[RFA] Update NEWS for v5.1

[RFA] Update NEWS for v5.1

[Eli Zaretskii]

Here's my contribution to NEWS updating initiative.  I put there changes 
that invade other maintainers' realms, so please proofread for accuracy.

(Andrew, I'd suggest in the future to request any significant change to 
be accompanied by a NEWS entry, to avoid the pre-release frenzy.)

--- gdb/NEWS.~0	Sun Jul 15 12:24:18 2001
+++ gdb/NEWS	Thu Jul 19 19:12:04 2001
@@ -3,22 +3,18 @@
 
 *** Changes since GDB 5.0:
 
-* "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
-
-* The MI enabled.
-
-The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
-revised and enabled.
-
 * New native configurations
 
 Alpha FreeBSD					alpha*-*-freebsd*
 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x				i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
 MIPS Linux					mips*-*-linux*
+MIPS SGI Irix 6.x				mips*-sgi-irix6*
+ia64 AIX					ia64-*-aix*
 
 * New targets
 
 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12			m68hc11-elf
+UltraSparc running Linux			sparc64-*-linux*
 
 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
 
@@ -54,12 +50,112 @@
 Tahoe						tahoe-*-*
 ser-ocd.c					*-*-*
 
+* GDB requires an ISO C compiler.
+
+Building GDB requires an ISO C compliant compiler.  In particular, the
+sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
+present.
+
 * Other news:
 
-* All MIPS configurations are multi-arched.
+* "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
+
+* The MI enabled by default.
+
+The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
+revised and enabled by default.  Packages which use GDB as a debugging
+engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
+using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
+which is now deprecated.
+
+* Limited support for debugging Pascal programs.
+
+This is pretty much minimal, and many important features are not yet
+supported.  A partial list of problems:
+
+    - Pascal string operations are not supported at all.
+
+    - There are some problems with boolean types.
+
+    - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
+      because they conflict with the internal variables format.
+
+* Changes in completion.
+
+Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
+to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
+users expect at the shell prompt.
+
+Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
+`breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
+program symbols.  Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
+files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
+be one of the candidates for completion.  However, file names are not
+considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
+name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
+
+`set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
+
+* New platform-independent commands:
+
+It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
+hook that runs before the command.  For more details, see the
+documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
+
+* Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
+
+Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
+
+Support for SSE registers was added.
+
+* Changes in MIPS configurations.
 
 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
 
+GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
+debugging n32 executables.  (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
+supported.)
+
+* Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
+
+Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
+breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner.  This support
+implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
+put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
+and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
+registers.
+
+The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
+debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
+watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
+
+* Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
+
+New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
+the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
+
+New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
+display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
+IDT.
+
+GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
+program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
+which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
+
+DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
+
+* Changes in documentation.
+
+The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index.  It also includes
+documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
+hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
+
+Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
+manual.
+
+All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
+Documentation License.
+
 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
 
 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file

Re: [RFA] Update NEWS for v5.1

[Andrew Cagney]

> +* GDB requires an ISO C compiler.
> +
> +Building GDB requires an ISO C compliant compiler.  In particular, the
> +sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
> +present.
> +


This was already true in GDB 5.0.  It wouldn't hurt to mention that this 
process has been followed through.  Something like:

* GDB has been converted to ISO-C


GDB's source code has been converted to ISO-C.  In particular, the 
sources have been fully prototized, and rely on standard headers being 
present.


	Andrew

Re: [RFA] Update NEWS for v5.1

[Pierre Muller]

>+* Limited support for debugging Pascal programs.
>+
>+This is pretty much minimal, and many important features are not yet
>+supported.  A partial list of problems:
>+
>+    - Pascal string operations are not supported at all.
>+
>+    - There are some problems with boolean types.
>+
>+    - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
>+      because they conflict with the internal variables format.
  Maybe we should also add that
Pascal Objects and Classes are not fully supported.

But doesn't this part sound too negative ?



Pierre Muller
Institut Charles Sadron
6,rue Boussingault
F 67083 STRASBOURG CEDEX (France)
mailto:muller@ics.u-strasbg.fr
Phone : (33)-3-88-41-40-07  Fax : (33)-3-88-41-40-99

Re: [RFA] Update NEWS for v5.1

[Eli Zaretskii]

> Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2001 10:43:48 +0200
> From: Pierre Muller <muller@cerbere.u-strasbg.fr>
> 
> >+* Limited support for debugging Pascal programs.
> >+
> >+This is pretty much minimal, and many important features are not yet
> >+supported.  A partial list of problems:
> >+
> >+    - Pascal string operations are not supported at all.
> >+
> >+    - There are some problems with boolean types.
> >+
> >+    - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
> >+      because they conflict with the internal variables format.
>   Maybe we should also add that
> Pascal Objects and Classes are not fully supported.
> 
> But doesn't this part sound too negative ?

That's what I could glean from the available comments; I've never
debugged Pascal programs, so I cannot do better.  Please consider
sending alternative text that would describe the situation better.

Re: [RFA] Update NEWS for v5.1

[Pierre Muller]

About Pascal language addition in NEWS.


What about adding this text in front of the missing features ?

* Partial support for debugging Pascal programs.

  Support for pascal language is partially included
  Available features are:
-- Support for pascal specific types like sets.
-- Automatic recognition of pascal sources based on standard extensions
-- Pascal like display of types, variables and functions
-- Pascal expression parser
  However many important features are not yetsupported.
A partial list of problems:
+
+    - Pascal string operations are not supported at all.
+
+    - There are some problems with boolean types.
+
+    - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
+      because they conflict with the internal variables format.
+
        - Pascal Objects and Classes are not fully supported.

        - Symbol case insensitiveness not supported.



Pierre Muller
Institut Charles Sadron
6,rue Boussingault
F 67083 STRASBOURG CEDEX (France)
mailto:muller@ics.u-strasbg.fr
Phone : (33)-3-88-41-40-07  Fax : (33)-3-88-41-40-99

Re: [RFA] Update NEWS for v5.1

[Eli Zaretskii]

> Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2001 13:11:48 +0200
> From: Pierre Muller <muller@cerbere.u-strasbg.fr>
> 
> What about adding this text in front of the missing features ?
> 
> * Partial support for debugging Pascal programs.
> 
>   Support for pascal language is partially included
>   Available features are:
> -- Support for pascal specific types like sets.
> -- Automatic recognition of pascal sources based on standard extensions
> -- Pascal like display of types, variables and functions
> -- Pascal expression parser

Sounds good, thanks.

Re: [RFA] Update NEWS for v5.1

[Andrew Cagney]

> About Pascal language addition in NEWS.
> 
> 
> What about adding this text in front of the missing features ?
> 
> * Partial support for debugging Pascal programs.
> 
>  Support for pascal language is partially included
>  Available features are:
> -- Support for pascal specific types like sets.
> -- Automatic recognition of pascal sources based on standard extensions
> -- Pascal like display of types, variables and functions
> -- Pascal expression parser
>  However many important features are not yetsupported.


Too negative, you'll never get a job in marketing :-)  How about 
something like ...

* Support for debugging Pascal programmes.

GDB now includes support for the debugging of Pascal programmes.  This 
includes the ability to <list of things that do work>.

There are still a few limiations, of note ....
(Contributed by ....)


As to the more general question of ``incomplete support''.  This would 
be like me demanding test results when someone submits a new port and 
then awarding a grade (broken, alpha, beta, incomplete, ...) dependant 
on how good/bad they were.  No, I'm not going to do that.

	Andrew

Re: [RFA] Update NEWS for v5.1

[Andrew Cagney]

> On Fri, 20 Jul 2001, Andrew Cagney wrote:
> 
> 
>> Too negative, you'll never get a job in marketing :-)  How about 
>> something like ...
> 
> 
> Does this mean that after taking care of Pierre's and your, Andrew, 
> comments, I can commit the changes to NEWS?


Yes, well, any one in the maintainers file can commit changes to news. 
So definitly ok with me.

	Andrew

Re: [RFA] Update NEWS for v5.1

[Eli Zaretskii]

On Mon, 23 Jul 2001, Andrew Cagney wrote:

> > Does this mean that after taking care of Pierre's and your, Andrew, 
> > comments, I can commit the changes to NEWS?
> 
> Yes, well, any one in the maintainers file can commit changes to news. 
> So definitly ok with me.

Done.  Thanks for the feedback.

Re: [RFA] Update NEWS for v5.1

[Eli Zaretskii]

On Wed, 25 Jul 2001, I wrote:

> On Mon, 23 Jul 2001, Andrew Cagney wrote:
> 
> > Yes, well, any one in the maintainers file can commit changes to news. 
> > So definitly ok with me.
> 
> Done.  Thanks for the feedback.

Btw, given the amount of patches related to solib and threads, I'd expect 
some user-visible changes in these areas.  Could the respective 
maintainers please consider adding to NEWS a couple of entries about that?

Also, we probably should say something about gnu-v3-abi stuff, right?

TIA