Return-Path: engineering-request Return-Path: jeffrey Received: (from jeffrey@localhost) by cygnus.com (8.6.9/8.6.9) id AAA04881 for engnews-distrib; Thu, 8 Sep 1994 00:44:55 -0700 Date: Thu, 8 Sep 1994 00:44:55 -0700 From: Jeffrey Osier Message-Id: <199409080744.AAA04881@cygnus.com> To: engnews-distrib Subject: Inside Cygnus Engineering - Vol 3 #8 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Vol 3 No 8 INSIDE CYGNUS ENGINEERING August 1994 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Inside Cygnus Engineering (ICE) is published monthly for customers of Cygnus Support. Our objective is to provide a relevant but informal summary of news and ongoing activities. Please send all comments, suggestions, and subscription requests to engnews@cygnus.com. TABLE OF CONTENTS ----------------- PRODUCTS AND RELEASES: . GDB 4.13 . Alpha/OSF Support NEW AND ONGOING DEVELOPMENTS: . Progressive Update . Version Number Clarification . World-Wide Web Server Update SUPPORT ACTIVITIES: . Software Maintenance Status OTHER ITEMS: . See You At The Show! . Howdy From The New ICE Editor PRODUCTS AND RELEASES --------------------- 1. GDB 4.13 GDB 4.13 was just released to the Net, and will be included in our upcoming progressive release. New features include: * New "complete" command This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs, and will be utilized for the forthcoming GDB GUI. * Trailing space optional in prompt "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This allows you to set a prompt that ends in a space or one that does not. * Breakpoint hit counts "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of that breakpoint. * Ability to stop printing at NULL character "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large arrays actually contain only short strings. * Shared library breakpoints In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run. * Hardware watchpoints There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite targets. See the file "gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note" for more details. * Annotations Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces, and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el, the enhanced GDB mode for Emacs, uses these. * Improved HPPA support GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS on the HPPA. * New targets GDB now works properly with the following new targets: OS/9000 i386-*-os9k MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf} Sparc64 sparc64-*-* * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE. This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH. * Fixes As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail. 2. Alpha/OSF Support Our upcoming Progressive release will include native compiler support for the Alpha running OSF/1 version 1.3. (C and C++ are available; gcc uses the native Alpha assembler and linker.) NEW AND ONGOING DEVELOPMENTS ---------------------------- 1. Progressive Update We are currently building and testing our upcoming progressive release, which will be named progressive-94q4 (see "Version Number Clarification" below). We plan to make it available by mid-October. In the past there has been some confusion about whether or not some customers receive updates automatically. If you have questions about this, or if you'd like to change whether you get updates by default, contact your Cygnus Support representative. 2. Version Number Clarification In order to clarify the version numbers of our packages, we're instituting two new policies with our upcoming release. * In the past we've named each release according to the quarter in which we built and tested it, so that the toolkit we built in the first quarter of this year (January through March) was named 94q1. Starting with the release now in progress, we're naming the release according to the quarter when you receive it; thus, the upcoming release will be named progressive-94q4. * Each tool will now carry the progressive version number for the release in which it is included. In the past, a number of users have been unclear on the relationship between the Net release of a piece of software and the contemporaneous Cygnus Support release. For the progressive-94q4 release, we plan to include the progressive version number in the number for each program. For example, the program "gcc" for this quarter will contain the version number "2.6-94q4". Since our releases generally include all the newest capabilities of the Net releases, with the additional advantage of full testing and integration into a complete toolchain, the version number can be somewhat misleading. Nevertheless, the combination of a net version number and the release number should give a rough guide to the generation of the tool. If you have any concerns or questions about this, feel free to send mail to engnews@cygnus.com. 3. World-Wide Web Server Update There have been several additions to our World-Wide Web server at http://www.cygnus.com/ The most useful, perhaps, is the What's New At Cygnus page, available as a link from the home page or directly at http://www.cygnus.com/whatsnew.html Contained within are pointers to the latest and greatest stuff on our Web server, both work-related and otherwise. Some of the interesting contents include: * August 15, 1994 Our press release about our support for the AMD E86 CISC microprocessor/microcontrollers is now on line. (See http://www.cygnus.com/pressrels.html) * August 12, 1994 The Online Library has been updated with the documentation set from our Progressive 94q2 distribution. (See http://www.cygnus.com/library-dir.html) * July 26, 1994 Cygnus Support Paystubs. Paystubs online?? Click on this and see! (See http://www.cygnus.com/misc/paystubs.html) * July 23, 1994 After a grueling two hours of research (read: poking around the Web), Jason Molenda (crash@cygnus.com) has made a Web page about the Cygnus constellation after which our company is named. (See http://www.cygnus.com/~crash/cygnus-whatisit.html) Look for more fun stuff, work-related and otherwise, in the near future. (Also, be sure to check out ICE via hypertext!) SUPPORT ACTIVITIES ------------------- In addition to new development, a significant part of our engineering resources is devoted to answering questions, fixing problems in the GNU software, and providing a range of support services to our customers. 1. Software maintenance status The following table shows the maintenance statistics for the last four weeks. We continue to need your help: please let us know when you agree that a problem has been fixed so that we can move it from a "feedback" state to a "closed" state. # # # # # # Date Open Analzd Fdback Closed Suspnd Total ------------------------------------------------------------ 07/25/94 445 265 871 3.453 154 5,188 08/24/94 396 213 853 3,646 154 5,262 ------------------------------------------------------------ Change -49 -52 -18 +193 0 +74 OTHER ITEMS ----------- 1. See You At The Show! Cygnus Support has a booth at the upcoming Embedded Systems Conference 1994 at the Santa Clara Convention Center. The conference runs September 20-23. Stop by and say hello, and check out a few demos! 2. Howdy From The New ICE Editor Just a note to say Howdy from me, the new editor for ICE. I'm Jeffrey Osier, Senior Editor here at Cygnus Support. If you have any suggestions for improvements, or questions or anything, let me know! My address is jeffrey@cygnus.com. ICE-related comments should go directly to engnews@cygnus.com. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Cygnus Support 1937 Landings Drive 48 Grove Street Mountain View, CA 94043 Somerville, MA 02144 +1 415 903 1400 voice +1 617 629 3000 voice +1 415 903 0122 fax +1 617 629 3010 fax ---------------------------------------------------------------------