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c906108c
SS
1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
3
7a292a7a
SS
4*** Changes since GDB-4.18:
5
6* New targets
7
8TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
9
085dd6e6
JM
10* OBSOLETE configurations
11
12Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
13Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
9846de1b 14Pyramid pyramid-*-*
7a292a7a 15
c906108c
SS
16*** Changes in GDB-4.18:
17
18* New native configurations
19
20HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
21HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
22M68K Linux m68*-*-linux*
23
24* New targets
25
26Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
27Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
28Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
29
30* OBSOLETE configurations
31
32Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
33
34Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
35but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
36these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
37be permanently REMOVED.
38
39* ANSI/ISO C
40
41As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
42buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
43containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
44use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
45available. If this is not true, please report the affected
46configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
47information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
48already.
49
50* Readline 2.2
51
52GDB now uses readline 2.2.
53
54* set extension-language
55
56You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
57languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
58you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
59 set extension-language .c c++
60The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
61and their associated languages.
62
63* Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
64
65When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
66you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
67PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
68
69 set processor NAME
70
71sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
72following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
73
74 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
75 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
76 403 IBM PowerPC 403
77 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
78 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
79 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
80 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
81 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
82 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
83 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
84 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
85
86At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
87special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
88registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
89only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
90
91* HP-UX support
92
93Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
94more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
95library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
96support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
97for xdb and dbx commands.
98
99* Catchpoints
100
101HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
102generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
103to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
104
105This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
106argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
107output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
108
109* Debugging across forks
110
111On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
112in the inferior.
113
114* TUI
115
116HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
117it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
118configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
119
120* GDB remote protocol additions
121
122A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
123Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
124fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
125allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
126
127For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
128full 64-bit address. The command
129
130 set remoteaddresssize 32
131
132can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
133the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
134will be discarded.
135
136In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
137command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
138
139 maint packet heythere
140
141sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
142disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
143time.
144
145The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
146target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
147downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
148
149* Tracing can collect general expressions
150
151You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
152further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
153doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
154
155* mask-address variable for Mips
156
157For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
158a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
159of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
160
161* Higher serial baud rates
162
163GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
164230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
165to achieve all of these rates.)
166
167* i960 simulator
168
169The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
170builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
171
172
173*** Changes in GDB-4.17:
174
175* New native configurations
176
177Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
178Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
179Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
180PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
181PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
182Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
183Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
184
185* New targets
186
187Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
188Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
189Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
190Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
191MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
192MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
193MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
194Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
195Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
196Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
197NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
198
199* New debugging protocols
200
201ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
202M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
203DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
204PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
205PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
206Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
207
208* DWARF 2
209
210All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
211format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
212information.
213
214* Java frontend
215
216GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
217only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
218
219* solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
220
221For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
222loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
223locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
224
225* Live range splitting
226
227GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
228range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
229more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
230
231* Hurd support
232
233GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
234updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
235
236* ARM Thumb support
237
238GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
239instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
240instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
241accordingly.
242
243* MIPS16 support
244
245GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
246instruction set.
247
248* Overlay support
249
250GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
251linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
252will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
253control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
254additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
255in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
256
257* info symbol
258
259The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
260the symbol at the specified address.
261
262* Trace support
263
264The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
265asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
266extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
267includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
268file tracepoint.c for more details.
269
270* MIPS simulator
271
272Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
273by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
274of most MIPS variants.
275
276* Sparc simulator
277
278Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
279by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
280Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
281
282* set architecture
283
284For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
285basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
286architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
287the possible architectures.
288
289*** Changes in GDB-4.16:
290
291* New native configurations
292
293Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
294M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
295PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
296PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
297PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
298RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
299
300* New targets
301
302ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
303I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
304MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
305MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
306PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
307Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
308Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
309
310* PowerPC simulator
311
312The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
313contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
314PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
315basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
316performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
317
318* Solaris 2.5
319
320GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
321
322* Windows 95/NT native
323
324GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
325To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
326which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
327Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
328ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
329
330* dont-repeat command
331
332If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
333command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
334useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
335extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
336
337* Send break instead of ^C
338
339The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
340rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
341GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
342
343* Remote protocol timeout
344
345The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
346that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
347to read from the target. The default value is 2.
348
349* Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
350
351By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
352loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
353stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
354when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
355in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
356
357Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
358/usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
359automatically on hpux10.
360
361* Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
362
363Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
364
365* Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
366
367When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
368may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
369the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
370every character. The default value is 1050.
371
372* Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
373
374If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
375a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
376replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
377details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
378remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
379to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
380
381* Speedups for remote debugging
382
383GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
384the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
385and more efficient S-record downloading.
386
387* Memory use reductions and statistics collection
388
389GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
390Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
391
392*** Changes in GDB-4.15:
393
394* Psymtabs for XCOFF
395
396The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
397can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
398
399* Remote targets use caching
400
401Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
402remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
403it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
404debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
405off' turns the the data cache off.
406
407* Remote targets may have threads
408
409The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
410in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
411gdb/remote.c for details.
412
413* NetROM support
414
415If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
416support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
417acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
418write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
419support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
420another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
421sequence is something like
422
423 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
424 load <prog>
425 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
426
427* Macintosh host
428
429GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
430may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
431it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
432available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
433device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
434directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
435scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
436mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
437
438* Autoconf
439
440GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
441but does simplify configuration and building.
442
443* hpux10
444
445GDB now supports hpux10.
446
447*** Changes in GDB-4.14:
448
449* New native configurations
450
451x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
452x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
453NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
454Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
455
456* New targets
457
458A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
459HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
460CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
461PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
462WDC 65816 w65-*-*
463
464* Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
465
466GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
467possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
468filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
469the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
470if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
471
472* Arguments to user-defined commands
473
474User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
475Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
476trivial example:
477define adder
478 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
479
480To execute the command use:
481adder 1 2 3
482
483Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
484Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
485use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
486
487* New `if' and `while' commands
488
489This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
490commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
491expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
492execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
493terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
494`else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
495if the expression is zero.
496
497* Fortran source language mode
498
499GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
500Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
501variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
502with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
503Fortran compilers.
504
505* Better HPUX support
506
507Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
508running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
509processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
510for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
511that behavior do the following before running the program:
512
513 adb -w a.out
514 __dld_flags?W 0x5
515 control-d
516
517This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
518To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
519
520 adb -w a.out
521 __dld_flags?W 0x4
522 control-d
523
524You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
525the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
526external linkage.
527
528GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
529HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
530
531* Target byte order now dynamically selectable
532
533You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
534commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
535current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
536"set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
537associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
538configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
539
540* New DOS host serial code
541
542This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
543no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
544a PC's serial port.
545
546*** Changes in GDB-4.13:
547
548* New "complete" command
549
550This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
551were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
552
553* Trailing space optional in prompt
554
555"set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
556allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
557
558* Breakpoint hit counts
559
560"info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
561has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
562can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
563to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
564less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
565that breakpoint.
566
567* Ability to stop printing at NULL character
568
569"set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
570an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
571arrays actually contain only short strings.
572
573* Shared library breakpoints
574
575In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
576breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
577
578* Hardware watchpoints
579
580There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
581targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
582
583Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under Linux.
584
585* Annotations
586
587Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
588and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
589
590* Improved Irix 5 support
591
592GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
593
594* Improved HPPA support
595
596GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
597
598* New native configurations
599
600Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
601HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
602Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
603RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
604
605* New targets
606
607OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
608MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
609Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
610
611* Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
612
613There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
614This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
615
616* Fixes
617
618As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
619and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
620
621*** Changes in GDB-4.12:
622
623* Irix 5 is now supported
624
625* HPPA support
626
627GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
628to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
629GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
630of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
631can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
632
633
634*** Changes in GDB-4.11:
635
636* User visible changes:
637
638* Remote Debugging
639
640The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
641target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
642debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
643integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
644debugging info for the mips target).
645
646* DEC Alpha native support
647
648GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
649debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
650work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
651Alpha-specific notes.
652
653* Preliminary thread implementation
654
655GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
656
657* LynxOS native and target support for 386
658
659This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
660to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
661for details).
662
663* Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
664
665This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
666mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
667call methods, ...etc.
668
669*** Changes in GDB-4.10:
670
671 * User visible changes:
672
673Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
674supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
675other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
676somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
677
678Filename completion now works.
679
680When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
681arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
682addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
683
684All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
685vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
686should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
687your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
688to be on the far side of a thin network line.
689
690 * DEC alpha support
691
692This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
693cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
694
695
696*** Changes in GDB-4.9:
697
698 * Testsuite
699
700This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
701The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
702via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
703
704 * C++ demangling
705
706'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
707emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
708Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
709disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
710use gdb with AT&T cfront.
711
712 * Simulators
713
714GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
715So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
716Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
717
718 * New targets supported
719
720H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
721H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
722SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
723Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
724IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
725
726Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
727version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
728GO32 memory extender.
729
730 * New remote protocols
731
732MIPS remote debugging protocol.
733
734 * New source languages supported
735
736This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
737used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
738into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
739
740
741*** Changes in GDB-4.8:
742
743 * HP Precision Architecture supported
744
745GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
746version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
747University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
748compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
749format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
750(as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
751
752Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
753
754 * Faster and better demangling
755
756We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
757demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
758character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
759only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
760This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
761increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
762symbol lookups.
763
764`Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
765from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
766compiler does not actually implement.
767
768 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
769
770In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
771inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
772recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
773very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
774The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
775circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
776fix.
777
778The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
779release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
780
781 * Improved configure script
782
783The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
784you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
785host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
786done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
787
788We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
789version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
790`--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
791The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
792only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
793We hope to make this the default in a future release.
794
795 * Documentation improvements
796
797There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
798produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
799before submitting changes.
800
801The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
802M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
803`info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
804you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
805a future texinfo-X.Y release.
806
807*NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
808We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
809been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
810or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
811`texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
812around this problem.
813
814 * New features
815
816GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
817the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
818`print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
819the target program.
820
821The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
822how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
823
824 * New native hosts supported
825
826HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
827386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
828
829 * New targets supported
830
831AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
832
833 * New file formats supported
834
835BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
836HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
837
838 * Major bug fixes
839
840Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
841
842We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
843printf_filtered("%s") problems.
844
845We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
846for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
847release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
848
849You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
850will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
851
852We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
853for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
854especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
855libraries.
856
857The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
858information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
859command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
860any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
861when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
862
863 * Internal improvements
864
865GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
866debugging of multiple languages in the future.
867
868GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
869Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
870symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
871contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
872shared code that handles any of them.
873
874 * New command line options
875
876We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
877
878 * Mmalloc licensing
879
880The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
881General Public License.
882
883*** Changes in GDB-4.7:
884
885 * Host/native/target split
886
887GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
888hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
889target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
890local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
891ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
892
893The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
894GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
895is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
896code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
897any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
898built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
899handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
900
901GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
902It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
903plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
904
905 * New hosts supported
906
907HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
908386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
909386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
910
911 * New targets supported
912
913Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
91468030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
915
916 * New native hosts supported
917
918386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
919 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
920386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
921
922 * New file formats supported
923
924BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
925supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
926format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
927
928 * New commands
929
930`show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
931`show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
932These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
933
934`info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
935
936You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
937scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
938prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
939executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
940
941 * C++ improvements
942
943We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
944info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
945symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
946
947Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
948
949 * Major bug fixes
950
951The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
952fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
953by the compiler.
954
955We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
956support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
957
958John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
959slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
960that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
961purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
962the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
963mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
964
965Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
966about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
967completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
968we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
969
970 * AMD 29k support
971
972A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
973specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
974calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
975usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
976in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
977
978We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
979Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
980of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
981resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
982
983 * Remote interfaces
984
985We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
986with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
987message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
988This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
989needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
990breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
991each instruction being stepped through.
992
993The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
994registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
995
996There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
997find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
998Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
999processor with a serial port.
1000
1001 * Configuration
1002
1003Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
1004`table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
1005supported, and what files each one uses.
1006
1007 * Library changes
1008
1009There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
1010disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
1011Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
1012disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
1013
1014The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
1015Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
1016can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
1017grants all the rights from the General Public License.
1018
1019 * Documentation
1020
1021The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
1022reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
1023as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
1024encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
1025system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
1026bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
1027
1028And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
1029
1030
1031*** Changes in GDB-4.6:
1032
1033 * Better support for C++ function names
1034
1035GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
1036names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
1037(using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
1038single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
1039Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
1040
1041GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
1042the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
1043You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
1044lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
1045for the list of formats.
1046
1047 * G++ symbol mangling problem
1048
1049Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
1050C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
1051directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
1052can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
1053usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
1054about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
1055this problem.)
1056
1057 * New 'maintenance' command
1058
1059All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
1060the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
1061can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
1062
1063 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
1064 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
1065 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
1066 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
1067 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
1068 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
1069
1070The following commands are new:
1071
1072 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
1073 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
1074 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
1075
1076 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
1077
1078We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
1079(e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
1080be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
1081read after argv processing.
1082
1083 * New hosts supported
1084
1085Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
1086
1087Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
1088
1089We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
1090is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
1091for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
1092masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
1093fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
1094It costs extra.
1095
1096 * New targets supported
1097
1098Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1099
1100 * More smarts about finding #include files
1101
1102GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
1103all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
1104greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
1105especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
1106the one that contains your sources.
1107
1108We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
1109breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
1110try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
1111
1112 * Interesting infernals change
1113
1114GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
1115section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
1116target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
1117stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
1118
1119 * Bug fixes (of course!)
1120
1121There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
1122 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
1123 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
1124
1125See the ChangeLog for details.
1126
1127*** Changes in GDB-4.5:
1128
1129 * New machines supported (host and target)
1130
1131IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
1132
1133SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
1134
1135 * New malloc package
1136
1137GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
1138Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
1139capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
1140This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
1141pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
1142more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
1143
1144 * info proc
1145
1146The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
1147'help info proc' for details.
1148
1149 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
1150
1151The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
1152Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
1153possible.
1154
1155 * File name changes for MS-DOS
1156
1157Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
1158support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
1159conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
1160environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
1161that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
1162in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
1163
1164 * Cross byte order fixes
1165
1166Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
1167targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
1168
1169 * New -mapped and -readnow options
1170
1171If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
1172system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
1173`symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
1174program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
1175called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
1176Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
1177and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
1178the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
1179option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
1180starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
1181
1182You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
1183the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
1184information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
1185slower, but makes future operations faster.
1186
1187The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
1188build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
1189A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
1190use is:
1191
1192 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
1193
1194The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
1195It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
1196shared across multiple host platforms.
1197
1198 * longjmp() handling
1199
1200GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
1201siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
1202all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
1203platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
1204
1205 * Solaris 2.0
1206
1207Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
1208this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
1209reading symbols.
1210
1211 * Bug fixes
1212
1213As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
1214People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
1215crashes and trashed symbol tables.
1216
1217*** Changes in GDB-4.4:
1218
1219 * New machines supported (host and target)
1220
1221SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
1222 (except core files)
1223BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
1224Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
1225
1226 * New machines supported (target)
1227
1228AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1229
1230 * C++ support
1231
1232GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
1233The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
1234per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
1235
1236GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
1237`ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
1238extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
1239good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
1240will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
1241released.
1242
1243 * New features for SVR4
1244
1245GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
1246shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
1247only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
1248
1249The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
1250on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
1251it prints the address mappings of the process.
1252
1253If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
1254bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
1255
1256 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
1257
1258Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
1259now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
1260skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
1261make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
1262same code linked statically.
1263
1264 * New Getopt
1265
1266GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
1267version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
1268continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
1269Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
1270added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
1271future by other options that begin with the same letter.
1272
1273 * Bugs fixed
1274
1275The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
1276Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
1277See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
1278
1279
1280*** Changes in GDB-4.3:
1281
1282 * New machines supported (host and target)
1283
1284Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
1285NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
1286Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
1287
1288 * Almost SCO Unix support
1289
1290We had hoped to support:
1291SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
1292(except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
1293that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
1294about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
1295
1296 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
1297
1298GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
1299debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
1300is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
1301send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
1302reqired (if any).
1303
1304 * New Readline
1305
1306GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
1307is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
1308required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
1309
1310 * Bugs fixed
1311
1312The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
1313Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
1314See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
1315
1316 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
1317
1318GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
1319supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
1320symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
1321
1322Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
1323mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
1324debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
1325mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
1326version 2.
1327
1328Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
1329really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
1330line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
1331variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
1332situation somewhat.
1333
1334When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
1335However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
1336methods.
1337
1338We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
1339DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
1340encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
1341
1342
1343*** Changes in GDB-4.2:
1344
1345 * Improved configuration
1346
1347Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
1348Porting BFD is simpler.
1349
1350 * Stepping improved
1351
1352The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
1353of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
1354in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
1355function that has debugging information is called within the line.
1356
1357 * Bug fixing
1358
1359Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
1360
1361 * New host supported (not target)
1362
1363Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
1364
1365
1366*** Changes in GDB-4.1:
1367
1368 * Multiple source language support
1369
1370GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
1371It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
1372and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
1373language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
1374You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
1375`set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
1376
1377 * GDB and Modula-2
1378
1379GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
1380currently under development at the State University of New York at
1381Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
1382continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
1383
1384Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
1385debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
1386symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
1387
1388There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
1389in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
1390
1391 * set write on/off
1392
1393GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
1394a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
1395the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
1396by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
1397effect immediately.
1398
1399 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
1400
1401When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
1402shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
1403The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
1404examining core files.
1405
1406 * set listsize
1407
1408You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
1409The default is 10.
1410
1411 * New machines supported (host and target)
1412
1413SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
1414Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
1415Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
1416
1417 * New hosts supported (not targets)
1418
1419IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
1420
1421 * New targets supported (not hosts)
1422
1423AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1424AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1425Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
1426
1427 * New remote interfaces
1428
1429AMD 29000 Adapt
1430AMD 29000 Minimon
1431
1432
1433*** Changes in GDB-4.0:
1434
1435 * New Facilities
1436
1437Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
1438
1439Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
1440target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
1441is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
1442remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
1443remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
1444also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
1445using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
1446stub on the target system.
1447
1448New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
1449
1450GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
1451library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
1452object file types such as a.out and coff.
1453
1454There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
1455refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
1456
1457
1458 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
1459
1460All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
1461by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
1462
1463For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
1464``Show prompt'' produces the response:
1465Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
1466
1467What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
1468print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
1469will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
1470all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
1471
1472confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
1473 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
1474 it is already running. Default is ON.
1475
1476editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
1477 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
1478 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
1479 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
1480 Default is ON.
1481
1482history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
1483 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
1484 or the value of the environment variable
1485 GDBHISTFILE.
1486
1487history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
1488 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
1489 HISTSIZE.
1490
1491history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
1492 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
1493 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
1494
1495history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
1496 history expansion will be performed on
1497 command line input. The default is OFF.
1498
1499radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
1500 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
1501 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
1502
1503height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
1504 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
1505 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
1506 variable TERM.
1507
1508width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
1509 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
1510 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
1511 variable TERM.
1512
1513Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
1514``set width'' instead.
1515
1516print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
1517 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
1518 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
1519 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
1520
1521print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
1522 is OFF.
1523
1524print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
1525 "raw" form if off.
1526
1527print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
1528 like instructions.
1529
1530print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
1531
1532
1533 * Support for Epoch Environment.
1534
1535The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
1536new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
1537are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
1538window.
1539
1540
1541 * Support for Shared Libraries
1542
1543GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
1544Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
1545before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
1546happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
1547At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
1548from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
1549shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
1550It can be abbreviated ``share''.
1551
1552sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
1553 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
1554 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
1555
1556info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
1557
1558
1559 * Watchpoints
1560
1561A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
1562expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
1563tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
1564quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
1565problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
1566more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
1567
1568watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
1569
1570info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
1571
1572delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
1573disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
1574enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
1575
1576
1577 * C++ multiple inheritance
1578
1579When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
1580for C++ programs.
1581
1582 * C++ exception handling
1583
1584Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
1585ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
1586the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
1587handler's context).
1588
1589catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
1590 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
1591 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
1592
1593info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
1594 current stack frame.
1595
1596
1597 * Minor command changes
1598
1599The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
1600command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
1601is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
1602
1603The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
1604at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
1605frames without printing.
1606
1607 * New directory command
1608
1609'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
1610The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
1611about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
1612with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
1613find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
1614
1615 * Configuring GDB for compilation
1616
1617For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
1618for more details.
1619
1620GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
1621two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
1622Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
1623where the program that you are debugging will run.