GDB 6.1.1 released!

[Andrew Cagney]

                        GDB 6.1.1 released!

Version 6.1.1 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/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, was released roughly 2 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
        16704501  64cbef11992238ed154cc13c953491d0  gdb-6.1.1.tar.gz
        12586670  dd25473f61a3a2e1b08dee5f67ebae28  gdb-6.1.1.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 Shrinivas Atre, Jim Blandy, Joel Brobecker, Paul
Brook, Kevin Buettner, David Carlton, Stephane Carrez, Michael
Elizabeth Chastain, Albert Chin-A-Young, Randolph Chung, Stephen
Clarke, Nick Clifton, Brendan Conoboy, Chris Demetriou, Dhananjay
Deshpande, Ben Elliston, Christopher Faylor, Adam Fedor, Fred Fish,
Orjan Friberg, Anthony Green, Jerome Guitton, Richard Henderson, Paul
N. Hilfinger, Jim Ingham, Bernardo Innocenti, Daniel Jacobowitz,
Andreas Jaeger, Jeff Johnston, Nick Kelsey, Mark Kettenis, David
Lecomber, H.J. Lu, Michal Ludvig, Roland McGrath, Bryce McKinlay,
Jason Merrill, Robert Millan, David S. Miller, Mark Mitchell, Alan
Modra, Jason Molenda, David Mosberger, Atsushi Nemoto, Mark Newman,
Rainer Orth, Pawel Ostrowski, Nick Roberts, Theodore A. Roth, Kei
Sakamoto, Richard Sandiford, Peter Schauer, Andreas Schwab, Michael
Snyder, Ian Lance Taylor, Corinna Vinschen, Kris Warkentin, Ulrich
Weigand, James E Wilson, Jimi Xenidis, Elena Zannoni, and Eli
Zaretskii along with all our testers and uses that who all contributed
to the 6.1 release series.

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

       Andrew Cagney
       on behalf of the GDB Developers.

*** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:

* TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)

The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
GDB configuration.  It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
program.  For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
with GDB".

* Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)

Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
libraries that have not yet been loaded.  If a breakpoint location
cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
shared-library load.  If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
are created.

Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.

* Fixed ISO-C build problems

The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).

* Fixed build problem on IRIX 5

Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.

* Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure

The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
permission.  This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
systems (Solaris, IRIX).  Ref: server/519.

* Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler

Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes.  somsolib.c
has been updated to use constant array sizes.

* Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7

GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
its generated DWARF Call Frame Info.  This encoding was causing GDB to
panic, that panic has been fixed.  Ref: gdb/1628.

* Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.

When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
not available''.  GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.

*** 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



                        Known problems in GDB 6.1.1

                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/).