What has changed since GDB-3.5?
(Organized release by release)
+*** Changes in GDB-4.6:
+
+ * Better support for C++ function names
+
+GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
+names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
+(using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
+single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
+Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
+
+GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
+the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
+You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
+lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
+for the list of formats.
+
+ * G++ symbol mangling problem
+
+Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
+C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
+directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
+can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
+usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
+about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
+this problem.)
+
+ * New 'maintenance' command
+
+All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
+the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
+can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
+
+ dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
+ info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
+ printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
+ printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
+ printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
+ printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
+
+The following commands are new:
+
+ maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
+ demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
+ maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
+
+ * Change to .gdbinit file processing
+
+We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
+(e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
+be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
+read after argv processing.
+
+ * New hosts supported
+
+Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
+
+Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
+
+We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
+is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
+for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
+masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
+fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
+It costs extra.
+
+ * New targets supported
+
+Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
+
+ * More smarts about finding #include files
+
+GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
+all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
+greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
+especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
+the one that contains your sources.
+
+We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
+breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
+try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
+
+ * Interesting infernals change
+
+GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
+section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
+target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
+stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
+
+ * Bug fixes (of course!)
+
+There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
+ mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
+ i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
+
+See the ChangeLog for details.
+
*** Changes in GDB-4.5:
* New machines supported (host and target)
projects / binutils.git / blobdiff