[fpc-pascal]New GDB version 5.1 available

[Pierre Muller]

   This is just to inform people that
GDB 5.1 was released.

http://sources.redhat.com/ml/gdb-announce/2001/msg00010.html

   Extract of the annoucement of particular interest for gpc and fpc-pascal 
mailing lists :

........................

		What has changed in GDB?

*** Changes in GDB 5.1:

........................

* Support for debugging Pascal programs.

GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs.  The following
main features are supported:

     - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;

     - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
       extension;

     - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;

     - a Pascal expression parser.

However, some important features are not yet supported.

     - 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;

     - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;

     - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.


 >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>><

   The pascal language support is essentially my work,
but it is still far from complete and far from perfect.

   One of the latest patch applied should allow to get a nice representation
of GPC strings.

   Please don't hesitate to report problems about
pascal support ....

Two reminders:

  -- if you really can't do what you used to do anymore with GDB,
try simply to set the language to C with
(gdb) set langugage c
and try again if it works better.

Don't forget that if you are in pascal language, pascal syntax must be used:

so to change the value of a variable 'x' in the program,
you will need to use
(gdb) set x := 5
instead of
(gdb) set x = 5
for older GDB version.


In the hope that these changes will be useful for the pascal community.



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