747allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
748
749* Breakpoint hit counts
750
751"info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
752has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
753can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
754to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
755less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
756that breakpoint.
757
758* Ability to stop printing at NULL character
759
760"set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
761an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
762arrays actually contain only short strings.
763
764* Shared library breakpoints
765
766In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
767breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
768
769* Hardware watchpoints
770
771There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
772targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
773
774Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under Linux.
775
776* Annotations
777
778Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
779and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
780
781* Improved Irix 5 support
782
783GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
784
785* Improved HPPA support
786
787GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
788
789* New native configurations
790
791Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
792HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
793Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
794RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
795
796* New targets
797
798OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
799MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
800Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
801
802* Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
803
804There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
805This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
806
807* Fixes
808
809As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
810and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
811
812*** Changes in GDB-4.12:
813
814* Irix 5 is now supported
815
816* HPPA support
817
818GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
819to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
820GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
821of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
822can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
823
824
825*** Changes in GDB-4.11:
826
827* User visible changes:
828
829* Remote Debugging
830
831The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
832target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
833debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
834integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
835debugging info for the mips target).
836
837* DEC Alpha native support
838
839GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
840debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
841work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
842Alpha-specific notes.
843
844* Preliminary thread implementation
845
846GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
847
848* LynxOS native and target support for 386
849
850This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
851to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
852for details).
853
854* Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
855
856This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
857mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
858call methods, ...etc.
859
860*** Changes in GDB-4.10:
861
862 * User visible changes:
863
864Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
865supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
866other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
867somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
868
869Filename completion now works.
870
871When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
872arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
873addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
874
875All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
876vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
877should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
878your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
879to be on the far side of a thin network line.
880
881 * DEC alpha support
882
883This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
884cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
885
886
887*** Changes in GDB-4.9:
888
889 * Testsuite
890
891This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
892The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
893via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
894
895 * C++ demangling
896
897'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
898emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
899Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
900disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
901use gdb with AT&T cfront.
902
903 * Simulators
904
905GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
906So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
907Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
908
909 * New targets supported
910
911H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
912H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
913SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
914Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
915IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
916
917Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
918version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
919GO32 memory extender.
920
921 * New remote protocols
922
923MIPS remote debugging protocol.
924
925 * New source languages supported
926
927This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
928used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
929into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
930
931
932*** Changes in GDB-4.8:
933
934 * HP Precision Architecture supported
935
936GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
937version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
938University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
939compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
940format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
941(as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
942
943Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
944
945 * Faster and better demangling
946
947We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
948demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
949character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
950only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
951This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
952increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
953symbol lookups.
954
955`Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
956from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
957compiler does not actually implement.
958
959 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
960
961In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
962inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
963recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
964very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
965The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
966circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
967fix.
968
969The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
970release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
971
972 * Improved configure script
973
974The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
975you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
976host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
977done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
978
979We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
980version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
981`--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
982The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
983only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
984We hope to make this the default in a future release.
985
986 * Documentation improvements
987
988There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
989produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
990before submitting changes.
991
992The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
993M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
994`info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
995you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
996a future texinfo-X.Y release.
997
998*NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
999We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
1000been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
1001or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
1002`texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
1003around this problem.
1004
1005 * New features
1006
1007GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
1008the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
1009`print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
1010the target program.
1011
1012The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
1013how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
1014
1015 * New native hosts supported
1016
1017HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
1018386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
1019
1020 * New targets supported
1021
1022AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
1023
1024 * New file formats supported
1025
1026BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
1027HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
1028
1029 * Major bug fixes
1030
1031Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
1032
1033We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
1034printf_filtered("%s") problems.
1035
1036We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
1037for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
1038release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
1039
1040You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
1041will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
1042
1043We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
1044for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
1045especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
1046libraries.
1047
1048The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
1049information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
1050command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
1051any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
1052when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
1053
1054 * Internal improvements
1055
1056GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
1057debugging of multiple languages in the future.
1058
1059GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
1060Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
1061symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
1062contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
1063shared code that handles any of them.
1064
1065 * New command line options
1066
1067We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
1068
1069 * Mmalloc licensing
1070
1071The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
1072General Public License.
1073
1074*** Changes in GDB-4.7:
1075
1076 * Host/native/target split
1077
1078GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
1079hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
1080target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
1081local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
1082ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
1083
1084The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
1085GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
1086is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
1087code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
1088any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
1089built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
1090handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
1091
1092GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
1093It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
1094plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
1095
1096 * New hosts supported
1097
1098HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
1099386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1100386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
1101
1102 * New targets supported
1103
1104Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
110568030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
1106
1107 * New native hosts supported
1108
1109386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1110 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
1111386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
1112
1113 * New file formats supported
1114
1115BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
1116supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
1117format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
1118
1119 * New commands
1120
1121`show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
1122`show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
1123These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
1124
1125`info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
1126
1127You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
1128scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
1129prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
1130executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
1131
1132 * C++ improvements
1133
1134We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
1135info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
1136symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
1137
1138Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
1139
1140 * Major bug fixes
1141
1142The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
1143fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
1144by the compiler.
1145
1146We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
1147support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
1148
1149John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
1150slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
1151that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
1152purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
1153the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
1154mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
1155
1156Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
1157about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
1158completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
1159we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
1160
1161 * AMD 29k support
1162
1163A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
1164specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
1165calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
1166usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
1167in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
1168
1169We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
1170Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
1171of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
1172resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
1173
1174 * Remote interfaces
1175
1176We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
1177with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
1178message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
1179This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
1180needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
1181breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
1182each instruction being stepped through.
1183
1184The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
1185registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
1186
1187There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
1188find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
1189Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
1190processor with a serial port.
1191
1192 * Configuration
1193
1194Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
1195`table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
1196supported, and what files each one uses.
1197
1198 * Library changes
1199
1200There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
1201disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
1202Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
1203disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
1204
1205The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
1206Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
1207can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
1208grants all the rights from the General Public License.
1209
1210 * Documentation
1211
1212The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
1213reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
1214as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
1215encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
1216system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
1217bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
1218
1219And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
1220
1221
1222*** Changes in GDB-4.6:
1223
1224 * Better support for C++ function names
1225
1226GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
1227names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
1228(using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
1229single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
1230Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
1231
1232GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
1233the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
1234You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
1235lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
1236for the list of formats.
1237
1238 * G++ symbol mangling problem
1239
1240Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
1241C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
1242directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
1243can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
1244usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
1245about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
1246this problem.)
1247
1248 * New 'maintenance' command
1249
1250All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
1251the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
1252can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
1253
1254 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
1255 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
1256 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
1257 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
1258 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
1259 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
1260
1261The following commands are new:
1262
1263 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
1264 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
1265 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
1266
1267 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
1268
1269We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
1270(e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
1271be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
1272read after argv processing.
1273
1274 * New hosts supported
1275
1276Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
1277
1278Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
1279
1280We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
1281is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
1282for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
1283masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
1284fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
1285It costs extra.
1286
1287 * New targets supported
1288
1289Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1290
1291 * More smarts about finding #include files
1292
1293GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
1294all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
1295greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
1296especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
1297the one that contains your sources.
1298
1299We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
1300breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
1301try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
1302
1303 * Interesting infernals change
1304
1305GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
1306section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
1307target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
1308stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
1309
1310 * Bug fixes (of course!)
1311
1312There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
1313 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
1314 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
1315
1316See the ChangeLog for details.
1317
1318*** Changes in GDB-4.5:
1319
1320 * New machines supported (host and target)
1321
1322IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
1323
1324SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
1325
1326 * New malloc package
1327
1328GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
1329Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
1330capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
1331This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
1332pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
1333more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
1334
1335 * info proc
1336
1337The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
1338'help info proc' for details.
1339
1340 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
1341
1342The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
1343Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
1344possible.
1345
1346 * File name changes for MS-DOS
1347
1348Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
1349support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
1350conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
1351environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
1352that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
1353in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
1354
1355 * Cross byte order fixes
1356
1357Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
1358targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
1359
1360 * New -mapped and -readnow options
1361
1362If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
1363system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
1364`symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
1365program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
1366called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
1367Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
1368and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
1369the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
1370option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
1371starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
1372
1373You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
1374the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
1375information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
1376slower, but makes future operations faster.
1377
1378The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
1379build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
1380A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
1381use is:
1382
1383 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
1384
1385The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
1386It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
1387shared across multiple host platforms.
1388
1389 * longjmp() handling
1390
1391GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
1392siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
1393all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
1394platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
1395
1396 * Solaris 2.0
1397
1398Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
1399this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
1400reading symbols.
1401
1402 * Bug fixes
1403
1404As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
1405People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
1406crashes and trashed symbol tables.
1407
1408*** Changes in GDB-4.4:
1409
1410 * New machines supported (host and target)
1411
1412SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
1413 (except core files)
1414BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
1415Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
1416
1417 * New machines supported (target)
1418
1419AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1420
1421 * C++ support
1422
1423GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
1424The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
1425per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
1426
1427GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
1428`ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
1429extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
1430good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
1431will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
1432released.
1433
1434 * New features for SVR4
1435
1436GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
1437shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
1438only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
1439
1440The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
1441on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
1442it prints the address mappings of the process.
1443
1444If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
1445bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
1446
1447 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
1448
1449Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
1450now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
1451skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
1452make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
1453same code linked statically.
1454
1455 * New Getopt
1456
1457GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
1458version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
1459continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
1460Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
1461added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
1462future by other options that begin with the same letter.
1463
1464 * Bugs fixed
1465
1466The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
1467Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
1468See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
1469
1470
1471*** Changes in GDB-4.3:
1472
1473 * New machines supported (host and target)
1474
1475Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
1476NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
1477Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
1478
1479 * Almost SCO Unix support
1480
1481We had hoped to support:
1482SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
1483(except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
1484that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
1485about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
1486
1487 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
1488
1489GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
1490debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
1491is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
1492send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
1493reqired (if any).
1494
1495 * New Readline
1496
1497GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
1498is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
1499required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
1500
1501 * Bugs fixed
1502
1503The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
1504Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
1505See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
1506
1507 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
1508
1509GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
1510supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
1511symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
1512
1513Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
1514mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
1515debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
1516mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
1517version 2.
1518
1519Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
1520really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
1521line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
1522variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
1523situation somewhat.
1524
1525When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
1526However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
1527methods.
1528
1529We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
1530DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
1531encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
1532
1533
1534*** Changes in GDB-4.2:
1535
1536 * Improved configuration
1537
1538Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
1539Porting BFD is simpler.
1540
1541 * Stepping improved
1542
1543The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
1544of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
1545in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
1546function that has debugging information is called within the line.
1547
1548 * Bug fixing
1549
1550Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
1551
1552 * New host supported (not target)
1553
1554Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
1555
1556
1557*** Changes in GDB-4.1:
1558
1559 * Multiple source language support
1560
1561GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
1562It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
1563and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
1564language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
1565You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
1566`set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
1567
1568 * GDB and Modula-2
1569
1570GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
1571currently under development at the State University of New York at
1572Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
1573continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
1574
1575Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
1576debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
1577symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
1578
1579There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
1580in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
1581
1582 * set write on/off
1583
1584GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
1585a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
1586the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
1587by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
1588effect immediately.
1589
1590 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
1591
1592When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
1593shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
1594The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
1595examining core files.
1596
1597 * set listsize
1598
1599You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
1600The default is 10.
1601
1602 * New machines supported (host and target)
1603
1604SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
1605Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
1606Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
1607
1608 * New hosts supported (not targets)
1609
1610IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
1611
1612 * New targets supported (not hosts)
1613
1614AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1615AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1616Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
1617
1618 * New remote interfaces
1619
1620AMD 29000 Adapt
1621AMD 29000 Minimon
1622
1623
1624*** Changes in GDB-4.0:
1625
1626 * New Facilities
1627
1628Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
1629
1630Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
1631target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
1632is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
1633remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
1634remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
1635also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
1636using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
1637stub on the target system.
1638
1639New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
1640
1641GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
1642library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
1643object file types such as a.out and coff.
1644
1645There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
1646refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
1647
1648
1649 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
1650
1651All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
1652by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
1653
1654For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
1655``Show prompt'' produces the response:
1656Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
1657
1658What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
1659print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
1660will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
1661all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
1662
1663confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
1664 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
1665 it is already running. Default is ON.
1666
1667editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
1668 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
1669 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
1670 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
1671 Default is ON.
1672
1673history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
1674 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
1675 or the value of the environment variable
1676 GDBHISTFILE.
1677
1678history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
1679 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
1680 HISTSIZE.
1681
1682history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
1683 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
1684 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
1685
1686history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
1687 history expansion will be performed on
1688 command line input. The default is OFF.
1689
1690radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
1691 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
1692 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
1693
1694height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
1695 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
1696 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
1697 variable TERM.
1698
1699width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
1700 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
1701 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
1702 variable TERM.
1703
1704Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
1705``set width'' instead.
1706
1707print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
1708 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
1709 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
1710 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
1711
1712print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
1713 is OFF.
1714
1715print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
1716 "raw" form if off.
1717
1718print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
1719 like instructions.
1720
1721print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
1722
1723
1724 * Support for Epoch Environment.
1725
1726The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
1727new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
1728are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
1729window.
1730
1731
1732 * Support for Shared Libraries
1733
1734GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
1735Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
1736before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
1737happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
1738At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
1739from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
1740shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
1741It can be abbreviated ``share''.
1742
1743sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
1744 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
1745 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
1746
1747info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
1748
1749
1750 * Watchpoints
1751
1752A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
1753expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
1754tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
1755quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
1756problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
1757more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
1758
1759watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
1760
1761info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
1762
1763delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
1764disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
1765enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
1766
1767
1768 * C++ multiple inheritance
1769
1770When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
1771for C++ programs.
1772
1773 * C++ exception handling
1774
1775Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
1776ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
1777the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
1778handler's context).
1779
1780catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
1781 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
1782 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
1783
1784info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
1785 current stack frame.
1786
1787
1788 * Minor command changes
1789
1790The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
1791command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
1792is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
1793
1794The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
1795at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
1796frames without printing.
1797
1798 * New directory command
1799
1800'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
1801The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
1802about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
1803with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
1804find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
1805
1806 * Configuring GDB for compilation
1807
1808For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
1809for more details.
1810
1811GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
1812two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
1813Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
1814where the program that you are debugging will run.
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