1 What has changed since GDB-3.5?
2 (Organized release by release)
4 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
6 (This is a prototype to remind us of things that should be announced
7 in the next release...)
10 H8/500 simulator (probably by the next release)
11 Z8000 family simulator
13 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
14 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
15 GO32 memory extender. Msg follows:
18 Date: Tue, 16 Feb 93 02:34:20 EST
19 From: "Mark W. Eichin" <eichin@cygnus.com>
20 Message-Id: <9302160734.AA09302@tweedledumb.cygnus.com>
22 Cc: ian@cygnus.com, gnu@cygnus.com, gumby@cygnus.com, gdb@cygnus.com
23 In-Reply-To: gnu@cygnus.com's message of Mon, 15 Feb 93 22:30:09 -0800 <9302160630.AA00786@cygnus.com>
24 Subject: GO32 debugging in devo/gdb
26 SUB: GO32 debugging in devo/gdb
27 SUM: <gnu>, gnu->eichin, ian, gnu, gumby, gdb
29 My impression is that devo/gdb supports remote debugging of GO32 programs.
32 Yes. I think that even the 4.7 release had everything needed.
34 What does a user have to have in the GO32 environment in order to do this?
35 (My guess: our custom-modified GO32. Did we send the changes back to
36 DJ and did they ever get integrated into the standard GO32?)
38 I asked DJ if he wanted the changes; at the time, he was very busy
39 having a daughter. He's back on the net now, I'll give him another
40 try. My changes are to GO32 1.07 and the entire source (and an
41 executable) are checked in to cvs; the current GO32 is 1.08, I haven't
42 tried updating the changes.
44 What does a user have to actually do in GO32 in order for this to work?
45 E.g. there seems to be no user-level documentation for this feature.
47 GO32 includes "go32.exe" and "debug32.exe"; my version is
48 "dser32.exe". With a serial link on com1 to the host, use the mode
49 command on the target to set the baud rate, then "dser32 a.out" and
50 start up gdb (configured -target go32), target remote /dev/ttya.
51 Shoudl just work from there.
53 I'm wondering if we can announce this as part of what's supported in
56 The hard part is the extender itself -- it needs to be built with a
57 native 16-bit compiler (such as Turbo C with Turbo Assembler -- about
58 $300 in software, which I do own -- and the assembly code uses enough
59 high level features (like structs) that it isn't portable to other
60 assemblers.) We have no way to build it with any free tools. I think
61 we can ship (or at least make available) the executable for the DOS
62 side, I don't think Turbo C has any runtime restrictions.
66 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
68 * HP Precision Architecture supported
70 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
71 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
72 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
73 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
74 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
75 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
77 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
79 * Faster and better demangling
81 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
82 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
83 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
84 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
85 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
86 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
89 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
90 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
91 compiler does not actually implement.
93 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
95 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
96 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
97 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
98 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
99 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
100 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
103 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
104 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
106 * Improved configure script
108 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
109 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
110 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
111 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
113 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
114 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
115 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
116 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
117 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
118 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
120 * Documentation improvements
122 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
123 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
124 before submitting changes.
126 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
127 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
128 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
129 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
130 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
132 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
133 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
134 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
135 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
136 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
141 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
142 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
143 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
146 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
147 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
149 * New native hosts supported
151 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
152 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
154 * New targets supported
156 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
158 * New file formats supported
160 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
161 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
165 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
167 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
168 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
170 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
171 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
172 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
174 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
175 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
177 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
178 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
179 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
182 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
183 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
184 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
185 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
186 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
188 * Internal improvements
190 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
191 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
193 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
194 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
195 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
196 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
197 shared code that handles any of them.
199 * New command line options
201 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
205 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
206 General Public License.
208 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
210 * Host/native/target split
212 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
213 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
214 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
215 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
216 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
218 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
219 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
220 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
221 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
222 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
223 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
224 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
226 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
227 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
228 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
230 * New hosts supported
232 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
233 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
234 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
236 * New targets supported
238 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
239 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
241 * New native hosts supported
243 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
244 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
245 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
247 * New file formats supported
249 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
250 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
251 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
255 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
256 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
257 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
259 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
261 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
262 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
263 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
264 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
268 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
269 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
270 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
272 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
276 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
277 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
280 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
281 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
283 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
284 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
285 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
286 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
287 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
288 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
290 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
291 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
292 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
293 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
297 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
298 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
299 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
300 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
301 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
303 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
304 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
305 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
306 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
310 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
311 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
312 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
313 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
314 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
315 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
316 each instruction being stepped through.
318 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
319 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
321 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
322 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
323 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
324 processor with a serial port.
328 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
329 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
330 supported, and what files each one uses.
334 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
335 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
336 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
337 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
339 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
340 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
341 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
342 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
346 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
347 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
348 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
349 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
350 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
351 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
353 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
356 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
358 * Better support for C++ function names
360 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
361 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
362 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
363 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
364 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
366 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
367 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
368 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
369 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
370 for the list of formats.
372 * G++ symbol mangling problem
374 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
375 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
376 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
377 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
378 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
379 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
382 * New 'maintenance' command
384 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
385 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
386 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
388 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
389 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
390 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
391 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
392 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
393 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
395 The following commands are new:
397 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
398 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
399 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
401 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
403 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
404 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
405 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
406 read after argv processing.
408 * New hosts supported
410 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
412 Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
414 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
415 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
416 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
417 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
418 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
421 * New targets supported
423 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
425 * More smarts about finding #include files
427 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
428 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
429 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
430 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
431 the one that contains your sources.
433 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
434 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
435 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
437 * Interesting infernals change
439 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
440 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
441 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
442 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
444 * Bug fixes (of course!)
446 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
447 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
448 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
450 See the ChangeLog for details.
452 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
454 * New machines supported (host and target)
456 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
458 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
462 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
463 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
464 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
465 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
466 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
467 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
471 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
472 'help info proc' for details.
474 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
476 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
477 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
480 * File name changes for MS-DOS
482 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
483 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
484 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
485 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
486 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
487 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
489 * Cross byte order fixes
491 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
492 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
494 * New -mapped and -readnow options
496 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
497 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
498 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
499 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
500 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
501 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
502 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
503 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
504 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
505 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
507 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
508 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
509 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
510 slower, but makes future operations faster.
512 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
513 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
514 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
517 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
519 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
520 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
521 shared across multiple host platforms.
525 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
526 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
527 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
528 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
532 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
533 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
538 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
539 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
540 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
542 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
544 * New machines supported (host and target)
546 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
548 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
549 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
551 * New machines supported (target)
553 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
557 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
558 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
559 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
561 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
562 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
563 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
564 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
565 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
568 * New features for SVR4
570 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
571 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
572 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
574 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
575 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
576 it prints the address mappings of the process.
578 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
579 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
581 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
583 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
584 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
585 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
586 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
587 same code linked statically.
591 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
592 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
593 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
594 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
595 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
596 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
600 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
601 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
602 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
605 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
607 * New machines supported (host and target)
609 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
610 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
611 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
613 * Almost SCO Unix support
615 We had hoped to support:
616 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
617 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
618 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
619 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
621 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
623 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
624 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
625 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
626 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
631 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
632 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
633 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
637 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
638 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
639 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
641 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
643 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
644 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
645 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
647 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
648 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
649 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
650 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
653 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
654 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
655 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
656 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
659 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
660 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
663 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
664 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
665 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
668 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
670 * Improved configuration
672 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
673 Porting BFD is simpler.
677 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
678 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
679 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
680 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
684 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
686 * New host supported (not target)
688 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
691 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
693 * Multiple source language support
695 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
696 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
697 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
698 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
699 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
700 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
704 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
705 currently under development at the State University of New York at
706 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
707 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
709 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
710 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
711 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
713 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
714 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
718 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
719 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
720 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
721 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
724 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
726 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
727 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
728 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
729 examining core files.
733 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
736 * New machines supported (host and target)
738 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
739 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
740 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
742 * New hosts supported (not targets)
744 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
746 * New targets supported (not hosts)
748 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
749 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
750 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
752 * New remote interfaces
758 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
762 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
764 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
765 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
766 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
767 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
768 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
769 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
770 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
771 stub on the target system.
773 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
775 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
776 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
777 object file types such as a.out and coff.
779 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
780 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
783 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
785 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
786 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
788 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
789 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
790 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
792 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
793 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
794 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
795 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
797 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
798 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
799 it is already running. Default is ON.
801 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
802 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
803 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
804 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
807 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
808 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
809 or the value of the environment variable
812 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
813 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
816 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
817 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
818 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
820 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
821 history expansion will be performed on
822 command line input. The default is OFF.
824 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
825 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
826 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
828 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
829 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
830 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
833 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
834 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
835 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
838 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
839 ``set width'' instead.
841 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
842 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
843 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
844 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
846 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
849 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
852 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
855 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
858 * Support for Epoch Environment.
860 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
861 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
862 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
866 * Support for Shared Libraries
868 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
869 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
870 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
871 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
872 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
873 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
874 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
875 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
877 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
878 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
879 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
881 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
886 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
887 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
888 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
889 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
890 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
891 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
893 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
895 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
897 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
898 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
899 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
902 * C++ multiple inheritance
904 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
907 * C++ exception handling
909 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
910 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
911 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
914 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
915 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
916 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
918 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
922 * Minor command changes
924 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
925 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
926 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
928 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
929 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
930 frames without printing.
932 * New directory command
934 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
935 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
936 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
937 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
938 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
940 * Configuring GDB for compilation
942 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
945 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
946 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
947 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
948 where the program that you are debugging will run.
projects / deliverable / binutils-gdb.git / blob