2000-05-10 H.J. Lu <hjl@gnu.org>
[deliverable/binutils-gdb.git] / gdb / NEWS
CommitLineData
c906108c
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1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
3
9debab2f 4*** Changes in GDB 5.0:
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6* Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
7
8Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
9programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
10displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
11greater level of detail.
12
13* Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
14
15It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
16bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
17on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
18written.
19
20* Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
21
22The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
23necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
24machines ``out of the box''.
25
26The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
27possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
28signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
29would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
30interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
31
32It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
33standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
34even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
35and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
36terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
37
38The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
39enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
40also works.
41
42DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
43GDB.
44
45It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
46directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
47times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
48breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
49
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50* New native configurations
51
52ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
afc05dd4 53PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
ed9a39eb 54
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55* New targets
56
96baa820 57Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
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58x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
59PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
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60TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
61
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62* OBSOLETE configurations
63
64Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
65Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
9846de1b 66Pyramid pyramid-*-*
ed9a39eb 67ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
104c1213 68Tahoe tahoe-*-*
7a292a7a 69
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70Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
71but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
72these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
73be permanently REMOVED.
74
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75* Gould support removed
76
77Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
78
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79* New features for SVR4
80
81On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
82without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
83load symbols from the running process's executable file.
84
85* Many C++ enhancements
86
87C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
88in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
89
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90* Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
91
92A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
93sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
94with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
95``|<program> <args>'' vis:
96
97 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
98 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
99
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100* MIPS 64 remote protocol
101
102A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
103expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
104instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
105
106The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
107added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
108
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109* ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
110
111The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
112``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
113include ``set remote P-packet''.
114
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115* Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
116
117The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
118accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
119``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
120
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121* ``apropos'' command added.
122
123The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
124documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
125try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
126
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127* New MI interface
128
129A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
130interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
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131process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
132"GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
133enabled by configuring with:
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134
135 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
136
c906108c
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137*** Changes in GDB-4.18:
138
139* New native configurations
140
141HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
142HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
143M68K Linux m68*-*-linux*
144
145* New targets
146
147Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
148Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
149Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
150
151* OBSOLETE configurations
152
153Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
154
155Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
156but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
157these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
158be permanently REMOVED.
159
160* ANSI/ISO C
161
162As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
163buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
164containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
165use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
166available. If this is not true, please report the affected
167configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
168information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
169already.
170
171* Readline 2.2
172
173GDB now uses readline 2.2.
174
175* set extension-language
176
177You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
178languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
179you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
180 set extension-language .c c++
181The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
182and their associated languages.
183
184* Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
185
186When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
187you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
188PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
189
190 set processor NAME
191
192sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
193following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
194
195 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
196 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
197 403 IBM PowerPC 403
198 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
199 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
200 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
201 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
202 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
203 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
204 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
205 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
206
207At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
208special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
209registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
210only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
211
212* HP-UX support
213
214Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
215more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
216library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
217support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
218for xdb and dbx commands.
219
220* Catchpoints
221
222HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
223generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
224to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
225
226This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
227argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
228output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
229
230* Debugging across forks
231
232On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
233in the inferior.
234
235* TUI
236
237HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
238it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
239configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
240
241* GDB remote protocol additions
242
243A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
244Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
245fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
246allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
247
248For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
249full 64-bit address. The command
250
251 set remoteaddresssize 32
252
253can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
254the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
255will be discarded.
256
257In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
258command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
259
260 maint packet heythere
261
262sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
263disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
264time.
265
266The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
267target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
268downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
269
270* Tracing can collect general expressions
271
272You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
273further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
274doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
275
276* mask-address variable for Mips
277
278For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
279a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
280of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
281
282* Higher serial baud rates
283
284GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
285230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
286to achieve all of these rates.)
287
288* i960 simulator
289
290The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
291builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
292
293
294*** Changes in GDB-4.17:
295
296* New native configurations
297
298Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
299Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
300Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
301PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
302PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
303Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
304Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
305
306* New targets
307
308Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
309Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
310Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
311Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
312MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
313MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
314MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
315Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
316Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
317Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
318NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
319
320* New debugging protocols
321
322ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
323M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
324DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
325PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
326PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
327Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
328
329* DWARF 2
330
331All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
332format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
333information.
334
335* Java frontend
336
337GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
338only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
339
340* solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
341
342For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
343loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
344locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
345
346* Live range splitting
347
348GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
349range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
350more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
351
352* Hurd support
353
354GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
355updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
356
357* ARM Thumb support
358
359GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
360instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
361instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
362accordingly.
363
364* MIPS16 support
365
366GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
367instruction set.
368
369* Overlay support
370
371GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
372linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
373will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
374control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
375additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
376in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
377
378* info symbol
379
380The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
381the symbol at the specified address.
382
383* Trace support
384
385The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
386asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
387extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
388includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
389file tracepoint.c for more details.
390
391* MIPS simulator
392
393Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
394by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
395of most MIPS variants.
396
397* Sparc simulator
398
399Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
400by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
401Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
402
403* set architecture
404
405For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
406basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
407architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
408the possible architectures.
409
410*** Changes in GDB-4.16:
411
412* New native configurations
413
414Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
415M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
416PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
417PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
418PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
419RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
420
421* New targets
422
423ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
424I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
425MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
426MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
427PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
428Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
429Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
430
431* PowerPC simulator
432
433The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
434contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
435PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
436basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
437performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
438
439* Solaris 2.5
440
441GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
442
443* Windows 95/NT native
444
445GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
446To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
447which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
448Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
449ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
450
451* dont-repeat command
452
453If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
454command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
455useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
456extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
457
458* Send break instead of ^C
459
460The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
461rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
462GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
463
464* Remote protocol timeout
465
466The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
467that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
468to read from the target. The default value is 2.
469
470* Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
471
472By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
473loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
474stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
475when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
476in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
477
478Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
479/usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
480automatically on hpux10.
481
482* Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
483
484Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
485
486* Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
487
488When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
489may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
490the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
491every character. The default value is 1050.
492
493* Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
494
495If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
496a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
497replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
498details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
499remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
500to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
501
502* Speedups for remote debugging
503
504GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
505the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
506and more efficient S-record downloading.
507
508* Memory use reductions and statistics collection
509
510GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
511Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
512
513*** Changes in GDB-4.15:
514
515* Psymtabs for XCOFF
516
517The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
518can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
519
520* Remote targets use caching
521
522Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
523remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
524it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
525debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
526off' turns the the data cache off.
527
528* Remote targets may have threads
529
530The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
531in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
532gdb/remote.c for details.
533
534* NetROM support
535
536If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
537support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
538acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
539write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
540support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
541another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
542sequence is something like
543
544 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
545 load <prog>
546 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
547
548* Macintosh host
549
550GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
551may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
552it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
553available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
554device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
555directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
556scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
557mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
558
559* Autoconf
560
561GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
562but does simplify configuration and building.
563
564* hpux10
565
566GDB now supports hpux10.
567
568*** Changes in GDB-4.14:
569
570* New native configurations
571
572x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
573x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
574NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
575Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
576
577* New targets
578
579A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
580HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
581CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
582PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
583WDC 65816 w65-*-*
584
585* Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
586
587GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
588possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
589filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
590the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
591if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
592
593* Arguments to user-defined commands
594
595User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
596Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
597trivial example:
598define adder
599 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
600
601To execute the command use:
602adder 1 2 3
603
604Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
605Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
606use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
607
608* New `if' and `while' commands
609
610This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
611commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
612expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
613execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
614terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
615`else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
616if the expression is zero.
617
618* Fortran source language mode
619
620GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
621Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
622variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
623with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
624Fortran compilers.
625
626* Better HPUX support
627
628Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
629running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
630processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
631for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
632that behavior do the following before running the program:
633
634 adb -w a.out
635 __dld_flags?W 0x5
636 control-d
637
638This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
639To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
640
641 adb -w a.out
642 __dld_flags?W 0x4
643 control-d
644
645You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
646the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
647external linkage.
648
649GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
650HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
651
652* Target byte order now dynamically selectable
653
654You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
655commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
656current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
657"set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
658associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
659configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
660
661* New DOS host serial code
662
663This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
664no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
665a PC's serial port.
666
667*** Changes in GDB-4.13:
668
669* New "complete" command
670
671This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
672were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
673
674* Trailing space optional in prompt
675
676"set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
677allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
678
679* Breakpoint hit counts
680
681"info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
682has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
683can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
684to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
685less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
686that breakpoint.
687
688* Ability to stop printing at NULL character
689
690"set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
691an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
692arrays actually contain only short strings.
693
694* Shared library breakpoints
695
696In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
697breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
698
699* Hardware watchpoints
700
701There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
702targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
703
704Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under Linux.
705
706* Annotations
707
708Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
709and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
710
711* Improved Irix 5 support
712
713GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
714
715* Improved HPPA support
716
717GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
718
719* New native configurations
720
721Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
722HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
723Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
724RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
725
726* New targets
727
728OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
729MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
730Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
731
732* Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
733
734There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
735This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
736
737* Fixes
738
739As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
740and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
741
742*** Changes in GDB-4.12:
743
744* Irix 5 is now supported
745
746* HPPA support
747
748GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
749to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
750GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
751of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
752can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
753
754
755*** Changes in GDB-4.11:
756
757* User visible changes:
758
759* Remote Debugging
760
761The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
762target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
763debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
764integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
765debugging info for the mips target).
766
767* DEC Alpha native support
768
769GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
770debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
771work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
772Alpha-specific notes.
773
774* Preliminary thread implementation
775
776GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
777
778* LynxOS native and target support for 386
779
780This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
781to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
782for details).
783
784* Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
785
786This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
787mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
788call methods, ...etc.
789
790*** Changes in GDB-4.10:
791
792 * User visible changes:
793
794Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
795supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
796other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
797somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
798
799Filename completion now works.
800
801When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
802arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
803addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
804
805All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
806vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
807should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
808your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
809to be on the far side of a thin network line.
810
811 * DEC alpha support
812
813This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
814cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
815
816
817*** Changes in GDB-4.9:
818
819 * Testsuite
820
821This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
822The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
823via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
824
825 * C++ demangling
826
827'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
828emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
829Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
830disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
831use gdb with AT&T cfront.
832
833 * Simulators
834
835GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
836So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
837Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
838
839 * New targets supported
840
841H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
842H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
843SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
844Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
845IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
846
847Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
848version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
849GO32 memory extender.
850
851 * New remote protocols
852
853MIPS remote debugging protocol.
854
855 * New source languages supported
856
857This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
858used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
859into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
860
861
862*** Changes in GDB-4.8:
863
864 * HP Precision Architecture supported
865
866GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
867version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
868University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
869compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
870format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
871(as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
872
873Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
874
875 * Faster and better demangling
876
877We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
878demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
879character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
880only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
881This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
882increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
883symbol lookups.
884
885`Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
886from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
887compiler does not actually implement.
888
889 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
890
891In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
892inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
893recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
894very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
895The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
896circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
897fix.
898
899The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
900release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
901
902 * Improved configure script
903
904The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
905you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
906host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
907done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
908
909We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
910version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
911`--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
912The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
913only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
914We hope to make this the default in a future release.
915
916 * Documentation improvements
917
918There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
919produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
920before submitting changes.
921
922The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
923M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
924`info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
925you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
926a future texinfo-X.Y release.
927
928*NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
929We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
930been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
931or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
932`texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
933around this problem.
934
935 * New features
936
937GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
938the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
939`print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
940the target program.
941
942The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
943how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
944
945 * New native hosts supported
946
947HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
948386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
949
950 * New targets supported
951
952AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
953
954 * New file formats supported
955
956BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
957HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
958
959 * Major bug fixes
960
961Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
962
963We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
964printf_filtered("%s") problems.
965
966We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
967for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
968release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
969
970You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
971will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
972
973We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
974for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
975especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
976libraries.
977
978The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
979information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
980command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
981any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
982when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
983
984 * Internal improvements
985
986GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
987debugging of multiple languages in the future.
988
989GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
990Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
991symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
992contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
993shared code that handles any of them.
994
995 * New command line options
996
997We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
998
999 * Mmalloc licensing
1000
1001The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
1002General Public License.
1003
1004*** Changes in GDB-4.7:
1005
1006 * Host/native/target split
1007
1008GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
1009hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
1010target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
1011local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
1012ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
1013
1014The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
1015GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
1016is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
1017code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
1018any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
1019built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
1020handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
1021
1022GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
1023It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
1024plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
1025
1026 * New hosts supported
1027
1028HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
1029386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1030386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
1031
1032 * New targets supported
1033
1034Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
103568030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
1036
1037 * New native hosts supported
1038
1039386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1040 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
1041386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
1042
1043 * New file formats supported
1044
1045BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
1046supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
1047format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
1048
1049 * New commands
1050
1051`show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
1052`show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
1053These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
1054
1055`info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
1056
1057You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
1058scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
1059prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
1060executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
1061
1062 * C++ improvements
1063
1064We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
1065info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
1066symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
1067
1068Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
1069
1070 * Major bug fixes
1071
1072The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
1073fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
1074by the compiler.
1075
1076We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
1077support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
1078
1079John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
1080slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
1081that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
1082purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
1083the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
1084mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
1085
1086Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
1087about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
1088completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
1089we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
1090
1091 * AMD 29k support
1092
1093A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
1094specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
1095calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
1096usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
1097in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
1098
1099We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
1100Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
1101of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
1102resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
1103
1104 * Remote interfaces
1105
1106We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
1107with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
1108message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
1109This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
1110needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
1111breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
1112each instruction being stepped through.
1113
1114The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
1115registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
1116
1117There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
1118find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
1119Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
1120processor with a serial port.
1121
1122 * Configuration
1123
1124Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
1125`table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
1126supported, and what files each one uses.
1127
1128 * Library changes
1129
1130There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
1131disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
1132Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
1133disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
1134
1135The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
1136Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
1137can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
1138grants all the rights from the General Public License.
1139
1140 * Documentation
1141
1142The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
1143reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
1144as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
1145encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
1146system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
1147bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
1148
1149And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
1150
1151
1152*** Changes in GDB-4.6:
1153
1154 * Better support for C++ function names
1155
1156GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
1157names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
1158(using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
1159single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
1160Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
1161
1162GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
1163the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
1164You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
1165lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
1166for the list of formats.
1167
1168 * G++ symbol mangling problem
1169
1170Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
1171C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
1172directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
1173can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
1174usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
1175about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
1176this problem.)
1177
1178 * New 'maintenance' command
1179
1180All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
1181the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
1182can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
1183
1184 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
1185 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
1186 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
1187 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
1188 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
1189 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
1190
1191The following commands are new:
1192
1193 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
1194 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
1195 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
1196
1197 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
1198
1199We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
1200(e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
1201be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
1202read after argv processing.
1203
1204 * New hosts supported
1205
1206Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
1207
1208Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
1209
1210We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
1211is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
1212for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
1213masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
1214fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
1215It costs extra.
1216
1217 * New targets supported
1218
1219Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1220
1221 * More smarts about finding #include files
1222
1223GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
1224all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
1225greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
1226especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
1227the one that contains your sources.
1228
1229We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
1230breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
1231try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
1232
1233 * Interesting infernals change
1234
1235GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
1236section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
1237target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
1238stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
1239
1240 * Bug fixes (of course!)
1241
1242There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
1243 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
1244 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
1245
1246See the ChangeLog for details.
1247
1248*** Changes in GDB-4.5:
1249
1250 * New machines supported (host and target)
1251
1252IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
1253
1254SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
1255
1256 * New malloc package
1257
1258GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
1259Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
1260capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
1261This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
1262pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
1263more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
1264
1265 * info proc
1266
1267The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
1268'help info proc' for details.
1269
1270 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
1271
1272The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
1273Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
1274possible.
1275
1276 * File name changes for MS-DOS
1277
1278Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
1279support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
1280conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
1281environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
1282that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
1283in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
1284
1285 * Cross byte order fixes
1286
1287Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
1288targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
1289
1290 * New -mapped and -readnow options
1291
1292If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
1293system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
1294`symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
1295program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
1296called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
1297Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
1298and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
1299the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
1300option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
1301starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
1302
1303You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
1304the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
1305information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
1306slower, but makes future operations faster.
1307
1308The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
1309build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
1310A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
1311use is:
1312
1313 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
1314
1315The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
1316It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
1317shared across multiple host platforms.
1318
1319 * longjmp() handling
1320
1321GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
1322siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
1323all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
1324platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
1325
1326 * Solaris 2.0
1327
1328Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
1329this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
1330reading symbols.
1331
1332 * Bug fixes
1333
1334As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
1335People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
1336crashes and trashed symbol tables.
1337
1338*** Changes in GDB-4.4:
1339
1340 * New machines supported (host and target)
1341
1342SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
1343 (except core files)
1344BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
1345Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
1346
1347 * New machines supported (target)
1348
1349AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1350
1351 * C++ support
1352
1353GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
1354The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
1355per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
1356
1357GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
1358`ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
1359extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
1360good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
1361will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
1362released.
1363
1364 * New features for SVR4
1365
1366GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
1367shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
1368only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
1369
1370The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
1371on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
1372it prints the address mappings of the process.
1373
1374If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
1375bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
1376
1377 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
1378
1379Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
1380now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
1381skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
1382make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
1383same code linked statically.
1384
1385 * New Getopt
1386
1387GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
1388version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
1389continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
1390Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
1391added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
1392future by other options that begin with the same letter.
1393
1394 * Bugs fixed
1395
1396The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
1397Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
1398See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
1399
1400
1401*** Changes in GDB-4.3:
1402
1403 * New machines supported (host and target)
1404
1405Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
1406NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
1407Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
1408
1409 * Almost SCO Unix support
1410
1411We had hoped to support:
1412SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
1413(except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
1414that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
1415about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
1416
1417 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
1418
1419GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
1420debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
1421is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
1422send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
1423reqired (if any).
1424
1425 * New Readline
1426
1427GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
1428is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
1429required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
1430
1431 * Bugs fixed
1432
1433The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
1434Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
1435See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
1436
1437 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
1438
1439GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
1440supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
1441symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
1442
1443Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
1444mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
1445debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
1446mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
1447version 2.
1448
1449Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
1450really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
1451line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
1452variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
1453situation somewhat.
1454
1455When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
1456However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
1457methods.
1458
1459We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
1460DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
1461encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
1462
1463
1464*** Changes in GDB-4.2:
1465
1466 * Improved configuration
1467
1468Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
1469Porting BFD is simpler.
1470
1471 * Stepping improved
1472
1473The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
1474of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
1475in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
1476function that has debugging information is called within the line.
1477
1478 * Bug fixing
1479
1480Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
1481
1482 * New host supported (not target)
1483
1484Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
1485
1486
1487*** Changes in GDB-4.1:
1488
1489 * Multiple source language support
1490
1491GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
1492It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
1493and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
1494language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
1495You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
1496`set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
1497
1498 * GDB and Modula-2
1499
1500GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
1501currently under development at the State University of New York at
1502Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
1503continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
1504
1505Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
1506debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
1507symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
1508
1509There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
1510in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
1511
1512 * set write on/off
1513
1514GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
1515a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
1516the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
1517by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
1518effect immediately.
1519
1520 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
1521
1522When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
1523shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
1524The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
1525examining core files.
1526
1527 * set listsize
1528
1529You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
1530The default is 10.
1531
1532 * New machines supported (host and target)
1533
1534SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
1535Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
1536Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
1537
1538 * New hosts supported (not targets)
1539
1540IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
1541
1542 * New targets supported (not hosts)
1543
1544AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1545AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1546Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
1547
1548 * New remote interfaces
1549
1550AMD 29000 Adapt
1551AMD 29000 Minimon
1552
1553
1554*** Changes in GDB-4.0:
1555
1556 * New Facilities
1557
1558Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
1559
1560Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
1561target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
1562is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
1563remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
1564remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
1565also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
1566using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
1567stub on the target system.
1568
1569New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
1570
1571GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
1572library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
1573object file types such as a.out and coff.
1574
1575There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
1576refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
1577
1578
1579 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
1580
1581All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
1582by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
1583
1584For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
1585``Show prompt'' produces the response:
1586Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
1587
1588What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
1589print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
1590will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
1591all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
1592
1593confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
1594 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
1595 it is already running. Default is ON.
1596
1597editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
1598 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
1599 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
1600 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
1601 Default is ON.
1602
1603history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
1604 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
1605 or the value of the environment variable
1606 GDBHISTFILE.
1607
1608history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
1609 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
1610 HISTSIZE.
1611
1612history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
1613 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
1614 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
1615
1616history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
1617 history expansion will be performed on
1618 command line input. The default is OFF.
1619
1620radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
1621 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
1622 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
1623
1624height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
1625 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
1626 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
1627 variable TERM.
1628
1629width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
1630 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
1631 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
1632 variable TERM.
1633
1634Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
1635``set width'' instead.
1636
1637print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
1638 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
1639 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
1640 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
1641
1642print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
1643 is OFF.
1644
1645print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
1646 "raw" form if off.
1647
1648print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
1649 like instructions.
1650
1651print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
1652
1653
1654 * Support for Epoch Environment.
1655
1656The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
1657new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
1658are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
1659window.
1660
1661
1662 * Support for Shared Libraries
1663
1664GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
1665Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
1666before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
1667happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
1668At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
1669from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
1670shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
1671It can be abbreviated ``share''.
1672
1673sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
1674 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
1675 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
1676
1677info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
1678
1679
1680 * Watchpoints
1681
1682A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
1683expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
1684tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
1685quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
1686problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
1687more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
1688
1689watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
1690
1691info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
1692
1693delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
1694disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
1695enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
1696
1697
1698 * C++ multiple inheritance
1699
1700When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
1701for C++ programs.
1702
1703 * C++ exception handling
1704
1705Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
1706ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
1707the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
1708handler's context).
1709
1710catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
1711 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
1712 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
1713
1714info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
1715 current stack frame.
1716
1717
1718 * Minor command changes
1719
1720The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
1721command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
1722is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
1723
1724The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
1725at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
1726frames without printing.
1727
1728 * New directory command
1729
1730'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
1731The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
1732about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
1733with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
1734find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
1735
1736 * Configuring GDB for compilation
1737
1738For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
1739for more details.
1740
1741GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
1742two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
1743Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
1744where the program that you are debugging will run.
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