]> git.ipfire.org Git - thirdparty/binutils-gdb.git/blob - gdb/NEWS
* NEWS: Add mentions of various new things.
[thirdparty/binutils-gdb.git] / gdb / NEWS
1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
3
4 *** Changes since GDB-4.17:
5
6 * New native configurations
7
8 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
9 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
10 M68K Linux m68*-*-linux*
11
12 * New targets
13
14 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
15 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
16
17 * Readline 2.2
18
19 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
20
21 * HP-UX Support
22
23 Thanks to a major code donation from HP, GDB now has much more
24 extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared library
25 support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00, support
26 for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and compatibility mode for xdb
27 commands.
28
29 * Catchpoints
30
31 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
32 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
33 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
34
35 * Debugging Across Forks
36
37 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
38 in the inferior.
39
40 * TUI
41
42 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
43 it, build with --enable-tui.
44
45 * GDB Remote protocol
46
47 For 64 bit targets, the memory packets ("M" and "m") can now contain a
48 full 64 bit address. The class-obscure gdb command:
49 set targetaddresssize 32
50 can be used to revert to the old behavour. For existing remote stubs
51 the change should not be noticed as the additional address information
52 will be discarded.
53
54
55 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
56
57 * New native configurations
58
59 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
60 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
61 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
62 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
63 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
64 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
65 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
66
67 * New targets
68
69 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
70 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
71 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
72 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
73 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
74 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
75 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
76 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
77 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
78 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
79 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
80
81 * New debugging protocols
82
83 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
84 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
85 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
86 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
87 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
88 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
89
90 * DWARF 2
91
92 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
93 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
94 information.
95
96 start-sanitize-java
97 * Java frontend
98
99 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
100 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
101
102 end-sanitize-java
103 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
104
105 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
106 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
107 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
108
109 * Live range splitting
110
111 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
112 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
113 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
114
115 * Hurd support
116
117 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
118 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
119
120 * ARM Thumb support
121
122 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
123 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
124 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
125 accordingly.
126
127 * MIPS16 support
128
129 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
130 instruction set.
131
132 * Overlay support
133
134 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
135 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
136 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
137 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
138 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
139 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
140
141 * info symbol
142
143 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
144 the symbol at the specified address.
145
146 * Trace support
147
148 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
149 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
150 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
151 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
152 file tracepoint.c for more details.
153
154 * MIPS simulator
155
156 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
157 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
158 of most MIPS variants.
159
160 * Sparc simulator
161
162 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
163 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
164 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
165
166 * set architecture
167
168 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
169 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
170 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
171 the possible architectures.
172
173 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
174
175 * New native configurations
176
177 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
178 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
179 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
180 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
181 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
182 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
183
184 * New targets
185
186 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
187 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
188 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
189 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
190 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
191 Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
192 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
193
194 * PowerPC simulator
195
196 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
197 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
198 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
199 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
200 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
201
202 * Solaris 2.5
203
204 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
205
206 * Windows 95/NT native
207
208 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
209 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
210 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
211 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
212 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
213
214 * dont-repeat command
215
216 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
217 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
218 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
219 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
220
221 * Send break instead of ^C
222
223 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
224 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
225 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
226
227 * Remote protocol timeout
228
229 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
230 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
231 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
232
233 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
234
235 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
236 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
237 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
238 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
239 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
240
241 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
242 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
243 automatically on hpux10.
244
245 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
246
247 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
248
249 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
250
251 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
252 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
253 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
254 every character. The default value is 1050.
255
256 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
257
258 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
259 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
260 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
261 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
262 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
263 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
264
265 * Speedups for remote debugging
266
267 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
268 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
269 and more efficient S-record downloading.
270
271 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
272
273 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
274 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
275
276 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
277
278 * Psymtabs for XCOFF
279
280 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
281 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
282
283 * Remote targets use caching
284
285 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
286 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
287 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
288 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
289 off' turns the the data cache off.
290
291 * Remote targets may have threads
292
293 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
294 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
295 gdb/remote.c for details.
296
297 * NetROM support
298
299 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
300 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
301 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
302 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
303 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
304 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
305 sequence is something like
306
307 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
308 load <prog>
309 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
310
311 * Macintosh host
312
313 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
314 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
315 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
316 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
317 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
318 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
319 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
320 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
321
322 * Autoconf
323
324 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
325 but does simplify configuration and building.
326
327 * hpux10
328
329 GDB now supports hpux10.
330
331 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
332
333 * New native configurations
334
335 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
336 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
337 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
338 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
339
340 * New targets
341
342 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
343 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
344 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
345 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
346 WDC 65816 w65-*-*
347
348 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
349
350 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
351 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
352 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
353 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
354 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
355
356 * Arguments to user-defined commands
357
358 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
359 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
360 trivial example:
361 define adder
362 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
363
364 To execute the command use:
365 adder 1 2 3
366
367 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
368 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
369 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
370
371 * New `if' and `while' commands
372
373 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
374 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
375 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
376 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
377 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
378 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
379 if the expression is zero.
380
381 * Fortran source language mode
382
383 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
384 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
385 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
386 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
387 Fortran compilers.
388
389 * Better HPUX support
390
391 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
392 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
393 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
394 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
395 that behavior do the following before running the program:
396
397 adb -w a.out
398 __dld_flags?W 0x5
399 control-d
400
401 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
402 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
403
404 adb -w a.out
405 __dld_flags?W 0x4
406 control-d
407
408 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
409 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
410 external linkage.
411
412 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
413 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
414
415 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
416
417 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
418 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
419 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
420 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
421 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
422 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
423
424 * New DOS host serial code
425
426 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
427 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
428 a PC's serial port.
429
430 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
431
432 * New "complete" command
433
434 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
435 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
436
437 * Trailing space optional in prompt
438
439 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
440 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
441
442 * Breakpoint hit counts
443
444 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
445 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
446 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
447 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
448 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
449 that breakpoint.
450
451 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
452
453 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
454 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
455 arrays actually contain only short strings.
456
457 * Shared library breakpoints
458
459 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
460 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
461
462 * Hardware watchpoints
463
464 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
465 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
466
467 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under Linux.
468
469 * Annotations
470
471 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
472 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
473
474 * Improved Irix 5 support
475
476 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
477
478 * Improved HPPA support
479
480 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
481
482 * New native configurations
483
484 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
485 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
486 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
487 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
488
489 * New targets
490
491 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
492 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
493 Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
494
495 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
496
497 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
498 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
499
500 * Fixes
501
502 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
503 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
504
505 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
506
507 * Irix 5 is now supported
508
509 * HPPA support
510
511 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
512 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
513 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
514 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
515 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
516
517
518 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
519
520 * User visible changes:
521
522 * Remote Debugging
523
524 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
525 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
526 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
527 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
528 debugging info for the mips target).
529
530 * DEC Alpha native support
531
532 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
533 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
534 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
535 Alpha-specific notes.
536
537 * Preliminary thread implementation
538
539 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
540
541 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
542
543 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
544 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
545 for details).
546
547 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
548
549 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
550 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
551 call methods, ...etc.
552
553 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
554
555 * User visible changes:
556
557 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
558 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
559 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
560 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
561
562 Filename completion now works.
563
564 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
565 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
566 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
567
568 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
569 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
570 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
571 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
572 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
573
574 * DEC alpha support
575
576 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
577 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
578
579
580 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
581
582 * Testsuite
583
584 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
585 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
586 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
587
588 * C++ demangling
589
590 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
591 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
592 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
593 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
594 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
595
596 * Simulators
597
598 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
599 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
600 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
601
602 * New targets supported
603
604 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
605 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
606 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
607 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
608 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
609
610 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
611 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
612 GO32 memory extender.
613
614 * New remote protocols
615
616 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
617
618 * New source languages supported
619
620 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
621 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
622 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
623
624
625 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
626
627 * HP Precision Architecture supported
628
629 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
630 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
631 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
632 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
633 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
634 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
635
636 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
637
638 * Faster and better demangling
639
640 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
641 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
642 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
643 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
644 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
645 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
646 symbol lookups.
647
648 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
649 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
650 compiler does not actually implement.
651
652 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
653
654 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
655 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
656 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
657 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
658 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
659 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
660 fix.
661
662 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
663 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
664
665 * Improved configure script
666
667 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
668 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
669 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
670 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
671
672 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
673 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
674 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
675 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
676 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
677 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
678
679 * Documentation improvements
680
681 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
682 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
683 before submitting changes.
684
685 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
686 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
687 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
688 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
689 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
690
691 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
692 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
693 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
694 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
695 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
696 around this problem.
697
698 * New features
699
700 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
701 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
702 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
703 the target program.
704
705 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
706 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
707
708 * New native hosts supported
709
710 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
711 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
712
713 * New targets supported
714
715 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
716
717 * New file formats supported
718
719 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
720 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
721
722 * Major bug fixes
723
724 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
725
726 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
727 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
728
729 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
730 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
731 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
732
733 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
734 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
735
736 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
737 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
738 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
739 libraries.
740
741 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
742 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
743 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
744 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
745 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
746
747 * Internal improvements
748
749 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
750 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
751
752 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
753 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
754 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
755 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
756 shared code that handles any of them.
757
758 * New command line options
759
760 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
761
762 * Mmalloc licensing
763
764 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
765 General Public License.
766
767 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
768
769 * Host/native/target split
770
771 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
772 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
773 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
774 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
775 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
776
777 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
778 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
779 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
780 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
781 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
782 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
783 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
784
785 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
786 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
787 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
788
789 * New hosts supported
790
791 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
792 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
793 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
794
795 * New targets supported
796
797 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
798 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
799
800 * New native hosts supported
801
802 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
803 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
804 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
805
806 * New file formats supported
807
808 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
809 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
810 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
811
812 * New commands
813
814 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
815 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
816 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
817
818 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
819
820 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
821 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
822 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
823 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
824
825 * C++ improvements
826
827 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
828 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
829 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
830
831 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
832
833 * Major bug fixes
834
835 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
836 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
837 by the compiler.
838
839 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
840 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
841
842 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
843 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
844 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
845 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
846 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
847 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
848
849 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
850 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
851 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
852 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
853
854 * AMD 29k support
855
856 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
857 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
858 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
859 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
860 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
861
862 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
863 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
864 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
865 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
866
867 * Remote interfaces
868
869 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
870 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
871 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
872 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
873 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
874 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
875 each instruction being stepped through.
876
877 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
878 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
879
880 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
881 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
882 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
883 processor with a serial port.
884
885 * Configuration
886
887 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
888 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
889 supported, and what files each one uses.
890
891 * Library changes
892
893 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
894 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
895 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
896 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
897
898 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
899 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
900 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
901 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
902
903 * Documentation
904
905 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
906 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
907 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
908 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
909 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
910 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
911
912 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
913
914
915 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
916
917 * Better support for C++ function names
918
919 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
920 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
921 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
922 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
923 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
924
925 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
926 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
927 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
928 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
929 for the list of formats.
930
931 * G++ symbol mangling problem
932
933 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
934 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
935 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
936 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
937 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
938 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
939 this problem.)
940
941 * New 'maintenance' command
942
943 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
944 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
945 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
946
947 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
948 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
949 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
950 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
951 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
952 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
953
954 The following commands are new:
955
956 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
957 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
958 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
959
960 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
961
962 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
963 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
964 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
965 read after argv processing.
966
967 * New hosts supported
968
969 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
970
971 Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
972
973 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
974 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
975 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
976 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
977 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
978 It costs extra.
979
980 * New targets supported
981
982 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
983
984 * More smarts about finding #include files
985
986 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
987 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
988 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
989 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
990 the one that contains your sources.
991
992 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
993 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
994 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
995
996 * Interesting infernals change
997
998 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
999 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
1000 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
1001 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
1002
1003 * Bug fixes (of course!)
1004
1005 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
1006 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
1007 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
1008
1009 See the ChangeLog for details.
1010
1011 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
1012
1013 * New machines supported (host and target)
1014
1015 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
1016
1017 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
1018
1019 * New malloc package
1020
1021 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
1022 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
1023 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
1024 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
1025 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
1026 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
1027
1028 * info proc
1029
1030 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
1031 'help info proc' for details.
1032
1033 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
1034
1035 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
1036 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
1037 possible.
1038
1039 * File name changes for MS-DOS
1040
1041 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
1042 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
1043 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
1044 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
1045 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
1046 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
1047
1048 * Cross byte order fixes
1049
1050 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
1051 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
1052
1053 * New -mapped and -readnow options
1054
1055 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
1056 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
1057 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
1058 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
1059 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
1060 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
1061 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
1062 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
1063 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
1064 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
1065
1066 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
1067 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
1068 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
1069 slower, but makes future operations faster.
1070
1071 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
1072 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
1073 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
1074 use is:
1075
1076 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
1077
1078 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
1079 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
1080 shared across multiple host platforms.
1081
1082 * longjmp() handling
1083
1084 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
1085 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
1086 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
1087 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
1088
1089 * Solaris 2.0
1090
1091 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
1092 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
1093 reading symbols.
1094
1095 * Bug fixes
1096
1097 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
1098 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
1099 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
1100
1101 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
1102
1103 * New machines supported (host and target)
1104
1105 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
1106 (except core files)
1107 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
1108 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
1109
1110 * New machines supported (target)
1111
1112 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1113
1114 * C++ support
1115
1116 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
1117 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
1118 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
1119
1120 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
1121 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
1122 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
1123 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
1124 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
1125 released.
1126
1127 * New features for SVR4
1128
1129 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
1130 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
1131 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
1132
1133 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
1134 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
1135 it prints the address mappings of the process.
1136
1137 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
1138 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
1139
1140 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
1141
1142 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
1143 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
1144 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
1145 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
1146 same code linked statically.
1147
1148 * New Getopt
1149
1150 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
1151 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
1152 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
1153 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
1154 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
1155 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
1156
1157 * Bugs fixed
1158
1159 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
1160 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
1161 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
1162
1163
1164 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
1165
1166 * New machines supported (host and target)
1167
1168 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
1169 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
1170 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
1171
1172 * Almost SCO Unix support
1173
1174 We had hoped to support:
1175 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
1176 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
1177 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
1178 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
1179
1180 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
1181
1182 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
1183 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
1184 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
1185 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
1186 reqired (if any).
1187
1188 * New Readline
1189
1190 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
1191 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
1192 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
1193
1194 * Bugs fixed
1195
1196 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
1197 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
1198 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
1199
1200 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
1201
1202 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
1203 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
1204 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
1205
1206 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
1207 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
1208 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
1209 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
1210 version 2.
1211
1212 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
1213 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
1214 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
1215 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
1216 situation somewhat.
1217
1218 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
1219 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
1220 methods.
1221
1222 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
1223 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
1224 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
1225
1226
1227 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
1228
1229 * Improved configuration
1230
1231 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
1232 Porting BFD is simpler.
1233
1234 * Stepping improved
1235
1236 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
1237 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
1238 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
1239 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
1240
1241 * Bug fixing
1242
1243 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
1244
1245 * New host supported (not target)
1246
1247 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
1248
1249
1250 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
1251
1252 * Multiple source language support
1253
1254 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
1255 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
1256 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
1257 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
1258 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
1259 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
1260
1261 * GDB and Modula-2
1262
1263 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
1264 currently under development at the State University of New York at
1265 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
1266 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
1267
1268 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
1269 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
1270 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
1271
1272 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
1273 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
1274
1275 * set write on/off
1276
1277 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
1278 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
1279 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
1280 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
1281 effect immediately.
1282
1283 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
1284
1285 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
1286 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
1287 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
1288 examining core files.
1289
1290 * set listsize
1291
1292 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
1293 The default is 10.
1294
1295 * New machines supported (host and target)
1296
1297 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
1298 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
1299 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
1300
1301 * New hosts supported (not targets)
1302
1303 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
1304
1305 * New targets supported (not hosts)
1306
1307 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1308 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1309 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
1310
1311 * New remote interfaces
1312
1313 AMD 29000 Adapt
1314 AMD 29000 Minimon
1315
1316
1317 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
1318
1319 * New Facilities
1320
1321 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
1322
1323 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
1324 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
1325 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
1326 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
1327 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
1328 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
1329 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
1330 stub on the target system.
1331
1332 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
1333
1334 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
1335 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
1336 object file types such as a.out and coff.
1337
1338 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
1339 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
1340
1341
1342 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
1343
1344 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
1345 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
1346
1347 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
1348 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
1349 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
1350
1351 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
1352 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
1353 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
1354 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
1355
1356 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
1357 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
1358 it is already running. Default is ON.
1359
1360 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
1361 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
1362 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
1363 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
1364 Default is ON.
1365
1366 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
1367 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
1368 or the value of the environment variable
1369 GDBHISTFILE.
1370
1371 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
1372 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
1373 HISTSIZE.
1374
1375 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
1376 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
1377 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
1378
1379 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
1380 history expansion will be performed on
1381 command line input. The default is OFF.
1382
1383 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
1384 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
1385 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
1386
1387 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
1388 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
1389 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
1390 variable TERM.
1391
1392 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
1393 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
1394 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
1395 variable TERM.
1396
1397 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
1398 ``set width'' instead.
1399
1400 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
1401 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
1402 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
1403 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
1404
1405 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
1406 is OFF.
1407
1408 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
1409 "raw" form if off.
1410
1411 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
1412 like instructions.
1413
1414 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
1415
1416
1417 * Support for Epoch Environment.
1418
1419 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
1420 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
1421 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
1422 window.
1423
1424
1425 * Support for Shared Libraries
1426
1427 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
1428 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
1429 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
1430 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
1431 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
1432 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
1433 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
1434 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
1435
1436 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
1437 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
1438 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
1439
1440 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
1441
1442
1443 * Watchpoints
1444
1445 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
1446 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
1447 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
1448 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
1449 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
1450 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
1451
1452 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
1453
1454 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
1455
1456 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
1457 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
1458 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
1459
1460
1461 * C++ multiple inheritance
1462
1463 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
1464 for C++ programs.
1465
1466 * C++ exception handling
1467
1468 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
1469 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
1470 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
1471 handler's context).
1472
1473 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
1474 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
1475 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
1476
1477 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
1478 current stack frame.
1479
1480
1481 * Minor command changes
1482
1483 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
1484 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
1485 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
1486
1487 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
1488 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
1489 frames without printing.
1490
1491 * New directory command
1492
1493 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
1494 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
1495 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
1496 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
1497 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
1498
1499 * Configuring GDB for compilation
1500
1501 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
1502 for more details.
1503
1504 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
1505 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
1506 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
1507 where the program that you are debugging will run.