* bug fix
[deliverable/binutils-gdb.git] / gdb / NEWS
CommitLineData
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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* New native configurations
9
10Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
11x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
12
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13* New targets
14
17e78a56 15* OBSOLETE configurations and files
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16
17x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
9b9c068d 18Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
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19Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
20 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
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21TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
22WDC 65816 w65-*-*
4a1968f4 23Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
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24PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
25PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
26PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
24f89b68 27SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
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28Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
29ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
bf64bfd6 30
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31stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
32kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
33
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34Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
35been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
36configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
37permanently REMOVED.
38
39* REMOVED configurations
40
41Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
42Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
43Pyramid pyramid-*-*
44ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
45Tahoe tahoe-*-*
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46
47* Other news:
48
49* All MIPS configurations are multi-arched.
50
51Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
52
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53* gdba.el deleted
54
55GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
139760b7 56
9debab2f 57*** Changes in GDB 5.0:
7a292a7a 58
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59* Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
60
61Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
62programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
63displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
64greater level of detail.
65
66* Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
67
68It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
69bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
70on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
71written.
72
73* Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
74
75The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
76necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
77machines ``out of the box''.
78
79The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
80possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
81signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
82would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
83interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
84
85It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
86standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
87even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
88and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
89terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
90
91The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
92enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
93also works.
94
95DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
96GDB.
97
98It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
99directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
100times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
101breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
102
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103* New native configurations
104
105ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
afc05dd4 106PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
ed9a39eb 107
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108* New targets
109
96baa820 110Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
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111x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
112PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
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113TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
114
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115* OBSOLETE configurations
116
117Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
118Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
9846de1b 119Pyramid pyramid-*-*
ed9a39eb 120ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
104c1213 121Tahoe tahoe-*-*
7a292a7a 122
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123Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
124but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
125these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
126be permanently REMOVED.
127
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128* Gould support removed
129
130Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
131
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132* New features for SVR4
133
134On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
135without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
136load symbols from the running process's executable file.
137
138* Many C++ enhancements
139
140C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
141in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
142
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143* Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
144
145A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
146sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
147with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
148``|<program> <args>'' vis:
149
150 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
151 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
152
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153* MIPS 64 remote protocol
154
155A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
156expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
157instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
158
159The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
160added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
161
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162* ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
163
164The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
165``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
166include ``set remote P-packet''.
167
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168* Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
169
170The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
171accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
172``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
173
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174* ``apropos'' command added.
175
176The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
177documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
178try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
179
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180* New MI interface
181
182A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
183interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
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184process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
185"GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
186enabled by configuring with:
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187
188 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
189
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190*** Changes in GDB-4.18:
191
192* New native configurations
193
194HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
195HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
196M68K Linux m68*-*-linux*
197
198* New targets
199
200Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
201Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
202Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
203
204* OBSOLETE configurations
205
206Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
207
208Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
209but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
210these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
211be permanently REMOVED.
212
213* ANSI/ISO C
214
215As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
216buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
217containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
218use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
219available. If this is not true, please report the affected
220configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
221information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
222already.
223
224* Readline 2.2
225
226GDB now uses readline 2.2.
227
228* set extension-language
229
230You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
231languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
232you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
233 set extension-language .c c++
234The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
235and their associated languages.
236
237* Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
238
239When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
240you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
241PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
242
243 set processor NAME
244
245sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
246following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
247
248 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
249 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
250 403 IBM PowerPC 403
251 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
252 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
253 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
254 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
255 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
256 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
257 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
258 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
259
260At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
261special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
262registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
263only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
264
265* HP-UX support
266
267Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
268more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
269library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
270support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
271for xdb and dbx commands.
272
273* Catchpoints
274
275HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
276generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
277to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
278
279This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
280argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
281output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
282
283* Debugging across forks
284
285On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
286in the inferior.
287
288* TUI
289
290HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
291it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
292configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
293
294* GDB remote protocol additions
295
296A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
297Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
298fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
299allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
300
301For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
302full 64-bit address. The command
303
304 set remoteaddresssize 32
305
306can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
307the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
308will be discarded.
309
310In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
311command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
312
313 maint packet heythere
314
315sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
316disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
317time.
318
319The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
320target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
321downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
322
323* Tracing can collect general expressions
324
325You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
326further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
327doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
328
329* mask-address variable for Mips
330
331For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
332a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
333of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
334
335* Higher serial baud rates
336
337GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
338230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
339to achieve all of these rates.)
340
341* i960 simulator
342
343The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
344builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
345
346
347*** Changes in GDB-4.17:
348
349* New native configurations
350
351Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
352Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
353Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
354PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
355PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
356Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
357Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
358
359* New targets
360
361Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
362Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
363Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
364Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
365MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
366MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
367MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
368Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
369Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
370Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
371NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
372
373* New debugging protocols
374
375ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
376M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
377DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
378PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
379PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
380Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
381
382* DWARF 2
383
384All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
385format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
386information.
387
388* Java frontend
389
390GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
391only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
392
393* solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
394
395For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
396loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
397locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
398
399* Live range splitting
400
401GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
402range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
403more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
404
405* Hurd support
406
407GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
408updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
409
410* ARM Thumb support
411
412GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
413instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
414instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
415accordingly.
416
417* MIPS16 support
418
419GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
420instruction set.
421
422* Overlay support
423
424GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
425linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
426will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
427control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
428additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
429in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
430
431* info symbol
432
433The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
434the symbol at the specified address.
435
436* Trace support
437
438The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
439asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
440extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
441includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
442file tracepoint.c for more details.
443
444* MIPS simulator
445
446Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
447by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
448of most MIPS variants.
449
450* Sparc simulator
451
452Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
453by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
454Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
455
456* set architecture
457
458For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
459basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
460architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
461the possible architectures.
462
463*** Changes in GDB-4.16:
464
465* New native configurations
466
467Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
468M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
469PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
470PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
471PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
472RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
473
474* New targets
475
476ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
477I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
478MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
479MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
480PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
481Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
482Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
483
484* PowerPC simulator
485
486The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
487contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
488PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
489basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
490performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
491
492* Solaris 2.5
493
494GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
495
496* Windows 95/NT native
497
498GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
499To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
500which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
501Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
502ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
503
504* dont-repeat command
505
506If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
507command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
508useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
509extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
510
511* Send break instead of ^C
512
513The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
514rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
515GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
516
517* Remote protocol timeout
518
519The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
520that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
521to read from the target. The default value is 2.
522
523* Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
524
525By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
526loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
527stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
528when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
529in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
530
531Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
532/usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
533automatically on hpux10.
534
535* Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
536
537Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
538
539* Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
540
541When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
542may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
543the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
544every character. The default value is 1050.
545
546* Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
547
548If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
549a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
550replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
551details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
552remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
553to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
554
555* Speedups for remote debugging
556
557GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
558the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
559and more efficient S-record downloading.
560
561* Memory use reductions and statistics collection
562
563GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
564Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
565
566*** Changes in GDB-4.15:
567
568* Psymtabs for XCOFF
569
570The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
571can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
572
573* Remote targets use caching
574
575Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
576remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
577it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
578debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
579off' turns the the data cache off.
580
581* Remote targets may have threads
582
583The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
584in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
585gdb/remote.c for details.
586
587* NetROM support
588
589If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
590support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
591acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
592write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
593support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
594another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
595sequence is something like
596
597 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
598 load <prog>
599 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
600
601* Macintosh host
602
603GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
604may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
605it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
606available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
607device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
608directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
609scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
610mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
611
612* Autoconf
613
614GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
615but does simplify configuration and building.
616
617* hpux10
618
619GDB now supports hpux10.
620
621*** Changes in GDB-4.14:
622
623* New native configurations
624
625x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
626x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
627NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
628Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
629
630* New targets
631
632A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
633HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
634CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
635PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
636WDC 65816 w65-*-*
637
638* Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
639
640GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
641possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
642filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
643the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
644if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
645
646* Arguments to user-defined commands
647
648User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
649Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
650trivial example:
651define adder
652 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
653
654To execute the command use:
655adder 1 2 3
656
657Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
658Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
659use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
660
661* New `if' and `while' commands
662
663This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
664commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
665expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
666execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
667terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
668`else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
669if the expression is zero.
670
671* Fortran source language mode
672
673GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
674Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
675variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
676with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
677Fortran compilers.
678
679* Better HPUX support
680
681Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
682running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
683processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
684for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
685that behavior do the following before running the program:
686
687 adb -w a.out
688 __dld_flags?W 0x5
689 control-d
690
691This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
692To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
693
694 adb -w a.out
695 __dld_flags?W 0x4
696 control-d
697
698You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
699the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
700external linkage.
701
702GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
703HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
704
705* Target byte order now dynamically selectable
706
707You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
708commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
709current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
710"set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
711associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
712configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
713
714* New DOS host serial code
715
716This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
717no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
718a PC's serial port.
719
720*** Changes in GDB-4.13:
721
722* New "complete" command
723
724This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
725were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
726
727* Trailing space optional in prompt
728
729"set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
730allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
731
732* Breakpoint hit counts
733
734"info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
735has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
736can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
737to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
738less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
739that breakpoint.
740
741* Ability to stop printing at NULL character
742
743"set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
744an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
745arrays actually contain only short strings.
746
747* Shared library breakpoints
748
749In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
750breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
751
752* Hardware watchpoints
753
754There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
755targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
756
757Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under Linux.
758
759* Annotations
760
761Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
762and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
763
764* Improved Irix 5 support
765
766GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
767
768* Improved HPPA support
769
770GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
771
772* New native configurations
773
774Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
775HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
776Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
777RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
778
779* New targets
780
781OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
782MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
783Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
784
785* Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
786
787There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
788This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
789
790* Fixes
791
792As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
793and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
794
795*** Changes in GDB-4.12:
796
797* Irix 5 is now supported
798
799* HPPA support
800
801GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
802to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
803GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
804of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
805can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
806
807
808*** Changes in GDB-4.11:
809
810* User visible changes:
811
812* Remote Debugging
813
814The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
815target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
816debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
817integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
818debugging info for the mips target).
819
820* DEC Alpha native support
821
822GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
823debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
824work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
825Alpha-specific notes.
826
827* Preliminary thread implementation
828
829GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
830
831* LynxOS native and target support for 386
832
833This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
834to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
835for details).
836
837* Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
838
839This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
840mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
841call methods, ...etc.
842
843*** Changes in GDB-4.10:
844
845 * User visible changes:
846
847Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
848supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
849other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
850somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
851
852Filename completion now works.
853
854When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
855arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
856addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
857
858All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
859vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
860should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
861your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
862to be on the far side of a thin network line.
863
864 * DEC alpha support
865
866This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
867cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
868
869
870*** Changes in GDB-4.9:
871
872 * Testsuite
873
874This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
875The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
876via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
877
878 * C++ demangling
879
880'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
881emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
882Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
883disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
884use gdb with AT&T cfront.
885
886 * Simulators
887
888GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
889So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
890Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
891
892 * New targets supported
893
894H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
895H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
896SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
897Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
898IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
899
900Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
901version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
902GO32 memory extender.
903
904 * New remote protocols
905
906MIPS remote debugging protocol.
907
908 * New source languages supported
909
910This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
911used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
912into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
913
914
915*** Changes in GDB-4.8:
916
917 * HP Precision Architecture supported
918
919GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
920version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
921University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
922compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
923format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
924(as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
925
926Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
927
928 * Faster and better demangling
929
930We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
931demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
932character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
933only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
934This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
935increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
936symbol lookups.
937
938`Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
939from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
940compiler does not actually implement.
941
942 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
943
944In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
945inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
946recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
947very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
948The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
949circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
950fix.
951
952The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
953release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
954
955 * Improved configure script
956
957The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
958you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
959host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
960done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
961
962We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
963version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
964`--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
965The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
966only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
967We hope to make this the default in a future release.
968
969 * Documentation improvements
970
971There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
972produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
973before submitting changes.
974
975The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
976M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
977`info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
978you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
979a future texinfo-X.Y release.
980
981*NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
982We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
983been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
984or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
985`texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
986around this problem.
987
988 * New features
989
990GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
991the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
992`print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
993the target program.
994
995The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
996how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
997
998 * New native hosts supported
999
1000HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
1001386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
1002
1003 * New targets supported
1004
1005AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
1006
1007 * New file formats supported
1008
1009BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
1010HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
1011
1012 * Major bug fixes
1013
1014Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
1015
1016We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
1017printf_filtered("%s") problems.
1018
1019We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
1020for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
1021release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
1022
1023You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
1024will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
1025
1026We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
1027for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
1028especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
1029libraries.
1030
1031The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
1032information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
1033command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
1034any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
1035when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
1036
1037 * Internal improvements
1038
1039GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
1040debugging of multiple languages in the future.
1041
1042GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
1043Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
1044symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
1045contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
1046shared code that handles any of them.
1047
1048 * New command line options
1049
1050We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
1051
1052 * Mmalloc licensing
1053
1054The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
1055General Public License.
1056
1057*** Changes in GDB-4.7:
1058
1059 * Host/native/target split
1060
1061GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
1062hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
1063target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
1064local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
1065ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
1066
1067The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
1068GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
1069is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
1070code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
1071any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
1072built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
1073handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
1074
1075GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
1076It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
1077plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
1078
1079 * New hosts supported
1080
1081HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
1082386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1083386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
1084
1085 * New targets supported
1086
1087Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
108868030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
1089
1090 * New native hosts supported
1091
1092386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1093 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
1094386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
1095
1096 * New file formats supported
1097
1098BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
1099supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
1100format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
1101
1102 * New commands
1103
1104`show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
1105`show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
1106These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
1107
1108`info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
1109
1110You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
1111scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
1112prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
1113executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
1114
1115 * C++ improvements
1116
1117We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
1118info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
1119symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
1120
1121Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
1122
1123 * Major bug fixes
1124
1125The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
1126fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
1127by the compiler.
1128
1129We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
1130support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
1131
1132John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
1133slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
1134that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
1135purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
1136the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
1137mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
1138
1139Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
1140about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
1141completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
1142we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
1143
1144 * AMD 29k support
1145
1146A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
1147specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
1148calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
1149usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
1150in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
1151
1152We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
1153Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
1154of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
1155resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
1156
1157 * Remote interfaces
1158
1159We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
1160with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
1161message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
1162This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
1163needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
1164breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
1165each instruction being stepped through.
1166
1167The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
1168registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
1169
1170There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
1171find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
1172Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
1173processor with a serial port.
1174
1175 * Configuration
1176
1177Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
1178`table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
1179supported, and what files each one uses.
1180
1181 * Library changes
1182
1183There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
1184disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
1185Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
1186disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
1187
1188The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
1189Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
1190can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
1191grants all the rights from the General Public License.
1192
1193 * Documentation
1194
1195The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
1196reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
1197as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
1198encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
1199system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
1200bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
1201
1202And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
1203
1204
1205*** Changes in GDB-4.6:
1206
1207 * Better support for C++ function names
1208
1209GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
1210names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
1211(using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
1212single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
1213Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
1214
1215GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
1216the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
1217You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
1218lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
1219for the list of formats.
1220
1221 * G++ symbol mangling problem
1222
1223Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
1224C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
1225directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
1226can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
1227usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
1228about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
1229this problem.)
1230
1231 * New 'maintenance' command
1232
1233All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
1234the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
1235can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
1236
1237 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
1238 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
1239 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
1240 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
1241 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
1242 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
1243
1244The following commands are new:
1245
1246 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
1247 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
1248 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
1249
1250 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
1251
1252We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
1253(e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
1254be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
1255read after argv processing.
1256
1257 * New hosts supported
1258
1259Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
1260
1261Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
1262
1263We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
1264is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
1265for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
1266masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
1267fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
1268It costs extra.
1269
1270 * New targets supported
1271
1272Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1273
1274 * More smarts about finding #include files
1275
1276GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
1277all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
1278greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
1279especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
1280the one that contains your sources.
1281
1282We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
1283breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
1284try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
1285
1286 * Interesting infernals change
1287
1288GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
1289section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
1290target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
1291stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
1292
1293 * Bug fixes (of course!)
1294
1295There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
1296 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
1297 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
1298
1299See the ChangeLog for details.
1300
1301*** Changes in GDB-4.5:
1302
1303 * New machines supported (host and target)
1304
1305IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
1306
1307SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
1308
1309 * New malloc package
1310
1311GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
1312Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
1313capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
1314This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
1315pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
1316more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
1317
1318 * info proc
1319
1320The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
1321'help info proc' for details.
1322
1323 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
1324
1325The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
1326Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
1327possible.
1328
1329 * File name changes for MS-DOS
1330
1331Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
1332support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
1333conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
1334environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
1335that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
1336in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
1337
1338 * Cross byte order fixes
1339
1340Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
1341targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
1342
1343 * New -mapped and -readnow options
1344
1345If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
1346system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
1347`symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
1348program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
1349called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
1350Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
1351and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
1352the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
1353option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
1354starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
1355
1356You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
1357the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
1358information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
1359slower, but makes future operations faster.
1360
1361The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
1362build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
1363A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
1364use is:
1365
1366 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
1367
1368The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
1369It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
1370shared across multiple host platforms.
1371
1372 * longjmp() handling
1373
1374GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
1375siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
1376all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
1377platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
1378
1379 * Solaris 2.0
1380
1381Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
1382this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
1383reading symbols.
1384
1385 * Bug fixes
1386
1387As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
1388People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
1389crashes and trashed symbol tables.
1390
1391*** Changes in GDB-4.4:
1392
1393 * New machines supported (host and target)
1394
1395SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
1396 (except core files)
1397BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
1398Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
1399
1400 * New machines supported (target)
1401
1402AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1403
1404 * C++ support
1405
1406GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
1407The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
1408per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
1409
1410GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
1411`ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
1412extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
1413good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
1414will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
1415released.
1416
1417 * New features for SVR4
1418
1419GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
1420shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
1421only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
1422
1423The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
1424on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
1425it prints the address mappings of the process.
1426
1427If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
1428bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
1429
1430 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
1431
1432Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
1433now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
1434skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
1435make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
1436same code linked statically.
1437
1438 * New Getopt
1439
1440GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
1441version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
1442continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
1443Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
1444added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
1445future by other options that begin with the same letter.
1446
1447 * Bugs fixed
1448
1449The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
1450Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
1451See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
1452
1453
1454*** Changes in GDB-4.3:
1455
1456 * New machines supported (host and target)
1457
1458Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
1459NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
1460Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
1461
1462 * Almost SCO Unix support
1463
1464We had hoped to support:
1465SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
1466(except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
1467that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
1468about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
1469
1470 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
1471
1472GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
1473debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
1474is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
1475send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
1476reqired (if any).
1477
1478 * New Readline
1479
1480GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
1481is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
1482required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
1483
1484 * Bugs fixed
1485
1486The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
1487Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
1488See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
1489
1490 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
1491
1492GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
1493supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
1494symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
1495
1496Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
1497mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
1498debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
1499mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
1500version 2.
1501
1502Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
1503really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
1504line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
1505variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
1506situation somewhat.
1507
1508When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
1509However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
1510methods.
1511
1512We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
1513DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
1514encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
1515
1516
1517*** Changes in GDB-4.2:
1518
1519 * Improved configuration
1520
1521Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
1522Porting BFD is simpler.
1523
1524 * Stepping improved
1525
1526The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
1527of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
1528in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
1529function that has debugging information is called within the line.
1530
1531 * Bug fixing
1532
1533Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
1534
1535 * New host supported (not target)
1536
1537Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
1538
1539
1540*** Changes in GDB-4.1:
1541
1542 * Multiple source language support
1543
1544GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
1545It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
1546and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
1547language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
1548You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
1549`set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
1550
1551 * GDB and Modula-2
1552
1553GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
1554currently under development at the State University of New York at
1555Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
1556continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
1557
1558Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
1559debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
1560symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
1561
1562There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
1563in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
1564
1565 * set write on/off
1566
1567GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
1568a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
1569the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
1570by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
1571effect immediately.
1572
1573 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
1574
1575When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
1576shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
1577The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
1578examining core files.
1579
1580 * set listsize
1581
1582You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
1583The default is 10.
1584
1585 * New machines supported (host and target)
1586
1587SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
1588Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
1589Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
1590
1591 * New hosts supported (not targets)
1592
1593IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
1594
1595 * New targets supported (not hosts)
1596
1597AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1598AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1599Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
1600
1601 * New remote interfaces
1602
1603AMD 29000 Adapt
1604AMD 29000 Minimon
1605
1606
1607*** Changes in GDB-4.0:
1608
1609 * New Facilities
1610
1611Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
1612
1613Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
1614target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
1615is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
1616remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
1617remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
1618also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
1619using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
1620stub on the target system.
1621
1622New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
1623
1624GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
1625library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
1626object file types such as a.out and coff.
1627
1628There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
1629refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
1630
1631
1632 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
1633
1634All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
1635by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
1636
1637For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
1638``Show prompt'' produces the response:
1639Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
1640
1641What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
1642print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
1643will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
1644all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
1645
1646confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
1647 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
1648 it is already running. Default is ON.
1649
1650editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
1651 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
1652 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
1653 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
1654 Default is ON.
1655
1656history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
1657 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
1658 or the value of the environment variable
1659 GDBHISTFILE.
1660
1661history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
1662 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
1663 HISTSIZE.
1664
1665history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
1666 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
1667 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
1668
1669history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
1670 history expansion will be performed on
1671 command line input. The default is OFF.
1672
1673radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
1674 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
1675 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
1676
1677height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
1678 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
1679 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
1680 variable TERM.
1681
1682width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
1683 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
1684 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
1685 variable TERM.
1686
1687Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
1688``set width'' instead.
1689
1690print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
1691 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
1692 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
1693 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
1694
1695print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
1696 is OFF.
1697
1698print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
1699 "raw" form if off.
1700
1701print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
1702 like instructions.
1703
1704print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
1705
1706
1707 * Support for Epoch Environment.
1708
1709The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
1710new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
1711are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
1712window.
1713
1714
1715 * Support for Shared Libraries
1716
1717GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
1718Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
1719before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
1720happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
1721At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
1722from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
1723shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
1724It can be abbreviated ``share''.
1725
1726sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
1727 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
1728 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
1729
1730info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
1731
1732
1733 * Watchpoints
1734
1735A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
1736expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
1737tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
1738quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
1739problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
1740more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
1741
1742watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
1743
1744info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
1745
1746delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
1747disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
1748enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
1749
1750
1751 * C++ multiple inheritance
1752
1753When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
1754for C++ programs.
1755
1756 * C++ exception handling
1757
1758Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
1759ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
1760the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
1761handler's context).
1762
1763catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
1764 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
1765 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
1766
1767info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
1768 current stack frame.
1769
1770
1771 * Minor command changes
1772
1773The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
1774command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
1775is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
1776
1777The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
1778at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
1779frames without printing.
1780
1781 * New directory command
1782
1783'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
1784The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
1785about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
1786with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
1787find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
1788
1789 * Configuring GDB for compilation
1790
1791For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
1792for more details.
1793
1794GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
1795two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
1796Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
1797where the program that you are debugging will run.
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