DDD 3.2.92 is available - graphical debugger front-end

[Andreas Zeller]

Dear DDD users,

we're still moving towards DDD 3.3: DDD 3.2.92 is now available on

      ftp://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/ddd/

If you are already using DDD 3.2.91, you will find no significant new
features.  This release has a further improved build process and a
couple of minor bug fixes, especially in the VxWorks support.

For those of you working with DDD 3.2.1 or earlier, a list of new
features is included below.

Your comments are welcome.  Best wishes,

Andreas

DDD News                                                -*- text -*-
********

DDD 3.3 [in beta test]
=======

DDD 3.3 brings data themes, support for JDB 1.2, and some bug fixes.


Data Themes
-----------

- DDD supports _data themes_ - modifiers that change the appearance of 
  program data.

- Data themes included with this release are:
  * Show specific expressions in a smaller font (useful for arrays).
  * Show display titles in a smaller font.
  * Suppress specific structure members or expressions.

- New data themes can be defined by users and installed at run-time.

- More themes are in preparation, such as rendering of C++ STL data structures.


Debuggers and Languages
-----------------------

- JDB as of JDK 1.2 is supported.

- GDB 5.0 is supported.

- WindRiver's version of GDB (within the Tornado/vxworks environment)
  is supported.  See the DDD Reference, Section `WindRiver GDB' for
  details. (5)

- SGI DBX, Sun DBX, other DBXes as well as Compaq Ladebug can now
  attach to processes via DDD. (1)

- Parsing of GDB breakpoint information has been improved. (2)

- Parsing of Perl breakpoint information has been improved.

- Perl hash keys containing spaces are supported. (8)

- Using the separate execution window now improves parsing debugger
  output.  See the DDD documentation for the new `bufferGDBOutput'
  resource.


Examining Data
--------------

- New displays can be created left-to-right.  
  See `Edit => Preferences => Data => Placement'.  (6)

- Handling of Ladebug array output has been improved.  (7)

- Handling of multiple C++ base classes has been improved.

- Names that are keywords in some programming languages (such as
  `interface', `object', `class') should no longer impose problems when
  occurring in programs of other languages.

- Several memory leaks have been plugged. (1)


User Interface
--------------

- In LessTif, combo boxes (drop-down text boxes) no longer shrink.

- In LessTif, Text selection works better.

- Interrupts (Ctrl+C) from the controlling TTY can be issued multiple times.

- Forwarding of keyboard events from the source window into the
  debugger console is now optional.  See the `consoleHasFocus' resource. (10)


Installation
------------

- Several installation details have changed.  Be sure to read the
  `INSTALL' file for new installation instructions.

- Several DDD resources (such as the application defaults) now reside
  in separate files, reducing DDD executable size and memory footprint 
  by about 300k.

- To run DDD from the build directory (i.e. before installing), you
  must set the DDD_HOME and XUSERFILESEARCH environment variables.
  See the `INSTALL' file for details.

- DDD Makefiles are now GNU standards-compliant and generated by automake.

- DDD Makefiles use libtool for generic shared library support.

- A bad dependency on $(SHELL) in the Makefile has been fixed.  This
  caused unnecessary calls of flex and bison in the distribution. (9)

- A bad wildcard use in the Makefile has been fixed. (3)

- A compilation problem in `PannedGE.C' with some GCC variants has been fixed.

- ddd.texi rules in the Makefile have been fixed. (4)

- The release includes the `libiberty' and `readline' packages as of GDB 5.0.


License
-------

- All remaining parts of DDD that used the GNU Library Public General
  License (LGPL) have been changed to use the GNU General Public 
  License (GPL) instead.

- The DDD Manual is released under the new GNU Free Documentation License.


Tracking Code Changes
---------------------

- This release no longer includes `ChangeLog' files.  Instead, you can
  directly access old and recent DDD versions (including a list of all
  changes) via the public CVS interface at

      http://sourceforge.net/projects/ddd/

- You can also download most recent DDD versions from the public CVS
  interface.  See the file `README-CVS' in the CVS archive for details.


Known Issues
------------

- Data themes are not documented yet.


Acknowledgments
---------------

Thanks to: 
    (1) Arnaud Desitter <address@hidden>
    (2) Hiro Sugawara <address@hidden>
    (3) Yann Dirson <address@hidden>
    (4) H. Nanosecond <address@hidden>
    (5) Gary Cliff <address@hidden>
    (6) Danny Van Elsen <address@hidden>
    (7) Philippe Midol-Monnet <address@hidden>
    (8) Felipe Rivera <address@hidden>
    (9) Thomas Anders <address@hidden>
   (10) Colin <address@hidden>

-- 
Andreas Zeller     Universitaet Passau
                   http://www.fmi.uni-passau.de/st/staff/zeller/