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c906108c
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1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
3
7a292a7a
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4*** Changes since GDB-4.18:
5
104c1213
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6* New features
7
8On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
9without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
10load symbols from the running process's executable file.
11
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12C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
13in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
14
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15* New native configurations
16
17ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
afc05dd4 18PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
ed9a39eb 19
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20* New targets
21
96baa820 22Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
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23x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
24PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
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25TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
26
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27* OBSOLETE configurations
28
29Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
30Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
9846de1b 31Pyramid pyramid-*-*
ed9a39eb 32ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
104c1213 33Tahoe tahoe-*-*
7a292a7a 34
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35* Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
36
37A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
38sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
39with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
40``|<program> <args>'' vis:
41
42 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
43 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
44
43e526b9
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45* MIPS 64 remote protocol
46
47A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
48expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
49instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
50
51The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
52added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
53
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54* ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
55
56The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
57``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
58include ``set remote P-packet''.
59
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60* Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
61
62The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
63accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
64``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
65
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66* ``apropos'' command added.
67
68The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
69documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
70try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
71
c906108c
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72*** Changes in GDB-4.18:
73
74* New native configurations
75
76HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
77HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
78M68K Linux m68*-*-linux*
79
80* New targets
81
82Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
83Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
84Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
85
86* OBSOLETE configurations
87
88Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
89
90Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
91but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
92these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
93be permanently REMOVED.
94
95* ANSI/ISO C
96
97As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
98buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
99containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
100use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
101available. If this is not true, please report the affected
102configuration to [email protected] immediately. See the README file for
103information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
104already.
105
106* Readline 2.2
107
108GDB now uses readline 2.2.
109
110* set extension-language
111
112You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
113languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
114you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
115 set extension-language .c c++
116The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
117and their associated languages.
118
119* Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
120
121When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
122you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
123PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
124
125 set processor NAME
126
127sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
128following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
129
130 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
131 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
132 403 IBM PowerPC 403
133 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
134 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
135 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
136 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
137 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
138 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
139 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
140 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
141
142At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
143special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
144registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
145only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
146
147* HP-UX support
148
149Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
150more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
151library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
152support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
153for xdb and dbx commands.
154
155* Catchpoints
156
157HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
158generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
159to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
160
161This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
162argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
163output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
164
165* Debugging across forks
166
167On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
168in the inferior.
169
170* TUI
171
172HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
173it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
174configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
175
176* GDB remote protocol additions
177
178A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
179Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
180fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
181allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
182
183For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
184full 64-bit address. The command
185
186 set remoteaddresssize 32
187
188can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
189the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
190will be discarded.
191
192In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
193command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
194
195 maint packet heythere
196
197sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
198disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
199time.
200
201The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
202target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
203downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
204
205* Tracing can collect general expressions
206
207You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
208further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
209doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
210
211* mask-address variable for Mips
212
213For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
214a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
215of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
216
217* Higher serial baud rates
218
219GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
220230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
221to achieve all of these rates.)
222
223* i960 simulator
224
225The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
226builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
227
228
229*** Changes in GDB-4.17:
230
231* New native configurations
232
233Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
234Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
235Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
236PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
237PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
238Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
239Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
240
241* New targets
242
243Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
244Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
245Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
246Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
247MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
248MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
249MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
250Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
251Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
252Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
253NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
254
255* New debugging protocols
256
257ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
258M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
259DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
260PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
261PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
262Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
263
264* DWARF 2
265
266All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
267format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
268information.
269
270* Java frontend
271
272GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
273only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
274
275* solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
276
277For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
278loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
279locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
280
281* Live range splitting
282
283GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
284range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
285more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
286
287* Hurd support
288
289GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
290updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
291
292* ARM Thumb support
293
294GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
295instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
296instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
297accordingly.
298
299* MIPS16 support
300
301GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
302instruction set.
303
304* Overlay support
305
306GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
307linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
308will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
309control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
310additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
311in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
312
313* info symbol
314
315The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
316the symbol at the specified address.
317
318* Trace support
319
320The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
321asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
322extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
323includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
324file tracepoint.c for more details.
325
326* MIPS simulator
327
328Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
329by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
330of most MIPS variants.
331
332* Sparc simulator
333
334Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
335by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
336Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
337
338* set architecture
339
340For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
341basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
342architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
343the possible architectures.
344
345*** Changes in GDB-4.16:
346
347* New native configurations
348
349Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
350M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
351PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
352PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
353PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
354RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
355
356* New targets
357
358ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
359I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
360MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
361MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
362PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
363Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
364Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
365
366* PowerPC simulator
367
368The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
369contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
370PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
371basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
372performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
373
374* Solaris 2.5
375
376GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
377
378* Windows 95/NT native
379
380GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
381To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
382which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
383Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
384ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
385
386* dont-repeat command
387
388If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
389command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
390useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
391extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
392
393* Send break instead of ^C
394
395The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
396rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
397GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
398
399* Remote protocol timeout
400
401The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
402that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
403to read from the target. The default value is 2.
404
405* Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
406
407By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
408loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
409stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
410when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
411in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
412
413Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
414/usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
415automatically on hpux10.
416
417* Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
418
419Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
420
421* Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
422
423When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
424may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
425the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
426every character. The default value is 1050.
427
428* Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
429
430If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
431a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
432replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
433details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
434remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
435to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
436
437* Speedups for remote debugging
438
439GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
440the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
441and more efficient S-record downloading.
442
443* Memory use reductions and statistics collection
444
445GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
446Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
447
448*** Changes in GDB-4.15:
449
450* Psymtabs for XCOFF
451
452The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
453can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
454
455* Remote targets use caching
456
457Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
458remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
459it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
460debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
461off' turns the the data cache off.
462
463* Remote targets may have threads
464
465The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
466in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
467gdb/remote.c for details.
468
469* NetROM support
470
471If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
472support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
473acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
474write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
475support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
476another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
477sequence is something like
478
479 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
480 load <prog>
481 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
482
483* Macintosh host
484
485GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
486may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
487it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
488available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
489device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
490directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
491scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
492mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
493
494* Autoconf
495
496GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
497but does simplify configuration and building.
498
499* hpux10
500
501GDB now supports hpux10.
502
503*** Changes in GDB-4.14:
504
505* New native configurations
506
507x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
508x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
509NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
510Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
511
512* New targets
513
514A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
515HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
516CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
517PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
518WDC 65816 w65-*-*
519
520* Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
521
522GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
523possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
524filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
525the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
526if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
527
528* Arguments to user-defined commands
529
530User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
531Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
532trivial example:
533define adder
534 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
535
536To execute the command use:
537adder 1 2 3
538
539Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
540Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
541use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
542
543* New `if' and `while' commands
544
545This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
546commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
547expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
548execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
549terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
550`else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
551if the expression is zero.
552
553* Fortran source language mode
554
555GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
556Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
557variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
558with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
559Fortran compilers.
560
561* Better HPUX support
562
563Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
564running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
565processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
566for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
567that behavior do the following before running the program:
568
569 adb -w a.out
570 __dld_flags?W 0x5
571 control-d
572
573This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
574To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
575
576 adb -w a.out
577 __dld_flags?W 0x4
578 control-d
579
580You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
581the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
582external linkage.
583
584GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
585HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
586
587* Target byte order now dynamically selectable
588
589You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
590commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
591current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
592"set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
593associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
594configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
595
596* New DOS host serial code
597
598This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
599no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
600a PC's serial port.
601
602*** Changes in GDB-4.13:
603
604* New "complete" command
605
606This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
607were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
608
609* Trailing space optional in prompt
610
611"set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
612allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
613
614* Breakpoint hit counts
615
616"info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
617has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
618can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
619to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
620less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
621that breakpoint.
622
623* Ability to stop printing at NULL character
624
625"set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
626an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
627arrays actually contain only short strings.
628
629* Shared library breakpoints
630
631In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
632breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
633
634* Hardware watchpoints
635
636There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
637targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
638
639Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under Linux.
640
641* Annotations
642
643Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
644and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
645
646* Improved Irix 5 support
647
648GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
649
650* Improved HPPA support
651
652GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
653
654* New native configurations
655
656Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
657HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
658Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
659RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
660
661* New targets
662
663OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
664MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
665Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
666
667* Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
668
669There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
670This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
671
672* Fixes
673
674As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
675and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
676
677*** Changes in GDB-4.12:
678
679* Irix 5 is now supported
680
681* HPPA support
682
683GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
684to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
685GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
686of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
687can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
688
689
690*** Changes in GDB-4.11:
691
692* User visible changes:
693
694* Remote Debugging
695
696The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
697target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
698debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
699integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
700debugging info for the mips target).
701
702* DEC Alpha native support
703
704GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
705debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
706work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
707Alpha-specific notes.
708
709* Preliminary thread implementation
710
711GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
712
713* LynxOS native and target support for 386
714
715This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
716to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
717for details).
718
719* Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
720
721This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
722mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
723call methods, ...etc.
724
725*** Changes in GDB-4.10:
726
727 * User visible changes:
728
729Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
730supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
731other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
732somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
733
734Filename completion now works.
735
736When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
737arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
738addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
739
740All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
741vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
742should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
743your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
744to be on the far side of a thin network line.
745
746 * DEC alpha support
747
748This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
749cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
750
751
752*** Changes in GDB-4.9:
753
754 * Testsuite
755
756This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
757The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
758via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
759
760 * C++ demangling
761
762'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
763emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
764Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
765disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
766use gdb with AT&T cfront.
767
768 * Simulators
769
770GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
771So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
772Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
773
774 * New targets supported
775
776H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
777H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
778SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
779Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
780IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
781
782Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
783version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
784GO32 memory extender.
785
786 * New remote protocols
787
788MIPS remote debugging protocol.
789
790 * New source languages supported
791
792This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
793used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
794into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
795
796
797*** Changes in GDB-4.8:
798
799 * HP Precision Architecture supported
800
801GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
802version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
803University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
804compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
805format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
806(as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
807
808Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
809
810 * Faster and better demangling
811
812We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
813demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
814character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
815only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
816This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
817increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
818symbol lookups.
819
820`Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
821from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
822compiler does not actually implement.
823
824 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
825
826In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
827inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
828recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
829very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
830The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
831circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
832fix.
833
834The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
835release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
836
837 * Improved configure script
838
839The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
840you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
841host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
842done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
843
844We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
845version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
846`--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
847The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
848only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
849We hope to make this the default in a future release.
850
851 * Documentation improvements
852
853There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
854produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
855before submitting changes.
856
857The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
858M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
859`info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
860you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
861a future texinfo-X.Y release.
862
863*NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
864We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
865been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
866or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
867`texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
868around this problem.
869
870 * New features
871
872GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
873the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
874`print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
875the target program.
876
877The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
878how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
879
880 * New native hosts supported
881
882HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
883386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
884
885 * New targets supported
886
887AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
888
889 * New file formats supported
890
891BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
892HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
893
894 * Major bug fixes
895
896Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
897
898We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
899printf_filtered("%s") problems.
900
901We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
902for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
903release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
904
905You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
906will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
907
908We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
909for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
910especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
911libraries.
912
913The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
914information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
915command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
916any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
917when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
918
919 * Internal improvements
920
921GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
922debugging of multiple languages in the future.
923
924GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
925Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
926symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
927contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
928shared code that handles any of them.
929
930 * New command line options
931
932We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
933
934 * Mmalloc licensing
935
936The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
937General Public License.
938
939*** Changes in GDB-4.7:
940
941 * Host/native/target split
942
943GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
944hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
945target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
946local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
947ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
948
949The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
950GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
951is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
952code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
953any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
954built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
955handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
956
957GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
958It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
959plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
960
961 * New hosts supported
962
963HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
964386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
965386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
966
967 * New targets supported
968
969Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
97068030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
971
972 * New native hosts supported
973
974386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
975 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
976386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
977
978 * New file formats supported
979
980BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
981supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
982format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
983
984 * New commands
985
986`show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
987`show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
988These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
989
990`info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
991
992You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
993scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
994prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
995executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
996
997 * C++ improvements
998
999We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
1000info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
1001symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
1002
1003Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
1004
1005 * Major bug fixes
1006
1007The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
1008fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
1009by the compiler.
1010
1011We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
1012support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
1013
1014John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
1015slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
1016that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
1017purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
1018the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
1019mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
1020
1021Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
1022about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
1023completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
1024we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
1025
1026 * AMD 29k support
1027
1028A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
1029specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
1030calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
1031usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
1032in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
1033
1034We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
1035Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
1036of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
1037resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
1038
1039 * Remote interfaces
1040
1041We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
1042with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
1043message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
1044This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
1045needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
1046breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
1047each instruction being stepped through.
1048
1049The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
1050registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
1051
1052There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
1053find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
1054Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
1055processor with a serial port.
1056
1057 * Configuration
1058
1059Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
1060`table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
1061supported, and what files each one uses.
1062
1063 * Library changes
1064
1065There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
1066disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
1067Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
1068disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
1069
1070The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
1071Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
1072can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
1073grants all the rights from the General Public License.
1074
1075 * Documentation
1076
1077The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
1078reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
1079as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
1080encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
1081system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
1082[email protected]).
1083
1084And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
1085
1086
1087*** Changes in GDB-4.6:
1088
1089 * Better support for C++ function names
1090
1091GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
1092names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
1093(using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
1094single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
1095Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
1096
1097GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
1098the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
1099You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
1100lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
1101for the list of formats.
1102
1103 * G++ symbol mangling problem
1104
1105Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
1106C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
1107directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
1108can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
1109usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
1110about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
1111this problem.)
1112
1113 * New 'maintenance' command
1114
1115All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
1116the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
1117can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
1118
1119 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
1120 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
1121 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
1122 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
1123 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
1124 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
1125
1126The following commands are new:
1127
1128 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
1129 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
1130 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
1131
1132 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
1133
1134We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
1135(e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
1136be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
1137read after argv processing.
1138
1139 * New hosts supported
1140
1141Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
1142
1143Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
1144
1145We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
1146is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
1147for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
1148masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
1149fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
1150It costs extra.
1151
1152 * New targets supported
1153
1154Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1155
1156 * More smarts about finding #include files
1157
1158GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
1159all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
1160greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
1161especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
1162the one that contains your sources.
1163
1164We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
1165breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
1166try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
1167
1168 * Interesting infernals change
1169
1170GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
1171section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
1172target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
1173stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
1174
1175 * Bug fixes (of course!)
1176
1177There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
1178 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
1179 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
1180
1181See the ChangeLog for details.
1182
1183*** Changes in GDB-4.5:
1184
1185 * New machines supported (host and target)
1186
1187IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
1188
1189SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
1190
1191 * New malloc package
1192
1193GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
1194Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
1195capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
1196This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
1197pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
1198more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
1199
1200 * info proc
1201
1202The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
1203'help info proc' for details.
1204
1205 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
1206
1207The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
1208Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
1209possible.
1210
1211 * File name changes for MS-DOS
1212
1213Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
1214support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
1215conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
1216environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
1217that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
1218in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
1219
1220 * Cross byte order fixes
1221
1222Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
1223targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
1224
1225 * New -mapped and -readnow options
1226
1227If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
1228system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
1229`symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
1230program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
1231called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
1232Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
1233and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
1234the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
1235option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
1236starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
1237
1238You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
1239the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
1240information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
1241slower, but makes future operations faster.
1242
1243The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
1244build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
1245A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
1246use is:
1247
1248 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
1249
1250The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
1251It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
1252shared across multiple host platforms.
1253
1254 * longjmp() handling
1255
1256GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
1257siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
1258all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
1259platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
1260
1261 * Solaris 2.0
1262
1263Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
1264this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
1265reading symbols.
1266
1267 * Bug fixes
1268
1269As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
1270People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
1271crashes and trashed symbol tables.
1272
1273*** Changes in GDB-4.4:
1274
1275 * New machines supported (host and target)
1276
1277SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
1278 (except core files)
1279BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
1280Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
1281
1282 * New machines supported (target)
1283
1284AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1285
1286 * C++ support
1287
1288GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
1289The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
1290per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
1291
1292GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
1293`ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
1294extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
1295good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
1296will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
1297released.
1298
1299 * New features for SVR4
1300
1301GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
1302shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
1303only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
1304
1305The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
1306on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
1307it prints the address mappings of the process.
1308
1309If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
1310[email protected] to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
1311
1312 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
1313
1314Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
1315now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
1316skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
1317make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
1318same code linked statically.
1319
1320 * New Getopt
1321
1322GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
1323version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
1324continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
1325Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
1326added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
1327future by other options that begin with the same letter.
1328
1329 * Bugs fixed
1330
1331The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
1332Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
1333See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
1334
1335
1336*** Changes in GDB-4.3:
1337
1338 * New machines supported (host and target)
1339
1340Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
1341NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
1342Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
1343
1344 * Almost SCO Unix support
1345
1346We had hoped to support:
1347SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
1348(except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
1349that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
1350about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
1351
1352 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
1353
1354GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
1355debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
1356is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
1357send mail to [email protected] to let us know what changes were
1358reqired (if any).
1359
1360 * New Readline
1361
1362GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
1363is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
1364required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
1365
1366 * Bugs fixed
1367
1368The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
1369Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
1370See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
1371
1372 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
1373
1374GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
1375supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
1376symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
1377
1378Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
1379mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
1380debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
1381mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
1382version 2.
1383
1384Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
1385really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
1386line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
1387variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
1388situation somewhat.
1389
1390When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
1391However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
1392methods.
1393
1394We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
1395DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
1396encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
1397
1398
1399*** Changes in GDB-4.2:
1400
1401 * Improved configuration
1402
1403Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
1404Porting BFD is simpler.
1405
1406 * Stepping improved
1407
1408The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
1409of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
1410in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
1411function that has debugging information is called within the line.
1412
1413 * Bug fixing
1414
1415Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
1416
1417 * New host supported (not target)
1418
1419Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
1420
1421
1422*** Changes in GDB-4.1:
1423
1424 * Multiple source language support
1425
1426GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
1427It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
1428and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
1429language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
1430You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
1431`set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
1432
1433 * GDB and Modula-2
1434
1435GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
1436currently under development at the State University of New York at
1437Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
1438continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
1439
1440Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
1441debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
1442symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
1443
1444There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
1445in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
1446
1447 * set write on/off
1448
1449GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
1450a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
1451the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
1452by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
1453effect immediately.
1454
1455 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
1456
1457When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
1458shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
1459The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
1460examining core files.
1461
1462 * set listsize
1463
1464You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
1465The default is 10.
1466
1467 * New machines supported (host and target)
1468
1469SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
1470Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
1471Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
1472
1473 * New hosts supported (not targets)
1474
1475IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
1476
1477 * New targets supported (not hosts)
1478
1479AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1480AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1481Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
1482
1483 * New remote interfaces
1484
1485AMD 29000 Adapt
1486AMD 29000 Minimon
1487
1488
1489*** Changes in GDB-4.0:
1490
1491 * New Facilities
1492
1493Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
1494
1495Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
1496target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
1497is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
1498remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
1499remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
1500also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
1501using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
1502stub on the target system.
1503
1504New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
1505
1506GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
1507library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
1508object file types such as a.out and coff.
1509
1510There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
1511refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
1512
1513
1514 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
1515
1516All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
1517by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
1518
1519For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
1520``Show prompt'' produces the response:
1521Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
1522
1523What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
1524print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
1525will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
1526all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
1527
1528confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
1529 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
1530 it is already running. Default is ON.
1531
1532editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
1533 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
1534 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
1535 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
1536 Default is ON.
1537
1538history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
1539 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
1540 or the value of the environment variable
1541 GDBHISTFILE.
1542
1543history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
1544 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
1545 HISTSIZE.
1546
1547history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
1548 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
1549 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
1550
1551history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
1552 history expansion will be performed on
1553 command line input. The default is OFF.
1554
1555radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
1556 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
1557 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
1558
1559height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
1560 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
1561 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
1562 variable TERM.
1563
1564width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
1565 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
1566 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
1567 variable TERM.
1568
1569Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
1570``set width'' instead.
1571
1572print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
1573 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
1574 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
1575 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
1576
1577print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
1578 is OFF.
1579
1580print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
1581 "raw" form if off.
1582
1583print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
1584 like instructions.
1585
1586print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
1587
1588
1589 * Support for Epoch Environment.
1590
1591The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
1592new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
1593are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
1594window.
1595
1596
1597 * Support for Shared Libraries
1598
1599GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
1600Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
1601before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
1602happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
1603At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
1604from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
1605shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
1606It can be abbreviated ``share''.
1607
1608sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
1609 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
1610 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
1611
1612info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
1613
1614
1615 * Watchpoints
1616
1617A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
1618expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
1619tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
1620quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
1621problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
1622more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
1623
1624watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
1625
1626info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
1627
1628delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
1629disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
1630enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
1631
1632
1633 * C++ multiple inheritance
1634
1635When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
1636for C++ programs.
1637
1638 * C++ exception handling
1639
1640Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
1641ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
1642the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
1643handler's context).
1644
1645catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
1646 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
1647 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
1648
1649info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
1650 current stack frame.
1651
1652
1653 * Minor command changes
1654
1655The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
1656command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
1657is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
1658
1659The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
1660at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
1661frames without printing.
1662
1663 * New directory command
1664
1665'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
1666The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
1667about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
1668with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
1669find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
1670
1671 * Configuring GDB for compilation
1672
1673For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
1674for more details.
1675
1676GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
1677two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
1678Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
1679where the program that you are debugging will run.
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