Add support for GNAT Ravenscar run-time library.
[deliverable/binutils-gdb.git] / gdb / NEWS
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1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
3
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4*** Changes since GDB 7.2
5
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6* Python scripting
7
8 ** GDB values in Python are now callable if the value represents a
9 function. For example, if 'some_value' represents a function that
10 takes two integer parameters and returns a value, you can call
11 that function like so:
12
13 result = some_value (10,20)
14
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15* C++ Improvements:
16
17 ** GDB now puts template parameters in scope when debugging in an
18 instantiation. For example, if you have:
19
20 template<int X> int func (void) { return X; }
21
22 then if you step into func<5>, "print X" will show "5". This
23 feature requires proper debuginfo support from the compiler; it
24 was added to GCC 4.5.
25
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26* GDB now has some support for using labels in the program's source in
27 linespecs. For instance, you can use "advance label" to continue
28 execution to a label.
29
30* GDB now has support for reading and writing a new .gdb_index
31 section. This section holds a fast index of DWARF debugging
32 information and can be used to greatly speed up GDB startup and
33 operation. See the documentation for `save gdb-index' for details.
34
b56df873 35* The "watch" command now accepts an optional "-location" argument.
14c0d4e1 36 When used, this causes GDB to watch the memory referred to by the
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37 expression. Such a watchpoint is never deleted due to it going out
38 of scope.
39
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40* GDB now supports thread debugging of core dumps on GNU/Linux.
41
42 GDB now activates thread debugging using the libthread_db library
43 when debugging GNU/Linux core dumps, similarly to when debugging
44 live processes. As a result, when debugging a core dump file, GDB
45 is now able to display pthread_t ids of threads. For example, "info
46 threads" shows the same output as when debugging the process when it
47 was live. In earlier releases, you'd see something like this:
48
49 (gdb) info threads
50 * 1 LWP 6780 main () at main.c:10
51
52 While now you see this:
53
54 (gdb) info threads
55 * 1 Thread 0x7f0f5712a700 (LWP 6780) main () at main.c:10
56
57 It is also now possible to inspect TLS variables when debugging core
58 dumps.
59
60 When debugging a core dump generated on a machine other than the one
61 used to run GDB, you may need to point GDB at the correct
62 libthread_db library with the "set libthread-db-search-path"
63 command. See the user manual for more details on this command.
64
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65* New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
66
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67 ** GDBserver is now supported on PowerPC LynxOS (versions 4.x and 5.x),
68 and i686 LynxOS (version 5.x).
248c9dbc 69
76b8507d 70*** Changes in GDB 7.2
bfbf3774 71
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72* Shared library support for remote targets by default
73
74 When GDB is configured for a generic, non-OS specific target, like
75 for example, --target=arm-eabi or one of the many *-*-elf targets,
76 GDB now queries remote stubs for loaded shared libraries using the
77 `qXfer:libraries:read' packet. Previously, shared library support
78 was always disabled for such configurations.
79
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80* C++ Improvements:
81
82 ** Argument Dependent Lookup (ADL)
83
84 In C++ ADL lookup directs function search to the namespaces of its
85 arguments even if the namespace has not been imported.
86 For example:
87 namespace A
88 {
89 class B { };
90 void foo (B) { }
91 }
92 ...
93 A::B b
94 foo(b)
95 Here the compiler will search for `foo' in the namespace of 'b'
96 and find A::foo. GDB now supports this. This construct is commonly
97 used in the Standard Template Library for operators.
98
99 ** Improved User Defined Operator Support
100
101 In addition to member operators, GDB now supports lookup of operators
102 defined in a namespace and imported with a `using' directive, operators
103 defined in the global scope, operators imported implicitly from an
104 anonymous namespace, and the ADL operators mentioned in the previous
105 entry.
106 GDB now also supports proper overload resolution for all the previously
107 mentioned flavors of operators.
108
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109 ** static const class members
110
111 Printing of static const class members that are initialized in the
112 class definition has been fixed.
113
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114* Windows Thread Information Block access.
115
116 On Windows targets, GDB now supports displaying the Windows Thread
117 Information Block (TIB) structure. This structure is visible either
118 by using the new command `info w32 thread-information-block' or, by
119 dereferencing the new convenience variable named `$_tlb', a
120 thread-specific pointer to the TIB. This feature is also supported
121 when remote debugging using GDBserver.
122
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123* Static tracepoints
124
125 Static tracepoints are calls in the user program into a tracing
126 library. One such library is a port of the LTTng kernel tracer to
127 userspace --- UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer, http://lttng.org/ust).
128 When debugging with GDBserver, GDB now supports combining the GDB
129 tracepoint machinery with such libraries. For example: the user can
130 use GDB to probe a static tracepoint marker (a call from the user
131 program into the tracing library) with the new "strace" command (see
132 "New commands" below). This creates a "static tracepoint" in the
133 breakpoint list, that can be manipulated with the same feature set
134 as fast and regular tracepoints. E.g., collect registers, local and
135 global variables, collect trace state variables, and define
136 tracepoint conditions. In addition, the user can collect extra
137 static tracepoint marker specific data, by collecting the new
138 $_sdata internal variable. When analyzing the trace buffer, you can
139 inspect $_sdata like any other variable available to GDB. For more
140 information, see the "Tracepoints" chapter in GDB user manual. New
141 remote packets have been defined to support static tracepoints, see
142 the "New remote packets" section below.
143
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144* Better reconstruction of tracepoints after disconnected tracing
145
146 GDB will attempt to download the original source form of tracepoint
147 definitions when starting a trace run, and then will upload these
148 upon reconnection to the target, resulting in a more accurate
149 reconstruction of the tracepoints that are in use on the target.
150
151* Observer mode
152
153 You can now exercise direct control over the ways that GDB can
154 affect your program. For instance, you can disallow the setting of
155 breakpoints, so that the program can run continuously (assuming
156 non-stop mode). In addition, the "observer" variable is available
157 to switch all of the different controls; in observer mode, GDB
158 cannot affect the target's behavior at all, which is useful for
159 tasks like diagnosing live systems in the field.
160
161* The new convenience variable $_thread holds the number of the
162 current thread.
163
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164* New remote packets
165
166qGetTIBAddr
167
168 Return the address of the Windows Thread Information Block of a given thread.
169
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170qRelocInsn
171
172 In response to several of the tracepoint packets, the target may now
173 also respond with a number of intermediate `qRelocInsn' request
174 packets before the final result packet, to have GDB handle
175 relocating an instruction to execute at a different address. This
176 is particularly useful for stubs that support fast tracepoints. GDB
177 reports support for this feature in the qSupported packet.
178
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179qTfSTM, qTsSTM
180
181 List static tracepoint markers in the target program.
182
183qTSTMat
184
185 List static tracepoint markers at a given address in the target
186 program.
187
188qXfer:statictrace:read
189
190 Read the static trace data collected (by a `collect $_sdata'
191 tracepoint action). The remote stub reports support for this packet
192 to gdb's qSupported query.
193
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194QAllow
195
196 Send the current settings of GDB's permission flags.
197
198QTDPsrc
199
200 Send part of the source (textual) form of a tracepoint definition,
201 which includes location, conditional, and action list.
202
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203* The source command now accepts a -s option to force searching for the
204 script in the source search path even if the script name specifies
205 a directory.
206
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207* New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
208
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209 - GDBserver now support tracepoints (including fast tracepoints, and
210 static tracepoints). The feature is currently supported by the
211 i386-linux and amd64-linux builds. See the "Tracepoints support
212 in gdbserver" section in the manual for more information.
213
214 GDBserver JIT compiles the tracepoint's conditional agent
215 expression bytecode into native code whenever possible for low
216 overhead dynamic tracepoints conditionals. For such tracepoints,
217 an expression that examines program state is evaluated when the
218 tracepoint is reached, in order to determine whether to capture
219 trace data. If the condition is simple and false, processing the
220 tracepoint finishes very quickly and no data is gathered.
221
222 GDBserver interfaces with the UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer) library
223 for static tracepoints support.
d337e9f0 224
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225 - GDBserver now supports x86_64 Windows 64-bit debugging.
226
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227* GDB now sends xmlRegisters= in qSupported packet to indicate that
228 it understands register description.
229
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230* The --batch flag now disables pagination and queries.
231
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232* X86 general purpose registers
233
234 GDB now supports reading/writing byte, word and double-word x86
235 general purpose registers directly. This means you can use, say,
236 $ah or $ax to refer, respectively, to the byte register AH and
237 16-bit word register AX that are actually portions of the 32-bit
238 register EAX or 64-bit register RAX.
239
95a42b64 240* The `commands' command now accepts a range of breakpoints to modify.
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241 A plain `commands' following a command that creates multiple
242 breakpoints affects all the breakpoints set by that command. This
243 applies to breakpoints set by `rbreak', and also applies when a
244 single `break' command creates multiple breakpoints (e.g.,
245 breakpoints on overloaded c++ functions).
95a42b64 246
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247* The `rbreak' command now accepts a filename specification as part of
248 its argument, limiting the functions selected by the regex to those
249 in the specified file.
250
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251* Support for remote debugging Windows and SymbianOS shared libraries
252 from Unix hosts has been improved. Non Windows GDB builds now can
253 understand target reported file names that follow MS-DOS based file
254 system semantics, such as file names that include drive letters and
255 use the backslash character as directory separator. This makes it
256 possible to transparently use the "set sysroot" and "set
257 solib-search-path" on Unix hosts to point as host copies of the
258 target's shared libraries. See the new command "set
259 target-file-system-kind" described below, and the "Commands to
260 specify files" section in the user manual for more information.
261
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262* New commands
263
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264eval template, expressions...
265 Convert the values of one or more expressions under the control
266 of the string template to a command line, and call it.
267
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268set target-file-system-kind unix|dos-based|auto
269show target-file-system-kind
270 Set or show the assumed file system kind for target reported file
271 names.
272
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273save breakpoints <filename>
274 Save all current breakpoint definitions to a file suitable for use
275 in a later debugging session. To read the saved breakpoint
276 definitions, use the `source' command.
277
278`save tracepoints' is a new alias for `save-tracepoints'. The latter
279is now deprecated.
280
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281info static-tracepoint-markers
282 Display information about static tracepoint markers in the target.
283
284strace FN | FILE:LINE | *ADDR | -m MARKER_ID
285 Define a static tracepoint by probing a marker at the given
286 function, line, address, or marker ID.
287
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288set observer on|off
289show observer
290 Enable and disable observer mode.
291
292set may-write-registers on|off
293set may-write-memory on|off
294set may-insert-breakpoints on|off
295set may-insert-tracepoints on|off
296set may-insert-fast-tracepoints on|off
297set may-interrupt on|off
298 Set individual permissions for GDB effects on the target. Note that
299 some of these settings can have undesirable or surprising
300 consequences, particularly when changed in the middle of a session.
301 For instance, disabling the writing of memory can prevent
302 breakpoints from being inserted, cause single-stepping to fail, or
303 even crash your program, if you disable after breakpoints have been
304 inserted. However, GDB should not crash.
305
306set record memory-query on|off
307show record memory-query
308 Control whether to stop the inferior if memory changes caused
309 by an instruction cannot be recorded.
310
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311* Changed commands
312
313disassemble
314 The disassemble command now supports "start,+length" form of two arguments.
315
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316* Python scripting
317
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318** GDB now provides a new directory location, called the python directory,
319 where Python scripts written for GDB can be installed. The location
320 of that directory is <data-directory>/python, where <data-directory>
321 is the GDB data directory. For more details, see section `Scripting
322 GDB using Python' in the manual.
323
adc36818 324** The GDB Python API now has access to breakpoints, symbols, symbol
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325 tables, program spaces, inferiors, threads and frame's code blocks.
326 Additionally, GDB Parameters can now be created from the API, and
327 manipulated via set/show in the CLI.
f870a310 328
fa33c3cd 329** New functions gdb.target_charset, gdb.target_wide_charset,
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330 gdb.progspaces, gdb.current_progspace, and gdb.string_to_argv.
331
332** New exception gdb.GdbError.
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333
334** Pretty-printers are now also looked up in the current program space.
f3e9a817 335
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336** Pretty-printers can now be individually enabled and disabled.
337
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338** GDB now looks for names of Python scripts to auto-load in a
339 special section named `.debug_gdb_scripts', in addition to looking
340 for a OBJFILE-gdb.py script when OBJFILE is read by the debugger.
341
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342* Tracepoint actions were unified with breakpoint commands. In particular,
343there are no longer differences in "info break" output for breakpoints and
344tracepoints and the "commands" command can be used for both tracepoints and
345regular breakpoints.
346
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347* New targets
348
349ARM Symbian arm*-*-symbianelf*
350
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351* D language support.
352 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the D programming
353 language.
354
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355* GDB now supports the extended ptrace interface for PowerPC which is
356 available since Linux kernel version 2.6.34. This automatically enables
357 any hardware breakpoints and additional hardware watchpoints available in
358 the processor. The old ptrace interface exposes just one hardware
359 watchpoint and no hardware breakpoints.
360
361* GDB is now able to use the Data Value Compare (DVC) register available on
362 embedded PowerPC processors to implement in hardware simple watchpoint
363 conditions of the form:
364
365 watch ADDRESS|VARIABLE if ADDRESS|VARIABLE == CONSTANT EXPRESSION
366
367 This works in native GDB running on Linux kernels with the extended ptrace
368 interface mentioned above.
369
bfbf3774 370*** Changes in GDB 7.1
abc7453d 371
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372* C++ Improvements
373
374 ** Namespace Support
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375
376 GDB now supports importing of namespaces in C++. This enables the
377 user to inspect variables from imported namespaces. Support for
378 namepace aliasing has also been added. So, if a namespace is
379 aliased in the current scope (e.g. namepace C=A; ) the user can
380 print variables using the alias (e.g. (gdb) print C::x).
381
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382 ** Bug Fixes
383
384 All known bugs relating to the printing of virtual base class were
385 fixed. It is now possible to call overloaded static methods using a
386 qualified name.
387
388 ** Cast Operators
389
390 The C++ cast operators static_cast<>, dynamic_cast<>, const_cast<>,
391 and reinterpret_cast<> are now handled by the C++ expression parser.
392
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393* New targets
394
395Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze-*-*
34207b9e 396Renesas RX rx-*-elf
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397
398* New Simulators
399
400Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze
34207b9e 401Renesas RX rx
2d1c1221 402
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403* Multi-program debugging.
404
405 GDB now has support for multi-program (a.k.a. multi-executable or
406 multi-exec) debugging. This allows for debugging multiple inferiors
407 simultaneously each running a different program under the same GDB
408 session. See "Debugging Multiple Inferiors and Programs" in the
409 manual for more information. This implied some user visible changes
410 in the multi-inferior support. For example, "info inferiors" now
411 lists inferiors that are not running yet or that have exited
412 already. See also "New commands" and "New options" below.
413
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414* New tracing features
415
416 GDB's tracepoint facility now includes several new features:
417
418 ** Trace state variables
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419
420 GDB tracepoints now include support for trace state variables, which
421 are variables managed by the target agent during a tracing
422 experiment. They are useful for tracepoints that trigger each
423 other, so for instance one tracepoint can count hits in a variable,
424 and then a second tracepoint has a condition that is true when the
425 count reaches a particular value. Trace state variables share the
426 $-syntax of GDB convenience variables, and can appear in both
427 tracepoint actions and condition expressions. Use the "tvariable"
428 command to create, and "info tvariables" to view; see "Trace State
429 Variables" in the manual for more detail.
7a697b8d 430
d5551862 431 ** Fast tracepoints
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432
433 GDB now includes an option for defining fast tracepoints, which
434 targets may implement more efficiently, such as by installing a jump
435 into the target agent rather than a trap instruction. The resulting
436 speedup can be by two orders of magnitude or more, although the
437 tradeoff is that some program locations on some target architectures
438 might not allow fast tracepoint installation, for instance if the
439 instruction to be replaced is shorter than the jump. To request a
440 fast tracepoint, use the "ftrace" command, with syntax identical to
441 the regular trace command.
442
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443 ** Disconnected tracing
444
445 It is now possible to detach GDB from the target while it is running
446 a trace experiment, then reconnect later to see how the experiment
447 is going. In addition, a new variable disconnected-tracing lets you
448 tell the target agent whether to continue running a trace if the
449 connection is lost unexpectedly.
450
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451 ** Trace files
452
453 GDB now has the ability to save the trace buffer into a file, and
454 then use that file as a target, similarly to you can do with
455 corefiles. You can select trace frames, print data that was
456 collected in them, and use tstatus to display the state of the
457 tracing run at the moment that it was saved. To create a trace
458 file, use "tsave <filename>", and to use it, do "target tfile
459 <name>".
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460
461 ** Circular trace buffer
462
463 You can ask the target agent to handle the trace buffer as a
464 circular buffer, discarding the oldest trace frames to make room for
465 newer ones, by setting circular-trace-buffer to on. This feature may
466 not be available for all target agents.
467
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468* Changed commands
469
470disassemble
471 The disassemble command, when invoked with two arguments, now requires
472 the arguments to be comma-separated.
473
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474info variables
475 The info variables command now displays variable definitions. Files
476 which only declare a variable are not shown.
477
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478source
479 The source command is now capable of sourcing Python scripts.
480 This feature is dependent on the debugger being build with Python
481 support.
482
483 Related to this enhancement is also the introduction of a new command
484 "set script-extension" (see below).
485
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486* New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
487
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488record save [<FILENAME>]
489 Save a file (in core file format) containing the process record
490 execution log for replay debugging at a later time.
491
492record restore <FILENAME>
493 Restore the process record execution log that was saved at an
494 earlier time, for replay debugging.
495
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496add-inferior [-copies <N>] [-exec <FILENAME>]
497 Add a new inferior.
498
499clone-inferior [-copies <N>] [ID]
500 Make a new inferior ready to execute the same program another
501 inferior has loaded.
502
503remove-inferior ID
504 Remove an inferior.
505
506maint info program-spaces
507 List the program spaces loaded into GDB.
508
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509set remote interrupt-sequence [Ctrl-C | BREAK | BREAK-g]
510show remote interrupt-sequence
511 Allow the user to select one of ^C, a BREAK signal or BREAK-g
512 as the sequence to the remote target in order to interrupt the execution.
513 Ctrl-C is a default. Some system prefers BREAK which is high level of
514 serial line for some certain time. Linux kernel prefers BREAK-g, a.k.a
515 Magic SysRq g. It is BREAK signal and character 'g'.
516
517set remote interrupt-on-connect [on | off]
518show remote interrupt-on-connect
519 When interrupt-on-connect is ON, gdb sends interrupt-sequence to
520 remote target when gdb connects to it. This is needed when you debug
521 Linux kernel.
522
523set remotebreak [on | off]
524show remotebreak
525Deprecated. Use "set/show remote interrupt-sequence" instead.
526
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527tvariable $NAME [ = EXP ]
528 Create or modify a trace state variable.
529
530info tvariables
531 List trace state variables and their values.
532
533delete tvariable $NAME ...
534 Delete one or more trace state variables.
535
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536teval EXPR, ...
537 Evaluate the given expressions without collecting anything into the
538 trace buffer. (Valid in tracepoint actions only.)
539
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540ftrace FN / FILE:LINE / *ADDR
541 Define a fast tracepoint at the given function, line, or address.
542
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543* New expression syntax
544
545 GDB now parses the 0b prefix of binary numbers the same way as GCC does.
546 GDB now parses 0b101010 identically with 42.
547
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548* New options
549
550set follow-exec-mode new|same
551show follow-exec-mode
552 Control whether GDB reuses the same inferior across an exec call or
553 creates a new one. This is useful to be able to restart the old
554 executable after the inferior having done an exec call.
555
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556set default-collect EXPR, ...
557show default-collect
558 Define a list of expressions to be collected at each tracepoint.
559 This is a useful way to ensure essential items are not overlooked,
560 such as registers or a critical global variable.
561
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562set disconnected-tracing
563show disconnected-tracing
564 If set to 1, the target is instructed to continue tracing if it
565 loses its connection to GDB. If 0, the target is to stop tracing
566 upon disconnection.
567
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568set circular-trace-buffer
569show circular-trace-buffer
570 If set to on, the target is instructed to use a circular trace buffer
571 and discard the oldest trace frames instead of stopping the trace due
572 to a full trace buffer. If set to off, the trace stops when the buffer
573 fills up. Some targets may not support this.
574
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575set script-extension off|soft|strict
576show script-extension
577 If set to "off", the debugger does not perform any script language
578 recognition, and all sourced files are assumed to be GDB scripts.
579 If set to "soft" (the default), files are sourced according to
580 filename extension, falling back to GDB scripts if the first
581 evaluation failed.
582 If set to "strict", files are sourced according to filename extension.
583
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584set ada trust-PAD-over-XVS on|off
585show ada trust-PAD-over-XVS
586 If off, activate a workaround against a bug in the debugging information
587 generated by the compiler for PAD types (see gcc/exp_dbug.ads in
588 the GCC sources for more information about the GNAT encoding and
589 PAD types in particular). It is always safe to set this option to
590 off, but this introduces a slight performance penalty. The default
591 is on.
592
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593* Python API Improvements
594
595 ** GDB provides the new class gdb.LazyString. This is useful in
596 some pretty-printing cases. The new method gdb.Value.lazy_string
597 provides a simple way to create objects of this type.
598
599 ** The fields returned by gdb.Type.fields now have an
600 `is_base_class' attribute.
601
602 ** The new method gdb.Type.range returns the range of an array type.
603
604 ** The new method gdb.parse_and_eval can be used to parse and
605 evaluate an expression.
606
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607* New remote packets
608
609QTDV
610 Define a trace state variable.
611
612qTV
613 Get the current value of a trace state variable.
614
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615QTDisconnected
616 Set desired tracing behavior upon disconnection.
617
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618QTBuffer:circular
619 Set the trace buffer to be linear or circular.
620
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621qTfP, qTsP
622 Get data about the tracepoints currently in use.
623
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624* Bug fixes
625
626Process record now works correctly with hardware watchpoints.
627
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628Multiple bug fixes have been made to the mips-irix port, making it
629much more reliable. In particular:
630 - Debugging threaded applications is now possible again. Previously,
631 GDB would hang while starting the program, or while waiting for
632 the program to stop at a breakpoint.
633 - Attaching to a running process no longer hangs.
634 - An error occurring while loading a core file has been fixed.
635 - Changing the value of the PC register now works again. This fixes
636 problems observed when using the "jump" command, or when calling
637 a function from GDB, or even when assigning a new value to $pc.
638 - With the "finish" and "return" commands, the return value for functions
639 returning a small array is now correctly printed.
640 - It is now possible to break on shared library code which gets executed
641 during a shared library init phase (code executed while executing
642 their .init section). Previously, the breakpoint would have no effect.
643 - GDB is now able to backtrace through the signal handler for
644 non-threaded programs.
645
93c26624
JK
646PIE (Position Independent Executable) programs debugging is now supported.
647This includes debugging execution of PIC (Position Independent Code) shared
648libraries although for that, it should be possible to run such libraries as an
649executable program.
650
abc7453d 651*** Changes in GDB 7.0
75feb17d 652
4efc6507
DE
653* GDB now has an interface for JIT compilation. Applications that
654dynamically generate code can create symbol files in memory and register
655them with GDB. For users, the feature should work transparently, and
656for JIT developers, the interface is documented in the GDB manual in the
657"JIT Compilation Interface" chapter.
658
782b2b07
SS
659* Tracepoints may now be conditional. The syntax is as for
660breakpoints; either an "if" clause appended to the "trace" command,
661or the "condition" command is available. GDB sends the condition to
662the target for evaluation using the same bytecode format as is used
663for tracepoint actions.
664
53a71c06
CR
665* The disassemble command now supports: an optional /r modifier, print the
666raw instructions in hex as well as in symbolic form, and an optional /m
667modifier to print mixed source+assembly.
e6158f16 668
e7a8dbfb
HZ
669* Process record and replay
670
671 In a architecture environment that supports ``process record and
672 replay'', ``process record and replay'' target can record a log of
673 the process execution, and replay it with both forward and reverse
674 execute commands.
675
64644d9b
MS
676* Reverse debugging: GDB now has new commands reverse-continue, reverse-
677step, reverse-next, reverse-finish, reverse-stepi, reverse-nexti, and
678set execution-direction {forward|reverse}, for targets that support
679reverse execution.
680
b9412953
DD
681* GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on MIPS/Linux systems. This
682feature is available with a native GDB running on kernel version
6832.6.28 or later.
684
6c7a06a3
TT
685* GDB now has support for multi-byte and wide character sets on the
686target. Strings whose character type is wchar_t, char16_t, or
687char32_t are now correctly printed. GDB supports wide- and unicode-
688literals in C, that is, L'x', L"string", u'x', u"string", U'x', and
689U"string" syntax. And, GDB allows the "%ls" and "%lc" formats in
690`printf'. This feature requires iconv to work properly; if your
691system does not have a working iconv, GDB can use GNU libiconv. See
692the installation instructions for more information.
693
f1838a98
UW
694* GDB now supports automatic retrieval of shared library files from
695remote targets. To use this feature, specify a system root that begins
696with the `remote:' prefix, either via the `set sysroot' command or via
697the `--with-sysroot' configure-time option.
698
55333a84
DE
699* "info sharedlibrary" now takes an optional regex of libraries to show,
700and it now reports if a shared library has no debugging information.
701
7f6a6314
PM
702* Commands `set debug-file-directory', `set solib-search-path' and `set args'
703now complete on file names.
704
65d12d83
TT
705* When completing in expressions, gdb will attempt to limit
706completions to allowable structure or union fields, where appropriate.
707For instance, consider:
708
709 # struct example { int f1; double f2; };
710 # struct example variable;
711 (gdb) p variable.
712
713If the user types TAB at the end of this command line, the available
714completions will be "f1" and "f2".
715
edb3359d
DJ
716* Inlined functions are now supported. They show up in backtraces, and
717the "step", "next", and "finish" commands handle them automatically.
718
2fae03e8
TT
719* GDB now supports the token-splicing (##) and stringification (#)
720operators when expanding macros. It also supports variable-arity
721macros.
722
47a3467a 723* GDB now supports inspecting extra signal information, exported by
58d6951d
DJ
724the new $_siginfo convenience variable. The feature is currently
725implemented on linux ARM, i386 and amd64.
726
727* GDB can now display the VFP floating point registers and NEON vector
728registers on ARM targets. Both ARM GNU/Linux native GDB and gdbserver
729can provide these registers (requires Linux 2.6.30 or later). Remote
730and simulator targets may also provide them.
47a3467a 731
08388c79
DE
732* New remote packets
733
734qSearch:memory:
735 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
736
a6f3e723
SL
737QStartNoAckMode
738 Turn off `+'/`-' protocol acknowledgments to permit more efficient
739 operation over reliable transport links. Use of this packet is
740 controlled by the `set remote noack-packet' command.
741
d7713ae0
EZ
742vKill
743 Kill the process with the specified process ID. Use this in preference
744 to `k' when multiprocess protocol extensions are supported.
745
07e059b5
VP
746qXfer:osdata:read
747 Obtains additional operating system information
748
47a3467a
PA
749qXfer:siginfo:read
750qXfer:siginfo:write
751 Read or write additional signal information.
752
060871df
PA
753* Removed remote protocol undocumented extension
754
755 An undocumented extension to the remote protocol's `S' stop reply
756 packet that permited the stub to pass a process id was removed.
757 Remote servers should use the `T' stop reply packet instead.
758
c055b101 759* GDB now supports multiple function calling conventions according to the
a0ef4274 760DWARF-2 DW_AT_calling_convention function attribute.
c055b101
CV
761
762* The SH target utilizes the aforementioned change to distinguish between gcc
a0ef4274
DJ
763and Renesas calling convention. It also adds the new CLI commands
764`set/show sh calling-convention'.
c055b101 765
31fffb02
CS
766* GDB can now read compressed debug sections, as produced by GNU gold
767with the --compress-debug-sections=zlib flag.
768
88d8a8e0
JB
769* 64-bit core files are now supported on AIX.
770
7f99b190
JB
771* Thread switching is now supported on Tru64.
772
ccd213ac
DJ
773* Watchpoints can now be set on unreadable memory locations, e.g. addresses
774which will be allocated using malloc later in program execution.
775
1fddbabb 776* The qXfer:libraries:read remote procotol packet now allows passing a
31fffb02 777list of section offsets.
1fddbabb 778
a0ef4274
DJ
779* On GNU/Linux, GDB can now attach to stopped processes. Several race
780conditions handling signals delivered during attach or thread creation
781have also been fixed.
782
bfb8797a 783* GDB now supports the use of DWARF boolean types for Ada's type Boolean.
158c7665
PH
784From the user's standpoint, all unqualified instances of True and False
785are treated as the standard definitions, regardless of context.
bfb8797a 786
71c25dea
TT
787* GDB now parses C++ symbol and type names more flexibly. For
788example, given:
789
790 template<typename T> class C { };
791 C<char const *> c;
792
793GDB will now correctly handle all of:
794
795 ptype C<char const *>
796 ptype C<char const*>
797 ptype C<const char *>
798 ptype C<const char*>
799
ccd213ac
DJ
800* New features in the GDB remote stub, gdbserver
801
802 - The "--wrapper" command-line argument tells gdbserver to use a
803 wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
804
7ae0e2a2
UW
805 - On PowerPC and S/390 targets, it is now possible to use a single
806 gdbserver executable to debug both 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
807 (This requires gdbserver itself to be built as a 64-bit executable.)
808
a6f3e723
SL
809 - gdbserver uses the new noack protocol mode for TCP connections to
810 reduce communications latency, if also supported and enabled in GDB.
811
da8bd9a3
DJ
812 - Support for the sparc64-linux-gnu target is now included in
813 gdbserver.
814
d70e31dd
DE
815 - The amd64-linux build of gdbserver now supports debugging both
816 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
817
818 - The i386-linux, amd64-linux, and i386-win32 builds of gdbserver
819 now support hardware watchpoints, and will use them automatically
820 as appropriate.
821
d57a3c85
TJB
822* Python scripting
823
824 GDB now has support for scripting using Python. Whether this is
825 available is determined at configure time.
826
d8906c6f
TJB
827 New GDB commands can now be written in Python.
828
aadc346a
JB
829* Ada tasking support
830
831 Ada tasks can now be inspected in GDB. The following commands have
832 been introduced:
833
834 info tasks
835 Print the list of Ada tasks.
836 info task N
837 Print detailed information about task number N.
838 task
839 Print the task number of the current task.
840 task N
841 Switch the context of debugging to task number N.
842
adb483fe
DJ
843* Support for user-defined prefixed commands. The "define" command can
844add new commands to existing prefixes, e.g. "target".
845
2277426b
PA
846* Multi-inferior, multi-process debugging.
847
848 GDB now has generalized support for multi-inferior debugging. See
849 "Debugging Multiple Inferiors" in the manual for more information.
850 Although availability still depends on target support, the command
851 set is more uniform now. The GNU/Linux specific multi-forks support
852 has been migrated to this new framework. This implied some user
853 visible changes; see "New commands" and also "Removed commands"
854 below.
855
08d16641
PA
856* Target descriptions can now describe the target OS ABI. See the
857"Target Description Format" section in the user manual for more
858information.
859
e35359c5
UW
860* Target descriptions can now describe "compatible" architectures
861to indicate that the target can execute applications for a different
862architecture in addition to those for the main target architecture.
863See the "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for
864more information.
865
85e747d2
UW
866* Multi-architecture debugging.
867
868 GDB now includes general supports for debugging applications on
869 hybrid systems that use more than one single processor architecture
870 at the same time. Each such hybrid architecture still requires
871 specific support to be added. The only hybrid architecture supported
872 in this version of GDB is the Cell Broadband Engine.
873
874* GDB now supports integrated debugging of Cell/B.E. applications that
875use both the PPU and SPU architectures. To enable support for hybrid
876Cell/B.E. debugging, you need to configure GDB to support both the
877powerpc-linux or powerpc64-linux and the spu-elf targets, using the
878--enable-targets configure option.
879
11ade57a
PA
880* Non-stop mode debugging.
881
882 For some targets, GDB now supports an optional mode of operation in
883 which you can examine stopped threads while other threads continue
884 to execute freely. This is referred to as non-stop mode, with the
885 old mode referred to as all-stop mode. See the "Non-Stop Mode"
886 section in the user manual for more information.
887
888 To be able to support remote non-stop debugging, a remote stub needs
889 to implement the non-stop mode remote protocol extensions, as
890 described in the "Remote Non-Stop" section of the user manual. The
891 GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been adjusted to support these
892 extensions on linux targets.
893
d7713ae0 894* New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
75feb17d 895
a96d9b2e
SDJ
896catch syscall [NAME(S) | NUMBER(S)]
897 Catch system calls. Arguments, which should be names of system
898 calls or their numbers, mean catch only those syscalls. Without
899 arguments, every syscall will be caught. When the inferior issues
900 any of the specified syscalls, GDB will stop and announce the system
901 call, both when it is called and when its call returns. This
902 feature is currently available with a native GDB running on the
903 Linux Kernel, under the following architectures: x86, x86_64,
904 PowerPC and PowerPC64.
905
08388c79
DE
906find [/size-char] [/max-count] start-address, end-address|+search-space-size,
907 val1 [, val2, ...]
908 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
909
d57a3c85
TJB
910maint set python print-stack
911maint show python print-stack
912 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Python script.
913
914python [CODE]
915 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Python interpreter.
916
d7713ae0
EZ
917macro define
918macro list
919macro undef
920 These allow macros to be defined, undefined, and listed
921 interactively.
922
923info os processes
924 Show operating system information about processes.
925
2277426b
PA
926info inferiors
927 List the inferiors currently under GDB's control.
928
929inferior NUM
930 Switch focus to inferior number NUM.
931
932detach inferior NUM
933 Detach from inferior number NUM.
934
935kill inferior NUM
936 Kill inferior number NUM.
937
d7713ae0
EZ
938* New options
939
3285f3fe
UW
940set spu stop-on-load
941show spu stop-on-load
942 Control whether to stop for new SPE threads during Cell/B.E. debugging.
943
ff1a52c6
UW
944set spu auto-flush-cache
945show spu auto-flush-cache
946 Control whether to automatically flush the software-managed cache
947 during Cell/B.E. debugging.
948
d7713ae0
EZ
949set sh calling-convention
950show sh calling-convention
951 Control the calling convention used when calling SH target functions.
952
e0a3ce09 953set debug timestamp
75feb17d 954show debug timestamp
d7713ae0
EZ
955 Control display of timestamps with GDB debugging output.
956
957set disassemble-next-line
958show disassemble-next-line
959 Control display of disassembled source lines or instructions when
960 the debuggee stops.
961
962set remote noack-packet
963show remote noack-packet
964 Set/show the use of remote protocol QStartNoAckMode packet. See above
965 under "New remote packets."
966
967set remote query-attached-packet
968show remote query-attached-packet
969 Control use of remote protocol `qAttached' (query-attached) packet.
970
971set remote read-siginfo-object
972show remote read-siginfo-object
973 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:read' (read-siginfo-object)
974 packet.
975
976set remote write-siginfo-object
977show remote write-siginfo-object
978 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:write' (write-siginfo-object)
979 packet.
980
40ab02ce
MS
981set remote reverse-continue
982show remote reverse-continue
983 Control use of remote protocol 'bc' (reverse-continue) packet.
984
985set remote reverse-step
986show remote reverse-step
987 Control use of remote protocol 'bs' (reverse-step) packet.
988
d7713ae0
EZ
989set displaced-stepping
990show displaced-stepping
991 Control displaced stepping mode. Displaced stepping is a way to
992 single-step over breakpoints without removing them from the debuggee.
993 Also known as "out-of-line single-stepping".
994
995set debug displaced
996show debug displaced
997 Control display of debugging info for displaced stepping.
998
999maint set internal-error
1000maint show internal-error
1001 Control what GDB does when an internal error is detected.
1002
1003maint set internal-warning
1004maint show internal-warning
1005 Control what GDB does when an internal warning is detected.
75feb17d 1006
ccd213ac
DJ
1007set exec-wrapper
1008show exec-wrapper
1009unset exec-wrapper
1010 Use a wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
fa4727a6 1011
aad4b048
JB
1012set multiple-symbols (all|ask|cancel)
1013show multiple-symbols
1014 The value of this variable can be changed to adjust the debugger behavior
1015 when an expression or a breakpoint location contains an ambiguous symbol
1016 name (an overloaded function name, for instance).
1017
74960c60
VP
1018set breakpoint always-inserted
1019show breakpoint always-inserted
1020 Keep breakpoints always inserted in the target, as opposed to inserting
1021 them when resuming the target, and removing them when the target stops.
1022 This option can improve debugger performance on slow remote targets.
1023
0428b8f5
DJ
1024set arm fallback-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
1025show arm fallback-mode
1026set arm force-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
1027show arm force-mode
1028 These commands control how ARM GDB determines whether instructions
1029 are ARM or Thumb. The default for both settings is auto, which uses
1030 the current CPSR value for instructions without symbols; previous
1031 versions of GDB behaved as if "set arm fallback-mode arm".
1032
10568435
JK
1033set disable-randomization
1034show disable-randomization
1035 Standalone programs run with the virtual address space randomization enabled
1036 by default on some platforms. This option keeps the addresses stable across
1037 multiple debugging sessions.
1038
d7713ae0
EZ
1039set non-stop
1040show non-stop
1041 Control whether other threads are stopped or not when some thread hits
1042 a breakpoint.
1043
b3eb342c 1044set target-async
d7713ae0 1045show target-async
b3eb342c
VP
1046 Requests that asynchronous execution is enabled in the target, if available.
1047 In this case, it's possible to resume target in the background, and interact
1048 with GDB while the target is running. "show target-async" displays the
1049 current state of asynchronous execution of the target.
1050
6c7a06a3
TT
1051set target-wide-charset
1052show target-wide-charset
1053 The target-wide-charset is the name of the character set that GDB
1054 uses when printing characters whose type is wchar_t.
1055
84603566
SL
1056set tcp auto-retry (on|off)
1057show tcp auto-retry
1058set tcp connect-timeout
1059show tcp connect-timeout
1060 These commands allow GDB to retry failed TCP connections to a remote stub
1061 with a specified timeout period; this is useful if the stub is launched
1062 in parallel with GDB but may not be ready to accept connections immediately.
1063
17a37d48
PP
1064set libthread-db-search-path
1065show libthread-db-search-path
1066 Control list of directories which GDB will search for appropriate
1067 libthread_db.
1068
d4db2f36
PA
1069set schedule-multiple (on|off)
1070show schedule-multiple
1071 Allow GDB to resume all threads of all processes or only threads of
1072 the current process.
1073
4e5d721f
DE
1074set stack-cache
1075show stack-cache
1076 Use more aggressive caching for accesses to the stack. This improves
1077 performance of remote debugging (particularly backtraces) without
1078 affecting correctness.
1079
910c5da8
JB
1080set interactive-mode (on|off|auto)
1081show interactive-mode
1082 Control whether GDB runs in interactive mode (on) or not (off).
1083 When in interactive mode, GDB waits for the user to answer all
1084 queries. Otherwise, GDB does not wait and assumes the default
1085 answer. When set to auto (the default), GDB determines which
1086 mode to use based on the stdin settings.
1087
2277426b
PA
1088* Removed commands
1089
1090info forks
1091 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `info
1092 inferiors' command. To list checkpoints, you can still use the
1093 `info checkpoints' command, which was an alias for the `info forks'
1094 command.
1095
1096fork NUM
1097 Replaced by the new `inferior' command. To switch between
1098 checkpoints, you can still use the `restart' command, which was an
1099 alias for the `fork' command.
1100
1101process PID
1102 This is removed, since some targets don't have a notion of
1103 processes. To switch between processes, you can still use the
1104 `inferior' command using GDB's own inferior number.
1105
1106delete fork NUM
1107 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `kill
1108 inferior' command. To delete a checkpoint, you can still use the
1109 `delete checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `delete
1110 fork' command.
1111
1112detach fork NUM
1113 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `detach
1114 inferior' command. To detach a checkpoint, you can still use the
1115 `detach checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `detach
1116 fork' command.
1117
a80b95ba
TG
1118* New native configurations
1119
1120x86/x86_64 Darwin i[34567]86-*-darwin*
1121
b8bfd3ed
JB
1122x86_64 MinGW x86_64-*-mingw*
1123
75a2d5e7
TT
1124* New targets
1125
c28c63d8 1126Lattice Mico32 lm32-*
75a2d5e7 1127x86 DICOS i[34567]86-*-dicos*
4c1d2973 1128x86_64 DICOS x86_64-*-dicos*
5f814c3b 1129S+core 3 score-*-*
75a2d5e7 1130
6de3146c
PA
1131* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports x86 Windows CE
1132 (mingw32ce) debugging.
1133
d5cbbe6e
JB
1134* Removed commands
1135
1136catch load
1137catch unload
1138 These commands were actually not implemented on any target.
1139
75feb17d 1140*** Changes in GDB 6.8
f9ed52be 1141
af5ca30d
NH
1142* New native configurations
1143
1144NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*netbsd*
94a0e877 1145Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
af5ca30d
NH
1146
1147* New targets
1148
1149NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*-netbsd*
94a0e877 1150Xtensa GNU/Lunux xtensa*-*-linux*
af5ca30d 1151
7a404eba
PA
1152* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
1153
1154 When the '-p NUMBER' or '--pid NUMBER' options are used, and
1155 attaching to process NUMBER fails, GDB no longer attempts to open a
1156 core file named NUMBER. Attaching to a program using the -c option
1157 is no longer supported. Instead, use the '-p' or '--pid' options.
1158
430ebac9
PA
1159* GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
1160(mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
1161
fe6fbf8b 1162* Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
8d5f9c6f 1163is resolved.
fe6fbf8b
VP
1164
1165* GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
8d5f9c6f
DJ
1166including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
1167and in inlined functions.
fe6fbf8b 1168
10665d76
JB
1169* GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
1170accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
1171more than one contiguous range of addresses.
1172
7cc46491
DJ
1173* Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
1174
d71340b8
DJ
1175* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
1176registers on PowerPC targets.
1177
523c4513
DJ
1178* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
1179targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
1180
a6b151f1
DJ
1181* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
1182commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
1183
2d717e4f
DJ
1184* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports run and attach in
1185extended-remote mode.
1186
24a836bd 1187* hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
d001be7a
DJ
1188The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
1189error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
1190The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
24a836bd 1191
d0c678e6
UW
1192* GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
1193building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
1194target architectures.
1195
d64a946d
TJB
1196* GDB now supports debugging C and C++ programs which use the
1197Decimal Floating Point extension. In addition, the PowerPC target
1198now has a set of pseudo-registers to inspect decimal float values
1199stored in two consecutive float registers.
1200
ee163bf5
VP
1201* The -break-insert MI command can optionally create pending
1202breakpoints now.
1203
b93b6ca7 1204* Improved support for debugging Ada
d001be7a
DJ
1205Many improvements to the Ada language support have been made. These
1206include:
b93b6ca7
JB
1207 - Better support for Ada2005 interface types
1208 - Improved handling of arrays and slices in general
1209 - Better support for Taft-amendment types
1210 - The '{type} ADDRESS' expression is now allowed on the left hand-side
1211 of an assignment
1212 - Improved command completion in Ada
1213 - Several bug fixes
1214
d001be7a
DJ
1215* GDB on GNU/Linux and HP/UX can now debug through "exec" of a new
1216process.
1217
a6b151f1
DJ
1218* New commands
1219
6d53d0af
JB
1220set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
1221show print frame-arguments
1222 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
1223 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
1224
a6b151f1
DJ
1225remote put
1226remote get
1227remote delete
1228 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
1229
1230* New MI commands
1231
1232-target-file-put
1233-target-file-get
1234-target-file-delete
1235 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
1236
1237* New remote packets
1238
1239vFile:open:
1240vFile:close:
1241vFile:pread:
1242vFile:pwrite:
1243vFile:unlink:
1244 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
d0c678e6 1245
2d717e4f
DJ
1246vAttach
1247 Attach to an existing process on the remote system, in extended-remote
1248 mode.
1249
1250vRun
1251 Run a new process on the remote system, in extended-remote mode.
1252
8d5f9c6f 1253*** Changes in GDB 6.7
6dd09645 1254
19d378fc
MS
1255* Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
1256bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
1257Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
1258
3a40aaa0
UW
1259* When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
1260symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
1261-Bsymbolic linker option.
1262
a6ec25f2
BW
1263* When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
1264recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
1265is not supported.
1266
6dd09645
JB
1267* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
1268frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
1269
c9bb8148
DJ
1270* GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
127132-bit or 64-bit register values.
1272
0d5de010
DJ
1273* Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
1274
23181151
DJ
1275* GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
1276target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
1277a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
1278
ea37ba09
DJ
1279* Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
1280automatically displayed as character or string data.
1281
1282* The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
1283arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
1284as strings.
e1f48ead 1285
123dc839
DJ
1286* Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
1287for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
8d5f9c6f 1288only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
123dc839 1289
05a4558a
DJ
1290* GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
1291iWMMXt coprocessor.
fb1e4ffc 1292
7c963485
PA
1293* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
1294ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
1295has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
1296
b18be20d
DJ
1297* GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
1298
0ca420ce
UW
1299* GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
1300
31d99776
DJ
1301* The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
1302layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
1303segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
1304
a4642986
MR
1305* The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
1306immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
1307
cfa9d6d9
DJ
1308* The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
1309"library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
1310packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
1311where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
1312Windows and SymbianOS).
255e7678
DJ
1313
1314* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
1315(DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
f5db8714
JK
1316
1317* GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
1318according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
cfa9d6d9 1319
c9bb8148
DJ
1320* New commands
1321
23776285
MR
1322set remoteflow
1323show remoteflow
1324 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
1325 when debugging using remote targets.
1326
c9bb8148
DJ
1327set mem inaccessible-by-default
1328show mem inaccessible-by-default
1329 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
1330 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
1331 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
1332 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
1333 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
1334
1335set breakpoint auto-hw
1336show breakpoint auto-hw
1337 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
1338 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
1339 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
1340 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
1341 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
1342 including "next" and "finish".
1343
0e420bd8
JB
1344catch exception
1345catch exception unhandled
1346 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
1347
1348catch assert
1349 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
1350
f822c95b
DJ
1351set sysroot
1352show sysroot
1353 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
1354 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
1355 an alias to "set sysroot".
1356
83cc5c53
UW
1357info spu
1358 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
1359 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
1360 architecture.
1361
bd372731
MK
1362* New native configurations
1363
1364OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
1365
23181151
DJ
1366set tdesc filename
1367unset tdesc filename
1368show tdesc filename
1369 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
1370 not query the target for its built-in description.
1371
c9bb8148
DJ
1372* New targets
1373
54fe9172 1374OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
c9bb8148 1375MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
c077150c 1376Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
c9bb8148 1377
6dd09645
JB
1378* New remote packets
1379
1380QPassSignals:
1381 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
1382 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
1383
23181151
DJ
1384qXfer:features:read:
1385 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
1386 features.
6dd09645 1387
83cc5c53
UW
1388qXfer:spu:read:
1389qXfer:spu:write:
1390 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
1391 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
1392
cfa9d6d9
DJ
1393qXfer:libraries:read:
1394 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
1395 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
1396 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
1397 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
1398
483367ee
DJ
1399* Removed targets
1400
1401Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
1402
d08950c4
UW
1403alpha*-*-osf1*
1404alpha*-*-osf2*
7ce59000 1405d10v-*-*
483367ee
DJ
1406hppa*-*-hiux*
1407i[34567]86-ncr-*
1408i[34567]86-*-dgux*
1409i[34567]86-*-lynxos*
1410i[34567]86-*-netware*
1411i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
1412i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
1413i[34567]86-*-sco*
1414i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
1415i[34567]86-*-sysv4*
1416i[34567]86-*-sysv5*
1417i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
1418i[34567]86-*-unixware*
1419i[34567]86-*-sysv*
1420i[34567]86-*-isc*
1421m68*-cisco*-*
1422m68*-tandem-*
ad527d2e 1423mips*-*-pe
483367ee 1424rs6000-*-lynxos*
ad527d2e 1425sh*-*-pe
483367ee 1426
7ce59000
DJ
1427* Other removed features
1428
1429target abug
1430target cpu32bug
1431target est
1432target rom68k
1433
1434 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
1435
ea35711c
DJ
1436target hms
1437target e7000
1438target sh3
1439target sh3e
1440
1441 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
1442 H8/300.
1443
1444target ocd
1445
1446 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
1447 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
1448 interfaces.
1449
7ce59000
DJ
1450DWARF 1 support
1451
1452 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
1453 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
1454
54d61198
DJ
1455Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
1456
1457 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
1458 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
1459 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
1460 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
1461
ea35711c
DJ
1462MIPS ".pdr" sections
1463
1464 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
1465 in debugging information.
1466
1467Scheme support
1468
1469 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
1470 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
1471
1a69e1e4
DJ
1472set mips stack-arg-size
1473set mips saved-gpreg-size
1474
1475 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
1476
6dd09645 1477*** Changes in GDB 6.6
e374b601 1478
ca3bf3bd
DJ
1479* New targets
1480
1481Xtensa xtensa-elf
9c309e77 1482Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
ca3bf3bd 1483
6aec2e11
DJ
1484* GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
1485(mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
1486running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
1487
1488* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
1489Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
1490supported.
1491
17218d91
DJ
1492* The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
1493broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
1494
9ebce043
DJ
1495* The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
1496stub provides the required support.
1497
7d3d3ece
DJ
1498* Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
1499longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
1500
4f8253f3
JB
1501* New commands
1502
1503set substitute-path
1504unset substitute-path
1505show substitute-path
1506 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
1507 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
1508 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
1509 between compilation and debugging.
1510
9fa66fd7
AS
1511set trace-commands
1512show trace-commands
1513 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
1514 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
1515 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
1516
1f5befc1
DJ
1517* REMOVED features
1518
1519The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
1520
2ec3381a
DJ
1521Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
1522an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
1523
3d00d119
DJ
1524The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
1525
be2a5f71
DJ
1526* New remote packets
1527
1528qSupported:
1529 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
1530 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
1531 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
1532 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
1533 target.
1534
0876f84a
DJ
1535qXfer:auxv:read:
1536 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
1537 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
1538
9ebce043
DJ
1539qXfer:memory-map:read:
1540 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
1541 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
1542
1543vFlashErase:
1544vFlashWrite:
1545vFlashDone:
1546 Erase and program a flash memory device.
1547
0876f84a
DJ
1548* Removed remote packets
1549
1550qPart:auxv:read:
1551 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
1552 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
1553
e374b601 1554*** Changes in GDB 6.5
53e5f3cf 1555
96309189
MS
1556* New targets
1557
1558Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
1559
1560Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
1561
53e5f3cf
AS
1562* New commands
1563
1564init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
1565 only if it doesn't already have a value.
1566
ac264b3b
MS
1567The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
1568
1569checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
1570
1571restart <n> Return the program state to a
1572 previously saved state.
1573
1574info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
1575
1576delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
1577
1578set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
1579 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
1580
1581info forks List forks of the user program that
1582 are available to be debugged.
1583
1584fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
1585 forks of the user program that are
1586 available to be debugged.
1587
1588delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
1589 that are available to be debugged (and
1590 kill the forked process).
1591
1592detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
1593 that are available to be debugged (and
1594 allow the process to continue).
1595
3950dc3f
NS
1596* New architecture
1597
1598Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
1599
0ea3f30e
DJ
1600* Improved Windows host support
1601
1602GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
1603native console support, and remote communications using either
1604network sockets or serial ports.
1605
f79daebb
GM
1606* Improved Modula-2 language support
1607
1608GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
1609basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
1610pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
1611printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
1612written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
1613GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
1614
acab6ab2
MM
1615* REMOVED features
1616
1617The ARM rdi-share module.
1618
f4267320
DJ
1619The Netware NLM debug server.
1620
53e5f3cf 1621*** Changes in GDB 6.4
156a53ca 1622
e0ecbda1
MK
1623* New native configurations
1624
02a677ac 1625OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
e0ecbda1
MK
1626OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
1627
d64a6579
KB
1628* New targets
1629
1630Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
1631
b33a6190
AS
1632* New command line options
1633
1634--batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
1635--return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
1636 the child (debugged) program exited with.
1637--eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
1638 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
1639 specified multiple times and in conjunction
1640 with the --command (-x) option.
1641
11dced61
AC
1642* Deprecated commands removed
1643
1644The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
1645removed:
1646
1647 Command Replacement
1648 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
1649 othernames set arm disassembler
1650 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
1651 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
1652 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
1653 regs info registers
1654
6fe85783
MK
1655* New BSD user-level threads support
1656
1657It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
1658library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
1659configurations are:
1660
1661FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
1662FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
1663OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
1664
1665Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
1666are not yet supported.
1667
5260ca71
MS
1668* New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
1669(Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
1670
e84ecc99
AC
1671* REMOVED configurations and files
1672
1673VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
9445aa30 1674Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
9445aa30 1675National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
156a53ca 1676
31e35378
JB
1677* New "set print array-indexes" command
1678
1679After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
1680when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
1681behavior.
1682
e85e5c83
MK
1683* VAX floating point support
1684
1685GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
1686
d91e9901
AS
1687* User-defined command support
1688
1689In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
1690to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
1691section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
1692
f2cb65ca
MC
1693*** Changes in GDB 6.3:
1694
f47b1503
AS
1695* New command line option
1696
1697GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
1698debugging.
1699
f2cb65ca
MC
1700* GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
1701
1702GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
1703information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
1704by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
1705proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
1706to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
860660cb 1707
d08c0230
AC
1708* Internationalization
1709
1710When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
1711internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
1712continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
1713
117ea3cf
PH
1714* Ada
1715
1716Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
1717implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
1718into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
1719
d08c0230
AC
1720* New native configurations
1721
1722GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
1723
1724* Remote 'p' packet
1725
1726GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
1727packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
1728
1729* END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
1730
1731GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
1732The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
1733features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
1734i386 application).
1735
1736GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
1737compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
1738continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
1739configurations:
1740
1741hppa-*-hpux
1742ia64-*-aix
1743mips-*-irix*
1744*-*-lynx
1745mips-*-linux-gnu
1746sds protocol
1747xdr protocol
1748powerpc bdm protocol
1749
1750Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
1751made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
1752
1753* OBSOLETE configurations and files
1754
1755Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1756been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1757configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1758permanently REMOVED.
1759
1760h8300-*-*
1761mcore-*-*
1762mn10300-*-*
1763ns32k-*-*
1764sh64-*-*
1765v850-*-*
1766
ebb7c577
AC
1767*** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
1768
1769* MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
1770
1771When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
1772heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
1773been fixed.
1774
1775* MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
1776
1777When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
1778fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
1779IRIX long double values).
1780
1781* VAX and "next"
1782
1783A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
1784command. This problem has been fixed.
1785
860660cb 1786*** Changes in GDB 6.2:
faae5abe 1787
0dea2468
AC
1788* Fix for ``many threads''
1789
1790On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
1791rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
1792error message:
1793
1794 ptrace: No such process.
1795 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
1796
1797This problem has been fixed.
1798
2c07db7a
AC
1799* "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
1800
1801Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
1802GDB to dump core).
1803
c23968a2
JB
1804* New ``start'' command.
1805
1806This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
1807
71009278
MK
1808* New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
1809
1810Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
1811live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
1812platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
1813
1814FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
1815FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
1816NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
1817NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
1818NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
1819OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
1820OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
1821OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
1822OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
1823
3c0b7db2
AC
1824* Signal trampoline code overhauled
1825
1826Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
1827These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
1828of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
1829call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
1830signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
1831
73cc75f3
AC
1832Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
1833features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
1834include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
3c0b7db2 1835
7243600a
BF
1836* Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
1837
6f606e1c
MK
1838* New native configurations
1839
97dc871c 1840GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
0e56aeaf 1841OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
bf2ca189
MK
1842OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
1843OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
d195bc9f 1844OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 1845NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
9f076e7a 1846OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 1847
a1b461bf
AC
1848* END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
1849
1850GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
1851The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
1852including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
1853migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
1854compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
1855work, was also included.
1856
1857GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
1858module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
1859
1860h8300-*-*
1861mcore-*-*
1862mn10300-*-*
1863ns32k-*-*
1864sh64-*-*
1865v850-*-*
1866xstormy16-*-*
1867
1868Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
1869made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
1870
3c7012f5
AC
1871* REMOVED configurations and files
1872
1873Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
1874Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
1875Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
1876Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
1877Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
1878AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
1879Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
1880decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
1881riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
1882sonymips mips-sony-*
1883sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
1884
e5fe55f7
AC
1885*** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
1886
1887* TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
1888
1889The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
1890GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
1891command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
1892program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
1893with GDB".
1894
1895* Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
1896
1897Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
1898libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
1899cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
1900GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
1901shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
1902the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
1903are created.
1904
1905Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
1906
1907* Fixed ISO-C build problems
1908
1909The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
1910non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
1911compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
1912
1913* Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
1914
1915Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
1916wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
1917
1918* Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
1919
1920The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
1921permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
1922systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
1923
1924* Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
1925
1926Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
1927has been updated to use constant array sizes.
1928
1929* Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
1930
1931GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
1932its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
1933panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
1934
1935* Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
1936
1937When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
1938by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
1939not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
1940
faae5abe 1941*** Changes in GDB 6.1:
f2c06f52 1942
9175c9a3
MC
1943* Removed --with-mmalloc
1944
1945Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
1946conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
1947
3cc87ec0
MK
1948* Changes in AMD64 configurations
1949
1950The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
1951the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
1952and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
1953you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
1954
f0424ef6
MK
1955* Revised SPARC target
1956
1957The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
1958FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
03cebad2
MK
1959support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
1960from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
1961(Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
f0424ef6 1962
59659be2
ILT
1963* New C++ demangler
1964
1965GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
1966names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
1967with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
1968programs.
1969
9e08b29b
DJ
1970* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
1971
1972GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
1973arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
1974encountered these.
1975
8dfe8985
DC
1976* C++ nested types and namespaces
1977
1978GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
1979improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
1980is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
1981Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
1982namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
1983"Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
1984frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
1985if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
1986GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
1987
cced5e27
MK
1988* New native configurations
1989
1990NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
27d1e716 1991OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
2031c21a 1992OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
f2cab569
MK
1993OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
1994OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
cced5e27 1995
b4b4b794
KI
1996* New debugging protocols
1997
1998M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
1999
7989c619
AC
2000* "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
2001
2002The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
2003and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
2004tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
2005
5994185b
AC
2006* OBSOLETE configurations and files
2007
2008Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2009been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2010configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2011permanently REMOVED.
2012
2013Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
2014Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
2015Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
2016Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
2017Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
2018AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
2019Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
0748d941
AC
2020decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
2021riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
2022sonymips mips-sony-*
2023sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
5994185b 2024
0ddabb4c
AC
2025* REMOVED configurations and files
2026
2027SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
2028SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
4a8269c0
AC
2029Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
2030Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
2031H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
2032HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
2033HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
2034HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
2035PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
cf7c5c23 2036386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
4a8269c0
AC
2037Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
2038 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
2039 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
f0424ef6
MK
2040SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
2041SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
4a8269c0
AC
2042Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2043Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
0ddabb4c 2044
c7f1390e
DJ
2045*** Changes in GDB 6.0:
2046
1fe43d45
AC
2047* Objective-C
2048
2049Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
2050integrated into GDB.
2051
e6beb428
AC
2052* New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
2053
2054DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
2055information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
2056By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
2057backtraces.
2058
2059The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
2060have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
2061DWARF 2 CFI support.
2062
2063* Hosted file I/O.
2064
2065GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
2066file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
2067remote protocol documentation for details.
2068
2069* All targets using the new architecture framework.
2070
2071All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
2072architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
2073to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
2074ppc32 on ppc64).
2075
2076* GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
2077
2078GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
2079per-thread variables.
2080
2081* GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
2082
2083GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
2084GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
2085
2086* Separate debug info.
2087
2088GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
2089automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
2090of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
2091system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
2092and optional debug files.
2093
2094* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
2095
2096DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
2097describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
2098debugger.
2099
2100GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
2101for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
2102
2103* Java
2104
2105A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
2106Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
2107considered "useable".
2108
85f8f974
DJ
2109* GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
2110
2111The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
2112commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
2113kernel.
2114
0fac0b41
DJ
2115* GDB supports logging output to a file
2116
2117There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
2118used to capture GDB's output to a file.
f2c06f52 2119
6ad8ae5c
DJ
2120* The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
2121
2122The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
2123disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
2124command.
2125
e286caf2 2126* d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
5f601589
AC
2127
2128The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
2129registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
2130
d28f9cdf
DJ
2131* Profiling support
2132
2133A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
2134be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
2135session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
2136"--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
2137data, for more informative profiling results.
2138
da0f9dcd
AC
2139* Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
2140
2141The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
2142option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
b68767c1 2143"mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
da0f9dcd
AC
2144
2145Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
2146removed.
2147
fb9b6b35
JJ
2148Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
2149Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
2150Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
2151 in a subsequent -var-update.
2152
954a4db8
MK
2153* New native configurations.
2154
2155FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
2156
6760f9e6
JB
2157* Multi-arched targets.
2158
b4263afa 2159HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
85a453d5 2160Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
6760f9e6 2161
1b831c93
AC
2162* OBSOLETE configurations and files
2163
2164Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2165been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2166configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2167permanently REMOVED.
2168
8b0e5691 2169Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
67f16606 2170Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
fd2299bd 2171H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
56056df7
AC
2172HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
2173HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
2174HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
78c43945 2175PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
2fbce691
AC
2176Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
2177 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
2178 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
f81824a9
AC
2179Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2180Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
fd2299bd 2181
5835abe7
NC
2182* REMOVED configurations and files
2183
2184V850EA ISA
1b831c93
AC
2185Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
2186IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
2187i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
2188i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
2189i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
2190HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
2191 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
2192 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
2193Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
2194Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
2195Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
2196OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
2197I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
5835abe7 2198
a094c6fb
AC
2199* MIPS $fp behavior changed
2200
2201The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
2202the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
2203context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
2204address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
2205The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
2206
299ffc64 2207*** Changes in GDB 5.3:
37057839 2208
46248966
AC
2209* GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
2210
2211When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
2212`/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
2213in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
2214library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
2215shared libs like mad''.
2216
b9d14705 2217* ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
6da02953 2218
b9d14705
DJ
2219Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
2220the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
2221arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
2222powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
6da02953 2223
e0e9281e
JB
2224* GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
2225
2226GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
2227and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
2228they expand.
2229
dd73b9bb
AC
2230The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
2231invocations in expression, and shows the result.
2232
2233The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
2234macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
2235
e0e9281e
JB
2236Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
2237information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
2238your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
2239information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
2240
2250ee0c
CV
2241* Multi-arched targets.
2242
6e3ba3b8
JT
2243DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
2244DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
2250ee0c 2245NEC V850 v850-*-*
6e3ba3b8 2246National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
a1789893
GS
2247Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
2248Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
2250ee0c 2249
cd9bfe15 2250* New targets.
e33ce519 2251
456f8b9d
DB
2252Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
2253
e33ce519 2254
da8ca43d
JT
2255* New native configurations
2256
2257Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
029923d4 2258SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
45888261 2259MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
9ce5c36a 2260UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
da8ca43d 2261
cd9bfe15
AC
2262* OBSOLETE configurations and files
2263
2264Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2265been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2266configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2267permanently REMOVED.
2268
92eb23c5 2269Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
a99a9e1b 2270OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1c7cc583 2271IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
7a3085c1 2272Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
7fb623f7 2273Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
eb4c54a2 2274Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
d8ee244c
MK
2275i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
2276i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
2277i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
822e978b
AC
2278HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
2279 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
2280 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
4d210288 2281I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
92eb23c5 2282
db034ac5
AC
2283* OBSOLETE languages
2284
2285CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
2286
cd9bfe15
AC
2287* REMOVED configurations and files
2288
2289AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
2290A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
2291AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2292AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2293AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2294
2295testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
2296
20f01a46
DH
2297* New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
2298
2299This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
2300commands. The default is 1024.
2301
a5941fbf
MK
2302* Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
2303
2304Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
2305
89743e04
MS
2306* New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
2307
2308These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
2309to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
2310from a file into memory (restore).
37057839 2311
9fb14e79
JB
2312* Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
2313
2314The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
2315including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
2316of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
2317
2037aebb
AC
2318*** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
2319
2320* New targets.
2321
2322Atmel AVR avr*-*-*
2323
2324* Bug fixes
2325
2326gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
2327mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
2328Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
2329
2330gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
2331dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
2332Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
2333
2334Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
2335Surprisingly enough, it works now.
2336By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
2337
2338i386 hardware watchpoint support:
2339avoid misses on second run for some targets.
2340By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
2341
37057839 2342*** Changes in GDB 5.2:
eb7cedd9 2343
1a703748
MS
2344* New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
2345
2346This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
2347really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
2348In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
2349target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
2350This can be a significant performance improvement on some
2351(notably embedded) targets.
2352
cefd4ef5
MS
2353* New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
2354
55241689
AC
2355This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
2356process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
2357GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
2358hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
cefd4ef5 2359
352ed7b4
MS
2360* New command line option
2361
2362GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
2363
2364* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
2365
2366There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
2367command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
2368a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
2369be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
2370open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
2371issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
2372a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
2373it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
2374GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
2375is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
2376
fe419ffc
RE
2377* Changes in ARM configurations.
2378
2379Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
2380configuration is fully multi-arch.
2381
eb7cedd9
MK
2382* New native configurations
2383
fe419ffc 2384ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
eb7cedd9 2385x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
55241689 2386AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
768f0842 2387Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
eb7cedd9 2388
c9f63e6b
CV
2389* New targets
2390
2391Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
2392
9b4ff276
AC
2393* OBSOLETE configurations and files
2394
2395Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2396been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2397configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2398permanently REMOVED.
2399
2400AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
2401A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
2402AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2403AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2404AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2405
b4ceaee6 2406testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
9b4ff276 2407
e2caac18
AC
2408* REMOVED configurations and files
2409
2410TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
7bc65f05 2411WDC 65816 w65-*-*
7768dd6c
AC
2412PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
2413PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
2414PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
5e734e1f 2415Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1406caf7
AC
2416Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
2417 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
7e24f0b1 2418SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
9b567150 2419Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
3680c638
AC
2420Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
2421ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
a752853e 2422Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
e2caac18 2423
c2a727fa
TT
2424* Changes to command line processing
2425
2426The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
2427for the inferior from gdb's command line.
2428
467d8519
TT
2429* Changes to key bindings
2430
2431There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
2432
7072a954
AC
2433*** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
2434
2435Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
2436
2437Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
2438corrupted.
2439
2440Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
2441
2442Numerous documentation fixes.
2443
2444Numerous testsuite fixes.
2445
34f47bc4 2446*** Changes in GDB 5.1:
139760b7
MK
2447
2448* New native configurations
2449
2450Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
2451x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
55241689 2452MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
e23194cb
EZ
2453MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
2454ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
55241689 2455s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
139760b7 2456
bf64bfd6
AC
2457* New targets
2458
def90278 2459Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
24be5c34 2460CRIS cris-axis
55241689 2461UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
def90278 2462
17e78a56 2463* OBSOLETE configurations and files
bf64bfd6
AC
2464
2465x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
9b9c068d 2466Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
bb19ff3b
AC
2467Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
2468 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
76f4ea53
AC
2469TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
2470WDC 65816 w65-*-*
4a1968f4 2471Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1b2b2c16
AC
2472PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
2473PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
2474PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
24f89b68 2475SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
514e603d
AC
2476Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
2477ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
d036b4d9 2478Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
bf64bfd6 2479
17e78a56
AC
2480stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
2481kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
2482
7fcca85b
AC
2483Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2484been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2485configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2486permanently REMOVED.
2487
a196c81c 2488* REMOVED configurations and files
7fcca85b
AC
2489
2490Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
2491Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
2492Pyramid pyramid-*-*
2493ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
2494Tahoe tahoe-*-*
a196c81c 2495ser-ocd.c *-*-*
bf64bfd6 2496
6d6b80e5 2497* GDB has been converted to ISO C.
e23194cb 2498
6d6b80e5 2499GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
e23194cb
EZ
2500sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
2501present.
2502
bf64bfd6
AC
2503* Other news:
2504
e23194cb
EZ
2505* "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
2506
2507* The MI enabled by default.
2508
2509The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
2510revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
2511engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
2512using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
2513which is now deprecated.
2514
2515* Support for debugging Pascal programs.
2516
2517GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
2518main features are supported:
2519
2520 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
2521
2522 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
2523 extension;
2524
2525 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
2526
2527 - a Pascal expression parser.
2528
2529However, some important features are not yet supported.
2530
2531 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
2532
2533 - there are some problems with boolean types;
2534
2535 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
2536 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
2537
2538 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
2539
2540 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
2541
2542* Changes in completion.
2543
2544Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
2545to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
2546users expect at the shell prompt.
2547
2548Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
2549`breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
2550program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
2551files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
2552be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
2553considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
2554name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
2555
2556`set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
2557
2558* New platform-independent commands:
2559
2560It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
2561hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
2562documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
2563
2564* Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
2565
d7275149
MK
2566Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
2567revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
2568many threads as your system allows you to have.
2569
e23194cb
EZ
2570Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
2571
d7275149
MK
2572Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
2573multi-threaded programs though.
e23194cb
EZ
2574
2575* Changes in MIPS configurations.
bf64bfd6
AC
2576
2577Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
2578
e23194cb
EZ
2579GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
2580debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
2581supported.)
2582
2583* Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
2584
2585Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
2586breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
2587implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
2588put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
2589and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
2590registers.
2591
2592The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
2593debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
2594watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
2595
2596* Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
2597
2598New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
2599the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
2600
2601New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
2602display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
2603IDT.
2604
2605New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
2606from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
2607New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
2608a given linear address.
2609
2610GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
2611program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
2612which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
2613
2614DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
2615
6c56c069
EZ
2616It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
2617
e23194cb
EZ
2618* Changes in documentation.
2619
2620All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
2621Documentation License.
2622
2623Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
2624manual.
2625
2626TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
2627
2628Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
2629manual.
2630
2631The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
2632documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
2633hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
2634
5d6640b1
AC
2635* GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
2636
2637The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
2638``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
2639contents of this file.
2640
1a1d8446
AC
2641* gdba.el deleted
2642
2643GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
139760b7 2644
9debab2f 2645*** Changes in GDB 5.0:
7a292a7a 2646
c63ce875
EZ
2647* Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
2648
2649Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
2650programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
2651displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
2652greater level of detail.
2653
2654* Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
2655
2656It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
2657bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
2658on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
2659written.
2660
2661* Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
2662
2663The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
2664necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
2665machines ``out of the box''.
2666
2667The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
2668possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
2669signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
2670would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
2671interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
2672
2673It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
2674standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
2675even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
2676and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
2677terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
2678
2679The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
2680enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
2681also works.
2682
2683DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
2684GDB.
2685
2686It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
2687directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
2688times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
2689breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
2690
ed9a39eb
JM
2691* New native configurations
2692
2693ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
afc05dd4 2694PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
ed9a39eb 2695
7a292a7a
SS
2696* New targets
2697
96baa820 2698Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
adf40b2e
JM
2699x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
2700PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
7a292a7a
SS
2701TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
2702
085dd6e6
JM
2703* OBSOLETE configurations
2704
2705Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
2706Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
9846de1b 2707Pyramid pyramid-*-*
ed9a39eb 2708ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
104c1213 2709Tahoe tahoe-*-*
7a292a7a 2710
9debab2f
AC
2711Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
2712but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
2713these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
2714be permanently REMOVED.
2715
5330533d
SS
2716* Gould support removed
2717
2718Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
2719
bc9e5bbf
AC
2720* New features for SVR4
2721
2722On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
2723without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
2724load symbols from the running process's executable file.
2725
2726* Many C++ enhancements
2727
2728C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
2729in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
2730
adf40b2e
JM
2731* Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
2732
2733A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
2734sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
2735with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
2736``|<program> <args>'' vis:
2737
2738 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
2739 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
2740
43e526b9
JM
2741* MIPS 64 remote protocol
2742
2743A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
2744expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
2745instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
2746
2747The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
2748added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
2749
96baa820
JM
2750* ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
2751
2752The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
2753``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
2754include ``set remote P-packet''.
2755
11cf8741
JM
2756* Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
2757
2758The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
2759accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
2760``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
2761
7876dd43
DB
2762* ``apropos'' command added.
2763
2764The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
2765documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
2766try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
2767
bc9e5bbf
AC
2768* New MI interface
2769
2770A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
2771interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
7162c0ca
EZ
2772process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
2773"GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
2774enabled by configuring with:
bc9e5bbf
AC
2775
2776 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
2777
c906108c
SS
2778*** Changes in GDB-4.18:
2779
2780* New native configurations
2781
2782HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
2783HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
55241689 2784M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
c906108c
SS
2785
2786* New targets
2787
2788Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
2789Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
2790Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
2791
2792* OBSOLETE configurations
2793
2794Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
2795
2796Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
2797but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
2798these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
2799be permanently REMOVED.
2800
2801* ANSI/ISO C
2802
2803As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
2804buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
2805containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
2806use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
2807available. If this is not true, please report the affected
2808configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
2809information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
2810already.
2811
2812* Readline 2.2
2813
2814GDB now uses readline 2.2.
2815
2816* set extension-language
2817
2818You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
2819languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
2820you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
2821 set extension-language .c c++
2822The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
2823and their associated languages.
2824
2825* Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
2826
2827When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
2828you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
2829PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
2830
2831 set processor NAME
2832
2833sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
2834following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
2835
2836 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
2837 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
2838 403 IBM PowerPC 403
2839 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
2840 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
2841 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
2842 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
2843 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
2844 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
2845 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
2846 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
2847
2848At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
2849special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
2850registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
2851only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
2852
2853* HP-UX support
2854
2855Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
2856more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
2857library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
2858support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
2859for xdb and dbx commands.
2860
2861* Catchpoints
2862
2863HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
2864generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
2865to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
2866
2867This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
2868argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
2869output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
2870
2871* Debugging across forks
2872
2873On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
2874in the inferior.
2875
2876* TUI
2877
2878HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
2879it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
2880configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
2881
2882* GDB remote protocol additions
2883
2884A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
2885Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
2886fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
2887allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
2888
2889For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
2890full 64-bit address. The command
2891
2892 set remoteaddresssize 32
2893
2894can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
2895the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
2896will be discarded.
2897
2898In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
2899command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
2900
2901 maint packet heythere
2902
2903sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
2904disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
2905time.
2906
2907The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
2908target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
2909downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
2910
2911* Tracing can collect general expressions
2912
2913You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
2914further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
2915doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
2916
2917* mask-address variable for Mips
2918
2919For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
2920a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
2921of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
2922
2923* Higher serial baud rates
2924
2925GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
2926230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
2927to achieve all of these rates.)
2928
2929* i960 simulator
2930
2931The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
2932builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
2933
2934
2935*** Changes in GDB-4.17:
2936
2937* New native configurations
2938
2939Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
2940Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
2941Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
2942PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
2943PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
2944Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
2945Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
2946
2947* New targets
2948
2949Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
2950Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
2951Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
2952Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
2953MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
2954MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
2955MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
2956Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
2957Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
2958Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2959NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
2960
2961* New debugging protocols
2962
2963ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
2964M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
2965DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
2966PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
2967PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
2968Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
2969
2970* DWARF 2
2971
2972All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
2973format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
2974information.
2975
2976* Java frontend
2977
2978GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
2979only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
2980
2981* solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
2982
2983For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
2984loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
2985locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
2986
2987* Live range splitting
2988
2989GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
2990range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
2991more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
2992
2993* Hurd support
2994
2995GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
2996updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
2997
2998* ARM Thumb support
2999
3000GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
3001instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
3002instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
3003accordingly.
3004
3005* MIPS16 support
3006
3007GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
3008instruction set.
3009
3010* Overlay support
3011
3012GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
3013linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
3014will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
3015control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
3016additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
3017in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
3018
3019* info symbol
3020
3021The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
3022the symbol at the specified address.
3023
3024* Trace support
3025
3026The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
3027asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
3028extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
3029includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
3030file tracepoint.c for more details.
3031
3032* MIPS simulator
3033
3034Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
3035by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
3036of most MIPS variants.
3037
3038* Sparc simulator
3039
3040Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
3041by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
3042Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
3043
3044* set architecture
3045
3046For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
3047basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
3048architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
3049the possible architectures.
3050
3051*** Changes in GDB-4.16:
3052
3053* New native configurations
3054
3055Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
3056M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
3057PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
3058PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
3059PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
3060RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
3061
3062* New targets
3063
3064ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
3065I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
3066MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
3067MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
3068PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
3069Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
3070Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
3071
3072* PowerPC simulator
3073
3074The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
3075contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
3076PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
3077basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
3078performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
3079
3080* Solaris 2.5
3081
3082GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
3083
3084* Windows 95/NT native
3085
3086GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
3087To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
3088which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
3089Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
3090ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
3091
3092* dont-repeat command
3093
3094If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
3095command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
3096useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
3097extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
3098
3099* Send break instead of ^C
3100
3101The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
3102rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
3103GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
3104
3105* Remote protocol timeout
3106
3107The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
3108that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
3109to read from the target. The default value is 2.
3110
3111* Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
3112
3113By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
3114loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
3115stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
3116when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
3117in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
3118
3119Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
3120/usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
3121automatically on hpux10.
3122
3123* Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
3124
3125Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
3126
3127* Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
3128
3129When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
3130may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
3131the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
3132every character. The default value is 1050.
3133
3134* Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
3135
3136If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
3137a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
3138replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
3139details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
3140remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
3141to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
3142
3143* Speedups for remote debugging
3144
3145GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
3146the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
3147and more efficient S-record downloading.
3148
3149* Memory use reductions and statistics collection
3150
3151GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
3152Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
3153
3154*** Changes in GDB-4.15:
3155
3156* Psymtabs for XCOFF
3157
3158The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
3159can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
3160
3161* Remote targets use caching
3162
3163Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
3164remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
3165it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
3166debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
3167off' turns the the data cache off.
3168
3169* Remote targets may have threads
3170
3171The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
3172in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
3173gdb/remote.c for details.
3174
3175* NetROM support
3176
3177If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
3178support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
3179acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
3180write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
3181support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
3182another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
3183sequence is something like
3184
3185 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
3186 load <prog>
3187 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
3188
3189* Macintosh host
3190
3191GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
3192may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
3193it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
3194available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
3195device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
3196directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
3197scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
3198mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
3199
3200* Autoconf
3201
3202GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
3203but does simplify configuration and building.
3204
3205* hpux10
3206
3207GDB now supports hpux10.
3208
3209*** Changes in GDB-4.14:
3210
3211* New native configurations
3212
3213x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
3214x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
3215NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
3216Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
3217
3218* New targets
3219
3220A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
3221HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
3222CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
3223PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
3224WDC 65816 w65-*-*
3225
3226* Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
3227
3228GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
3229possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
3230filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
3231the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
3232if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
3233
3234* Arguments to user-defined commands
3235
3236User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
3237Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
3238trivial example:
3239define adder
3240 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
3241
3242To execute the command use:
3243adder 1 2 3
3244
3245Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
3246Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
3247use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
3248
3249* New `if' and `while' commands
3250
3251This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
3252commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
3253expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
3254execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
3255terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
3256`else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
3257if the expression is zero.
3258
3259* Fortran source language mode
3260
3261GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
3262Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
3263variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
3264with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
3265Fortran compilers.
3266
3267* Better HPUX support
3268
3269Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
3270running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
3271processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
3272for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
3273that behavior do the following before running the program:
3274
3275 adb -w a.out
3276 __dld_flags?W 0x5
3277 control-d
3278
3279This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
3280To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
3281
3282 adb -w a.out
3283 __dld_flags?W 0x4
3284 control-d
3285
3286You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
3287the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
3288external linkage.
3289
3290GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
3291HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
3292
3293* Target byte order now dynamically selectable
3294
3295You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
3296commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
3297current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
3298"set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
3299associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
3300configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
3301
3302* New DOS host serial code
3303
3304This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
3305no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
3306a PC's serial port.
3307
3308*** Changes in GDB-4.13:
3309
3310* New "complete" command
3311
3312This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
3313were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
3314
3315* Trailing space optional in prompt
3316
3317"set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
3318allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
3319
3320* Breakpoint hit counts
3321
3322"info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
3323has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
3324can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
3325to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
3326less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
3327that breakpoint.
3328
3329* Ability to stop printing at NULL character
3330
3331"set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
3332an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
3333arrays actually contain only short strings.
3334
3335* Shared library breakpoints
3336
3337In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
3338breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
3339
3340* Hardware watchpoints
3341
3342There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
3343targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
3344
55241689 3345Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
c906108c
SS
3346
3347* Annotations
3348
3349Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
3350and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
3351
3352* Improved Irix 5 support
3353
3354GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
3355
3356* Improved HPPA support
3357
3358GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
3359
3360* New native configurations
3361
3362Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
3363HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
3364Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
3365RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
3366
3367* New targets
3368
3369OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
3370MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
3371Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
3372
3373* Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
3374
3375There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
3376This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
3377
3378* Fixes
3379
3380As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
3381and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
3382
3383*** Changes in GDB-4.12:
3384
3385* Irix 5 is now supported
3386
3387* HPPA support
3388
3389GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
3390to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
3391GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
3392of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
3393can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
3394
3395
3396*** Changes in GDB-4.11:
3397
3398* User visible changes:
3399
3400* Remote Debugging
3401
3402The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
3403target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
3404debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
3405integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
3406debugging info for the mips target).
3407
3408* DEC Alpha native support
3409
3410GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
3411debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
3412work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
3413Alpha-specific notes.
3414
3415* Preliminary thread implementation
3416
3417GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
3418
3419* LynxOS native and target support for 386
3420
3421This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
3422to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
3423for details).
3424
3425* Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
3426
3427This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
3428mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
3429call methods, ...etc.
3430
3431*** Changes in GDB-4.10:
3432
3433 * User visible changes:
3434
3435Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
3436supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
3437other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
3438somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
3439
3440Filename completion now works.
3441
3442When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
3443arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
3444addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
3445
3446All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
3447vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
3448should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
3449your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
3450to be on the far side of a thin network line.
3451
3452 * DEC alpha support
3453
3454This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
3455cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
3456
3457
3458*** Changes in GDB-4.9:
3459
3460 * Testsuite
3461
3462This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
3463The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
3464via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
3465
3466 * C++ demangling
3467
3468'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
3469emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
3470Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
3471disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
3472use gdb with AT&T cfront.
3473
3474 * Simulators
3475
3476GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
3477So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
3478Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
3479
3480 * New targets supported
3481
3482H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
3483H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
3484SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
3485Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
3486IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
3487
3488Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
3489version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
3490GO32 memory extender.
3491
3492 * New remote protocols
3493
3494MIPS remote debugging protocol.
3495
3496 * New source languages supported
3497
3498This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
3499used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
3500into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
3501
3502
3503*** Changes in GDB-4.8:
3504
3505 * HP Precision Architecture supported
3506
3507GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
3508version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
3509University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
3510compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
3511format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
3512(as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
3513
3514Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
3515
3516 * Faster and better demangling
3517
3518We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
3519demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
3520character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
3521only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
3522This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
3523increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
3524symbol lookups.
3525
3526`Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
3527from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
3528compiler does not actually implement.
3529
3530 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
3531
3532In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
3533inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
3534recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
3535very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
3536The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
3537circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
3538fix.
3539
3540The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
3541release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
3542
3543 * Improved configure script
3544
3545The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
3546you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
3547host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
3548done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
3549
3550We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
3551version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
3552`--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
3553The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
3554only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
3555We hope to make this the default in a future release.
3556
3557 * Documentation improvements
3558
3559There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
3560produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
3561before submitting changes.
3562
3563The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
3564M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
3565`info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
3566you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
3567a future texinfo-X.Y release.
3568
3569*NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
3570We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
3571been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
3572or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
3573`texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
3574around this problem.
3575
3576 * New features
3577
3578GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
3579the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
3580`print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
3581the target program.
3582
3583The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
3584how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
3585
3586 * New native hosts supported
3587
3588HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
3589386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
3590
3591 * New targets supported
3592
3593AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
3594
3595 * New file formats supported
3596
3597BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
3598HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
3599
3600 * Major bug fixes
3601
3602Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
3603
3604We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
3605printf_filtered("%s") problems.
3606
3607We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
3608for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
3609release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
3610
3611You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
3612will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
3613
3614We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
3615for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
3616especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
3617libraries.
3618
3619The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
3620information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
3621command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
3622any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
3623when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
3624
3625 * Internal improvements
3626
3627GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
3628debugging of multiple languages in the future.
3629
3630GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
3631Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
3632symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
3633contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
3634shared code that handles any of them.
3635
3636 * New command line options
3637
3638We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
3639
3640 * Mmalloc licensing
3641
3642The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
3643General Public License.
3644
3645*** Changes in GDB-4.7:
3646
3647 * Host/native/target split
3648
3649GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
3650hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
3651target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
3652local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
3653ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
3654
3655The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
3656GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
3657is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
3658code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
3659any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
3660built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
3661handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
3662
3663GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
3664It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
3665plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
3666
3667 * New hosts supported
3668
3669HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
3670386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
3671386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
3672
3673 * New targets supported
3674
3675Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
367668030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
3677
3678 * New native hosts supported
3679
3680386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
3681 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
3682386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
3683
3684 * New file formats supported
3685
3686BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
3687supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
3688format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
3689
3690 * New commands
3691
3692`show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
3693`show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
3694These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
3695
3696`info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
3697
3698You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
3699scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
3700prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
3701executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
3702
3703 * C++ improvements
3704
3705We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
3706info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
3707symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
3708
3709Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
3710
3711 * Major bug fixes
3712
3713The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
3714fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
3715by the compiler.
3716
3717We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
3718support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
3719
3720John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
3721slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
3722that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
3723purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
3724the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
3725mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
3726
3727Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
3728about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
3729completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
3730we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
3731
3732 * AMD 29k support
3733
3734A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
3735specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
3736calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
3737usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
3738in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
3739
3740We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
3741Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
3742of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
3743resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
3744
3745 * Remote interfaces
3746
3747We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
3748with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
3749message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
3750This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
3751needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
3752breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
3753each instruction being stepped through.
3754
3755The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
3756registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
3757
3758There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
3759find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
3760Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
3761processor with a serial port.
3762
3763 * Configuration
3764
3765Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
3766`table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
3767supported, and what files each one uses.
3768
3769 * Library changes
3770
3771There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
3772disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
3773Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
3774disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
3775
3776The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
3777Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
3778can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
3779grants all the rights from the General Public License.
3780
3781 * Documentation
3782
3783The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
3784reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
3785as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
3786encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
3787system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
3788bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
3789
3790And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
3791
3792
3793*** Changes in GDB-4.6:
3794
3795 * Better support for C++ function names
3796
3797GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
3798names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
3799(using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
3800single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
3801Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
3802
3803GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
3804the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
3805You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
3806lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
3807for the list of formats.
3808
3809 * G++ symbol mangling problem
3810
3811Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
3812C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
3813directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
3814can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
3815usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
3816about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
3817this problem.)
3818
3819 * New 'maintenance' command
3820
3821All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
3822the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
3823can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
3824
3825 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
3826 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
3827 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
3828 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
3829 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
3830 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
3831
3832The following commands are new:
3833
3834 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
3835 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
3836 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
3837
3838 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
3839
3840We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
3841(e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
3842be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
3843read after argv processing.
3844
3845 * New hosts supported
3846
3847Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
3848
55241689 3849GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
c906108c
SS
3850
3851We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
3852is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
3853for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
3854masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
3855fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
3856It costs extra.
3857
3858 * New targets supported
3859
3860Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
3861
3862 * More smarts about finding #include files
3863
3864GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
3865all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
3866greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
3867especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
3868the one that contains your sources.
3869
3870We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
3871breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
3872try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
3873
3874 * Interesting infernals change
3875
3876GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
3877section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
3878target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
3879stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
3880
3881 * Bug fixes (of course!)
3882
3883There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
3884 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
3885 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
3886
3887See the ChangeLog for details.
3888
3889*** Changes in GDB-4.5:
3890
3891 * New machines supported (host and target)
3892
3893IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
3894
3895SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
3896
3897 * New malloc package
3898
3899GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
3900Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
3901capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
3902This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
3903pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
3904more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
3905
3906 * info proc
3907
3908The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
3909'help info proc' for details.
3910
3911 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
3912
3913The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
3914Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
3915possible.
3916
3917 * File name changes for MS-DOS
3918
3919Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
3920support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
3921conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
3922environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
3923that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
3924in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
3925
3926 * Cross byte order fixes
3927
3928Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
3929targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
3930
3931 * New -mapped and -readnow options
3932
3933If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
3934system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
3935`symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
3936program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
3937called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
3938Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
3939and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
3940the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
3941option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
3942starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
3943
3944You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
3945the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
3946information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
3947slower, but makes future operations faster.
3948
3949The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
3950build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
3951A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
3952use is:
3953
3954 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
3955
3956The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
3957It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
3958shared across multiple host platforms.
3959
3960 * longjmp() handling
3961
3962GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
3963siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
3964all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
3965platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
3966
3967 * Solaris 2.0
3968
3969Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
3970this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
3971reading symbols.
3972
3973 * Bug fixes
3974
3975As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
3976People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
3977crashes and trashed symbol tables.
3978
3979*** Changes in GDB-4.4:
3980
3981 * New machines supported (host and target)
3982
3983SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
3984 (except core files)
3985BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
3986Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
3987
3988 * New machines supported (target)
3989
3990AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
3991
3992 * C++ support
3993
3994GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
3995The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
3996per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
3997
3998GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
3999`ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
4000extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
4001good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
4002will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
4003released.
4004
4005 * New features for SVR4
4006
4007GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
4008shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
4009only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
4010
4011The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
4012on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
4013it prints the address mappings of the process.
4014
4015If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
4016bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
4017
4018 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
4019
4020Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
4021now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
4022skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
4023make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
4024same code linked statically.
4025
4026 * New Getopt
4027
4028GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
4029version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
4030continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
4031Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
4032added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
4033future by other options that begin with the same letter.
4034
4035 * Bugs fixed
4036
4037The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
4038Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
4039See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
4040
4041
4042*** Changes in GDB-4.3:
4043
4044 * New machines supported (host and target)
4045
4046Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
4047NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
4048Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
4049
4050 * Almost SCO Unix support
4051
4052We had hoped to support:
4053SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
4054(except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
4055that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
4056about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
4057
4058 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
4059
4060GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
4061debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
4062is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
4063send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
4064reqired (if any).
4065
4066 * New Readline
4067
4068GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
4069is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
4070required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
4071
4072 * Bugs fixed
4073
4074The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
4075Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
4076See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
4077
4078 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
4079
4080GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
4081supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
4082symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
4083
4084Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
4085mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
4086debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
4087mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
4088version 2.
4089
4090Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
4091really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
4092line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
4093variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
4094situation somewhat.
4095
4096When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
4097However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
4098methods.
4099
4100We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
4101DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
4102encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
4103
4104
4105*** Changes in GDB-4.2:
4106
4107 * Improved configuration
4108
4109Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
4110Porting BFD is simpler.
4111
4112 * Stepping improved
4113
4114The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
4115of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
4116in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
4117function that has debugging information is called within the line.
4118
4119 * Bug fixing
4120
4121Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
4122
4123 * New host supported (not target)
4124
4125Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
4126
4127
4128*** Changes in GDB-4.1:
4129
4130 * Multiple source language support
4131
4132GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
4133It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
4134and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
4135language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
4136You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
4137`set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
4138
4139 * GDB and Modula-2
4140
4141GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
4142currently under development at the State University of New York at
4143Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
4144continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
4145
4146Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
4147debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
4148symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
4149
4150There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
4151in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
4152
4153 * set write on/off
4154
4155GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
4156a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
4157the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
4158by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
4159effect immediately.
4160
4161 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
4162
4163When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
4164shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
4165The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
4166examining core files.
4167
4168 * set listsize
4169
4170You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
4171The default is 10.
4172
4173 * New machines supported (host and target)
4174
4175SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
4176Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
4177Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
4178
4179 * New hosts supported (not targets)
4180
4181IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
4182
4183 * New targets supported (not hosts)
4184
4185AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
4186AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
4187Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
4188
4189 * New remote interfaces
4190
4191AMD 29000 Adapt
4192AMD 29000 Minimon
4193
4194
4195*** Changes in GDB-4.0:
4196
4197 * New Facilities
4198
4199Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
4200
4201Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
4202target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
4203is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
4204remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
4205remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
4206also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
4207using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
4208stub on the target system.
4209
4210New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
4211
4212GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
4213library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
4214object file types such as a.out and coff.
4215
4216There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
4217refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
4218
4219
4220 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
4221
4222All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
4223by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
4224
4225For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
4226``Show prompt'' produces the response:
4227Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
4228
4229What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
4230print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
4231will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
4232all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
4233
4234confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
4235 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
4236 it is already running. Default is ON.
4237
4238editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
4239 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
4240 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
4241 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
4242 Default is ON.
4243
4244history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
4245 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
4246 or the value of the environment variable
4247 GDBHISTFILE.
4248
4249history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
4250 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
4251 HISTSIZE.
4252
4253history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
4254 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
4255 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
4256
4257history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
4258 history expansion will be performed on
4259 command line input. The default is OFF.
4260
4261radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
4262 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
4263 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
4264
4265height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
4266 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
4267 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
4268 variable TERM.
4269
4270width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
4271 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
4272 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
4273 variable TERM.
4274
4275Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
4276``set width'' instead.
4277
4278print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
4279 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
4280 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
4281 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
4282
4283print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
4284 is OFF.
4285
4286print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
4287 "raw" form if off.
4288
4289print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
4290 like instructions.
4291
4292print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
4293
4294
4295 * Support for Epoch Environment.
4296
4297The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
4298new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
4299are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
4300window.
4301
4302
4303 * Support for Shared Libraries
4304
4305GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
4306Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
4307before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
4308happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
4309At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
4310from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
4311shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
4312It can be abbreviated ``share''.
4313
4314sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
4315 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
4316 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
4317
4318info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
4319
4320
4321 * Watchpoints
4322
4323A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
4324expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
4325tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
4326quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
4327problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
4328more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
4329
4330watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
4331
4332info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
4333
4334delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
4335disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
4336enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
4337
4338
4339 * C++ multiple inheritance
4340
4341When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
4342for C++ programs.
4343
4344 * C++ exception handling
4345
4346Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
4347ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
4348the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
4349handler's context).
4350
4351catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
4352 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
4353 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
4354
4355info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
4356 current stack frame.
4357
4358
4359 * Minor command changes
4360
4361The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
4362command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
4363is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
4364
4365The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
4366at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
4367frames without printing.
4368
4369 * New directory command
4370
4371'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
4372The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
4373about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
4374with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
4375find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
4376
4377 * Configuring GDB for compilation
4378
4379For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
4380for more details.
4381
4382GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
4383two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
4384Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
4385where the program that you are debugging will run.
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