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From: Andrew Cagney <cagney@gnu.org>
To: gdb-announce@sources.redhat.com
Subject: GDB 6.1 Released
Date: Sat, 17 Apr 2004 00:53:00 -0000	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <E1BEdzN-0003tS-JY@fencepost.gnu.org> (raw)


			GDB 6.1 released!

Version 6.1 of GDB, the GNU Debugger, is now available via anonymous
FTP.  GDB is a source-level debugger for C, C++, Pascal, Objective-C
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/Liinux, 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, 6.0, was released roughly 6 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
	16693869  f707d21f5a3e963ce059caed75e899a2  gdb-6.1.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.

Many people have contributed to this release.  Thanks to everybody for
the help!

Keep those fixes and improvements coming in! (See
http://www.gnu.org/software/gdb/bugs/)

       Andrew Cagney
       on behalf of the GDB Developers.
\f
*** Changes in GDB 6.1:

* Removed --with-mmalloc

Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.

* Changes in AMD64 configurations

The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers.  As a result
the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
and SSE registers.  If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.

* Revised SPARC target

The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0.  As a result
support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped.  Calling functions
from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
(Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.

* New C++ demangler

GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
names generated by current versions of g++.  It also runs faster, so
with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
programs.

* DWARF 2 Location Expressions

GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
arguments and frame bases.  Older versions of GDB could crash when they
encountered these.

* C++ nested types and namespaces

GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format.  (This
is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
"Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner".  This should greatly reduce the
frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols.  In addition,
if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.

* New native configurations

NetBSD/amd64					x86_64-*-netbsd*
OpenBSD/amd64					x86_64-*-openbsd*
OpenBSD/alpha					alpha*-*-openbsd*
OpenBSD/sparc					sparc-*-openbsd*
OpenBSD/sparc64					sparc64-*-openbsd*

* New debugging protocols

M32R with SDI protocol				m32r-*-elf*

* "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.

The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted.  This command,
and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.

* OBSOLETE configurations and files

Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
been commented out.  Unless there is activity to revive these
configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
permanently REMOVED.

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)

* REMOVED configurations and files

SGI Irix-4.x				mips-sgi-irix4	or iris4
SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3:  	mips-sgi-irix   or  iris
Z8000 simulator		  		z8k-zilog-none 	  or z8ksim
Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator			mn10200-*-*
H8/500 simulator 			h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
HP/PA running BSD				hppa*-*-bsd*
HP/PA running OSF/1				hppa*-*-osf*
HP/PA Pro target				hppa*-*-pro*
PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0			mips*-*-mach3*
386BSD						i[3456]86-*-bsd*
Sequent family					i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
						i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
						i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
SPARC running LynxOS				sparc-*-lynxos*
SPARC running SunOS 4				sparc-*-sunos4*
Tsqware Sparclet				sparclet-*-*
Fujitsu SPARClite 			sparclite-fujitsu-none  or  sparclite

\f

			Known problems in GDB 6.1

		See also: http://www.gnu.org/software/gdb/bugs/


*** Build problems

build/1458: comple failed on hpux11

GDB 6.1 is known to have build problems on HP/UX 11.00 using the
vendor supplied compilers (GDB does build on HP/UX 11.11, and using
GCC).

*** 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.

*** 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.

hppa*-*-*
mips*-*-*

The MIPS and HPPA backtrace code has only very recently been updated
to use GDB's new frame mechanism.  At present there are still a few
problems, in particular backtraces through signal handlers do not
work.

People encountering problems with these architectures should consult
GDB's web pages and mailing lists (http://www.gnu.org/software/gdb/)
to see if there are updates.

powerpc*-*-*

PowerPC architecture support, in 6.1, does not use the new frame code.

Fortunately, PowerPC architecture support, in GDB's mainline sources,
have been updated.  People encountering problems should consider
downloading a more current snapshot of GDB
(http://www.gnu.org/software/gdb/current/).

                 reply	other threads:[~2004-04-17  0:53 UTC|newest]

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