* ld-elfvers/vers.exp: Add new tests vers17 to vers19.
[deliverable/binutils-gdb.git] / gdb / NEWS
CommitLineData
c906108c
SS
1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
3
7a292a7a
SS
4*** Changes since GDB-4.18:
5
6* New targets
7
8TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
9
085dd6e6
JM
10* OBSOLETE configurations
11
12Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
13Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
7a292a7a 14
c906108c
SS
15*** Changes in GDB-4.18:
16
17* New native configurations
18
19HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
20HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
21M68K Linux m68*-*-linux*
22
23* New targets
24
25Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
26Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
27Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
28
29* OBSOLETE configurations
30
31Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
32
33Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
34but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
35these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
36be permanently REMOVED.
37
38* ANSI/ISO C
39
40As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
41buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
42containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
43use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
44available. If this is not true, please report the affected
45configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
46information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
47already.
48
49* Readline 2.2
50
51GDB now uses readline 2.2.
52
53* set extension-language
54
55You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
56languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
57you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
58 set extension-language .c c++
59The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
60and their associated languages.
61
62* Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
63
64When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
65you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
66PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
67
68 set processor NAME
69
70sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
71following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
72
73 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
74 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
75 403 IBM PowerPC 403
76 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
77 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
78 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
79 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
80 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
81 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
82 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
83 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
84
85At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
86special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
87registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
88only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
89
90* HP-UX support
91
92Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
93more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
94library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
95support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
96for xdb and dbx commands.
97
98* Catchpoints
99
100HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
101generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
102to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
103
104This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
105argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
106output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
107
108* Debugging across forks
109
110On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
111in the inferior.
112
113* TUI
114
115HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
116it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
117configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
118
119* GDB remote protocol additions
120
121A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
122Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
123fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
124allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
125
126For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
127full 64-bit address. The command
128
129 set remoteaddresssize 32
130
131can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
132the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
133will be discarded.
134
135In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
136command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
137
138 maint packet heythere
139
140sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
141disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
142time.
143
144The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
145target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
146downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
147
148* Tracing can collect general expressions
149
150You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
151further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
152doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
153
154* mask-address variable for Mips
155
156For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
157a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
158of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
159
160* Higher serial baud rates
161
162GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
163230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
164to achieve all of these rates.)
165
166* i960 simulator
167
168The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
169builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
170
171
172*** Changes in GDB-4.17:
173
174* New native configurations
175
176Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
177Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
178Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
179PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
180PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
181Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
182Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
183
184* New targets
185
186Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
187Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
188Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
189Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
190MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
191MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
192MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
193Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
194Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
195Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
196NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
197
198* New debugging protocols
199
200ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
201M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
202DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
203PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
204PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
205Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
206
207* DWARF 2
208
209All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
210format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
211information.
212
213* Java frontend
214
215GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
216only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
217
218* solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
219
220For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
221loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
222locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
223
224* Live range splitting
225
226GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
227range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
228more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
229
230* Hurd support
231
232GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
233updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
234
235* ARM Thumb support
236
237GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
238instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
239instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
240accordingly.
241
242* MIPS16 support
243
244GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
245instruction set.
246
247* Overlay support
248
249GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
250linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
251will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
252control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
253additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
254in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
255
256* info symbol
257
258The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
259the symbol at the specified address.
260
261* Trace support
262
263The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
264asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
265extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
266includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
267file tracepoint.c for more details.
268
269* MIPS simulator
270
271Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
272by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
273of most MIPS variants.
274
275* Sparc simulator
276
277Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
278by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
279Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
280
281* set architecture
282
283For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
284basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
285architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
286the possible architectures.
287
288*** Changes in GDB-4.16:
289
290* New native configurations
291
292Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
293M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
294PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
295PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
296PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
297RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
298
299* New targets
300
301ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
302I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
303MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
304MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
305PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
306Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
307Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
308
309* PowerPC simulator
310
311The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
312contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
313PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
314basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
315performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
316
317* Solaris 2.5
318
319GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
320
321* Windows 95/NT native
322
323GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
324To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
325which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
326Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
327ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
328
329* dont-repeat command
330
331If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
332command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
333useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
334extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
335
336* Send break instead of ^C
337
338The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
339rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
340GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
341
342* Remote protocol timeout
343
344The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
345that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
346to read from the target. The default value is 2.
347
348* Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
349
350By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
351loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
352stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
353when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
354in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
355
356Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
357/usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
358automatically on hpux10.
359
360* Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
361
362Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
363
364* Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
365
366When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
367may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
368the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
369every character. The default value is 1050.
370
371* Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
372
373If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
374a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
375replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
376details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
377remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
378to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
379
380* Speedups for remote debugging
381
382GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
383the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
384and more efficient S-record downloading.
385
386* Memory use reductions and statistics collection
387
388GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
389Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
390
391*** Changes in GDB-4.15:
392
393* Psymtabs for XCOFF
394
395The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
396can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
397
398* Remote targets use caching
399
400Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
401remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
402it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
403debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
404off' turns the the data cache off.
405
406* Remote targets may have threads
407
408The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
409in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
410gdb/remote.c for details.
411
412* NetROM support
413
414If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
415support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
416acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
417write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
418support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
419another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
420sequence is something like
421
422 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
423 load <prog>
424 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
425
426* Macintosh host
427
428GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
429may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
430it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
431available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
432device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
433directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
434scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
435mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
436
437* Autoconf
438
439GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
440but does simplify configuration and building.
441
442* hpux10
443
444GDB now supports hpux10.
445
446*** Changes in GDB-4.14:
447
448* New native configurations
449
450x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
451x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
452NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
453Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
454
455* New targets
456
457A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
458HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
459CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
460PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
461WDC 65816 w65-*-*
462
463* Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
464
465GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
466possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
467filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
468the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
469if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
470
471* Arguments to user-defined commands
472
473User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
474Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
475trivial example:
476define adder
477 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
478
479To execute the command use:
480adder 1 2 3
481
482Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
483Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
484use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
485
486* New `if' and `while' commands
487
488This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
489commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
490expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
491execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
492terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
493`else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
494if the expression is zero.
495
496* Fortran source language mode
497
498GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
499Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
500variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
501with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
502Fortran compilers.
503
504* Better HPUX support
505
506Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
507running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
508processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
509for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
510that behavior do the following before running the program:
511
512 adb -w a.out
513 __dld_flags?W 0x5
514 control-d
515
516This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
517To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
518
519 adb -w a.out
520 __dld_flags?W 0x4
521 control-d
522
523You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
524the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
525external linkage.
526
527GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
528HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
529
530* Target byte order now dynamically selectable
531
532You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
533commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
534current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
535"set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
536associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
537configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
538
539* New DOS host serial code
540
541This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
542no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
543a PC's serial port.
544
545*** Changes in GDB-4.13:
546
547* New "complete" command
548
549This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
550were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
551
552* Trailing space optional in prompt
553
554"set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
555allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
556
557* Breakpoint hit counts
558
559"info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
560has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
561can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
562to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
563less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
564that breakpoint.
565
566* Ability to stop printing at NULL character
567
568"set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
569an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
570arrays actually contain only short strings.
571
572* Shared library breakpoints
573
574In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
575breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
576
577* Hardware watchpoints
578
579There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
580targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
581
582Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under Linux.
583
584* Annotations
585
586Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
587and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
588
589* Improved Irix 5 support
590
591GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
592
593* Improved HPPA support
594
595GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
596
597* New native configurations
598
599Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
600HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
601Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
602RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
603
604* New targets
605
606OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
607MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
608Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
609
610* Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
611
612There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
613This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
614
615* Fixes
616
617As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
618and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
619
620*** Changes in GDB-4.12:
621
622* Irix 5 is now supported
623
624* HPPA support
625
626GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
627to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
628GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
629of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
630can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
631
632
633*** Changes in GDB-4.11:
634
635* User visible changes:
636
637* Remote Debugging
638
639The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
640target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
641debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
642integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
643debugging info for the mips target).
644
645* DEC Alpha native support
646
647GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
648debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
649work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
650Alpha-specific notes.
651
652* Preliminary thread implementation
653
654GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
655
656* LynxOS native and target support for 386
657
658This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
659to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
660for details).
661
662* Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
663
664This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
665mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
666call methods, ...etc.
667
668*** Changes in GDB-4.10:
669
670 * User visible changes:
671
672Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
673supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
674other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
675somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
676
677Filename completion now works.
678
679When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
680arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
681addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
682
683All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
684vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
685should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
686your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
687to be on the far side of a thin network line.
688
689 * DEC alpha support
690
691This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
692cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
693
694
695*** Changes in GDB-4.9:
696
697 * Testsuite
698
699This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
700The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
701via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
702
703 * C++ demangling
704
705'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
706emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
707Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
708disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
709use gdb with AT&T cfront.
710
711 * Simulators
712
713GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
714So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
715Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
716
717 * New targets supported
718
719H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
720H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
721SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
722Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
723IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
724
725Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
726version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
727GO32 memory extender.
728
729 * New remote protocols
730
731MIPS remote debugging protocol.
732
733 * New source languages supported
734
735This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
736used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
737into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
738
739
740*** Changes in GDB-4.8:
741
742 * HP Precision Architecture supported
743
744GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
745version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
746University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
747compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
748format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
749(as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
750
751Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
752
753 * Faster and better demangling
754
755We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
756demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
757character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
758only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
759This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
760increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
761symbol lookups.
762
763`Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
764from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
765compiler does not actually implement.
766
767 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
768
769In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
770inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
771recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
772very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
773The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
774circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
775fix.
776
777The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
778release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
779
780 * Improved configure script
781
782The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
783you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
784host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
785done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
786
787We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
788version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
789`--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
790The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
791only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
792We hope to make this the default in a future release.
793
794 * Documentation improvements
795
796There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
797produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
798before submitting changes.
799
800The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
801M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
802`info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
803you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
804a future texinfo-X.Y release.
805
806*NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
807We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
808been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
809or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
810`texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
811around this problem.
812
813 * New features
814
815GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
816the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
817`print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
818the target program.
819
820The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
821how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
822
823 * New native hosts supported
824
825HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
826386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
827
828 * New targets supported
829
830AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
831
832 * New file formats supported
833
834BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
835HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
836
837 * Major bug fixes
838
839Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
840
841We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
842printf_filtered("%s") problems.
843
844We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
845for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
846release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
847
848You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
849will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
850
851We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
852for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
853especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
854libraries.
855
856The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
857information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
858command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
859any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
860when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
861
862 * Internal improvements
863
864GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
865debugging of multiple languages in the future.
866
867GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
868Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
869symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
870contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
871shared code that handles any of them.
872
873 * New command line options
874
875We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
876
877 * Mmalloc licensing
878
879The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
880General Public License.
881
882*** Changes in GDB-4.7:
883
884 * Host/native/target split
885
886GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
887hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
888target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
889local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
890ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
891
892The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
893GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
894is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
895code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
896any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
897built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
898handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
899
900GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
901It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
902plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
903
904 * New hosts supported
905
906HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
907386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
908386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
909
910 * New targets supported
911
912Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
91368030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
914
915 * New native hosts supported
916
917386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
918 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
919386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
920
921 * New file formats supported
922
923BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
924supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
925format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
926
927 * New commands
928
929`show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
930`show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
931These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
932
933`info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
934
935You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
936scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
937prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
938executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
939
940 * C++ improvements
941
942We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
943info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
944symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
945
946Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
947
948 * Major bug fixes
949
950The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
951fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
952by the compiler.
953
954We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
955support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
956
957John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
958slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
959that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
960purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
961the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
962mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
963
964Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
965about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
966completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
967we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
968
969 * AMD 29k support
970
971A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
972specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
973calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
974usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
975in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
976
977We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
978Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
979of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
980resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
981
982 * Remote interfaces
983
984We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
985with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
986message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
987This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
988needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
989breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
990each instruction being stepped through.
991
992The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
993registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
994
995There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
996find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
997Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
998processor with a serial port.
999
1000 * Configuration
1001
1002Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
1003`table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
1004supported, and what files each one uses.
1005
1006 * Library changes
1007
1008There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
1009disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
1010Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
1011disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
1012
1013The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
1014Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
1015can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
1016grants all the rights from the General Public License.
1017
1018 * Documentation
1019
1020The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
1021reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
1022as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
1023encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
1024system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
1025bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
1026
1027And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
1028
1029
1030*** Changes in GDB-4.6:
1031
1032 * Better support for C++ function names
1033
1034GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
1035names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
1036(using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
1037single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
1038Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
1039
1040GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
1041the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
1042You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
1043lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
1044for the list of formats.
1045
1046 * G++ symbol mangling problem
1047
1048Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
1049C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
1050directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
1051can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
1052usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
1053about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
1054this problem.)
1055
1056 * New 'maintenance' command
1057
1058All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
1059the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
1060can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
1061
1062 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
1063 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
1064 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
1065 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
1066 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
1067 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
1068
1069The following commands are new:
1070
1071 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
1072 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
1073 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
1074
1075 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
1076
1077We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
1078(e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
1079be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
1080read after argv processing.
1081
1082 * New hosts supported
1083
1084Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
1085
1086Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
1087
1088We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
1089is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
1090for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
1091masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
1092fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
1093It costs extra.
1094
1095 * New targets supported
1096
1097Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1098
1099 * More smarts about finding #include files
1100
1101GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
1102all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
1103greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
1104especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
1105the one that contains your sources.
1106
1107We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
1108breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
1109try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
1110
1111 * Interesting infernals change
1112
1113GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
1114section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
1115target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
1116stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
1117
1118 * Bug fixes (of course!)
1119
1120There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
1121 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
1122 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
1123
1124See the ChangeLog for details.
1125
1126*** Changes in GDB-4.5:
1127
1128 * New machines supported (host and target)
1129
1130IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
1131
1132SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
1133
1134 * New malloc package
1135
1136GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
1137Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
1138capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
1139This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
1140pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
1141more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
1142
1143 * info proc
1144
1145The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
1146'help info proc' for details.
1147
1148 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
1149
1150The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
1151Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
1152possible.
1153
1154 * File name changes for MS-DOS
1155
1156Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
1157support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
1158conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
1159environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
1160that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
1161in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
1162
1163 * Cross byte order fixes
1164
1165Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
1166targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
1167
1168 * New -mapped and -readnow options
1169
1170If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
1171system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
1172`symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
1173program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
1174called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
1175Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
1176and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
1177the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
1178option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
1179starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
1180
1181You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
1182the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
1183information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
1184slower, but makes future operations faster.
1185
1186The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
1187build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
1188A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
1189use is:
1190
1191 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
1192
1193The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
1194It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
1195shared across multiple host platforms.
1196
1197 * longjmp() handling
1198
1199GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
1200siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
1201all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
1202platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
1203
1204 * Solaris 2.0
1205
1206Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
1207this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
1208reading symbols.
1209
1210 * Bug fixes
1211
1212As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
1213People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
1214crashes and trashed symbol tables.
1215
1216*** Changes in GDB-4.4:
1217
1218 * New machines supported (host and target)
1219
1220SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
1221 (except core files)
1222BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
1223Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
1224
1225 * New machines supported (target)
1226
1227AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1228
1229 * C++ support
1230
1231GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
1232The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
1233per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
1234
1235GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
1236`ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
1237extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
1238good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
1239will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
1240released.
1241
1242 * New features for SVR4
1243
1244GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
1245shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
1246only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
1247
1248The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
1249on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
1250it prints the address mappings of the process.
1251
1252If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
1253bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
1254
1255 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
1256
1257Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
1258now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
1259skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
1260make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
1261same code linked statically.
1262
1263 * New Getopt
1264
1265GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
1266version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
1267continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
1268Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
1269added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
1270future by other options that begin with the same letter.
1271
1272 * Bugs fixed
1273
1274The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
1275Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
1276See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
1277
1278
1279*** Changes in GDB-4.3:
1280
1281 * New machines supported (host and target)
1282
1283Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
1284NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
1285Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
1286
1287 * Almost SCO Unix support
1288
1289We had hoped to support:
1290SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
1291(except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
1292that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
1293about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
1294
1295 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
1296
1297GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
1298debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
1299is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
1300send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
1301reqired (if any).
1302
1303 * New Readline
1304
1305GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
1306is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
1307required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
1308
1309 * Bugs fixed
1310
1311The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
1312Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
1313See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
1314
1315 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
1316
1317GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
1318supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
1319symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
1320
1321Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
1322mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
1323debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
1324mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
1325version 2.
1326
1327Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
1328really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
1329line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
1330variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
1331situation somewhat.
1332
1333When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
1334However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
1335methods.
1336
1337We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
1338DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
1339encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
1340
1341
1342*** Changes in GDB-4.2:
1343
1344 * Improved configuration
1345
1346Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
1347Porting BFD is simpler.
1348
1349 * Stepping improved
1350
1351The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
1352of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
1353in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
1354function that has debugging information is called within the line.
1355
1356 * Bug fixing
1357
1358Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
1359
1360 * New host supported (not target)
1361
1362Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
1363
1364
1365*** Changes in GDB-4.1:
1366
1367 * Multiple source language support
1368
1369GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
1370It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
1371and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
1372language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
1373You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
1374`set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
1375
1376 * GDB and Modula-2
1377
1378GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
1379currently under development at the State University of New York at
1380Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
1381continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
1382
1383Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
1384debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
1385symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
1386
1387There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
1388in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
1389
1390 * set write on/off
1391
1392GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
1393a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
1394the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
1395by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
1396effect immediately.
1397
1398 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
1399
1400When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
1401shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
1402The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
1403examining core files.
1404
1405 * set listsize
1406
1407You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
1408The default is 10.
1409
1410 * New machines supported (host and target)
1411
1412SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
1413Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
1414Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
1415
1416 * New hosts supported (not targets)
1417
1418IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
1419
1420 * New targets supported (not hosts)
1421
1422AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1423AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1424Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
1425
1426 * New remote interfaces
1427
1428AMD 29000 Adapt
1429AMD 29000 Minimon
1430
1431
1432*** Changes in GDB-4.0:
1433
1434 * New Facilities
1435
1436Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
1437
1438Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
1439target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
1440is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
1441remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
1442remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
1443also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
1444using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
1445stub on the target system.
1446
1447New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
1448
1449GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
1450library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
1451object file types such as a.out and coff.
1452
1453There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
1454refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
1455
1456
1457 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
1458
1459All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
1460by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
1461
1462For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
1463``Show prompt'' produces the response:
1464Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
1465
1466What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
1467print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
1468will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
1469all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
1470
1471confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
1472 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
1473 it is already running. Default is ON.
1474
1475editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
1476 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
1477 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
1478 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
1479 Default is ON.
1480
1481history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
1482 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
1483 or the value of the environment variable
1484 GDBHISTFILE.
1485
1486history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
1487 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
1488 HISTSIZE.
1489
1490history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
1491 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
1492 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
1493
1494history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
1495 history expansion will be performed on
1496 command line input. The default is OFF.
1497
1498radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
1499 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
1500 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
1501
1502height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
1503 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
1504 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
1505 variable TERM.
1506
1507width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
1508 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
1509 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
1510 variable TERM.
1511
1512Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
1513``set width'' instead.
1514
1515print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
1516 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
1517 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
1518 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
1519
1520print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
1521 is OFF.
1522
1523print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
1524 "raw" form if off.
1525
1526print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
1527 like instructions.
1528
1529print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
1530
1531
1532 * Support for Epoch Environment.
1533
1534The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
1535new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
1536are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
1537window.
1538
1539
1540 * Support for Shared Libraries
1541
1542GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
1543Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
1544before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
1545happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
1546At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
1547from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
1548shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
1549It can be abbreviated ``share''.
1550
1551sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
1552 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
1553 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
1554
1555info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
1556
1557
1558 * Watchpoints
1559
1560A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
1561expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
1562tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
1563quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
1564problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
1565more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
1566
1567watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
1568
1569info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
1570
1571delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
1572disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
1573enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
1574
1575
1576 * C++ multiple inheritance
1577
1578When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
1579for C++ programs.
1580
1581 * C++ exception handling
1582
1583Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
1584ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
1585the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
1586handler's context).
1587
1588catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
1589 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
1590 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
1591
1592info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
1593 current stack frame.
1594
1595
1596 * Minor command changes
1597
1598The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
1599command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
1600is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
1601
1602The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
1603at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
1604frames without printing.
1605
1606 * New directory command
1607
1608'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
1609The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
1610about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
1611with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
1612find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
1613
1614 * Configuring GDB for compilation
1615
1616For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
1617for more details.
1618
1619GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
1620two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
1621Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
1622where the program that you are debugging will run.
This page took 0.088707 seconds and 4 git commands to generate.