* mips-tdep.c (mips_store_return_value,
[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-*
d036b4d9 30Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
bf64bfd6 31
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32stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
33kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
34
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35Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
36been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
37configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
38permanently REMOVED.
39
40* REMOVED configurations
41
42Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
43Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
44Pyramid pyramid-*-*
45ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
46Tahoe tahoe-*-*
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47
48* Other news:
49
50* All MIPS configurations are multi-arched.
51
52Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
53
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54* gdba.el deleted
55
56GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
139760b7 57
9debab2f 58*** Changes in GDB 5.0:
7a292a7a 59
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60* Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
61
62Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
63programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
64displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
65greater level of detail.
66
67* Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
68
69It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
70bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
71on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
72written.
73
74* Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
75
76The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
77necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
78machines ``out of the box''.
79
80The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
81possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
82signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
83would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
84interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
85
86It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
87standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
88even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
89and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
90terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
91
92The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
93enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
94also works.
95
96DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
97GDB.
98
99It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
100directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
101times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
102breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
103
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104* New native configurations
105
106ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
afc05dd4 107PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
ed9a39eb 108
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109* New targets
110
96baa820 111Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
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112x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
113PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
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114TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
115
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116* OBSOLETE configurations
117
118Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
119Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
9846de1b 120Pyramid pyramid-*-*
ed9a39eb 121ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
104c1213 122Tahoe tahoe-*-*
7a292a7a 123
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124Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
125but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
126these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
127be permanently REMOVED.
128
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129* Gould support removed
130
131Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
132
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133* New features for SVR4
134
135On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
136without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
137load symbols from the running process's executable file.
138
139* Many C++ enhancements
140
141C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
142in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
143
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144* Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
145
146A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
147sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
148with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
149``|<program> <args>'' vis:
150
151 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
152 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
153
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154* MIPS 64 remote protocol
155
156A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
157expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
158instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
159
160The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
161added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
162
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163* ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
164
165The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
166``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
167include ``set remote P-packet''.
168
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169* Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
170
171The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
172accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
173``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
174
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175* ``apropos'' command added.
176
177The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
178documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
179try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
180
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181* New MI interface
182
183A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
184interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
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185process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
186"GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
187enabled by configuring with:
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188
189 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
190
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191*** Changes in GDB-4.18:
192
193* New native configurations
194
195HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
196HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
197M68K Linux m68*-*-linux*
198
199* New targets
200
201Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
202Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
203Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
204
205* OBSOLETE configurations
206
207Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
208
209Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
210but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
211these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
212be permanently REMOVED.
213
214* ANSI/ISO C
215
216As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
217buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
218containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
219use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
220available. If this is not true, please report the affected
221configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
222information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
223already.
224
225* Readline 2.2
226
227GDB now uses readline 2.2.
228
229* set extension-language
230
231You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
232languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
233you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
234 set extension-language .c c++
235The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
236and their associated languages.
237
238* Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
239
240When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
241you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
242PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
243
244 set processor NAME
245
246sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
247following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
248
249 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
250 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
251 403 IBM PowerPC 403
252 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
253 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
254 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
255 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
256 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
257 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
258 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
259 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
260
261At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
262special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
263registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
264only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
265
266* HP-UX support
267
268Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
269more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
270library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
271support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
272for xdb and dbx commands.
273
274* Catchpoints
275
276HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
277generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
278to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
279
280This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
281argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
282output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
283
284* Debugging across forks
285
286On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
287in the inferior.
288
289* TUI
290
291HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
292it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
293configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
294
295* GDB remote protocol additions
296
297A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
298Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
299fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
300allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
301
302For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
303full 64-bit address. The command
304
305 set remoteaddresssize 32
306
307can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
308the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
309will be discarded.
310
311In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
312command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
313
314 maint packet heythere
315
316sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
317disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
318time.
319
320The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
321target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
322downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
323
324* Tracing can collect general expressions
325
326You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
327further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
328doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
329
330* mask-address variable for Mips
331
332For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
333a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
334of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
335
336* Higher serial baud rates
337
338GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
339230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
340to achieve all of these rates.)
341
342* i960 simulator
343
344The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
345builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
346
347
348*** Changes in GDB-4.17:
349
350* New native configurations
351
352Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
353Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
354Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
355PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
356PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
357Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
358Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
359
360* New targets
361
362Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
363Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
364Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
365Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
366MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
367MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
368MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
369Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
370Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
371Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
372NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
373
374* New debugging protocols
375
376ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
377M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
378DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
379PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
380PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
381Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
382
383* DWARF 2
384
385All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
386format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
387information.
388
389* Java frontend
390
391GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
392only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
393
394* solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
395
396For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
397loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
398locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
399
400* Live range splitting
401
402GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
403range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
404more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
405
406* Hurd support
407
408GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
409updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
410
411* ARM Thumb support
412
413GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
414instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
415instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
416accordingly.
417
418* MIPS16 support
419
420GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
421instruction set.
422
423* Overlay support
424
425GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
426linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
427will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
428control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
429additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
430in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
431
432* info symbol
433
434The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
435the symbol at the specified address.
436
437* Trace support
438
439The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
440asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
441extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
442includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
443file tracepoint.c for more details.
444
445* MIPS simulator
446
447Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
448by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
449of most MIPS variants.
450
451* Sparc simulator
452
453Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
454by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
455Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
456
457* set architecture
458
459For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
460basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
461architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
462the possible architectures.
463
464*** Changes in GDB-4.16:
465
466* New native configurations
467
468Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
469M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
470PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
471PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
472PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
473RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
474
475* New targets
476
477ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
478I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
479MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
480MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
481PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
482Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
483Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
484
485* PowerPC simulator
486
487The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
488contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
489PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
490basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
491performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
492
493* Solaris 2.5
494
495GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
496
497* Windows 95/NT native
498
499GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
500To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
501which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
502Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
503ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
504
505* dont-repeat command
506
507If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
508command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
509useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
510extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
511
512* Send break instead of ^C
513
514The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
515rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
516GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
517
518* Remote protocol timeout
519
520The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
521that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
522to read from the target. The default value is 2.
523
524* Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
525
526By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
527loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
528stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
529when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
530in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
531
532Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
533/usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
534automatically on hpux10.
535
536* Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
537
538Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
539
540* Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
541
542When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
543may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
544the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
545every character. The default value is 1050.
546
547* Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
548
549If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
550a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
551replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
552details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
553remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
554to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
555
556* Speedups for remote debugging
557
558GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
559the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
560and more efficient S-record downloading.
561
562* Memory use reductions and statistics collection
563
564GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
565Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
566
567*** Changes in GDB-4.15:
568
569* Psymtabs for XCOFF
570
571The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
572can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
573
574* Remote targets use caching
575
576Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
577remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
578it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
579debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
580off' turns the the data cache off.
581
582* Remote targets may have threads
583
584The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
585in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
586gdb/remote.c for details.
587
588* NetROM support
589
590If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
591support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
592acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
593write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
594support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
595another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
596sequence is something like
597
598 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
599 load <prog>
600 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
601
602* Macintosh host
603
604GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
605may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
606it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
607available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
608device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
609directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
610scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
611mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
612
613* Autoconf
614
615GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
616but does simplify configuration and building.
617
618* hpux10
619
620GDB now supports hpux10.
621
622*** Changes in GDB-4.14:
623
624* New native configurations
625
626x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
627x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
628NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
629Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
630
631* New targets
632
633A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
634HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
635CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
636PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
637WDC 65816 w65-*-*
638
639* Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
640
641GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
642possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
643filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
644the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
645if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
646
647* Arguments to user-defined commands
648
649User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
650Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
651trivial example:
652define adder
653 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
654
655To execute the command use:
656adder 1 2 3
657
658Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
659Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
660use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
661
662* New `if' and `while' commands
663
664This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
665commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
666expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
667execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
668terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
669`else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
670if the expression is zero.
671
672* Fortran source language mode
673
674GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
675Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
676variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
677with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
678Fortran compilers.
679
680* Better HPUX support
681
682Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
683running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
684processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
685for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
686that behavior do the following before running the program:
687
688 adb -w a.out
689 __dld_flags?W 0x5
690 control-d
691
692This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
693To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
694
695 adb -w a.out
696 __dld_flags?W 0x4
697 control-d
698
699You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
700the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
701external linkage.
702
703GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
704HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
705
706* Target byte order now dynamically selectable
707
708You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
709commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
710current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
711"set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
712associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
713configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
714
715* New DOS host serial code
716
717This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
718no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
719a PC's serial port.
720
721*** Changes in GDB-4.13:
722
723* New "complete" command
724
725This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
726were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
727
728* Trailing space optional in prompt
729
730"set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
731allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
732
733* Breakpoint hit counts
734
735"info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
736has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
737can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
738to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
739less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
740that breakpoint.
741
742* Ability to stop printing at NULL character
743
744"set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
745an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
746arrays actually contain only short strings.
747
748* Shared library breakpoints
749
750In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
751breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
752
753* Hardware watchpoints
754
755There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
756targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
757
758Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under Linux.
759
760* Annotations
761
762Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
763and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
764
765* Improved Irix 5 support
766
767GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
768
769* Improved HPPA support
770
771GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
772
773* New native configurations
774
775Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
776HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
777Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
778RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
779
780* New targets
781
782OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
783MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
784Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
785
786* Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
787
788There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
789This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
790
791* Fixes
792
793As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
794and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
795
796*** Changes in GDB-4.12:
797
798* Irix 5 is now supported
799
800* HPPA support
801
802GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
803to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
804GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
805of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
806can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
807
808
809*** Changes in GDB-4.11:
810
811* User visible changes:
812
813* Remote Debugging
814
815The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
816target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
817debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
818integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
819debugging info for the mips target).
820
821* DEC Alpha native support
822
823GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
824debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
825work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
826Alpha-specific notes.
827
828* Preliminary thread implementation
829
830GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
831
832* LynxOS native and target support for 386
833
834This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
835to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
836for details).
837
838* Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
839
840This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
841mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
842call methods, ...etc.
843
844*** Changes in GDB-4.10:
845
846 * User visible changes:
847
848Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
849supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
850other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
851somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
852
853Filename completion now works.
854
855When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
856arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
857addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
858
859All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
860vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
861should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
862your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
863to be on the far side of a thin network line.
864
865 * DEC alpha support
866
867This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
868cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
869
870
871*** Changes in GDB-4.9:
872
873 * Testsuite
874
875This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
876The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
877via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
878
879 * C++ demangling
880
881'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
882emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
883Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
884disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
885use gdb with AT&T cfront.
886
887 * Simulators
888
889GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
890So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
891Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
892
893 * New targets supported
894
895H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
896H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
897SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
898Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
899IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
900
901Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
902version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
903GO32 memory extender.
904
905 * New remote protocols
906
907MIPS remote debugging protocol.
908
909 * New source languages supported
910
911This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
912used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
913into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
914
915
916*** Changes in GDB-4.8:
917
918 * HP Precision Architecture supported
919
920GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
921version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
922University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
923compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
924format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
925(as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
926
927Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
928
929 * Faster and better demangling
930
931We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
932demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
933character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
934only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
935This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
936increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
937symbol lookups.
938
939`Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
940from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
941compiler does not actually implement.
942
943 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
944
945In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
946inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
947recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
948very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
949The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
950circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
951fix.
952
953The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
954release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
955
956 * Improved configure script
957
958The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
959you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
960host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
961done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
962
963We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
964version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
965`--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
966The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
967only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
968We hope to make this the default in a future release.
969
970 * Documentation improvements
971
972There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
973produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
974before submitting changes.
975
976The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
977M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
978`info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
979you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
980a future texinfo-X.Y release.
981
982*NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
983We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
984been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
985or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
986`texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
987around this problem.
988
989 * New features
990
991GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
992the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
993`print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
994the target program.
995
996The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
997how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
998
999 * New native hosts supported
1000
1001HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
1002386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
1003
1004 * New targets supported
1005
1006AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
1007
1008 * New file formats supported
1009
1010BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
1011HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
1012
1013 * Major bug fixes
1014
1015Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
1016
1017We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
1018printf_filtered("%s") problems.
1019
1020We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
1021for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
1022release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
1023
1024You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
1025will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
1026
1027We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
1028for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
1029especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
1030libraries.
1031
1032The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
1033information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
1034command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
1035any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
1036when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
1037
1038 * Internal improvements
1039
1040GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
1041debugging of multiple languages in the future.
1042
1043GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
1044Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
1045symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
1046contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
1047shared code that handles any of them.
1048
1049 * New command line options
1050
1051We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
1052
1053 * Mmalloc licensing
1054
1055The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
1056General Public License.
1057
1058*** Changes in GDB-4.7:
1059
1060 * Host/native/target split
1061
1062GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
1063hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
1064target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
1065local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
1066ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
1067
1068The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
1069GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
1070is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
1071code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
1072any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
1073built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
1074handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
1075
1076GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
1077It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
1078plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
1079
1080 * New hosts supported
1081
1082HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
1083386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1084386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
1085
1086 * New targets supported
1087
1088Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
108968030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
1090
1091 * New native hosts supported
1092
1093386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1094 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
1095386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
1096
1097 * New file formats supported
1098
1099BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
1100supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
1101format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
1102
1103 * New commands
1104
1105`show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
1106`show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
1107These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
1108
1109`info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
1110
1111You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
1112scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
1113prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
1114executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
1115
1116 * C++ improvements
1117
1118We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
1119info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
1120symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
1121
1122Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
1123
1124 * Major bug fixes
1125
1126The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
1127fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
1128by the compiler.
1129
1130We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
1131support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
1132
1133John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
1134slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
1135that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
1136purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
1137the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
1138mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
1139
1140Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
1141about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
1142completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
1143we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
1144
1145 * AMD 29k support
1146
1147A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
1148specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
1149calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
1150usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
1151in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
1152
1153We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
1154Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
1155of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
1156resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
1157
1158 * Remote interfaces
1159
1160We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
1161with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
1162message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
1163This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
1164needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
1165breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
1166each instruction being stepped through.
1167
1168The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
1169registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
1170
1171There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
1172find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
1173Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
1174processor with a serial port.
1175
1176 * Configuration
1177
1178Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
1179`table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
1180supported, and what files each one uses.
1181
1182 * Library changes
1183
1184There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
1185disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
1186Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
1187disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
1188
1189The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
1190Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
1191can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
1192grants all the rights from the General Public License.
1193
1194 * Documentation
1195
1196The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
1197reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
1198as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
1199encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
1200system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
1201bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
1202
1203And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
1204
1205
1206*** Changes in GDB-4.6:
1207
1208 * Better support for C++ function names
1209
1210GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
1211names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
1212(using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
1213single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
1214Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
1215
1216GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
1217the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
1218You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
1219lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
1220for the list of formats.
1221
1222 * G++ symbol mangling problem
1223
1224Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
1225C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
1226directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
1227can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
1228usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
1229about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
1230this problem.)
1231
1232 * New 'maintenance' command
1233
1234All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
1235the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
1236can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
1237
1238 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
1239 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
1240 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
1241 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
1242 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
1243 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
1244
1245The following commands are new:
1246
1247 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
1248 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
1249 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
1250
1251 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
1252
1253We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
1254(e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
1255be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
1256read after argv processing.
1257
1258 * New hosts supported
1259
1260Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
1261
1262Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
1263
1264We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
1265is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
1266for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
1267masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
1268fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
1269It costs extra.
1270
1271 * New targets supported
1272
1273Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1274
1275 * More smarts about finding #include files
1276
1277GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
1278all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
1279greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
1280especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
1281the one that contains your sources.
1282
1283We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
1284breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
1285try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
1286
1287 * Interesting infernals change
1288
1289GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
1290section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
1291target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
1292stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
1293
1294 * Bug fixes (of course!)
1295
1296There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
1297 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
1298 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
1299
1300See the ChangeLog for details.
1301
1302*** Changes in GDB-4.5:
1303
1304 * New machines supported (host and target)
1305
1306IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
1307
1308SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
1309
1310 * New malloc package
1311
1312GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
1313Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
1314capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
1315This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
1316pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
1317more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
1318
1319 * info proc
1320
1321The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
1322'help info proc' for details.
1323
1324 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
1325
1326The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
1327Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
1328possible.
1329
1330 * File name changes for MS-DOS
1331
1332Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
1333support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
1334conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
1335environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
1336that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
1337in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
1338
1339 * Cross byte order fixes
1340
1341Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
1342targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
1343
1344 * New -mapped and -readnow options
1345
1346If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
1347system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
1348`symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
1349program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
1350called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
1351Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
1352and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
1353the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
1354option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
1355starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
1356
1357You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
1358the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
1359information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
1360slower, but makes future operations faster.
1361
1362The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
1363build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
1364A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
1365use is:
1366
1367 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
1368
1369The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
1370It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
1371shared across multiple host platforms.
1372
1373 * longjmp() handling
1374
1375GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
1376siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
1377all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
1378platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
1379
1380 * Solaris 2.0
1381
1382Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
1383this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
1384reading symbols.
1385
1386 * Bug fixes
1387
1388As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
1389People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
1390crashes and trashed symbol tables.
1391
1392*** Changes in GDB-4.4:
1393
1394 * New machines supported (host and target)
1395
1396SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
1397 (except core files)
1398BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
1399Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
1400
1401 * New machines supported (target)
1402
1403AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1404
1405 * C++ support
1406
1407GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
1408The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
1409per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
1410
1411GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
1412`ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
1413extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
1414good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
1415will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
1416released.
1417
1418 * New features for SVR4
1419
1420GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
1421shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
1422only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
1423
1424The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
1425on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
1426it prints the address mappings of the process.
1427
1428If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
1429bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
1430
1431 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
1432
1433Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
1434now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
1435skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
1436make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
1437same code linked statically.
1438
1439 * New Getopt
1440
1441GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
1442version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
1443continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
1444Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
1445added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
1446future by other options that begin with the same letter.
1447
1448 * Bugs fixed
1449
1450The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
1451Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
1452See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
1453
1454
1455*** Changes in GDB-4.3:
1456
1457 * New machines supported (host and target)
1458
1459Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
1460NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
1461Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
1462
1463 * Almost SCO Unix support
1464
1465We had hoped to support:
1466SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
1467(except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
1468that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
1469about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
1470
1471 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
1472
1473GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
1474debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
1475is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
1476send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
1477reqired (if any).
1478
1479 * New Readline
1480
1481GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
1482is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
1483required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
1484
1485 * Bugs fixed
1486
1487The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
1488Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
1489See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
1490
1491 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
1492
1493GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
1494supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
1495symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
1496
1497Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
1498mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
1499debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
1500mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
1501version 2.
1502
1503Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
1504really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
1505line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
1506variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
1507situation somewhat.
1508
1509When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
1510However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
1511methods.
1512
1513We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
1514DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
1515encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
1516
1517
1518*** Changes in GDB-4.2:
1519
1520 * Improved configuration
1521
1522Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
1523Porting BFD is simpler.
1524
1525 * Stepping improved
1526
1527The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
1528of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
1529in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
1530function that has debugging information is called within the line.
1531
1532 * Bug fixing
1533
1534Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
1535
1536 * New host supported (not target)
1537
1538Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
1539
1540
1541*** Changes in GDB-4.1:
1542
1543 * Multiple source language support
1544
1545GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
1546It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
1547and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
1548language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
1549You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
1550`set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
1551
1552 * GDB and Modula-2
1553
1554GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
1555currently under development at the State University of New York at
1556Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
1557continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
1558
1559Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
1560debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
1561symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
1562
1563There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
1564in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
1565
1566 * set write on/off
1567
1568GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
1569a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
1570the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
1571by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
1572effect immediately.
1573
1574 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
1575
1576When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
1577shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
1578The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
1579examining core files.
1580
1581 * set listsize
1582
1583You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
1584The default is 10.
1585
1586 * New machines supported (host and target)
1587
1588SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
1589Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
1590Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
1591
1592 * New hosts supported (not targets)
1593
1594IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
1595
1596 * New targets supported (not hosts)
1597
1598AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1599AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1600Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
1601
1602 * New remote interfaces
1603
1604AMD 29000 Adapt
1605AMD 29000 Minimon
1606
1607
1608*** Changes in GDB-4.0:
1609
1610 * New Facilities
1611
1612Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
1613
1614Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
1615target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
1616is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
1617remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
1618remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
1619also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
1620using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
1621stub on the target system.
1622
1623New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
1624
1625GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
1626library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
1627object file types such as a.out and coff.
1628
1629There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
1630refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
1631
1632
1633 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
1634
1635All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
1636by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
1637
1638For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
1639``Show prompt'' produces the response:
1640Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
1641
1642What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
1643print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
1644will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
1645all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
1646
1647confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
1648 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
1649 it is already running. Default is ON.
1650
1651editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
1652 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
1653 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
1654 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
1655 Default is ON.
1656
1657history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
1658 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
1659 or the value of the environment variable
1660 GDBHISTFILE.
1661
1662history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
1663 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
1664 HISTSIZE.
1665
1666history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
1667 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
1668 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
1669
1670history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
1671 history expansion will be performed on
1672 command line input. The default is OFF.
1673
1674radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
1675 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
1676 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
1677
1678height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
1679 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
1680 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
1681 variable TERM.
1682
1683width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
1684 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
1685 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
1686 variable TERM.
1687
1688Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
1689``set width'' instead.
1690
1691print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
1692 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
1693 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
1694 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
1695
1696print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
1697 is OFF.
1698
1699print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
1700 "raw" form if off.
1701
1702print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
1703 like instructions.
1704
1705print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
1706
1707
1708 * Support for Epoch Environment.
1709
1710The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
1711new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
1712are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
1713window.
1714
1715
1716 * Support for Shared Libraries
1717
1718GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
1719Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
1720before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
1721happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
1722At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
1723from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
1724shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
1725It can be abbreviated ``share''.
1726
1727sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
1728 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
1729 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
1730
1731info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
1732
1733
1734 * Watchpoints
1735
1736A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
1737expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
1738tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
1739quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
1740problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
1741more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
1742
1743watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
1744
1745info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
1746
1747delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
1748disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
1749enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
1750
1751
1752 * C++ multiple inheritance
1753
1754When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
1755for C++ programs.
1756
1757 * C++ exception handling
1758
1759Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
1760ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
1761the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
1762handler's context).
1763
1764catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
1765 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
1766 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
1767
1768info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
1769 current stack frame.
1770
1771
1772 * Minor command changes
1773
1774The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
1775command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
1776is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
1777
1778The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
1779at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
1780frames without printing.
1781
1782 * New directory command
1783
1784'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
1785The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
1786about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
1787with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
1788find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
1789
1790 * Configuring GDB for compilation
1791
1792For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
1793for more details.
1794
1795GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
1796two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
1797Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
1798where the program that you are debugging will run.
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