import gdb-1999-12-21 snapshot
[deliverable/binutils-gdb.git] / gdb / NEWS
CommitLineData
c906108c
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1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
3
7a292a7a
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4*** Changes since GDB-4.18:
5
104c1213
JM
6* New features
7
8On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
9without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
10load symbols from the running process's executable file.
11
7a292a7a
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12* New targets
13
96baa820 14Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
adf40b2e
JM
15x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
16PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
7a292a7a
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17TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
18
085dd6e6
JM
19* OBSOLETE configurations
20
21Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
22Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
9846de1b 23Pyramid pyramid-*-*
104c1213 24Tahoe tahoe-*-*
7a292a7a 25
adf40b2e
JM
26* Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
27
28A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
29sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
30with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
31``|<program> <args>'' vis:
32
33 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
34 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
35
43e526b9
JM
36* MIPS 64 remote protocol
37
38A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
39expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
40instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
41
42The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
43added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
44
96baa820
JM
45* ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
46
47The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
48``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
49include ``set remote P-packet''.
50
11cf8741
JM
51* Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
52
53The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
54accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
55``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
56
c906108c
SS
57*** Changes in GDB-4.18:
58
59* New native configurations
60
61HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
62HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
63M68K Linux m68*-*-linux*
64
65* New targets
66
67Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
68Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
69Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
70
71* OBSOLETE configurations
72
73Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
74
75Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
76but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
77these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
78be permanently REMOVED.
79
80* ANSI/ISO C
81
82As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
83buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
84containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
85use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
86available. If this is not true, please report the affected
87configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
88information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
89already.
90
91* Readline 2.2
92
93GDB now uses readline 2.2.
94
95* set extension-language
96
97You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
98languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
99you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
100 set extension-language .c c++
101The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
102and their associated languages.
103
104* Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
105
106When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
107you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
108PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
109
110 set processor NAME
111
112sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
113following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
114
115 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
116 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
117 403 IBM PowerPC 403
118 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
119 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
120 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
121 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
122 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
123 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
124 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
125 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
126
127At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
128special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
129registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
130only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
131
132* HP-UX support
133
134Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
135more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
136library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
137support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
138for xdb and dbx commands.
139
140* Catchpoints
141
142HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
143generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
144to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
145
146This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
147argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
148output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
149
150* Debugging across forks
151
152On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
153in the inferior.
154
155* TUI
156
157HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
158it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
159configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
160
161* GDB remote protocol additions
162
163A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
164Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
165fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
166allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
167
168For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
169full 64-bit address. The command
170
171 set remoteaddresssize 32
172
173can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
174the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
175will be discarded.
176
177In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
178command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
179
180 maint packet heythere
181
182sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
183disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
184time.
185
186The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
187target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
188downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
189
190* Tracing can collect general expressions
191
192You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
193further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
194doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
195
196* mask-address variable for Mips
197
198For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
199a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
200of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
201
202* Higher serial baud rates
203
204GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
205230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
206to achieve all of these rates.)
207
208* i960 simulator
209
210The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
211builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
212
213
214*** Changes in GDB-4.17:
215
216* New native configurations
217
218Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
219Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
220Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
221PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
222PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
223Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
224Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
225
226* New targets
227
228Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
229Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
230Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
231Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
232MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
233MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
234MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
235Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
236Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
237Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
238NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
239
240* New debugging protocols
241
242ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
243M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
244DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
245PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
246PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
247Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
248
249* DWARF 2
250
251All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
252format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
253information.
254
255* Java frontend
256
257GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
258only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
259
260* solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
261
262For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
263loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
264locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
265
266* Live range splitting
267
268GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
269range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
270more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
271
272* Hurd support
273
274GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
275updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
276
277* ARM Thumb support
278
279GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
280instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
281instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
282accordingly.
283
284* MIPS16 support
285
286GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
287instruction set.
288
289* Overlay support
290
291GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
292linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
293will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
294control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
295additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
296in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
297
298* info symbol
299
300The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
301the symbol at the specified address.
302
303* Trace support
304
305The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
306asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
307extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
308includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
309file tracepoint.c for more details.
310
311* MIPS simulator
312
313Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
314by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
315of most MIPS variants.
316
317* Sparc simulator
318
319Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
320by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
321Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
322
323* set architecture
324
325For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
326basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
327architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
328the possible architectures.
329
330*** Changes in GDB-4.16:
331
332* New native configurations
333
334Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
335M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
336PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
337PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
338PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
339RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
340
341* New targets
342
343ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
344I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
345MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
346MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
347PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
348Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
349Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
350
351* PowerPC simulator
352
353The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
354contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
355PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
356basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
357performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
358
359* Solaris 2.5
360
361GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
362
363* Windows 95/NT native
364
365GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
366To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
367which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
368Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
369ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
370
371* dont-repeat command
372
373If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
374command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
375useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
376extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
377
378* Send break instead of ^C
379
380The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
381rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
382GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
383
384* Remote protocol timeout
385
386The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
387that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
388to read from the target. The default value is 2.
389
390* Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
391
392By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
393loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
394stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
395when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
396in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
397
398Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
399/usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
400automatically on hpux10.
401
402* Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
403
404Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
405
406* Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
407
408When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
409may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
410the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
411every character. The default value is 1050.
412
413* Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
414
415If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
416a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
417replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
418details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
419remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
420to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
421
422* Speedups for remote debugging
423
424GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
425the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
426and more efficient S-record downloading.
427
428* Memory use reductions and statistics collection
429
430GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
431Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
432
433*** Changes in GDB-4.15:
434
435* Psymtabs for XCOFF
436
437The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
438can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
439
440* Remote targets use caching
441
442Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
443remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
444it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
445debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
446off' turns the the data cache off.
447
448* Remote targets may have threads
449
450The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
451in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
452gdb/remote.c for details.
453
454* NetROM support
455
456If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
457support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
458acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
459write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
460support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
461another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
462sequence is something like
463
464 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
465 load <prog>
466 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
467
468* Macintosh host
469
470GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
471may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
472it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
473available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
474device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
475directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
476scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
477mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
478
479* Autoconf
480
481GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
482but does simplify configuration and building.
483
484* hpux10
485
486GDB now supports hpux10.
487
488*** Changes in GDB-4.14:
489
490* New native configurations
491
492x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
493x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
494NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
495Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
496
497* New targets
498
499A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
500HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
501CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
502PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
503WDC 65816 w65-*-*
504
505* Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
506
507GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
508possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
509filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
510the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
511if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
512
513* Arguments to user-defined commands
514
515User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
516Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
517trivial example:
518define adder
519 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
520
521To execute the command use:
522adder 1 2 3
523
524Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
525Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
526use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
527
528* New `if' and `while' commands
529
530This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
531commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
532expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
533execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
534terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
535`else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
536if the expression is zero.
537
538* Fortran source language mode
539
540GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
541Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
542variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
543with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
544Fortran compilers.
545
546* Better HPUX support
547
548Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
549running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
550processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
551for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
552that behavior do the following before running the program:
553
554 adb -w a.out
555 __dld_flags?W 0x5
556 control-d
557
558This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
559To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
560
561 adb -w a.out
562 __dld_flags?W 0x4
563 control-d
564
565You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
566the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
567external linkage.
568
569GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
570HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
571
572* Target byte order now dynamically selectable
573
574You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
575commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
576current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
577"set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
578associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
579configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
580
581* New DOS host serial code
582
583This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
584no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
585a PC's serial port.
586
587*** Changes in GDB-4.13:
588
589* New "complete" command
590
591This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
592were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
593
594* Trailing space optional in prompt
595
596"set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
597allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
598
599* Breakpoint hit counts
600
601"info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
602has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
603can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
604to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
605less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
606that breakpoint.
607
608* Ability to stop printing at NULL character
609
610"set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
611an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
612arrays actually contain only short strings.
613
614* Shared library breakpoints
615
616In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
617breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
618
619* Hardware watchpoints
620
621There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
622targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
623
624Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under Linux.
625
626* Annotations
627
628Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
629and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
630
631* Improved Irix 5 support
632
633GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
634
635* Improved HPPA support
636
637GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
638
639* New native configurations
640
641Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
642HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
643Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
644RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
645
646* New targets
647
648OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
649MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
650Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
651
652* Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
653
654There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
655This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
656
657* Fixes
658
659As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
660and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
661
662*** Changes in GDB-4.12:
663
664* Irix 5 is now supported
665
666* HPPA support
667
668GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
669to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
670GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
671of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
672can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
673
674
675*** Changes in GDB-4.11:
676
677* User visible changes:
678
679* Remote Debugging
680
681The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
682target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
683debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
684integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
685debugging info for the mips target).
686
687* DEC Alpha native support
688
689GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
690debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
691work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
692Alpha-specific notes.
693
694* Preliminary thread implementation
695
696GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
697
698* LynxOS native and target support for 386
699
700This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
701to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
702for details).
703
704* Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
705
706This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
707mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
708call methods, ...etc.
709
710*** Changes in GDB-4.10:
711
712 * User visible changes:
713
714Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
715supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
716other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
717somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
718
719Filename completion now works.
720
721When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
722arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
723addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
724
725All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
726vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
727should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
728your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
729to be on the far side of a thin network line.
730
731 * DEC alpha support
732
733This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
734cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
735
736
737*** Changes in GDB-4.9:
738
739 * Testsuite
740
741This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
742The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
743via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
744
745 * C++ demangling
746
747'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
748emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
749Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
750disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
751use gdb with AT&T cfront.
752
753 * Simulators
754
755GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
756So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
757Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
758
759 * New targets supported
760
761H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
762H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
763SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
764Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
765IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
766
767Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
768version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
769GO32 memory extender.
770
771 * New remote protocols
772
773MIPS remote debugging protocol.
774
775 * New source languages supported
776
777This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
778used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
779into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
780
781
782*** Changes in GDB-4.8:
783
784 * HP Precision Architecture supported
785
786GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
787version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
788University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
789compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
790format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
791(as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
792
793Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
794
795 * Faster and better demangling
796
797We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
798demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
799character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
800only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
801This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
802increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
803symbol lookups.
804
805`Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
806from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
807compiler does not actually implement.
808
809 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
810
811In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
812inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
813recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
814very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
815The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
816circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
817fix.
818
819The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
820release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
821
822 * Improved configure script
823
824The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
825you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
826host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
827done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
828
829We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
830version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
831`--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
832The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
833only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
834We hope to make this the default in a future release.
835
836 * Documentation improvements
837
838There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
839produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
840before submitting changes.
841
842The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
843M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
844`info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
845you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
846a future texinfo-X.Y release.
847
848*NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
849We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
850been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
851or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
852`texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
853around this problem.
854
855 * New features
856
857GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
858the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
859`print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
860the target program.
861
862The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
863how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
864
865 * New native hosts supported
866
867HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
868386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
869
870 * New targets supported
871
872AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
873
874 * New file formats supported
875
876BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
877HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
878
879 * Major bug fixes
880
881Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
882
883We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
884printf_filtered("%s") problems.
885
886We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
887for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
888release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
889
890You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
891will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
892
893We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
894for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
895especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
896libraries.
897
898The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
899information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
900command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
901any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
902when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
903
904 * Internal improvements
905
906GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
907debugging of multiple languages in the future.
908
909GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
910Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
911symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
912contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
913shared code that handles any of them.
914
915 * New command line options
916
917We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
918
919 * Mmalloc licensing
920
921The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
922General Public License.
923
924*** Changes in GDB-4.7:
925
926 * Host/native/target split
927
928GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
929hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
930target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
931local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
932ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
933
934The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
935GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
936is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
937code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
938any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
939built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
940handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
941
942GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
943It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
944plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
945
946 * New hosts supported
947
948HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
949386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
950386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
951
952 * New targets supported
953
954Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
95568030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
956
957 * New native hosts supported
958
959386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
960 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
961386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
962
963 * New file formats supported
964
965BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
966supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
967format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
968
969 * New commands
970
971`show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
972`show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
973These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
974
975`info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
976
977You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
978scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
979prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
980executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
981
982 * C++ improvements
983
984We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
985info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
986symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
987
988Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
989
990 * Major bug fixes
991
992The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
993fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
994by the compiler.
995
996We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
997support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
998
999John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
1000slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
1001that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
1002purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
1003the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
1004mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
1005
1006Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
1007about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
1008completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
1009we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
1010
1011 * AMD 29k support
1012
1013A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
1014specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
1015calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
1016usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
1017in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
1018
1019We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
1020Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
1021of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
1022resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
1023
1024 * Remote interfaces
1025
1026We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
1027with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
1028message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
1029This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
1030needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
1031breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
1032each instruction being stepped through.
1033
1034The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
1035registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
1036
1037There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
1038find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
1039Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
1040processor with a serial port.
1041
1042 * Configuration
1043
1044Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
1045`table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
1046supported, and what files each one uses.
1047
1048 * Library changes
1049
1050There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
1051disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
1052Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
1053disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
1054
1055The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
1056Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
1057can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
1058grants all the rights from the General Public License.
1059
1060 * Documentation
1061
1062The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
1063reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
1064as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
1065encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
1066system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
1067bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
1068
1069And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
1070
1071
1072*** Changes in GDB-4.6:
1073
1074 * Better support for C++ function names
1075
1076GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
1077names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
1078(using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
1079single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
1080Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
1081
1082GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
1083the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
1084You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
1085lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
1086for the list of formats.
1087
1088 * G++ symbol mangling problem
1089
1090Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
1091C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
1092directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
1093can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
1094usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
1095about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
1096this problem.)
1097
1098 * New 'maintenance' command
1099
1100All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
1101the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
1102can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
1103
1104 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
1105 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
1106 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
1107 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
1108 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
1109 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
1110
1111The following commands are new:
1112
1113 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
1114 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
1115 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
1116
1117 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
1118
1119We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
1120(e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
1121be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
1122read after argv processing.
1123
1124 * New hosts supported
1125
1126Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
1127
1128Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
1129
1130We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
1131is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
1132for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
1133masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
1134fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
1135It costs extra.
1136
1137 * New targets supported
1138
1139Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1140
1141 * More smarts about finding #include files
1142
1143GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
1144all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
1145greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
1146especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
1147the one that contains your sources.
1148
1149We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
1150breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
1151try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
1152
1153 * Interesting infernals change
1154
1155GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
1156section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
1157target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
1158stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
1159
1160 * Bug fixes (of course!)
1161
1162There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
1163 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
1164 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
1165
1166See the ChangeLog for details.
1167
1168*** Changes in GDB-4.5:
1169
1170 * New machines supported (host and target)
1171
1172IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
1173
1174SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
1175
1176 * New malloc package
1177
1178GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
1179Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
1180capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
1181This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
1182pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
1183more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
1184
1185 * info proc
1186
1187The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
1188'help info proc' for details.
1189
1190 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
1191
1192The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
1193Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
1194possible.
1195
1196 * File name changes for MS-DOS
1197
1198Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
1199support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
1200conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
1201environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
1202that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
1203in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
1204
1205 * Cross byte order fixes
1206
1207Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
1208targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
1209
1210 * New -mapped and -readnow options
1211
1212If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
1213system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
1214`symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
1215program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
1216called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
1217Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
1218and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
1219the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
1220option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
1221starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
1222
1223You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
1224the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
1225information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
1226slower, but makes future operations faster.
1227
1228The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
1229build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
1230A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
1231use is:
1232
1233 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
1234
1235The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
1236It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
1237shared across multiple host platforms.
1238
1239 * longjmp() handling
1240
1241GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
1242siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
1243all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
1244platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
1245
1246 * Solaris 2.0
1247
1248Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
1249this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
1250reading symbols.
1251
1252 * Bug fixes
1253
1254As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
1255People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
1256crashes and trashed symbol tables.
1257
1258*** Changes in GDB-4.4:
1259
1260 * New machines supported (host and target)
1261
1262SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
1263 (except core files)
1264BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
1265Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
1266
1267 * New machines supported (target)
1268
1269AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1270
1271 * C++ support
1272
1273GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
1274The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
1275per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
1276
1277GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
1278`ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
1279extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
1280good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
1281will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
1282released.
1283
1284 * New features for SVR4
1285
1286GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
1287shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
1288only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
1289
1290The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
1291on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
1292it prints the address mappings of the process.
1293
1294If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
1295bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
1296
1297 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
1298
1299Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
1300now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
1301skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
1302make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
1303same code linked statically.
1304
1305 * New Getopt
1306
1307GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
1308version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
1309continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
1310Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
1311added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
1312future by other options that begin with the same letter.
1313
1314 * Bugs fixed
1315
1316The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
1317Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
1318See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
1319
1320
1321*** Changes in GDB-4.3:
1322
1323 * New machines supported (host and target)
1324
1325Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
1326NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
1327Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
1328
1329 * Almost SCO Unix support
1330
1331We had hoped to support:
1332SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
1333(except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
1334that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
1335about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
1336
1337 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
1338
1339GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
1340debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
1341is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
1342send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
1343reqired (if any).
1344
1345 * New Readline
1346
1347GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
1348is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
1349required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
1350
1351 * Bugs fixed
1352
1353The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
1354Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
1355See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
1356
1357 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
1358
1359GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
1360supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
1361symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
1362
1363Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
1364mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
1365debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
1366mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
1367version 2.
1368
1369Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
1370really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
1371line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
1372variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
1373situation somewhat.
1374
1375When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
1376However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
1377methods.
1378
1379We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
1380DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
1381encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
1382
1383
1384*** Changes in GDB-4.2:
1385
1386 * Improved configuration
1387
1388Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
1389Porting BFD is simpler.
1390
1391 * Stepping improved
1392
1393The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
1394of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
1395in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
1396function that has debugging information is called within the line.
1397
1398 * Bug fixing
1399
1400Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
1401
1402 * New host supported (not target)
1403
1404Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
1405
1406
1407*** Changes in GDB-4.1:
1408
1409 * Multiple source language support
1410
1411GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
1412It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
1413and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
1414language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
1415You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
1416`set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
1417
1418 * GDB and Modula-2
1419
1420GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
1421currently under development at the State University of New York at
1422Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
1423continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
1424
1425Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
1426debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
1427symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
1428
1429There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
1430in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
1431
1432 * set write on/off
1433
1434GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
1435a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
1436the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
1437by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
1438effect immediately.
1439
1440 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
1441
1442When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
1443shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
1444The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
1445examining core files.
1446
1447 * set listsize
1448
1449You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
1450The default is 10.
1451
1452 * New machines supported (host and target)
1453
1454SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
1455Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
1456Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
1457
1458 * New hosts supported (not targets)
1459
1460IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
1461
1462 * New targets supported (not hosts)
1463
1464AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1465AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1466Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
1467
1468 * New remote interfaces
1469
1470AMD 29000 Adapt
1471AMD 29000 Minimon
1472
1473
1474*** Changes in GDB-4.0:
1475
1476 * New Facilities
1477
1478Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
1479
1480Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
1481target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
1482is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
1483remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
1484remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
1485also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
1486using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
1487stub on the target system.
1488
1489New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
1490
1491GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
1492library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
1493object file types such as a.out and coff.
1494
1495There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
1496refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
1497
1498
1499 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
1500
1501All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
1502by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
1503
1504For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
1505``Show prompt'' produces the response:
1506Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
1507
1508What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
1509print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
1510will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
1511all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
1512
1513confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
1514 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
1515 it is already running. Default is ON.
1516
1517editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
1518 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
1519 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
1520 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
1521 Default is ON.
1522
1523history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
1524 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
1525 or the value of the environment variable
1526 GDBHISTFILE.
1527
1528history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
1529 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
1530 HISTSIZE.
1531
1532history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
1533 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
1534 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
1535
1536history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
1537 history expansion will be performed on
1538 command line input. The default is OFF.
1539
1540radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
1541 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
1542 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
1543
1544height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
1545 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
1546 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
1547 variable TERM.
1548
1549width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
1550 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
1551 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
1552 variable TERM.
1553
1554Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
1555``set width'' instead.
1556
1557print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
1558 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
1559 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
1560 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
1561
1562print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
1563 is OFF.
1564
1565print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
1566 "raw" form if off.
1567
1568print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
1569 like instructions.
1570
1571print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
1572
1573
1574 * Support for Epoch Environment.
1575
1576The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
1577new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
1578are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
1579window.
1580
1581
1582 * Support for Shared Libraries
1583
1584GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
1585Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
1586before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
1587happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
1588At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
1589from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
1590shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
1591It can be abbreviated ``share''.
1592
1593sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
1594 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
1595 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
1596
1597info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
1598
1599
1600 * Watchpoints
1601
1602A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
1603expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
1604tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
1605quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
1606problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
1607more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
1608
1609watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
1610
1611info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
1612
1613delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
1614disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
1615enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
1616
1617
1618 * C++ multiple inheritance
1619
1620When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
1621for C++ programs.
1622
1623 * C++ exception handling
1624
1625Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
1626ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
1627the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
1628handler's context).
1629
1630catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
1631 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
1632 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
1633
1634info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
1635 current stack frame.
1636
1637
1638 * Minor command changes
1639
1640The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
1641command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
1642is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
1643
1644The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
1645at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
1646frames without printing.
1647
1648 * New directory command
1649
1650'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
1651The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
1652about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
1653with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
1654find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
1655
1656 * Configuring GDB for compilation
1657
1658For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
1659for more details.
1660
1661GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
1662two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
1663Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
1664where the program that you are debugging will run.
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