From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (qmail 29410 invoked by alias); 30 Jul 2004 21:32:47 -0000 Mailing-List: contact gdb-announce-help@sources.redhat.com; run by ezmlm Precedence: bulk List-Subscribe: List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: , Sender: gdb-announce-owner@sources.redhat.com Received: (qmail 25972 invoked from network); 30 Jul 2004 21:28:22 -0000 To: gdb-announce@sources.redhat.com Subject: GDB 6.2 Released Message-Id: <20040730212817.D213F2BA0@localhost.redhat.com> Date: Fri, 30 Jul 2004 21:32:00 -0000 From: cagney@redhat.com (Andrew Cagney) X-SW-Source: 2004/txt/msg00002.txt.bz2 GDB 6.2 released! Version 6.2 of GDB, the GNU Debugger, is now available via anonymous FTP. GDB is a source-level debugger for C, C++, Java and many other languages. GDB can target (i.e., debug programs running on) more than a dozen different processor architectures, and GDB itself can run on most popular GNU/Linux, Unix and Microsoft Windows variants. You can download GDB from Project GNU's FTP server in the directory: ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/gdb The previous version, 6.1.1, was released roughly 1 months ago; and in that time several new features have been added and many bugs have been fixed. The details are below. In addition, a number of late breaking problems have been identified and they are also mentioned below. The vital stats: Size md5sum Name 17011120 c095d01e55022fb9e609df5cfde66379 gdb-6.2.tar.gz 12819441 01871f7667345262e317a1e6e1a32768 gdb-6.2.tar.bz2 There is a web page for GDB at: http://www.gnu.org/software/gdb/ That page includes information about GDB mailing lists (an announcement mailing list, developers discussion lists, etc.), details on how to access GDB's CVS repository, locations for development snapshots, preformatted documentation, and links to related information around the net. We will put errata notes and host-specific tips for this release on-line as any problems come up. All mailing lists archives are also browsable via the web. The credit must go to Alan Modra, Albert Chin-A-Young, Alexandre Oliva, Andreas Schwab, Andrew Cagney, Bob Rossi, Brian Ford, Bryce McKinlay, Corinna Vinschen, Daniel Jacobowitz, David Anderson, David Carlton, Elena Zannoni, Guy Martin, J. Brobecker, Jason Molenda, Jeff Johnston, Jerome Guitton, Jim Blandy, Jim Ingham, Joel Brobecker, Kevin Buettner, Maciej W. Rozycki, Mark Kettenis, Martin Hunt, Michael Chastain, Michael Snyder, Nathan J. Williams, Nick Roberts, Orjan Friberg, Paul Brook, Paul N. Hilfinger, Rainer Orth, Randolph Chung, Roland McGrath, and Ulrich Weigand. Keep those fixes and improvements coming in! (See http://www.gnu.org/software/gdb/bugs/) Andrew Cagney What has changed in GDB? (Organized release by release) *** Changes in GDB 6.2: * Fix for ``many threads'' On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the error message: ptrace: No such process. thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error This problem has been fixed. * "-async" and "-noasync" options removed. Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused GDB to dump core). * New ``start'' command. This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure. * New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are: FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd* FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd* NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd* NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd* NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd* OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd* OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd* OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd* OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd* * Signal trampoline code overhauled Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed. These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline. Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702. * Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added. * New native configurations GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux* OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd* OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd* OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd* OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd* NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd* OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd* * END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten. The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to work, was also included. GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility module. This change directly impacts the following configurations: h8300-*-* mcore-*-* mn10300-*-* ns32k-*-* sh64-*-* v850-*-* xstormy16-*-* Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4. * REMOVED configurations and files Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3* Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4* Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3* Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4* Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos* AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-* Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv* decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-* riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv* sonymips mips-sony-* sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included) Known problems in GDB 6.2 See also: http://www.gnu.org/software/gdb/bugs/ *** MIPS native Due to problems with both BFD (sections not being correctly recognized) and GDB (backtraces failing), GDB 6.2 does not work on native MIPS systems. This will be fixed in the next update. *** Build problems build/1458: compile failed on hpux11 GDB has build problems on HP/UX 11 with some versions of the HP Ansi C compiler. (GCC works fine). The problem happens when compiling intl/bindtextdom.c. The error is: cc: "gettextP.h", line 50: error 1000: Unexpected symbol: "SWAP". cc: panic 2017: Cannot recover from earlier errors, terminating. *** Error exit code 1 This is a problem with the 'inline' keyword in gettextP.h. The workaround is to disable 'inline' before building gdb: export ac_cv_c_inline=no This problem happens only with some versions of the HP Ansi C compiler. Versions A.11.01.25171.GP and B.11.11.28706.GP have both been observed to work; version B.11.11.04 gets the build error and needs the workaround. This problem might also happen with other C compilers. *** Misc gdb/1560: Control-C does not always interrupt GDB. When GDB is busy processing a command which takes a long time to complete, hitting Control-C does not have the expected effect. The command execution is not aborted, and the "QUIT" message confirming the abortion is displayed only after the command has been completed. *** C++ support gdb/931: GDB could be more generous when reading types C++ templates on input When the user types a template, GDB frequently requires the type to be typed in a certain way (e.g. "const char*" as opposed to "const char *" or "char const *" or "char const*"). gdb/1512: no canonical way to output names of C++ types We currently don't have any canonical way to output names of C++ types. E.g. "const char *" versus "char const *"; more subtleties arise when dealing with templates. gdb/1516: [regression] local classes, gcc 2.95.3, dwarf-2 With gcc 2.95.3 and the dwarf-2 debugging format, classes which are defined locally to a function include the demangled name of the function as part of their name. For example, if a function "foobar" contains a local class definition "Local", gdb will say that the name of the class type is "foobar__Fi.0:Local". This applies only to classes where the class type is defined inside a function, not to variables defined with types that are defined somewhere outside any function (which most types are). gdb/1588: names of c++ nested types in casts must be enclosed in quotes You must type (gdb) print ('Foo::Bar') x or (gdb) print ('Foo::Bar' *) y instead of (gdb) print (Foo::Bar) x or (gdb) print (Foo::Bar *) y respectively. gdb/1091: Constructor breakpoints ignored gdb/1193: g++ 3.3 creates multiple constructors: gdb 5.3 can't set breakpoints When gcc 3.x compiles a C++ constructor or C++ destructor, it generates 2 or 3 different versions of the object code. These versions have unique mangled names (they have to, in order for linking to work), but they have identical source code names, which leads to a great deal of confusion. Specifically, if you set a breakpoint in a constructor or a destructor, gdb will put a breakpoint in one of the versions, but your program may execute the other version. This makes it impossible to set breakpoints reliably in constructors or destructors. gcc 3.x generates these multiple object code functions in order to implement virtual base classes. gcc 2.x generated just one object code function with a hidden parameter, but gcc 3.x conforms to a multi-vendor ABI for C++ which requires multiple object code functions. *** Signal handlers On many systems an attempt to single-step a system-call instruction results in two or more instructions being executed (the system-call, and one or more instructions following). When attempting to single-step through a signal trampoline, this problem may result the program unintentionally running to completion, or re-execute the faulting instruction, or even corrupting the program counter. Ref: PR breakpoints/1702. *** Stack backtraces GDB's core code base has been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism. This mechanism makes it possible to support new features such DWARF 2 Call Frame Information (which in turn makes possible backtraces through optimized code). Since this code is new, it is known to still have a few problems: gdb/1505: [regression] gdb prints a bad backtrace for a thread When backtracing a thread, gdb does not stop when it reaches the outermost frame, instead continuing until it hits garbage. This is sensitive to the operating system and thread library. *** Threads threads/1650: manythreads.exp On GNU/Linux systems that use the old LinuxThreads thread library, a program rapidly creating and deleting threads can confuse GDB leading to an internal error. This problem does not occur on newer systems that use the NPTL library, and did not occur with GDB 6.1.