GDB 6.8 released!

[Joel Brobecker <brobecker@adacore.com>]

            GDB 6.8 released!

Release 6.8 of GDB, the GNU Debugger, is now available via anonymous
FTP.  GDB is a source-level debugger for Ada, C, C++, Objective-C,
Pascal 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 the GNU FTP server in the directory:

        ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/gdb

The vital stats:

  Size  md5sum                            Name
  15MB  c9da266b884fb8fa54df786dfaadbc7a  gdb-6.8.tar.bz2
  20MB  925695333524108291dc4012c4c9cbb8  gdb-6.8.tar.gz

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.

GDB 6.8 brings many fixes and enhancements over the previous major release
(6.7.1, released in October 2007), including:

  * GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
  building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
  target architectures.

  * GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
  including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
  and in inlined functions.

  * GDB now supports debugging C and C++ programs which use the
  Decimal Floating Point extension.  In addition, the PowerPC target
  now has a set of pseudo-registers to inspect decimal float values
  stored in two consecutive float registers.

  * Improved support for debugging Ada
  Many improvements to the Ada language support have been made.  These
  include:
    - Better support for Ada2005 interface types
    - Improved handling of arrays and slices in general
    - Better support for Taft-amendment types
    - The '{type} ADDRESS' expression is now allowed on the left hand-side
      of an assignment
    - Improved command completion in Ada
    - Several bug fixes
  
  * Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
  is resolved.
  
  * GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved.  GDB more
  accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
  more than one contiguous range of addresses.
  
  * Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.

  * GDB on GNU/Linux and HP/UX can now debug through "exec" of a new process.

The following new commands have been added:

  set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
  show print frame-arguments
    The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
    values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
  
  remote put
  remote get
  remote delete
    Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.

GDB/MI interface improvements:

  * The -break-insert MI command can optionally create pending breakpoints now.

  * New MI commands:
    -target-file-put
    -target-file-get
    -target-file-delete
      Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
  
Support for the following new native configurations have been added:

  x86/Windows                     i[34567]86-*-mingw32*
  NetBSD/hppa                     hppa*-*netbsd*
  Xtensa GNU/Linux                xtensa*-*-linux*

Support for the following targets has been added:

  NetBSD/hppa                     hppa*-*-netbsd*
  Xtensa GNU/Linux                xtensa*-*-linux*

The following improvements were made to gdbserver, the GDB remote stub:

  * Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC

  * Support for AltiVec and SPE registers have been added

  * Thread debugger on GNU/Linux has been added even when libthread_db
  is not available.
  
  * New file transfer commands introduced (remote put, remote get, and
  remote delete)
  
  * Support for run and attach in extended-remote mode.

Some other removed features:

  * Attaching to a program using the '-c' command line switch is no longer
  supported.  Instead, using the '-p' or '--pid' option. 

-- 
Joel