]> git.ipfire.org Git - thirdparty/binutils-gdb.git/blame - gdb/NEWS
* MAINTAINERS: Update my email address
[thirdparty/binutils-gdb.git] / gdb / NEWS
CommitLineData
c906108c
SS
1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
3
139760b7
MK
4*** Changes since GDB 5.0:
5
65d5a54a
EZ
6* "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
7
139760b7
MK
8* New native configurations
9
10Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
11x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
12
bf64bfd6
AC
13* New targets
14
17e78a56 15* OBSOLETE configurations and files
bf64bfd6
AC
16
17x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
9b9c068d 18Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
bb19ff3b
AC
19Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
20 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
76f4ea53
AC
21TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
22WDC 65816 w65-*-*
4a1968f4 23Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1b2b2c16
AC
24PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
25PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
26PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
bf64bfd6 27
17e78a56
AC
28stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
29kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
30
7fcca85b
AC
31Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
32been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
33configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
34permanently REMOVED.
35
36* REMOVED configurations
37
38Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
39Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
40Pyramid pyramid-*-*
41ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
42Tahoe tahoe-*-*
bf64bfd6
AC
43
44* Other news:
45
46* All MIPS configurations are multi-arched.
47
48Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
49
1a1d8446
AC
50* gdba.el deleted
51
52GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
139760b7 53
9debab2f 54*** Changes in GDB 5.0:
7a292a7a 55
c63ce875
EZ
56* Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
57
58Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
59programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
60displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
61greater level of detail.
62
63* Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
64
65It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
66bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
67on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
68written.
69
70* Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
71
72The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
73necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
74machines ``out of the box''.
75
76The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
77possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
78signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
79would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
80interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
81
82It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
83standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
84even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
85and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
86terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
87
88The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
89enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
90also works.
91
92DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
93GDB.
94
95It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
96directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
97times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
98breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
99
ed9a39eb
JM
100* New native configurations
101
102ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
afc05dd4 103PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
ed9a39eb 104
7a292a7a
SS
105* New targets
106
96baa820 107Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
adf40b2e
JM
108x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
109PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
7a292a7a
SS
110TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
111
085dd6e6
JM
112* OBSOLETE configurations
113
114Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
115Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
9846de1b 116Pyramid pyramid-*-*
ed9a39eb 117ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
104c1213 118Tahoe tahoe-*-*
7a292a7a 119
9debab2f
AC
120Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
121but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
122these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
123be permanently REMOVED.
124
5330533d
SS
125* Gould support removed
126
127Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
128
bc9e5bbf
AC
129* New features for SVR4
130
131On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
132without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
133load symbols from the running process's executable file.
134
135* Many C++ enhancements
136
137C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
138in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
139
adf40b2e
JM
140* Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
141
142A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
143sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
144with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
145``|<program> <args>'' vis:
146
147 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
148 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
149
43e526b9
JM
150* MIPS 64 remote protocol
151
152A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
153expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
154instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
155
156The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
157added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
158
96baa820
JM
159* ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
160
161The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
162``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
163include ``set remote P-packet''.
164
11cf8741
JM
165* Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
166
167The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
168accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
169``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
170
7876dd43
DB
171* ``apropos'' command added.
172
173The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
174documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
175try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
176
bc9e5bbf
AC
177* New MI interface
178
179A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
180interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
7162c0ca
EZ
181process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
182"GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
183enabled by configuring with:
bc9e5bbf
AC
184
185 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
186
c906108c
SS
187*** Changes in GDB-4.18:
188
189* New native configurations
190
191HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
192HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
193M68K Linux m68*-*-linux*
194
195* New targets
196
197Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
198Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
199Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
200
201* OBSOLETE configurations
202
203Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
204
205Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
206but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
207these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
208be permanently REMOVED.
209
210* ANSI/ISO C
211
212As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
213buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
214containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
215use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
216available. If this is not true, please report the affected
217configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
218information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
219already.
220
221* Readline 2.2
222
223GDB now uses readline 2.2.
224
225* set extension-language
226
227You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
228languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
229you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
230 set extension-language .c c++
231The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
232and their associated languages.
233
234* Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
235
236When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
237you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
238PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
239
240 set processor NAME
241
242sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
243following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
244
245 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
246 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
247 403 IBM PowerPC 403
248 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
249 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
250 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
251 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
252 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
253 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
254 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
255 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
256
257At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
258special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
259registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
260only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
261
262* HP-UX support
263
264Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
265more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
266library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
267support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
268for xdb and dbx commands.
269
270* Catchpoints
271
272HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
273generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
274to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
275
276This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
277argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
278output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
279
280* Debugging across forks
281
282On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
283in the inferior.
284
285* TUI
286
287HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
288it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
289configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
290
291* GDB remote protocol additions
292
293A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
294Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
295fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
296allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
297
298For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
299full 64-bit address. The command
300
301 set remoteaddresssize 32
302
303can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
304the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
305will be discarded.
306
307In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
308command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
309
310 maint packet heythere
311
312sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
313disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
314time.
315
316The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
317target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
318downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
319
320* Tracing can collect general expressions
321
322You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
323further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
324doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
325
326* mask-address variable for Mips
327
328For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
329a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
330of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
331
332* Higher serial baud rates
333
334GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
335230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
336to achieve all of these rates.)
337
338* i960 simulator
339
340The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
341builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
342
343
344*** Changes in GDB-4.17:
345
346* New native configurations
347
348Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
349Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
350Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
351PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
352PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
353Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
354Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
355
356* New targets
357
358Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
359Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
360Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
361Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
362MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
363MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
364MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
365Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
366Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
367Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
368NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
369
370* New debugging protocols
371
372ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
373M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
374DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
375PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
376PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
377Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
378
379* DWARF 2
380
381All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
382format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
383information.
384
385* Java frontend
386
387GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
388only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
389
390* solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
391
392For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
393loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
394locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
395
396* Live range splitting
397
398GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
399range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
400more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
401
402* Hurd support
403
404GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
405updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
406
407* ARM Thumb support
408
409GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
410instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
411instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
412accordingly.
413
414* MIPS16 support
415
416GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
417instruction set.
418
419* Overlay support
420
421GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
422linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
423will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
424control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
425additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
426in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
427
428* info symbol
429
430The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
431the symbol at the specified address.
432
433* Trace support
434
435The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
436asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
437extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
438includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
439file tracepoint.c for more details.
440
441* MIPS simulator
442
443Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
444by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
445of most MIPS variants.
446
447* Sparc simulator
448
449Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
450by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
451Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
452
453* set architecture
454
455For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
456basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
457architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
458the possible architectures.
459
460*** Changes in GDB-4.16:
461
462* New native configurations
463
464Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
465M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
466PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
467PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
468PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
469RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
470
471* New targets
472
473ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
474I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
475MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
476MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
477PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
478Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
479Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
480
481* PowerPC simulator
482
483The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
484contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
485PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
486basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
487performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
488
489* Solaris 2.5
490
491GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
492
493* Windows 95/NT native
494
495GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
496To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
497which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
498Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
499ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
500
501* dont-repeat command
502
503If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
504command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
505useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
506extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
507
508* Send break instead of ^C
509
510The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
511rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
512GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
513
514* Remote protocol timeout
515
516The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
517that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
518to read from the target. The default value is 2.
519
520* Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
521
522By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
523loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
524stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
525when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
526in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
527
528Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
529/usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
530automatically on hpux10.
531
532* Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
533
534Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
535
536* Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
537
538When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
539may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
540the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
541every character. The default value is 1050.
542
543* Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
544
545If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
546a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
547replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
548details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
549remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
550to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
551
552* Speedups for remote debugging
553
554GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
555the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
556and more efficient S-record downloading.
557
558* Memory use reductions and statistics collection
559
560GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
561Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
562
563*** Changes in GDB-4.15:
564
565* Psymtabs for XCOFF
566
567The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
568can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
569
570* Remote targets use caching
571
572Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
573remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
574it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
575debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
576off' turns the the data cache off.
577
578* Remote targets may have threads
579
580The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
581in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
582gdb/remote.c for details.
583
584* NetROM support
585
586If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
587support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
588acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
589write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
590support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
591another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
592sequence is something like
593
594 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
595 load <prog>
596 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
597
598* Macintosh host
599
600GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
601may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
602it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
603available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
604device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
605directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
606scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
607mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
608
609* Autoconf
610
611GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
612but does simplify configuration and building.
613
614* hpux10
615
616GDB now supports hpux10.
617
618*** Changes in GDB-4.14:
619
620* New native configurations
621
622x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
623x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
624NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
625Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
626
627* New targets
628
629A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
630HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
631CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
632PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
633WDC 65816 w65-*-*
634
635* Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
636
637GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
638possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
639filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
640the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
641if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
642
643* Arguments to user-defined commands
644
645User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
646Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
647trivial example:
648define adder
649 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
650
651To execute the command use:
652adder 1 2 3
653
654Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
655Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
656use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
657
658* New `if' and `while' commands
659
660This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
661commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
662expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
663execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
664terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
665`else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
666if the expression is zero.
667
668* Fortran source language mode
669
670GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
671Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
672variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
673with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
674Fortran compilers.
675
676* Better HPUX support
677
678Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
679running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
680processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
681for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
682that behavior do the following before running the program:
683
684 adb -w a.out
685 __dld_flags?W 0x5
686 control-d
687
688This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
689To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
690
691 adb -w a.out
692 __dld_flags?W 0x4
693 control-d
694
695You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
696the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
697external linkage.
698
699GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
700HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
701
702* Target byte order now dynamically selectable
703
704You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
705commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
706current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
707"set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
708associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
709configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
710
711* New DOS host serial code
712
713This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
714no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
715a PC's serial port.
716
717*** Changes in GDB-4.13:
718
719* New "complete" command
720
721This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
722were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
723
724* Trailing space optional in prompt
725
726"set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
727allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
728
729* Breakpoint hit counts
730
731"info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
732has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
733can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
734to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
735less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
736that breakpoint.
737
738* Ability to stop printing at NULL character
739
740"set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
741an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
742arrays actually contain only short strings.
743
744* Shared library breakpoints
745
746In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
747breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
748
749* Hardware watchpoints
750
751There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
752targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
753
754Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under Linux.
755
756* Annotations
757
758Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
759and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
760
761* Improved Irix 5 support
762
763GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
764
765* Improved HPPA support
766
767GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
768
769* New native configurations
770
771Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
772HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
773Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
774RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
775
776* New targets
777
778OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
779MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
780Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
781
782* Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
783
784There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
785This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
786
787* Fixes
788
789As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
790and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
791
792*** Changes in GDB-4.12:
793
794* Irix 5 is now supported
795
796* HPPA support
797
798GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
799to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
800GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
801of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
802can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
803
804
805*** Changes in GDB-4.11:
806
807* User visible changes:
808
809* Remote Debugging
810
811The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
812target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
813debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
814integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
815debugging info for the mips target).
816
817* DEC Alpha native support
818
819GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
820debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
821work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
822Alpha-specific notes.
823
824* Preliminary thread implementation
825
826GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
827
828* LynxOS native and target support for 386
829
830This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
831to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
832for details).
833
834* Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
835
836This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
837mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
838call methods, ...etc.
839
840*** Changes in GDB-4.10:
841
842 * User visible changes:
843
844Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
845supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
846other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
847somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
848
849Filename completion now works.
850
851When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
852arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
853addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
854
855All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
856vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
857should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
858your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
859to be on the far side of a thin network line.
860
861 * DEC alpha support
862
863This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
864cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
865
866
867*** Changes in GDB-4.9:
868
869 * Testsuite
870
871This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
872The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
873via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
874
875 * C++ demangling
876
877'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
878emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
879Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
880disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
881use gdb with AT&T cfront.
882
883 * Simulators
884
885GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
886So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
887Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
888
889 * New targets supported
890
891H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
892H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
893SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
894Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
895IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
896
897Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
898version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
899GO32 memory extender.
900
901 * New remote protocols
902
903MIPS remote debugging protocol.
904
905 * New source languages supported
906
907This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
908used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
909into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
910
911
912*** Changes in GDB-4.8:
913
914 * HP Precision Architecture supported
915
916GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
917version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
918University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
919compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
920format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
921(as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
922
923Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
924
925 * Faster and better demangling
926
927We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
928demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
929character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
930only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
931This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
932increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
933symbol lookups.
934
935`Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
936from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
937compiler does not actually implement.
938
939 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
940
941In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
942inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
943recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
944very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
945The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
946circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
947fix.
948
949The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
950release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
951
952 * Improved configure script
953
954The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
955you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
956host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
957done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
958
959We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
960version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
961`--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
962The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
963only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
964We hope to make this the default in a future release.
965
966 * Documentation improvements
967
968There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
969produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
970before submitting changes.
971
972The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
973M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
974`info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
975you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
976a future texinfo-X.Y release.
977
978*NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
979We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
980been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
981or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
982`texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
983around this problem.
984
985 * New features
986
987GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
988the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
989`print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
990the target program.
991
992The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
993how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
994
995 * New native hosts supported
996
997HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
998386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
999
1000 * New targets supported
1001
1002AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
1003
1004 * New file formats supported
1005
1006BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
1007HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
1008
1009 * Major bug fixes
1010
1011Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
1012
1013We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
1014printf_filtered("%s") problems.
1015
1016We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
1017for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
1018release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
1019
1020You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
1021will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
1022
1023We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
1024for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
1025especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
1026libraries.
1027
1028The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
1029information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
1030command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
1031any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
1032when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
1033
1034 * Internal improvements
1035
1036GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
1037debugging of multiple languages in the future.
1038
1039GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
1040Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
1041symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
1042contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
1043shared code that handles any of them.
1044
1045 * New command line options
1046
1047We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
1048
1049 * Mmalloc licensing
1050
1051The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
1052General Public License.
1053
1054*** Changes in GDB-4.7:
1055
1056 * Host/native/target split
1057
1058GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
1059hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
1060target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
1061local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
1062ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
1063
1064The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
1065GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
1066is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
1067code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
1068any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
1069built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
1070handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
1071
1072GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
1073It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
1074plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
1075
1076 * New hosts supported
1077
1078HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
1079386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1080386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
1081
1082 * New targets supported
1083
1084Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
108568030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
1086
1087 * New native hosts supported
1088
1089386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1090 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
1091386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
1092
1093 * New file formats supported
1094
1095BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
1096supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
1097format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
1098
1099 * New commands
1100
1101`show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
1102`show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
1103These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
1104
1105`info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
1106
1107You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
1108scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
1109prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
1110executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
1111
1112 * C++ improvements
1113
1114We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
1115info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
1116symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
1117
1118Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
1119
1120 * Major bug fixes
1121
1122The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
1123fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
1124by the compiler.
1125
1126We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
1127support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
1128
1129John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
1130slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
1131that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
1132purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
1133the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
1134mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
1135
1136Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
1137about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
1138completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
1139we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
1140
1141 * AMD 29k support
1142
1143A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
1144specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
1145calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
1146usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
1147in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
1148
1149We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
1150Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
1151of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
1152resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
1153
1154 * Remote interfaces
1155
1156We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
1157with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
1158message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
1159This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
1160needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
1161breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
1162each instruction being stepped through.
1163
1164The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
1165registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
1166
1167There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
1168find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
1169Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
1170processor with a serial port.
1171
1172 * Configuration
1173
1174Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
1175`table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
1176supported, and what files each one uses.
1177
1178 * Library changes
1179
1180There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
1181disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
1182Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
1183disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
1184
1185The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
1186Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
1187can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
1188grants all the rights from the General Public License.
1189
1190 * Documentation
1191
1192The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
1193reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
1194as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
1195encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
1196system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
1197bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
1198
1199And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
1200
1201
1202*** Changes in GDB-4.6:
1203
1204 * Better support for C++ function names
1205
1206GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
1207names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
1208(using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
1209single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
1210Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
1211
1212GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
1213the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
1214You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
1215lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
1216for the list of formats.
1217
1218 * G++ symbol mangling problem
1219
1220Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
1221C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
1222directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
1223can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
1224usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
1225about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
1226this problem.)
1227
1228 * New 'maintenance' command
1229
1230All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
1231the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
1232can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
1233
1234 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
1235 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
1236 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
1237 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
1238 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
1239 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
1240
1241The following commands are new:
1242
1243 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
1244 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
1245 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
1246
1247 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
1248
1249We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
1250(e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
1251be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
1252read after argv processing.
1253
1254 * New hosts supported
1255
1256Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
1257
1258Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
1259
1260We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
1261is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
1262for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
1263masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
1264fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
1265It costs extra.
1266
1267 * New targets supported
1268
1269Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1270
1271 * More smarts about finding #include files
1272
1273GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
1274all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
1275greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
1276especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
1277the one that contains your sources.
1278
1279We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
1280breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
1281try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
1282
1283 * Interesting infernals change
1284
1285GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
1286section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
1287target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
1288stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
1289
1290 * Bug fixes (of course!)
1291
1292There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
1293 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
1294 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
1295
1296See the ChangeLog for details.
1297
1298*** Changes in GDB-4.5:
1299
1300 * New machines supported (host and target)
1301
1302IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
1303
1304SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
1305
1306 * New malloc package
1307
1308GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
1309Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
1310capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
1311This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
1312pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
1313more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
1314
1315 * info proc
1316
1317The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
1318'help info proc' for details.
1319
1320 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
1321
1322The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
1323Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
1324possible.
1325
1326 * File name changes for MS-DOS
1327
1328Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
1329support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
1330conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
1331environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
1332that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
1333in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
1334
1335 * Cross byte order fixes
1336
1337Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
1338targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
1339
1340 * New -mapped and -readnow options
1341
1342If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
1343system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
1344`symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
1345program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
1346called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
1347Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
1348and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
1349the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
1350option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
1351starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
1352
1353You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
1354the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
1355information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
1356slower, but makes future operations faster.
1357
1358The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
1359build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
1360A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
1361use is:
1362
1363 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
1364
1365The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
1366It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
1367shared across multiple host platforms.
1368
1369 * longjmp() handling
1370
1371GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
1372siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
1373all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
1374platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
1375
1376 * Solaris 2.0
1377
1378Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
1379this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
1380reading symbols.
1381
1382 * Bug fixes
1383
1384As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
1385People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
1386crashes and trashed symbol tables.
1387
1388*** Changes in GDB-4.4:
1389
1390 * New machines supported (host and target)
1391
1392SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
1393 (except core files)
1394BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
1395Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
1396
1397 * New machines supported (target)
1398
1399AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1400
1401 * C++ support
1402
1403GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
1404The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
1405per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
1406
1407GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
1408`ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
1409extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
1410good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
1411will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
1412released.
1413
1414 * New features for SVR4
1415
1416GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
1417shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
1418only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
1419
1420The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
1421on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
1422it prints the address mappings of the process.
1423
1424If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
1425bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
1426
1427 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
1428
1429Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
1430now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
1431skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
1432make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
1433same code linked statically.
1434
1435 * New Getopt
1436
1437GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
1438version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
1439continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
1440Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
1441added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
1442future by other options that begin with the same letter.
1443
1444 * Bugs fixed
1445
1446The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
1447Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
1448See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
1449
1450
1451*** Changes in GDB-4.3:
1452
1453 * New machines supported (host and target)
1454
1455Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
1456NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
1457Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
1458
1459 * Almost SCO Unix support
1460
1461We had hoped to support:
1462SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
1463(except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
1464that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
1465about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
1466
1467 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
1468
1469GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
1470debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
1471is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
1472send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
1473reqired (if any).
1474
1475 * New Readline
1476
1477GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
1478is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
1479required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
1480
1481 * Bugs fixed
1482
1483The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
1484Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
1485See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
1486
1487 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
1488
1489GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
1490supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
1491symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
1492
1493Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
1494mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
1495debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
1496mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
1497version 2.
1498
1499Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
1500really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
1501line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
1502variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
1503situation somewhat.
1504
1505When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
1506However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
1507methods.
1508
1509We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
1510DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
1511encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
1512
1513
1514*** Changes in GDB-4.2:
1515
1516 * Improved configuration
1517
1518Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
1519Porting BFD is simpler.
1520
1521 * Stepping improved
1522
1523The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
1524of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
1525in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
1526function that has debugging information is called within the line.
1527
1528 * Bug fixing
1529
1530Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
1531
1532 * New host supported (not target)
1533
1534Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
1535
1536
1537*** Changes in GDB-4.1:
1538
1539 * Multiple source language support
1540
1541GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
1542It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
1543and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
1544language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
1545You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
1546`set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
1547
1548 * GDB and Modula-2
1549
1550GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
1551currently under development at the State University of New York at
1552Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
1553continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
1554
1555Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
1556debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
1557symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
1558
1559There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
1560in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
1561
1562 * set write on/off
1563
1564GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
1565a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
1566the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
1567by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
1568effect immediately.
1569
1570 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
1571
1572When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
1573shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
1574The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
1575examining core files.
1576
1577 * set listsize
1578
1579You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
1580The default is 10.
1581
1582 * New machines supported (host and target)
1583
1584SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
1585Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
1586Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
1587
1588 * New hosts supported (not targets)
1589
1590IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
1591
1592 * New targets supported (not hosts)
1593
1594AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1595AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1596Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
1597
1598 * New remote interfaces
1599
1600AMD 29000 Adapt
1601AMD 29000 Minimon
1602
1603
1604*** Changes in GDB-4.0:
1605
1606 * New Facilities
1607
1608Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
1609
1610Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
1611target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
1612is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
1613remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
1614remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
1615also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
1616using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
1617stub on the target system.
1618
1619New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
1620
1621GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
1622library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
1623object file types such as a.out and coff.
1624
1625There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
1626refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
1627
1628
1629 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
1630
1631All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
1632by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
1633
1634For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
1635``Show prompt'' produces the response:
1636Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
1637
1638What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
1639print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
1640will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
1641all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
1642
1643confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
1644 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
1645 it is already running. Default is ON.
1646
1647editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
1648 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
1649 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
1650 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
1651 Default is ON.
1652
1653history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
1654 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
1655 or the value of the environment variable
1656 GDBHISTFILE.
1657
1658history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
1659 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
1660 HISTSIZE.
1661
1662history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
1663 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
1664 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
1665
1666history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
1667 history expansion will be performed on
1668 command line input. The default is OFF.
1669
1670radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
1671 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
1672 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
1673
1674height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
1675 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
1676 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
1677 variable TERM.
1678
1679width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
1680 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
1681 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
1682 variable TERM.
1683
1684Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
1685``set width'' instead.
1686
1687print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
1688 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
1689 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
1690 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
1691
1692print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
1693 is OFF.
1694
1695print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
1696 "raw" form if off.
1697
1698print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
1699 like instructions.
1700
1701print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
1702
1703
1704 * Support for Epoch Environment.
1705
1706The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
1707new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
1708are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
1709window.
1710
1711
1712 * Support for Shared Libraries
1713
1714GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
1715Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
1716before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
1717happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
1718At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
1719from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
1720shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
1721It can be abbreviated ``share''.
1722
1723sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
1724 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
1725 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
1726
1727info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
1728
1729
1730 * Watchpoints
1731
1732A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
1733expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
1734tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
1735quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
1736problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
1737more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
1738
1739watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
1740
1741info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
1742
1743delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
1744disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
1745enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
1746
1747
1748 * C++ multiple inheritance
1749
1750When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
1751for C++ programs.
1752
1753 * C++ exception handling
1754
1755Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
1756ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
1757the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
1758handler's context).
1759
1760catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
1761 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
1762 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
1763
1764info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
1765 current stack frame.
1766
1767
1768 * Minor command changes
1769
1770The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
1771command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
1772is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
1773
1774The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
1775at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
1776frames without printing.
1777
1778 * New directory command
1779
1780'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
1781The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
1782about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
1783with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
1784find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
1785
1786 * Configuring GDB for compilation
1787
1788For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
1789for more details.
1790
1791GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
1792two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
1793Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
1794where the program that you are debugging will run.