gdb/
[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 7.6
5
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6* New commands:
7maint set|show per-command
8maint set|show per-command space
9maint set|show per-command time
10maint set|show per-command symtab
11 Enable display of per-command gdb resource usage.
12
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13* New options
14
15set remote trace-status-packet
16show remote trace-status-packet
17 Set/show the use of remote protocol qTStatus packet.
18
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19* The command 'tsave' can now support new option '-ctf' to save trace
20 buffer in Common Trace Format.
21
22* MI changes
23
24 ** The -trace-save MI command can optionally save trace buffer in Common
25 Trace Format now.
26
2d450646 27*** Changes in GDB 7.6
80c8d323 28
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29* Target record has been renamed to record-full.
30 Record/replay is now enabled with the "record full" command.
31 This also affects settings that are associated with full record/replay
32 that have been moved from "set/show record" to "set/show record full":
33
34set|show record full insn-number-max
35set|show record full stop-at-limit
36set|show record full memory-query
37
38* A new record target "record-btrace" has been added. The new target
39 uses hardware support to record the control-flow of a process. It
40 does not support replaying the execution, but it implements the
41 below new commands for investigating the recorded execution log.
42 This new recording method can be enabled using:
43
44record btrace
45
46 The "record-btrace" target is only available on Intel Atom processors
47 and requires a Linux kernel 2.6.32 or later.
48
49* Two new commands have been added for record/replay to give information
50 about the recorded execution without having to replay the execution.
51 The commands are only supported by "record btrace".
52
53record instruction-history prints the execution history at
54 instruction granularity
55
56record function-call-history prints the execution history at
57 function granularity
58
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59* New native configurations
60
51d66578 61ARM AArch64 GNU/Linux aarch64*-*-linux-gnu
543bf33d 62FreeBSD/powerpc powerpc*-*-freebsd
ea5f3910 63Tilera TILE-Gx GNU/Linux tilegx*-*-linux-gnu
543bf33d 64
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65* New targets
66
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67ARM AArch64 aarch64*-*-elf
68ARM AArch64 GNU/Linux aarch64*-*-linux
249729c4 69Lynx 178 PowerPC powerpc-*-lynx*178
3c095f49 70x86_64/Cygwin x86_64-*-cygwin*
ea5f3910 71Tilera TILE-Gx GNU/Linux tilegx*-*-linux
249729c4 72
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73* If the configured location of system.gdbinit file (as given by the
74 --with-system-gdbinit option at configure time) is in the
75 data-directory (as specified by --with-gdb-datadir at configure
76 time) or in one of its subdirectories, then GDB will look for the
77 system-wide init file in the directory specified by the
78 --data-directory command-line option.
79
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80* New command line options:
81
82-nh Disables auto-loading of ~/.gdbinit, but still executes all the
83 other initialization files, unlike -nx which disables all of them.
84
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85* Removed command line options
86
87-epoch This was used by the gdb mode in Epoch, an ancient fork of
88 Emacs.
89
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90* The 'ptype' and 'whatis' commands now accept an argument to control
91 type formatting.
92
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93* 'info proc' now works on some core files.
94
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95* Python scripting
96
97 ** Vectors can be created with gdb.Type.vector.
98
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99 ** Python's atexit.register now works in GDB.
100
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101 ** Types can be pretty-printed via a Python API.
102
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103 ** Python 3 is now supported (in addition to Python 2.4 or later)
104
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105 ** New class gdb.Architecture exposes GDB's internal representation
106 of architecture in the Python API.
107
108 ** New method Frame.architecture returns the gdb.Architecture object
109 corresponding to the frame's architecture.
110
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111* New Python-based convenience functions:
112
113 ** $_memeq(buf1, buf2, length)
114 ** $_streq(str1, str2)
115 ** $_strlen(str)
116 ** $_regex(str, regex)
117
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118* The 'cd' command now defaults to using '~' (the home directory) if not
119 given an argument.
120
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121* The C++ ABI now defaults to the GNU v3 ABI. This has been the
122 default for GCC since November 2000.
123
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124* The command 'forward-search' can now be abbreviated as 'fo'.
125
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126* The command 'info tracepoints' can now display 'installed on target'
127 or 'not installed on target' for each non-pending location of tracepoint.
128
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129* New configure options
130
131--enable-libmcheck/--disable-libmcheck
132 By default, development versions are built with -lmcheck on hosts
133 that support it, in order to help track memory corruption issues.
134 Release versions, on the other hand, are built without -lmcheck
135 by default. The --enable-libmcheck/--disable-libmcheck configure
136 options allow the user to override that default.
137
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138* New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
139
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140catch signal
141 Catch signals. This is similar to "handle", but allows commands and
142 conditions to be attached.
143
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144maint info bfds
145 List the BFDs known to GDB.
146
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147python-interactive [command]
148pi [command]
149 Start a Python interactive prompt, or evaluate the optional command
150 and print the result of expressions.
151
152py [command]
153 "py" is a new alias for "python".
154
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155enable type-printer [name]...
156disable type-printer [name]...
157 Enable or disable type printers.
158
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159set debug notification
160show debug notification
161 Control display of debugging info for async remote notification.
162
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163set trace-buffer-size
164show trace-buffer-size
165 Request target to change the size of trace buffer.
166
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167* Removed commands
168
169 ** For the Renesas Super-H architecture, the "regs" command has been removed
170 (has been deprecated in GDB 7.5), and "info all-registers" should be used
171 instead.
172
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173* New options
174
175set print type methods (on|off)
176show print type methods
177 Control whether method declarations are displayed by "ptype".
178 The default is to show them.
179
180set print type typedefs (on|off)
181show print type typedefs
182 Control whether typedef definitions are displayed by "ptype".
183 The default is to show them.
184
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185set filename-display basename|relative|absolute
186show filename-display
187 Control the way in which filenames is displayed.
188 The default is "relative", which preserves previous behavior.
189
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190* MI changes
191
192 ** Command parameter changes are now notified using new async record
193 "=cmd-param-changed".
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194 ** Trace frame changes caused by command "tfind" are now notified using
195 new async record "=traceframe-changed".
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196 ** The creation, deletion and modification of trace state variables
197 are now notified using new async records "=tsv-created",
198 "=tsv-deleted" and "=tsv-modified".
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199 ** The start and stop of process record are now notified using new
200 async record "=record-started" and "=record-stopped".
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201 ** Memory changes are now notified using new async record
202 "=memory-changed".
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203 ** The data-disassemble command response will include a "fullname" field
204 containing the absolute file name when GDB can determine it and source
205 has been requested.
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206 ** New optional parameter COUNT added to the "-data-write-memory-bytes"
207 command, to allow pattern filling of memory areas.
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208 ** New commands "-catch-load"/"-catch-unload" added for intercepting
209 library load/unload events.
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210 ** The response to breakpoint commands and breakpoint async records
211 includes an "installed" field containing a boolean state about each
212 non-pending tracepoint location is whether installed on target or not.
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213 ** Output of the "-trace-status" command includes a "trace-file" field
214 containing the name of the trace file being examined. This field is
215 optional, and only present when examining a trace file.
5b9afe8a 216
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217* GDB now supports the "mini debuginfo" section, .gnu_debugdata.
218 You must have the LZMA library available when configuring GDB for this
219 feature to be enabled. For more information, see:
220 http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/MiniDebugInfo
221
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222* New remote packets
223
224QTBuffer:size
225 Set the size of trace buffer. The remote stub reports support for this
226 packet to gdb's qSupported query.
227
80c8d323 228*** Changes in GDB 7.5
d6e00af6 229
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230* GDB now supports x32 ABI. Visit <http://sites.google.com/site/x32abi/>
231 for more x32 ABI info.
232
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233* GDB now supports access to MIPS DSP registers on Linux targets.
234
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235* GDB now supports debugging microMIPS binaries.
236
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237* The "info os" command on GNU/Linux can now display information on
238 several new classes of objects managed by the operating system:
239 "info os procgroups" lists process groups
240 "info os files" lists file descriptors
241 "info os sockets" lists internet-domain sockets
242 "info os shm" lists shared-memory regions
243 "info os semaphores" lists semaphores
244 "info os msg" lists message queues
245 "info os modules" lists loaded kernel modules
246
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247* GDB now has support for SDT (Static Defined Tracing) probes. Currently,
248 the only implemented backend is for SystemTap probes (<sys/sdt.h>). You
249 can set a breakpoint using the new "-probe, "-pstap" or "-probe-stap"
250 options and inspect the probe arguments using the new $_probe_arg family
251 of convenience variables. You can obtain more information about SystemTap
252 in <http://sourceware.org/systemtap/>.
253
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254* GDB now supports reversible debugging on ARM, it allows you to
255 debug basic ARM and THUMB instructions, and provides
256 record/replay support.
257
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258* The option "symbol-reloading" has been deleted as it is no longer used.
259
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260* Python scripting
261
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262 ** GDB commands implemented in Python can now be put in command class
263 "gdb.COMMAND_USER".
264
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265 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" is now deleted.
266
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267 ** A new class, gdb.printing.FlagEnumerationPrinter, can be used to
268 apply "flag enum"-style pretty-printing to any enum.
269
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270 ** gdb.lookup_symbol can now work when there is no current frame.
271
272 ** gdb.Symbol now has a 'line' attribute, holding the line number in
273 the source at which the symbol was defined.
274
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275 ** gdb.Symbol now has the new attribute 'needs_frame' and the new
276 method 'value'. The former indicates whether the symbol needs a
277 frame in order to compute its value, and the latter computes the
278 symbol's value.
279
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280 ** A new method 'referenced_value' on gdb.Value objects which can
281 dereference pointer as well as C++ reference values.
282
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283 ** New methods 'global_block' and 'static_block' on gdb.Symtab objects
284 which return the global and static blocks (as gdb.Block objects),
285 of the underlying symbol table, respectively.
286
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287 ** New function gdb.find_pc_line which returns the gdb.Symtab_and_line
288 object associated with a PC value.
289
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290 ** gdb.Symtab_and_line has new attribute 'last' which holds the end
291 of the address range occupied by code for the current source line.
292
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293* Go language support.
294 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the Go programming
295 language.
296
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297* GDBserver now supports stdio connections.
298 E.g. (gdb) target remote | ssh myhost gdbserver - hello
299
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300* The binary "gdbtui" can no longer be built or installed.
301 Use "gdb -tui" instead.
302
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303* GDB will now print "flag" enums specially. A flag enum is one where
304 all the enumerator values have no bits in common when pairwise
305 "and"ed. When printing a value whose type is a flag enum, GDB will
306 show all the constants, e.g., for enum E { ONE = 1, TWO = 2}:
307 (gdb) print (enum E) 3
308 $1 = (ONE | TWO)
309
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310* The filename part of a linespec will now match trailing components
311 of a source file name. For example, "break gcc/expr.c:1000" will
312 now set a breakpoint in build/gcc/expr.c, but not
313 build/libcpp/expr.c.
314
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315* The "info proc" and "generate-core-file" commands will now also
316 work on remote targets connected to GDBserver on Linux.
317
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318* The command "info catch" has been removed. It has been disabled
319 since December 2007.
320
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321* The "catch exception" and "catch assert" commands now accept
322 a condition at the end of the command, much like the "break"
323 command does. For instance:
324
325 (gdb) catch exception Constraint_Error if Barrier = True
326
327 Previously, it was possible to add a condition to such catchpoints,
328 but it had to be done as a second step, after the catchpoint had been
329 created, using the "condition" command.
330
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331* The "info static-tracepoint-marker" command will now also work on
332 native Linux targets with in-process agent.
333
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334* GDB can now set breakpoints on inlined functions.
335
336* The .gdb_index section has been updated to include symbols for
337 inlined functions. GDB will ignore older .gdb_index sections by
338 default, which could cause symbol files to be loaded more slowly
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339 until their .gdb_index sections can be recreated. The new command
340 "set use-deprecated-index-sections on" will cause GDB to use any older
341 .gdb_index sections it finds. This will restore performance, but the
342 ability to set breakpoints on inlined functions will be lost in symbol
343 files with older .gdb_index sections.
481860b3 344
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345 The .gdb_index section has also been updated to record more information
346 about each symbol. This speeds up the "info variables", "info functions"
347 and "info types" commands when used with programs having the .gdb_index
348 section, as well as speeding up debugging with shared libraries using
349 the .gdb_index section.
350
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351* Ada support for GDB/MI Variable Objects has been added.
352
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353* GDB can now support 'breakpoint always-inserted mode' in 'record'
354 target.
355
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356* MI changes
357
358 ** New command -info-os is the MI equivalent of "info os".
359
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360 ** Output logs ("set logging" and related) now include MI output.
361
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362* New commands
363
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364 ** "set use-deprecated-index-sections on|off"
365 "show use-deprecated-index-sections on|off"
366 Controls the use of deprecated .gdb_index sections.
367
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368 ** "catch load" and "catch unload" can be used to stop when a shared
369 library is loaded or unloaded, respectively.
370
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371 ** "enable count" can be used to auto-disable a breakpoint after
372 several hits.
373
57651221 374 ** "info vtbl" can be used to show the virtual method tables for
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375 C++ and Java objects.
376
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377 ** "explore" and its sub commands "explore value" and "explore type"
378 can be used to reccursively explore values and types of
379 expressions. These commands are available only if GDB is
380 configured with '--with-python'.
381
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382 ** "info auto-load" shows status of all kinds of auto-loaded files,
383 "info auto-load gdb-scripts" shows status of auto-loading GDB canned
384 sequences of commands files, "info auto-load python-scripts"
385 shows status of auto-loading Python script files,
386 "info auto-load local-gdbinit" shows status of loading init file
387 (.gdbinit) from current directory and "info auto-load libthread-db" shows
388 status of inferior specific thread debugging shared library loading.
389
390 ** "info auto-load-scripts", "set auto-load-scripts on|off"
391 and "show auto-load-scripts" commands have been deprecated, use their
392 "info auto-load python-scripts", "set auto-load python-scripts on|off"
393 and "show auto-load python-scripts" counterparts instead.
394
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395 ** "dprintf location,format,args..." creates a dynamic printf, which
396 is basically a breakpoint that does a printf and immediately
397 resumes your program's execution, so it is like a printf that you
398 can insert dynamically at runtime instead of at compiletime.
399
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400 ** "set print symbol"
401 "show print symbol"
402 Controls whether GDB attempts to display the symbol, if any,
403 corresponding to addresses it prints. This defaults to "on", but
404 you can set it to "off" to restore GDB's previous behavior.
405
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406* Deprecated commands
407
408 ** For the Renesas Super-H architecture, the "regs" command has been
409 deprecated, and "info all-registers" should be used instead.
410
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411* New targets
412
413Renesas RL78 rl78-*-elf
60c9a3c0 414HP OpenVMS ia64 ia64-hp-openvms*
a58b110a 415
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416* GDBserver supports evaluation of breakpoint conditions. When
417 support is advertised by GDBserver, GDB may be told to send the
418 breakpoint conditions in bytecode form to GDBserver. GDBserver
419 will only report the breakpoint trigger to GDB when its condition
420 evaluates to true.
421
422* New options
423
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424set mips compression
425show mips compression
426 Select the compressed ISA encoding used in functions that have no symbol
427 information available. The encoding can be set to either of:
428 mips16
429 micromips
430 and is updated automatically from ELF file flags if available.
431
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432set breakpoint condition-evaluation
433show breakpoint condition-evaluation
cf65ecd3 434 Control whether breakpoint conditions are evaluated by GDB ("host") or by
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435 GDBserver ("target"). Default option "auto" chooses the most efficient
436 available mode.
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437 This option can improve debugger efficiency depending on the speed of the
438 target.
439
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440set auto-load off
441 Disable auto-loading globally.
442
443show auto-load
444 Show auto-loading setting of all kinds of auto-loaded files.
445
446set auto-load gdb-scripts on|off
447show auto-load gdb-scripts
448 Control auto-loading of GDB canned sequences of commands files.
449
450set auto-load python-scripts on|off
451show auto-load python-scripts
452 Control auto-loading of Python script files.
453
454set auto-load local-gdbinit on|off
455show auto-load local-gdbinit
456 Control loading of init file (.gdbinit) from current directory.
457
458set auto-load libthread-db on|off
459show auto-load libthread-db
460 Control auto-loading of inferior specific thread debugging shared library.
461
7349ff92 462set auto-load scripts-directory <dir1>[:<dir2>...]
9cc815f5 463show auto-load scripts-directory
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464 Set a list of directories from which to load auto-loaded scripts.
465 Automatically loaded Python scripts and GDB scripts are located in one
466 of the directories listed by this option.
467 The delimiter (':' above) may differ according to the host platform.
468
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469set auto-load safe-path <dir1>[:<dir2>...]
470show auto-load safe-path
471 Set a list of directories from which it is safe to auto-load files.
472 The delimiter (':' above) may differ according to the host platform.
473
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474set debug auto-load on|off
475show debug auto-load
476 Control display of debugging info for auto-loading the files above.
477
d3ce09f5 478set dprintf-style gdb|call|agent
e7e0cddf 479show dprintf-style
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480 Control the way in which a dynamic printf is performed; "gdb"
481 requests a GDB printf command, while "call" causes dprintf to call a
482 function in the inferior. "agent" requests that the target agent
483 (such as GDBserver) do the printing.
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484
485set dprintf-function <expr>
486show dprintf-function
487set dprintf-channel <expr>
488show dprintf-channel
489 Set the function and optional first argument to the call when using
490 the "call" style of dynamic printf.
491
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492set disconnected-dprintf on|off
493show disconnected-dprintf
494 Control whether agent-style dynamic printfs continue to be in effect
495 after GDB disconnects.
496
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497* New configure options
498
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499--with-auto-load-dir
500 Configure default value for the 'set auto-load scripts-directory'
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501 setting above. It defaults to '$debugdir:$datadir/auto-load',
502 $debugdir representing global debugging info directories (available
503 via 'show debug-file-directory') and $datadir representing GDB's data
504 directory (available via 'show data-directory').
7349ff92 505
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506--with-auto-load-safe-path
507 Configure default value for the 'set auto-load safe-path' setting
7349ff92 508 above. It defaults to the --with-auto-load-dir setting.
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509
510--without-auto-load-safe-path
511 Set 'set auto-load safe-path' to '/', effectively disabling this
512 security feature.
513
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514* New remote packets
515
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516z0/z1 conditional breakpoints extension
517
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518 The z0/z1 breakpoint insertion packets have been extended to carry
519 a list of conditional expressions over to the remote stub depending on the
520 condition evaluation mode. The use of this extension can be controlled
521 via the "set remote conditional-breakpoints-packet" command.
522
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523QProgramSignals:
524
525 Specify the signals which the remote stub may pass to the debugged
526 program without GDB involvement.
527
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528* New command line options
529
530--init-command=FILE, -ix Like --command, -x but execute it
531 before loading inferior.
532--init-eval-command=COMMAND, -iex Like --eval-command=COMMAND, -ex but
533 execute it before loading inferior.
534
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535*** Changes in GDB 7.4
536
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537* GDB now handles ambiguous linespecs more consistently; the existing
538 FILE:LINE support has been expanded to other types of linespecs. A
539 breakpoint will now be set on all matching locations in all
540 inferiors, and locations will be added or removed according to
541 inferior changes.
542
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543* GDB now allows you to skip uninteresting functions and files when
544 stepping with the "skip function" and "skip file" commands.
545
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546* GDB has two new commands: "set remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit"
547 and "show remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit". These allows to
548 set or show the maximum length limit (in bytes) of a remote
549 target hardware watchpoint.
550
551 This allows e.g. to use "unlimited" hardware watchpoints with the
552 gdbserver integrated in Valgrind version >= 3.7.0. Such Valgrind
553 watchpoints are slower than real hardware watchpoints but are
554 significantly faster than gdb software watchpoints.
555
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556* Python scripting
557
32d1c362 558 ** The register_pretty_printer function in module gdb.printing now takes
7d0aff21 559 an optional `replace' argument. If True, the new printer replaces any
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560 existing one.
561
3a7bf607 562 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" command has been
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563 deprecated and will be deleted in GDB 7.5.
564 A new command: "set python print-stack none|full|message" has
565 replaced it. Additionally, the default for "print-stack" is
566 now "message", which just prints the error message without
567 the stack trace.
3a7bf607 568
baacfb07 569 ** A prompt substitution hook (prompt_hook) is now available to the
3a7bf607 570 Python API.
713389e0 571
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572 ** A new Python module, gdb.prompt has been added to the GDB Python
573 modules library. This module provides functionality for
baacfb07 574 escape sequences in prompts (used by set/show
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575 extended-prompt). These escape sequences are replaced by their
576 corresponding value.
577
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578 ** Python commands and convenience-functions located in
579 'data-directory'/python/gdb/command and
580 'data-directory'/python/gdb/function are now automatically loaded
581 on GDB start-up.
582
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583 ** Blocks now provide four new attributes. global_block and
584 static_block will return the global and static blocks
585 respectively. is_static and is_global are boolean attributes
586 that indicate if the block is one of those two types.
587
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588 ** Symbols now provide the "type" attribute, the type of the symbol.
589
6839b47f
KP
590 ** The "gdb.breakpoint" function has been deprecated in favor of
591 "gdb.breakpoints".
592
cc72b2a2
KP
593 ** A new class "gdb.FinishBreakpoint" is provided to catch the return
594 of a function. This class is based on the "finish" command
595 available in the CLI.
596
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PK
597 ** Type objects for struct and union types now allow access to
598 the fields using standard Python dictionary (mapping) methods.
599 For example, "some_type['myfield']" now works, as does
600 "some_type.items()".
601
20c168b5
KP
602 ** A new event "gdb.new_objfile" has been added, triggered by loading a
603 new object file.
604
03c3051a
PK
605 ** A new function, "deep_items" has been added to the gdb.types
606 module in the GDB Python modules library. This function returns
607 an iterator over the fields of a struct or union type. Unlike
608 the standard Python "iteritems" method, it will recursively traverse
609 any anonymous fields.
610
7376e450
TT
611* MI changes
612
613 ** "*stopped" events can report several new "reason"s, such as
614 "solib-event".
615
616 ** Breakpoint changes are now notified using new async records, like
617 "=breakpoint-modified".
618
619 ** New command -ada-task-info.
620
98a5dd13
DE
621* libthread-db-search-path now supports two special values: $sdir and $pdir.
622 $sdir specifies the default system locations of shared libraries.
623 $pdir specifies the directory where the libpthread used by the application
624 lives.
625
626 GDB no longer looks in $sdir and $pdir after it has searched the directories
627 mentioned in libthread-db-search-path. If you want to search those
628 directories, they must be specified in libthread-db-search-path.
629 The default value of libthread-db-search-path on GNU/Linux and Solaris
630 systems is now "$sdir:$pdir".
631
632 $pdir is not supported by gdbserver, it is currently ignored.
633 $sdir is supported by gdbserver.
634
478aac75
DE
635* New configure option --with-iconv-bin.
636 When using the internationalization support like the one in the GNU C
637 library, GDB will invoke the "iconv" program to get a list of supported
638 character sets. If this program lives in a non-standard location, one can
639 use this option to specify where to find it.
640
9c06b0b4
TJB
641* When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
642 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports masked hardware
643 watchpoints, which specify a mask in addition to an address to watch.
644 The mask specifies that some bits of an address (the bits which are
645 reset in the mask) should be ignored when matching the address accessed
646 by the inferior against the watchpoint address. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
647 section in the user manual for more details.
648
03f2bd59
JK
649* The new option --once causes GDBserver to stop listening for connections once
650 the first connection is made. The listening port used by GDBserver will
651 become available after that.
652
71eba9c2 653* New commands "info macros" and "alias" have been added.
edc84990 654
2bda9cc5
JK
655* New function parameters suffix @entry specifies value of function parameter
656 at the time the function got called. Entry values are available only since
657 gcc version 4.7.
658
ed59ded5
DE
659* New commands
660
661!SHELL COMMAND
662 "!" is now an alias of the "shell" command.
663 Note that no space is needed between "!" and SHELL COMMAND.
664
9c06b0b4
TJB
665* Changed commands
666
667watch EXPRESSION mask MASK_VALUE
668 The watch command now supports the mask argument which allows creation
669 of masked watchpoints, if the current architecture supports this feature.
670
dbaefcf7
DE
671info auto-load-scripts [REGEXP]
672 This command was formerly named "maintenance print section-scripts".
673 It is now generally useful and is no longer a maintenance-only command.
674
71eba9c2 675info macro [-all] [--] MACRO
676 The info macro command has new options `-all' and `--'. The first for
677 printing all definitions of a macro. The second for explicitly specifying
678 the end of arguments and the beginning of the macro name in case the macro
679 name starts with a hyphen.
680
3065dfb6
SS
681collect[/s] EXPRESSIONS
682 The tracepoint collect command now takes an optional modifier "/s"
683 that directs it to dereference pointer-to-character types and
684 collect the bytes of memory up to a zero byte. The behavior is
685 similar to what you see when you use the regular print command on a
686 string. An optional integer following the "/s" sets a bound on the
687 number of bytes that will be collected.
688
f196051f
SS
689tstart [NOTES]
690 The trace start command now interprets any supplied arguments as a
691 note to be recorded with the trace run, with an effect similar to
692 setting the variable trace-notes.
693
694tstop [NOTES]
695 The trace stop command now interprets any arguments as a note to be
696 mentioned along with the tstatus report that the trace was stopped
697 with a command. The effect is similar to setting the variable
698 trace-stop-notes.
699
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KY
700* Tracepoints can now be enabled and disabled at any time after a trace
701 experiment has been started using the standard "enable" and "disable"
702 commands. It is now possible to start a trace experiment with no enabled
703 tracepoints; GDB will display a warning, but will allow the experiment to
704 begin, assuming that tracepoints will be enabled as needed while the trace
705 is running.
706
405f8e94
SS
707* Fast tracepoints on 32-bit x86-architectures can now be placed at
708 locations with 4-byte instructions, when they were previously
709 limited to locations with instructions of 5 bytes or longer.
710
2bda9cc5
JK
711* New options
712
45cfd468
DE
713set debug dwarf2-read
714show debug dwarf2-read
715 Turns on or off display of debugging messages related to reading
716 DWARF debug info. The default is off.
717
718set debug symtab-create
719show debug symtab-create
720 Turns on or off display of debugging messages related to symbol table
721 creation. The default is off.
722
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PM
723set extended-prompt
724show extended-prompt
725 Set the GDB prompt, and allow escape sequences to be inserted to
726 display miscellaneous information (see 'help set extended-prompt'
727 for the list of sequences). This prompt (and any information
728 accessed through the escape sequences) is updated every time the
729 prompt is displayed.
730
2bda9cc5
JK
731set print entry-values (both|compact|default|if-needed|no|only|preferred)
732show print entry-values
733 Set printing of frame argument values at function entry. In some cases
734 GDB can determine the value of function argument which was passed by the
735 function caller, even if the value was modified inside the called function.
736
737set debug entry-values
738show debug entry-values
739 Control display of debugging info for determining frame argument values at
740 function entry and virtual tail call frames.
741
c011a4f4
DE
742set basenames-may-differ
743show basenames-may-differ
744 Set whether a source file may have multiple base names.
745 (A "base name" is the name of a file with the directory part removed.
746 Example: The base name of "/home/user/hello.c" is "hello.c".)
747 If set, GDB will canonicalize file names (e.g., expand symlinks)
748 before comparing them. Canonicalization is an expensive operation,
749 but it allows the same file be known by more than one base name.
750 If not set (the default), all source files are assumed to have just
751 one base name, and gdb will do file name comparisons more efficiently.
752
f196051f
SS
753set trace-user
754show trace-user
755set trace-notes
756show trace-notes
757 Set a user name and notes for the current and any future trace runs.
758 This is useful for long-running and/or disconnected traces, to
759 inform others (or yourself) as to who is running the trace, supply
760 contact information, or otherwise explain what is going on.
761
762set trace-stop-notes
763show trace-stop-notes
764 Set a note attached to the trace run, that is displayed when the
765 trace has been stopped by a tstop command. This is useful for
766 instance as an explanation, if you are stopping a trace run that was
767 started by someone else.
768
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KY
769* New remote packets
770
771QTEnable
772
773 Dynamically enable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
774
775QTDisable
776
777 Dynamically disable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
778
f196051f
SS
779QTNotes
780
781 Set the user and notes of the trace run.
782
783qTP
784
785 Query the current status of a tracepoint.
786
405f8e94
SS
787qTMinFTPILen
788
789 Query the minimum length of instruction at which a fast tracepoint may
790 be placed.
791
1a532630
PP
792* Dcache size (number of lines) and line-size are now runtime-configurable
793 via "set dcache line" and "set dcache line-size" commands.
794
11315641
YQ
795* New targets
796
797Texas Instruments TMS320C6x tic6x-*-*
798
87326c78
DD
799* New Simulators
800
801Renesas RL78 rl78-*-elf
802
e8d56f18
JB
803*** Changes in GDB 7.3.1
804
805* The build failure for NetBSD and OpenBSD targets have now been fixed.
806
d6e00af6 807*** Changes in GDB 7.3
797054e6 808
60f98dde
MS
809* GDB has a new command: "thread find [REGEXP]".
810 It finds the thread id whose name, target id, or thread extra info
811 matches the given regular expression.
812
eee5b35e
DD
813* The "catch syscall" command now works on mips*-linux* targets.
814
b716877b
AB
815* The -data-disassemble MI command now supports modes 2 and 3 for
816 dumping the instruction opcodes.
817
aae1c79a
DE
818* New command line options
819
820-data-directory DIR Specify DIR as the "data-directory".
821 This is mostly for testing purposes.
822
a86caf66
DE
823* The "maint set python auto-load on|off" command has been renamed to
824 "set auto-load-scripts on|off".
825
99e7ae30
DE
826* GDB has a new command: "set directories".
827 It is like the "dir" command except that it replaces the
828 source path list instead of augmenting it.
829
4694da01
TT
830* GDB now understands thread names.
831
832 On GNU/Linux, "info threads" will display the thread name as set by
833 prctl or pthread_setname_np.
834
835 There is also a new command, "thread name", which can be used to
836 assign a name internally for GDB to display.
837
f4b8a18d
KW
838* OpenCL C
839 Initial support for the OpenCL C language (http://www.khronos.org/opencl)
840 has been integrated into GDB.
841
585d1eb8
PM
842* Python scripting
843
da5d4055
PM
844 ** The function gdb.Write now accepts an optional keyword 'stream'.
845 This keyword, when provided, will direct the output to either
846 stdout, stderr, or GDB's logging output.
847
9a6f1302
PM
848 ** Parameters can now be be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
849 you may implement the get_set_doc and get_show_doc functions.
850 This improves how Parameter set/show documentation is processed
851 and allows for more dynamic content.
852
29703da4
PM
853 ** Symbols, Symbol Table, Symbol Table and Line, Object Files,
854 Inferior, Inferior Thread, Blocks, and Block Iterator APIs now
855 have an is_valid method.
856
350c6c65
PM
857 ** Breakpoints can now be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
858 you may implement a 'stop' function that is executed each time
859 the inferior reaches that breakpoint.
860
6e6fbe60
DE
861 ** New function gdb.lookup_global_symbol looks up a global symbol.
862
585d1eb8
PM
863 ** GDB values in Python are now callable if the value represents a
864 function. For example, if 'some_value' represents a function that
865 takes two integer parameters and returns a value, you can call
866 that function like so:
867
868 result = some_value (10,20)
869
0e3509db
DE
870 ** Module gdb.types has been added.
871 It contains a collection of utilities for working with gdb.Types objects:
872 get_basic_type, has_field, make_enum_dict.
873
7b51bc51
DE
874 ** Module gdb.printing has been added.
875 It contains utilities for writing and registering pretty-printers.
876 New classes: PrettyPrinter, SubPrettyPrinter,
877 RegexpCollectionPrettyPrinter.
878 New function: register_pretty_printer.
879
880 ** New commands "info pretty-printers", "enable pretty-printer" and
881 "disable pretty-printer" have been added.
882
99e7ae30
DE
883 ** gdb.parameter("directories") is now available.
884
d8e22779
TT
885 ** New function gdb.newest_frame returns the newest frame in the
886 selected thread.
887
4694da01
TT
888 ** The gdb.InferiorThread class has a new "name" attribute. This
889 holds the thread's name.
890
505500db
SW
891 ** Python Support for Inferior events.
892 Python scripts can add observers to be notified of events
824446ad 893 occurring in the process being debugged.
c17a9e46
HZ
894 The following events are currently supported:
895 - gdb.events.cont Continue event.
896 - gdb.events.exited Inferior exited event.
897 - gdb.events.stop Signal received, and Breakpoint hit events.
898
def98928
TT
899* C++ Improvements:
900
901 ** GDB now puts template parameters in scope when debugging in an
902 instantiation. For example, if you have:
903
904 template<int X> int func (void) { return X; }
905
906 then if you step into func<5>, "print X" will show "5". This
907 feature requires proper debuginfo support from the compiler; it
908 was added to GCC 4.5.
909
66cb8159
TT
910 ** The motion commands "next", "finish", "until", and "advance" now
911 work better when exceptions are thrown. In particular, GDB will
912 no longer lose control of the inferior; instead, the GDB will
913 stop the inferior at the point at which the exception is caught.
914 This functionality requires a change in the exception handling
915 code that was introduced in GCC 4.5.
916
4aac0db7
UW
917* GDB now follows GCC's rules on accessing volatile objects when
918 reading or writing target state during expression evaluation.
919 One notable difference to prior behavior is that "print x = 0"
920 no longer generates a read of x; the value of the assignment is
921 now always taken directly from the value being assigned.
922
283e6a52
TT
923* GDB now has some support for using labels in the program's source in
924 linespecs. For instance, you can use "advance label" to continue
925 execution to a label.
926
927* GDB now has support for reading and writing a new .gdb_index
928 section. This section holds a fast index of DWARF debugging
929 information and can be used to greatly speed up GDB startup and
930 operation. See the documentation for `save gdb-index' for details.
931
b56df873 932* The "watch" command now accepts an optional "-location" argument.
14c0d4e1 933 When used, this causes GDB to watch the memory referred to by the
b56df873
TT
934 expression. Such a watchpoint is never deleted due to it going out
935 of scope.
936
ae53ffa4
PA
937* GDB now supports thread debugging of core dumps on GNU/Linux.
938
939 GDB now activates thread debugging using the libthread_db library
940 when debugging GNU/Linux core dumps, similarly to when debugging
941 live processes. As a result, when debugging a core dump file, GDB
942 is now able to display pthread_t ids of threads. For example, "info
943 threads" shows the same output as when debugging the process when it
944 was live. In earlier releases, you'd see something like this:
945
946 (gdb) info threads
947 * 1 LWP 6780 main () at main.c:10
948
949 While now you see this:
950
951 (gdb) info threads
952 * 1 Thread 0x7f0f5712a700 (LWP 6780) main () at main.c:10
953
954 It is also now possible to inspect TLS variables when debugging core
955 dumps.
956
957 When debugging a core dump generated on a machine other than the one
958 used to run GDB, you may need to point GDB at the correct
959 libthread_db library with the "set libthread-db-search-path"
960 command. See the user manual for more details on this command.
961
f1310107
TJB
962* When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
963 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports ranged breakpoints,
964 which stop execution of the inferior whenever it executes an instruction
965 at any address within the specified range. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
966 section in the user manual for more details.
967
248c9dbc
JB
968* New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
969
1aee7009
JB
970 ** GDBserver is now supported on PowerPC LynxOS (versions 4.x and 5.x),
971 and i686 LynxOS (version 5.x).
248c9dbc 972
eb826dc6
MF
973 ** GDBserver is now supported on Blackfin Linux.
974
44603653
JB
975* New native configurations
976
977ia64 HP-UX ia64-*-hpux*
978
91021223
MF
979* New targets:
980
981Analog Devices, Inc. Blackfin Processor bfin-*
982
6e1bb179
JB
983* Ada task switching is now supported on sparc-elf targets when
984 debugging a program using the Ravenscar Profile. For more information,
985 see the "Tasking Support when using the Ravenscar Profile" section
986 in the GDB user manual.
987
50c97f38
TT
988* Guile support was removed.
989
448a92bf
MF
990* New features in the GNU simulator
991
992 ** The --map-info flag lists all known core mappings.
993
66ee2731
MF
994 ** CFI flashes may be simulated via the "cfi" device.
995
76b8507d 996*** Changes in GDB 7.2
bfbf3774 997
ba25b921
PA
998* Shared library support for remote targets by default
999
1000 When GDB is configured for a generic, non-OS specific target, like
1001 for example, --target=arm-eabi or one of the many *-*-elf targets,
1002 GDB now queries remote stubs for loaded shared libraries using the
1003 `qXfer:libraries:read' packet. Previously, shared library support
1004 was always disabled for such configurations.
1005
4656f5c6
SW
1006* C++ Improvements:
1007
1008 ** Argument Dependent Lookup (ADL)
1009
1010 In C++ ADL lookup directs function search to the namespaces of its
1011 arguments even if the namespace has not been imported.
1012 For example:
1013 namespace A
1014 {
1015 class B { };
1016 void foo (B) { }
1017 }
1018 ...
1019 A::B b
1020 foo(b)
1021 Here the compiler will search for `foo' in the namespace of 'b'
1022 and find A::foo. GDB now supports this. This construct is commonly
1023 used in the Standard Template Library for operators.
1024
1025 ** Improved User Defined Operator Support
1026
1027 In addition to member operators, GDB now supports lookup of operators
1028 defined in a namespace and imported with a `using' directive, operators
1029 defined in the global scope, operators imported implicitly from an
1030 anonymous namespace, and the ADL operators mentioned in the previous
1031 entry.
1032 GDB now also supports proper overload resolution for all the previously
1033 mentioned flavors of operators.
1034
254e6b9e
DE
1035 ** static const class members
1036
1037 Printing of static const class members that are initialized in the
1038 class definition has been fixed.
1039
711e434b
PM
1040* Windows Thread Information Block access.
1041
1042 On Windows targets, GDB now supports displaying the Windows Thread
1043 Information Block (TIB) structure. This structure is visible either
1044 by using the new command `info w32 thread-information-block' or, by
1045 dereferencing the new convenience variable named `$_tlb', a
1046 thread-specific pointer to the TIB. This feature is also supported
1047 when remote debugging using GDBserver.
1048
0fb4aa4b
PA
1049* Static tracepoints
1050
1051 Static tracepoints are calls in the user program into a tracing
1052 library. One such library is a port of the LTTng kernel tracer to
1053 userspace --- UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer, http://lttng.org/ust).
1054 When debugging with GDBserver, GDB now supports combining the GDB
1055 tracepoint machinery with such libraries. For example: the user can
1056 use GDB to probe a static tracepoint marker (a call from the user
1057 program into the tracing library) with the new "strace" command (see
1058 "New commands" below). This creates a "static tracepoint" in the
1059 breakpoint list, that can be manipulated with the same feature set
1060 as fast and regular tracepoints. E.g., collect registers, local and
1061 global variables, collect trace state variables, and define
1062 tracepoint conditions. In addition, the user can collect extra
1063 static tracepoint marker specific data, by collecting the new
1064 $_sdata internal variable. When analyzing the trace buffer, you can
1065 inspect $_sdata like any other variable available to GDB. For more
1066 information, see the "Tracepoints" chapter in GDB user manual. New
1067 remote packets have been defined to support static tracepoints, see
1068 the "New remote packets" section below.
1069
ca11e899
SS
1070* Better reconstruction of tracepoints after disconnected tracing
1071
1072 GDB will attempt to download the original source form of tracepoint
1073 definitions when starting a trace run, and then will upload these
1074 upon reconnection to the target, resulting in a more accurate
1075 reconstruction of the tracepoints that are in use on the target.
1076
1077* Observer mode
1078
1079 You can now exercise direct control over the ways that GDB can
1080 affect your program. For instance, you can disallow the setting of
1081 breakpoints, so that the program can run continuously (assuming
1082 non-stop mode). In addition, the "observer" variable is available
1083 to switch all of the different controls; in observer mode, GDB
1084 cannot affect the target's behavior at all, which is useful for
1085 tasks like diagnosing live systems in the field.
1086
1087* The new convenience variable $_thread holds the number of the
1088 current thread.
1089
711e434b
PM
1090* New remote packets
1091
1092qGetTIBAddr
1093
1094 Return the address of the Windows Thread Information Block of a given thread.
1095
dde08ee1
PA
1096qRelocInsn
1097
1098 In response to several of the tracepoint packets, the target may now
1099 also respond with a number of intermediate `qRelocInsn' request
1100 packets before the final result packet, to have GDB handle
1101 relocating an instruction to execute at a different address. This
1102 is particularly useful for stubs that support fast tracepoints. GDB
1103 reports support for this feature in the qSupported packet.
1104
0fb4aa4b
PA
1105qTfSTM, qTsSTM
1106
1107 List static tracepoint markers in the target program.
1108
1109qTSTMat
1110
1111 List static tracepoint markers at a given address in the target
1112 program.
1113
1114qXfer:statictrace:read
1115
1116 Read the static trace data collected (by a `collect $_sdata'
1117 tracepoint action). The remote stub reports support for this packet
1118 to gdb's qSupported query.
1119
ca11e899
SS
1120QAllow
1121
1122 Send the current settings of GDB's permission flags.
1123
1124QTDPsrc
1125
1126 Send part of the source (textual) form of a tracepoint definition,
1127 which includes location, conditional, and action list.
1128
3f7b2faa
DE
1129* The source command now accepts a -s option to force searching for the
1130 script in the source search path even if the script name specifies
1131 a directory.
1132
d337e9f0
PA
1133* New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
1134
0fb4aa4b
PA
1135 - GDBserver now support tracepoints (including fast tracepoints, and
1136 static tracepoints). The feature is currently supported by the
1137 i386-linux and amd64-linux builds. See the "Tracepoints support
1138 in gdbserver" section in the manual for more information.
1139
1140 GDBserver JIT compiles the tracepoint's conditional agent
1141 expression bytecode into native code whenever possible for low
1142 overhead dynamic tracepoints conditionals. For such tracepoints,
1143 an expression that examines program state is evaluated when the
1144 tracepoint is reached, in order to determine whether to capture
1145 trace data. If the condition is simple and false, processing the
1146 tracepoint finishes very quickly and no data is gathered.
1147
1148 GDBserver interfaces with the UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer) library
1149 for static tracepoints support.
d337e9f0 1150
c24d0242
PM
1151 - GDBserver now supports x86_64 Windows 64-bit debugging.
1152
c8d5aac9
L
1153* GDB now sends xmlRegisters= in qSupported packet to indicate that
1154 it understands register description.
1155
7c953934
TT
1156* The --batch flag now disables pagination and queries.
1157
8685c86f
L
1158* X86 general purpose registers
1159
1160 GDB now supports reading/writing byte, word and double-word x86
1161 general purpose registers directly. This means you can use, say,
1162 $ah or $ax to refer, respectively, to the byte register AH and
1163 16-bit word register AX that are actually portions of the 32-bit
1164 register EAX or 64-bit register RAX.
1165
95a42b64 1166* The `commands' command now accepts a range of breakpoints to modify.
86b17b60
PA
1167 A plain `commands' following a command that creates multiple
1168 breakpoints affects all the breakpoints set by that command. This
1169 applies to breakpoints set by `rbreak', and also applies when a
1170 single `break' command creates multiple breakpoints (e.g.,
1171 breakpoints on overloaded c++ functions).
95a42b64 1172
8bd10a10
CM
1173* The `rbreak' command now accepts a filename specification as part of
1174 its argument, limiting the functions selected by the regex to those
1175 in the specified file.
1176
ab38a727
PA
1177* Support for remote debugging Windows and SymbianOS shared libraries
1178 from Unix hosts has been improved. Non Windows GDB builds now can
1179 understand target reported file names that follow MS-DOS based file
1180 system semantics, such as file names that include drive letters and
1181 use the backslash character as directory separator. This makes it
1182 possible to transparently use the "set sysroot" and "set
1183 solib-search-path" on Unix hosts to point as host copies of the
1184 target's shared libraries. See the new command "set
1185 target-file-system-kind" described below, and the "Commands to
1186 specify files" section in the user manual for more information.
1187
6149aea9
PA
1188* New commands
1189
f1421989
HZ
1190eval template, expressions...
1191 Convert the values of one or more expressions under the control
1192 of the string template to a command line, and call it.
1193
ab38a727
PA
1194set target-file-system-kind unix|dos-based|auto
1195show target-file-system-kind
1196 Set or show the assumed file system kind for target reported file
1197 names.
1198
6149aea9
PA
1199save breakpoints <filename>
1200 Save all current breakpoint definitions to a file suitable for use
1201 in a later debugging session. To read the saved breakpoint
1202 definitions, use the `source' command.
1203
1204`save tracepoints' is a new alias for `save-tracepoints'. The latter
1205is now deprecated.
1206
0fb4aa4b
PA
1207info static-tracepoint-markers
1208 Display information about static tracepoint markers in the target.
1209
1210strace FN | FILE:LINE | *ADDR | -m MARKER_ID
1211 Define a static tracepoint by probing a marker at the given
1212 function, line, address, or marker ID.
1213
ca11e899
SS
1214set observer on|off
1215show observer
1216 Enable and disable observer mode.
1217
1218set may-write-registers on|off
1219set may-write-memory on|off
1220set may-insert-breakpoints on|off
1221set may-insert-tracepoints on|off
1222set may-insert-fast-tracepoints on|off
1223set may-interrupt on|off
1224 Set individual permissions for GDB effects on the target. Note that
1225 some of these settings can have undesirable or surprising
1226 consequences, particularly when changed in the middle of a session.
1227 For instance, disabling the writing of memory can prevent
1228 breakpoints from being inserted, cause single-stepping to fail, or
1229 even crash your program, if you disable after breakpoints have been
1230 inserted. However, GDB should not crash.
1231
1232set record memory-query on|off
1233show record memory-query
1234 Control whether to stop the inferior if memory changes caused
1235 by an instruction cannot be recorded.
1236
53a71c06
CR
1237* Changed commands
1238
1239disassemble
1240 The disassemble command now supports "start,+length" form of two arguments.
1241
f3e9a817
PM
1242* Python scripting
1243
9279c692
JB
1244** GDB now provides a new directory location, called the python directory,
1245 where Python scripts written for GDB can be installed. The location
1246 of that directory is <data-directory>/python, where <data-directory>
1247 is the GDB data directory. For more details, see section `Scripting
1248 GDB using Python' in the manual.
1249
adc36818 1250** The GDB Python API now has access to breakpoints, symbols, symbol
595939de
PM
1251 tables, program spaces, inferiors, threads and frame's code blocks.
1252 Additionally, GDB Parameters can now be created from the API, and
1253 manipulated via set/show in the CLI.
f870a310 1254
fa33c3cd 1255** New functions gdb.target_charset, gdb.target_wide_charset,
07ca107c
DE
1256 gdb.progspaces, gdb.current_progspace, and gdb.string_to_argv.
1257
1258** New exception gdb.GdbError.
fa33c3cd
DE
1259
1260** Pretty-printers are now also looked up in the current program space.
f3e9a817 1261
967cf477
DE
1262** Pretty-printers can now be individually enabled and disabled.
1263
8a1ea21f
DE
1264** GDB now looks for names of Python scripts to auto-load in a
1265 special section named `.debug_gdb_scripts', in addition to looking
1266 for a OBJFILE-gdb.py script when OBJFILE is read by the debugger.
1267
a7bdde9e
VP
1268* Tracepoint actions were unified with breakpoint commands. In particular,
1269there are no longer differences in "info break" output for breakpoints and
1270tracepoints and the "commands" command can be used for both tracepoints and
1271regular breakpoints.
1272
05071a4d
PA
1273* New targets
1274
1275ARM Symbian arm*-*-symbianelf*
1276
6aecb9c2
JB
1277* D language support.
1278 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the D programming
1279 language.
1280
431e49aa
TJB
1281* GDB now supports the extended ptrace interface for PowerPC which is
1282 available since Linux kernel version 2.6.34. This automatically enables
1283 any hardware breakpoints and additional hardware watchpoints available in
1284 the processor. The old ptrace interface exposes just one hardware
1285 watchpoint and no hardware breakpoints.
1286
1287* GDB is now able to use the Data Value Compare (DVC) register available on
1288 embedded PowerPC processors to implement in hardware simple watchpoint
1289 conditions of the form:
1290
1291 watch ADDRESS|VARIABLE if ADDRESS|VARIABLE == CONSTANT EXPRESSION
1292
1293 This works in native GDB running on Linux kernels with the extended ptrace
1294 interface mentioned above.
1295
bfbf3774 1296*** Changes in GDB 7.1
abc7453d 1297
4eef138c
TT
1298* C++ Improvements
1299
1300 ** Namespace Support
71dee663
SW
1301
1302 GDB now supports importing of namespaces in C++. This enables the
1303 user to inspect variables from imported namespaces. Support for
1304 namepace aliasing has also been added. So, if a namespace is
1305 aliased in the current scope (e.g. namepace C=A; ) the user can
1306 print variables using the alias (e.g. (gdb) print C::x).
1307
4eef138c
TT
1308 ** Bug Fixes
1309
1310 All known bugs relating to the printing of virtual base class were
1311 fixed. It is now possible to call overloaded static methods using a
1312 qualified name.
1313
1314 ** Cast Operators
1315
1316 The C++ cast operators static_cast<>, dynamic_cast<>, const_cast<>,
1317 and reinterpret_cast<> are now handled by the C++ expression parser.
1318
2d1c1221
ME
1319* New targets
1320
1321Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze-*-*
34207b9e 1322Renesas RX rx-*-elf
2d1c1221
ME
1323
1324* New Simulators
1325
1326Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze
34207b9e 1327Renesas RX rx
2d1c1221 1328
6c95b8df
PA
1329* Multi-program debugging.
1330
1331 GDB now has support for multi-program (a.k.a. multi-executable or
1332 multi-exec) debugging. This allows for debugging multiple inferiors
1333 simultaneously each running a different program under the same GDB
1334 session. See "Debugging Multiple Inferiors and Programs" in the
1335 manual for more information. This implied some user visible changes
1336 in the multi-inferior support. For example, "info inferiors" now
1337 lists inferiors that are not running yet or that have exited
1338 already. See also "New commands" and "New options" below.
1339
d5551862
SS
1340* New tracing features
1341
1342 GDB's tracepoint facility now includes several new features:
1343
1344 ** Trace state variables
f61e138d
SS
1345
1346 GDB tracepoints now include support for trace state variables, which
1347 are variables managed by the target agent during a tracing
1348 experiment. They are useful for tracepoints that trigger each
1349 other, so for instance one tracepoint can count hits in a variable,
1350 and then a second tracepoint has a condition that is true when the
1351 count reaches a particular value. Trace state variables share the
1352 $-syntax of GDB convenience variables, and can appear in both
1353 tracepoint actions and condition expressions. Use the "tvariable"
1354 command to create, and "info tvariables" to view; see "Trace State
1355 Variables" in the manual for more detail.
7a697b8d 1356
d5551862 1357 ** Fast tracepoints
7a697b8d
SS
1358
1359 GDB now includes an option for defining fast tracepoints, which
1360 targets may implement more efficiently, such as by installing a jump
1361 into the target agent rather than a trap instruction. The resulting
1362 speedup can be by two orders of magnitude or more, although the
1363 tradeoff is that some program locations on some target architectures
1364 might not allow fast tracepoint installation, for instance if the
1365 instruction to be replaced is shorter than the jump. To request a
1366 fast tracepoint, use the "ftrace" command, with syntax identical to
1367 the regular trace command.
1368
d5551862
SS
1369 ** Disconnected tracing
1370
1371 It is now possible to detach GDB from the target while it is running
1372 a trace experiment, then reconnect later to see how the experiment
1373 is going. In addition, a new variable disconnected-tracing lets you
1374 tell the target agent whether to continue running a trace if the
1375 connection is lost unexpectedly.
1376
00bf0b85
SS
1377 ** Trace files
1378
1379 GDB now has the ability to save the trace buffer into a file, and
1380 then use that file as a target, similarly to you can do with
1381 corefiles. You can select trace frames, print data that was
1382 collected in them, and use tstatus to display the state of the
1383 tracing run at the moment that it was saved. To create a trace
1384 file, use "tsave <filename>", and to use it, do "target tfile
1385 <name>".
4daf5ac0
SS
1386
1387 ** Circular trace buffer
1388
1389 You can ask the target agent to handle the trace buffer as a
1390 circular buffer, discarding the oldest trace frames to make room for
1391 newer ones, by setting circular-trace-buffer to on. This feature may
1392 not be available for all target agents.
1393
21a0512e
PP
1394* Changed commands
1395
1396disassemble
1397 The disassemble command, when invoked with two arguments, now requires
1398 the arguments to be comma-separated.
1399
0fe7935b
DJ
1400info variables
1401 The info variables command now displays variable definitions. Files
1402 which only declare a variable are not shown.
1403
fb2e7cb4
JB
1404source
1405 The source command is now capable of sourcing Python scripts.
1406 This feature is dependent on the debugger being build with Python
1407 support.
1408
1409 Related to this enhancement is also the introduction of a new command
1410 "set script-extension" (see below).
1411
6c95b8df
PA
1412* New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
1413
399cd161
MS
1414record save [<FILENAME>]
1415 Save a file (in core file format) containing the process record
1416 execution log for replay debugging at a later time.
1417
1418record restore <FILENAME>
1419 Restore the process record execution log that was saved at an
1420 earlier time, for replay debugging.
1421
6c95b8df
PA
1422add-inferior [-copies <N>] [-exec <FILENAME>]
1423 Add a new inferior.
1424
1425clone-inferior [-copies <N>] [ID]
1426 Make a new inferior ready to execute the same program another
1427 inferior has loaded.
1428
1429remove-inferior ID
1430 Remove an inferior.
1431
1432maint info program-spaces
1433 List the program spaces loaded into GDB.
1434
9a7071a8
JB
1435set remote interrupt-sequence [Ctrl-C | BREAK | BREAK-g]
1436show remote interrupt-sequence
1437 Allow the user to select one of ^C, a BREAK signal or BREAK-g
1438 as the sequence to the remote target in order to interrupt the execution.
1439 Ctrl-C is a default. Some system prefers BREAK which is high level of
1440 serial line for some certain time. Linux kernel prefers BREAK-g, a.k.a
1441 Magic SysRq g. It is BREAK signal and character 'g'.
1442
1443set remote interrupt-on-connect [on | off]
1444show remote interrupt-on-connect
1445 When interrupt-on-connect is ON, gdb sends interrupt-sequence to
1446 remote target when gdb connects to it. This is needed when you debug
1447 Linux kernel.
1448
1449set remotebreak [on | off]
1450show remotebreak
1451Deprecated. Use "set/show remote interrupt-sequence" instead.
1452
f61e138d
SS
1453tvariable $NAME [ = EXP ]
1454 Create or modify a trace state variable.
1455
1456info tvariables
1457 List trace state variables and their values.
1458
1459delete tvariable $NAME ...
1460 Delete one or more trace state variables.
1461
6da95a67
SS
1462teval EXPR, ...
1463 Evaluate the given expressions without collecting anything into the
1464 trace buffer. (Valid in tracepoint actions only.)
1465
7a697b8d
SS
1466ftrace FN / FILE:LINE / *ADDR
1467 Define a fast tracepoint at the given function, line, or address.
1468
b0f02ee9
JK
1469* New expression syntax
1470
1471 GDB now parses the 0b prefix of binary numbers the same way as GCC does.
1472 GDB now parses 0b101010 identically with 42.
1473
6c95b8df
PA
1474* New options
1475
1476set follow-exec-mode new|same
1477show follow-exec-mode
1478 Control whether GDB reuses the same inferior across an exec call or
1479 creates a new one. This is useful to be able to restart the old
1480 executable after the inferior having done an exec call.
1481
236f1d4d
SS
1482set default-collect EXPR, ...
1483show default-collect
1484 Define a list of expressions to be collected at each tracepoint.
1485 This is a useful way to ensure essential items are not overlooked,
1486 such as registers or a critical global variable.
1487
d5551862
SS
1488set disconnected-tracing
1489show disconnected-tracing
1490 If set to 1, the target is instructed to continue tracing if it
1491 loses its connection to GDB. If 0, the target is to stop tracing
1492 upon disconnection.
1493
4daf5ac0
SS
1494set circular-trace-buffer
1495show circular-trace-buffer
1496 If set to on, the target is instructed to use a circular trace buffer
1497 and discard the oldest trace frames instead of stopping the trace due
1498 to a full trace buffer. If set to off, the trace stops when the buffer
1499 fills up. Some targets may not support this.
1500
fb2e7cb4
JB
1501set script-extension off|soft|strict
1502show script-extension
1503 If set to "off", the debugger does not perform any script language
1504 recognition, and all sourced files are assumed to be GDB scripts.
1505 If set to "soft" (the default), files are sourced according to
1506 filename extension, falling back to GDB scripts if the first
1507 evaluation failed.
1508 If set to "strict", files are sourced according to filename extension.
1509
2b71fc8e
JB
1510set ada trust-PAD-over-XVS on|off
1511show ada trust-PAD-over-XVS
1512 If off, activate a workaround against a bug in the debugging information
1513 generated by the compiler for PAD types (see gcc/exp_dbug.ads in
1514 the GCC sources for more information about the GNAT encoding and
1515 PAD types in particular). It is always safe to set this option to
1516 off, but this introduces a slight performance penalty. The default
1517 is on.
1518
de2e5182
TT
1519* Python API Improvements
1520
1521 ** GDB provides the new class gdb.LazyString. This is useful in
1522 some pretty-printing cases. The new method gdb.Value.lazy_string
1523 provides a simple way to create objects of this type.
1524
1525 ** The fields returned by gdb.Type.fields now have an
1526 `is_base_class' attribute.
1527
1528 ** The new method gdb.Type.range returns the range of an array type.
1529
1530 ** The new method gdb.parse_and_eval can be used to parse and
1531 evaluate an expression.
1532
f61e138d
SS
1533* New remote packets
1534
1535QTDV
1536 Define a trace state variable.
1537
1538qTV
1539 Get the current value of a trace state variable.
1540
d5551862
SS
1541QTDisconnected
1542 Set desired tracing behavior upon disconnection.
1543
4daf5ac0
SS
1544QTBuffer:circular
1545 Set the trace buffer to be linear or circular.
1546
d5551862
SS
1547qTfP, qTsP
1548 Get data about the tracepoints currently in use.
1549
2d483d34
MS
1550* Bug fixes
1551
1552Process record now works correctly with hardware watchpoints.
1553
6e0e5977
JB
1554Multiple bug fixes have been made to the mips-irix port, making it
1555much more reliable. In particular:
1556 - Debugging threaded applications is now possible again. Previously,
1557 GDB would hang while starting the program, or while waiting for
1558 the program to stop at a breakpoint.
1559 - Attaching to a running process no longer hangs.
1560 - An error occurring while loading a core file has been fixed.
1561 - Changing the value of the PC register now works again. This fixes
1562 problems observed when using the "jump" command, or when calling
1563 a function from GDB, or even when assigning a new value to $pc.
1564 - With the "finish" and "return" commands, the return value for functions
1565 returning a small array is now correctly printed.
1566 - It is now possible to break on shared library code which gets executed
1567 during a shared library init phase (code executed while executing
1568 their .init section). Previously, the breakpoint would have no effect.
1569 - GDB is now able to backtrace through the signal handler for
1570 non-threaded programs.
1571
93c26624
JK
1572PIE (Position Independent Executable) programs debugging is now supported.
1573This includes debugging execution of PIC (Position Independent Code) shared
1574libraries although for that, it should be possible to run such libraries as an
1575executable program.
1576
abc7453d 1577*** Changes in GDB 7.0
75feb17d 1578
4efc6507
DE
1579* GDB now has an interface for JIT compilation. Applications that
1580dynamically generate code can create symbol files in memory and register
1581them with GDB. For users, the feature should work transparently, and
1582for JIT developers, the interface is documented in the GDB manual in the
1583"JIT Compilation Interface" chapter.
1584
782b2b07
SS
1585* Tracepoints may now be conditional. The syntax is as for
1586breakpoints; either an "if" clause appended to the "trace" command,
1587or the "condition" command is available. GDB sends the condition to
1588the target for evaluation using the same bytecode format as is used
1589for tracepoint actions.
1590
53a71c06
CR
1591* The disassemble command now supports: an optional /r modifier, print the
1592raw instructions in hex as well as in symbolic form, and an optional /m
1593modifier to print mixed source+assembly.
e6158f16 1594
e7a8dbfb
HZ
1595* Process record and replay
1596
1597 In a architecture environment that supports ``process record and
1598 replay'', ``process record and replay'' target can record a log of
1599 the process execution, and replay it with both forward and reverse
1600 execute commands.
1601
64644d9b
MS
1602* Reverse debugging: GDB now has new commands reverse-continue, reverse-
1603step, reverse-next, reverse-finish, reverse-stepi, reverse-nexti, and
1604set execution-direction {forward|reverse}, for targets that support
1605reverse execution.
1606
b9412953
DD
1607* GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on MIPS/Linux systems. This
1608feature is available with a native GDB running on kernel version
16092.6.28 or later.
1610
6c7a06a3
TT
1611* GDB now has support for multi-byte and wide character sets on the
1612target. Strings whose character type is wchar_t, char16_t, or
1613char32_t are now correctly printed. GDB supports wide- and unicode-
1614literals in C, that is, L'x', L"string", u'x', u"string", U'x', and
1615U"string" syntax. And, GDB allows the "%ls" and "%lc" formats in
1616`printf'. This feature requires iconv to work properly; if your
1617system does not have a working iconv, GDB can use GNU libiconv. See
1618the installation instructions for more information.
1619
f1838a98
UW
1620* GDB now supports automatic retrieval of shared library files from
1621remote targets. To use this feature, specify a system root that begins
1622with the `remote:' prefix, either via the `set sysroot' command or via
1623the `--with-sysroot' configure-time option.
1624
55333a84
DE
1625* "info sharedlibrary" now takes an optional regex of libraries to show,
1626and it now reports if a shared library has no debugging information.
1627
7f6a6314
PM
1628* Commands `set debug-file-directory', `set solib-search-path' and `set args'
1629now complete on file names.
1630
65d12d83
TT
1631* When completing in expressions, gdb will attempt to limit
1632completions to allowable structure or union fields, where appropriate.
1633For instance, consider:
1634
1635 # struct example { int f1; double f2; };
1636 # struct example variable;
1637 (gdb) p variable.
1638
1639If the user types TAB at the end of this command line, the available
1640completions will be "f1" and "f2".
1641
edb3359d
DJ
1642* Inlined functions are now supported. They show up in backtraces, and
1643the "step", "next", and "finish" commands handle them automatically.
1644
2fae03e8
TT
1645* GDB now supports the token-splicing (##) and stringification (#)
1646operators when expanding macros. It also supports variable-arity
1647macros.
1648
47a3467a 1649* GDB now supports inspecting extra signal information, exported by
58d6951d
DJ
1650the new $_siginfo convenience variable. The feature is currently
1651implemented on linux ARM, i386 and amd64.
1652
1653* GDB can now display the VFP floating point registers and NEON vector
1654registers on ARM targets. Both ARM GNU/Linux native GDB and gdbserver
1655can provide these registers (requires Linux 2.6.30 or later). Remote
1656and simulator targets may also provide them.
47a3467a 1657
08388c79
DE
1658* New remote packets
1659
1660qSearch:memory:
1661 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
1662
a6f3e723
SL
1663QStartNoAckMode
1664 Turn off `+'/`-' protocol acknowledgments to permit more efficient
1665 operation over reliable transport links. Use of this packet is
1666 controlled by the `set remote noack-packet' command.
1667
d7713ae0
EZ
1668vKill
1669 Kill the process with the specified process ID. Use this in preference
1670 to `k' when multiprocess protocol extensions are supported.
1671
07e059b5
VP
1672qXfer:osdata:read
1673 Obtains additional operating system information
1674
47a3467a
PA
1675qXfer:siginfo:read
1676qXfer:siginfo:write
1677 Read or write additional signal information.
1678
060871df
PA
1679* Removed remote protocol undocumented extension
1680
1681 An undocumented extension to the remote protocol's `S' stop reply
1682 packet that permited the stub to pass a process id was removed.
1683 Remote servers should use the `T' stop reply packet instead.
1684
c055b101 1685* GDB now supports multiple function calling conventions according to the
a0ef4274 1686DWARF-2 DW_AT_calling_convention function attribute.
c055b101
CV
1687
1688* The SH target utilizes the aforementioned change to distinguish between gcc
a0ef4274
DJ
1689and Renesas calling convention. It also adds the new CLI commands
1690`set/show sh calling-convention'.
c055b101 1691
31fffb02
CS
1692* GDB can now read compressed debug sections, as produced by GNU gold
1693with the --compress-debug-sections=zlib flag.
1694
88d8a8e0
JB
1695* 64-bit core files are now supported on AIX.
1696
7f99b190
JB
1697* Thread switching is now supported on Tru64.
1698
ccd213ac
DJ
1699* Watchpoints can now be set on unreadable memory locations, e.g. addresses
1700which will be allocated using malloc later in program execution.
1701
1fddbabb 1702* The qXfer:libraries:read remote procotol packet now allows passing a
31fffb02 1703list of section offsets.
1fddbabb 1704
a0ef4274
DJ
1705* On GNU/Linux, GDB can now attach to stopped processes. Several race
1706conditions handling signals delivered during attach or thread creation
1707have also been fixed.
1708
bfb8797a 1709* GDB now supports the use of DWARF boolean types for Ada's type Boolean.
158c7665
PH
1710From the user's standpoint, all unqualified instances of True and False
1711are treated as the standard definitions, regardless of context.
bfb8797a 1712
71c25dea
TT
1713* GDB now parses C++ symbol and type names more flexibly. For
1714example, given:
1715
1716 template<typename T> class C { };
1717 C<char const *> c;
1718
1719GDB will now correctly handle all of:
1720
1721 ptype C<char const *>
1722 ptype C<char const*>
1723 ptype C<const char *>
1724 ptype C<const char*>
1725
ccd213ac
DJ
1726* New features in the GDB remote stub, gdbserver
1727
1728 - The "--wrapper" command-line argument tells gdbserver to use a
1729 wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
1730
7ae0e2a2
UW
1731 - On PowerPC and S/390 targets, it is now possible to use a single
1732 gdbserver executable to debug both 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
1733 (This requires gdbserver itself to be built as a 64-bit executable.)
1734
a6f3e723
SL
1735 - gdbserver uses the new noack protocol mode for TCP connections to
1736 reduce communications latency, if also supported and enabled in GDB.
1737
da8bd9a3
DJ
1738 - Support for the sparc64-linux-gnu target is now included in
1739 gdbserver.
1740
d70e31dd
DE
1741 - The amd64-linux build of gdbserver now supports debugging both
1742 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
1743
1744 - The i386-linux, amd64-linux, and i386-win32 builds of gdbserver
1745 now support hardware watchpoints, and will use them automatically
1746 as appropriate.
1747
d57a3c85
TJB
1748* Python scripting
1749
1750 GDB now has support for scripting using Python. Whether this is
1751 available is determined at configure time.
1752
d8906c6f
TJB
1753 New GDB commands can now be written in Python.
1754
aadc346a
JB
1755* Ada tasking support
1756
1757 Ada tasks can now be inspected in GDB. The following commands have
1758 been introduced:
1759
1760 info tasks
1761 Print the list of Ada tasks.
1762 info task N
1763 Print detailed information about task number N.
1764 task
1765 Print the task number of the current task.
1766 task N
1767 Switch the context of debugging to task number N.
1768
adb483fe
DJ
1769* Support for user-defined prefixed commands. The "define" command can
1770add new commands to existing prefixes, e.g. "target".
1771
2277426b
PA
1772* Multi-inferior, multi-process debugging.
1773
1774 GDB now has generalized support for multi-inferior debugging. See
1775 "Debugging Multiple Inferiors" in the manual for more information.
1776 Although availability still depends on target support, the command
1777 set is more uniform now. The GNU/Linux specific multi-forks support
1778 has been migrated to this new framework. This implied some user
1779 visible changes; see "New commands" and also "Removed commands"
1780 below.
1781
08d16641
PA
1782* Target descriptions can now describe the target OS ABI. See the
1783"Target Description Format" section in the user manual for more
1784information.
1785
e35359c5
UW
1786* Target descriptions can now describe "compatible" architectures
1787to indicate that the target can execute applications for a different
1788architecture in addition to those for the main target architecture.
1789See the "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for
1790more information.
1791
85e747d2
UW
1792* Multi-architecture debugging.
1793
1794 GDB now includes general supports for debugging applications on
1795 hybrid systems that use more than one single processor architecture
1796 at the same time. Each such hybrid architecture still requires
1797 specific support to be added. The only hybrid architecture supported
1798 in this version of GDB is the Cell Broadband Engine.
1799
1800* GDB now supports integrated debugging of Cell/B.E. applications that
1801use both the PPU and SPU architectures. To enable support for hybrid
1802Cell/B.E. debugging, you need to configure GDB to support both the
1803powerpc-linux or powerpc64-linux and the spu-elf targets, using the
1804--enable-targets configure option.
1805
11ade57a
PA
1806* Non-stop mode debugging.
1807
1808 For some targets, GDB now supports an optional mode of operation in
1809 which you can examine stopped threads while other threads continue
1810 to execute freely. This is referred to as non-stop mode, with the
1811 old mode referred to as all-stop mode. See the "Non-Stop Mode"
1812 section in the user manual for more information.
1813
1814 To be able to support remote non-stop debugging, a remote stub needs
1815 to implement the non-stop mode remote protocol extensions, as
1816 described in the "Remote Non-Stop" section of the user manual. The
1817 GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been adjusted to support these
1818 extensions on linux targets.
1819
d7713ae0 1820* New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
75feb17d 1821
a96d9b2e
SDJ
1822catch syscall [NAME(S) | NUMBER(S)]
1823 Catch system calls. Arguments, which should be names of system
1824 calls or their numbers, mean catch only those syscalls. Without
1825 arguments, every syscall will be caught. When the inferior issues
1826 any of the specified syscalls, GDB will stop and announce the system
1827 call, both when it is called and when its call returns. This
1828 feature is currently available with a native GDB running on the
1829 Linux Kernel, under the following architectures: x86, x86_64,
1830 PowerPC and PowerPC64.
1831
08388c79
DE
1832find [/size-char] [/max-count] start-address, end-address|+search-space-size,
1833 val1 [, val2, ...]
1834 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
1835
d57a3c85
TJB
1836maint set python print-stack
1837maint show python print-stack
1838 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Python script.
1839
1840python [CODE]
1841 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Python interpreter.
1842
d7713ae0
EZ
1843macro define
1844macro list
1845macro undef
1846 These allow macros to be defined, undefined, and listed
1847 interactively.
1848
1849info os processes
1850 Show operating system information about processes.
1851
2277426b
PA
1852info inferiors
1853 List the inferiors currently under GDB's control.
1854
1855inferior NUM
1856 Switch focus to inferior number NUM.
1857
1858detach inferior NUM
1859 Detach from inferior number NUM.
1860
1861kill inferior NUM
1862 Kill inferior number NUM.
1863
d7713ae0
EZ
1864* New options
1865
3285f3fe
UW
1866set spu stop-on-load
1867show spu stop-on-load
1868 Control whether to stop for new SPE threads during Cell/B.E. debugging.
1869
ff1a52c6
UW
1870set spu auto-flush-cache
1871show spu auto-flush-cache
1872 Control whether to automatically flush the software-managed cache
1873 during Cell/B.E. debugging.
1874
d7713ae0
EZ
1875set sh calling-convention
1876show sh calling-convention
1877 Control the calling convention used when calling SH target functions.
1878
e0a3ce09 1879set debug timestamp
75feb17d 1880show debug timestamp
d7713ae0
EZ
1881 Control display of timestamps with GDB debugging output.
1882
1883set disassemble-next-line
1884show disassemble-next-line
1885 Control display of disassembled source lines or instructions when
1886 the debuggee stops.
1887
1888set remote noack-packet
1889show remote noack-packet
1890 Set/show the use of remote protocol QStartNoAckMode packet. See above
1891 under "New remote packets."
1892
1893set remote query-attached-packet
1894show remote query-attached-packet
1895 Control use of remote protocol `qAttached' (query-attached) packet.
1896
1897set remote read-siginfo-object
1898show remote read-siginfo-object
1899 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:read' (read-siginfo-object)
1900 packet.
1901
1902set remote write-siginfo-object
1903show remote write-siginfo-object
1904 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:write' (write-siginfo-object)
1905 packet.
1906
40ab02ce
MS
1907set remote reverse-continue
1908show remote reverse-continue
1909 Control use of remote protocol 'bc' (reverse-continue) packet.
1910
1911set remote reverse-step
1912show remote reverse-step
1913 Control use of remote protocol 'bs' (reverse-step) packet.
1914
d7713ae0
EZ
1915set displaced-stepping
1916show displaced-stepping
1917 Control displaced stepping mode. Displaced stepping is a way to
1918 single-step over breakpoints without removing them from the debuggee.
1919 Also known as "out-of-line single-stepping".
1920
1921set debug displaced
1922show debug displaced
1923 Control display of debugging info for displaced stepping.
1924
1925maint set internal-error
1926maint show internal-error
1927 Control what GDB does when an internal error is detected.
1928
1929maint set internal-warning
1930maint show internal-warning
1931 Control what GDB does when an internal warning is detected.
75feb17d 1932
ccd213ac
DJ
1933set exec-wrapper
1934show exec-wrapper
1935unset exec-wrapper
1936 Use a wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
fa4727a6 1937
aad4b048
JB
1938set multiple-symbols (all|ask|cancel)
1939show multiple-symbols
1940 The value of this variable can be changed to adjust the debugger behavior
1941 when an expression or a breakpoint location contains an ambiguous symbol
1942 name (an overloaded function name, for instance).
1943
74960c60
VP
1944set breakpoint always-inserted
1945show breakpoint always-inserted
1946 Keep breakpoints always inserted in the target, as opposed to inserting
1947 them when resuming the target, and removing them when the target stops.
1948 This option can improve debugger performance on slow remote targets.
1949
0428b8f5
DJ
1950set arm fallback-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
1951show arm fallback-mode
1952set arm force-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
1953show arm force-mode
1954 These commands control how ARM GDB determines whether instructions
1955 are ARM or Thumb. The default for both settings is auto, which uses
1956 the current CPSR value for instructions without symbols; previous
1957 versions of GDB behaved as if "set arm fallback-mode arm".
1958
10568435
JK
1959set disable-randomization
1960show disable-randomization
1961 Standalone programs run with the virtual address space randomization enabled
1962 by default on some platforms. This option keeps the addresses stable across
1963 multiple debugging sessions.
1964
d7713ae0
EZ
1965set non-stop
1966show non-stop
1967 Control whether other threads are stopped or not when some thread hits
1968 a breakpoint.
1969
b3eb342c 1970set target-async
d7713ae0 1971show target-async
b3eb342c
VP
1972 Requests that asynchronous execution is enabled in the target, if available.
1973 In this case, it's possible to resume target in the background, and interact
1974 with GDB while the target is running. "show target-async" displays the
1975 current state of asynchronous execution of the target.
1976
6c7a06a3
TT
1977set target-wide-charset
1978show target-wide-charset
1979 The target-wide-charset is the name of the character set that GDB
1980 uses when printing characters whose type is wchar_t.
1981
84603566
SL
1982set tcp auto-retry (on|off)
1983show tcp auto-retry
1984set tcp connect-timeout
1985show tcp connect-timeout
1986 These commands allow GDB to retry failed TCP connections to a remote stub
1987 with a specified timeout period; this is useful if the stub is launched
1988 in parallel with GDB but may not be ready to accept connections immediately.
1989
17a37d48
PP
1990set libthread-db-search-path
1991show libthread-db-search-path
1992 Control list of directories which GDB will search for appropriate
1993 libthread_db.
1994
d4db2f36
PA
1995set schedule-multiple (on|off)
1996show schedule-multiple
1997 Allow GDB to resume all threads of all processes or only threads of
1998 the current process.
1999
4e5d721f
DE
2000set stack-cache
2001show stack-cache
2002 Use more aggressive caching for accesses to the stack. This improves
2003 performance of remote debugging (particularly backtraces) without
2004 affecting correctness.
2005
910c5da8
JB
2006set interactive-mode (on|off|auto)
2007show interactive-mode
2008 Control whether GDB runs in interactive mode (on) or not (off).
2009 When in interactive mode, GDB waits for the user to answer all
2010 queries. Otherwise, GDB does not wait and assumes the default
2011 answer. When set to auto (the default), GDB determines which
2012 mode to use based on the stdin settings.
2013
2277426b
PA
2014* Removed commands
2015
2016info forks
2017 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `info
2018 inferiors' command. To list checkpoints, you can still use the
2019 `info checkpoints' command, which was an alias for the `info forks'
2020 command.
2021
2022fork NUM
2023 Replaced by the new `inferior' command. To switch between
2024 checkpoints, you can still use the `restart' command, which was an
2025 alias for the `fork' command.
2026
2027process PID
2028 This is removed, since some targets don't have a notion of
2029 processes. To switch between processes, you can still use the
2030 `inferior' command using GDB's own inferior number.
2031
2032delete fork NUM
2033 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `kill
2034 inferior' command. To delete a checkpoint, you can still use the
2035 `delete checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `delete
2036 fork' command.
2037
2038detach fork NUM
2039 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `detach
2040 inferior' command. To detach a checkpoint, you can still use the
2041 `detach checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `detach
2042 fork' command.
2043
a80b95ba
TG
2044* New native configurations
2045
2046x86/x86_64 Darwin i[34567]86-*-darwin*
2047
b8bfd3ed
JB
2048x86_64 MinGW x86_64-*-mingw*
2049
75a2d5e7
TT
2050* New targets
2051
c28c63d8 2052Lattice Mico32 lm32-*
75a2d5e7 2053x86 DICOS i[34567]86-*-dicos*
4c1d2973 2054x86_64 DICOS x86_64-*-dicos*
5f814c3b 2055S+core 3 score-*-*
75a2d5e7 2056
6de3146c
PA
2057* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports x86 Windows CE
2058 (mingw32ce) debugging.
2059
d5cbbe6e
JB
2060* Removed commands
2061
2062catch load
2063catch unload
2064 These commands were actually not implemented on any target.
2065
75feb17d 2066*** Changes in GDB 6.8
f9ed52be 2067
af5ca30d
NH
2068* New native configurations
2069
2070NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*netbsd*
94a0e877 2071Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
af5ca30d
NH
2072
2073* New targets
2074
2075NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*-netbsd*
94a0e877 2076Xtensa GNU/Lunux xtensa*-*-linux*
af5ca30d 2077
7a404eba
PA
2078* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
2079
2080 When the '-p NUMBER' or '--pid NUMBER' options are used, and
2081 attaching to process NUMBER fails, GDB no longer attempts to open a
2082 core file named NUMBER. Attaching to a program using the -c option
2083 is no longer supported. Instead, use the '-p' or '--pid' options.
2084
430ebac9
PA
2085* GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
2086(mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
2087
fe6fbf8b 2088* Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
8d5f9c6f 2089is resolved.
fe6fbf8b
VP
2090
2091* GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
8d5f9c6f
DJ
2092including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
2093and in inlined functions.
fe6fbf8b 2094
10665d76
JB
2095* GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
2096accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
2097more than one contiguous range of addresses.
2098
7cc46491
DJ
2099* Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
2100
d71340b8
DJ
2101* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
2102registers on PowerPC targets.
2103
523c4513
DJ
2104* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
2105targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
2106
a6b151f1
DJ
2107* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
2108commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
2109
2d717e4f
DJ
2110* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports run and attach in
2111extended-remote mode.
2112
24a836bd 2113* hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
d001be7a
DJ
2114The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
2115error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
2116The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
24a836bd 2117
d0c678e6
UW
2118* GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
2119building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
2120target architectures.
2121
d64a946d
TJB
2122* GDB now supports debugging C and C++ programs which use the
2123Decimal Floating Point extension. In addition, the PowerPC target
2124now has a set of pseudo-registers to inspect decimal float values
2125stored in two consecutive float registers.
2126
ee163bf5
VP
2127* The -break-insert MI command can optionally create pending
2128breakpoints now.
2129
b93b6ca7 2130* Improved support for debugging Ada
d001be7a
DJ
2131Many improvements to the Ada language support have been made. These
2132include:
b93b6ca7
JB
2133 - Better support for Ada2005 interface types
2134 - Improved handling of arrays and slices in general
2135 - Better support for Taft-amendment types
2136 - The '{type} ADDRESS' expression is now allowed on the left hand-side
2137 of an assignment
2138 - Improved command completion in Ada
2139 - Several bug fixes
2140
d001be7a
DJ
2141* GDB on GNU/Linux and HP/UX can now debug through "exec" of a new
2142process.
2143
a6b151f1
DJ
2144* New commands
2145
6d53d0af
JB
2146set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
2147show print frame-arguments
2148 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
2149 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
2150
a6b151f1
DJ
2151remote put
2152remote get
2153remote delete
2154 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
2155
2156* New MI commands
2157
2158-target-file-put
2159-target-file-get
2160-target-file-delete
2161 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
2162
2163* New remote packets
2164
2165vFile:open:
2166vFile:close:
2167vFile:pread:
2168vFile:pwrite:
2169vFile:unlink:
2170 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
d0c678e6 2171
2d717e4f
DJ
2172vAttach
2173 Attach to an existing process on the remote system, in extended-remote
2174 mode.
2175
2176vRun
2177 Run a new process on the remote system, in extended-remote mode.
2178
8d5f9c6f 2179*** Changes in GDB 6.7
6dd09645 2180
19d378fc
MS
2181* Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
2182bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
2183Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
2184
3a40aaa0
UW
2185* When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
2186symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
2187-Bsymbolic linker option.
2188
a6ec25f2
BW
2189* When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
2190recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
2191is not supported.
2192
6dd09645
JB
2193* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
2194frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
2195
c9bb8148
DJ
2196* GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
219732-bit or 64-bit register values.
2198
0d5de010
DJ
2199* Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
2200
23181151
DJ
2201* GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
2202target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
2203a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
2204
ea37ba09
DJ
2205* Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
2206automatically displayed as character or string data.
2207
2208* The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
2209arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
2210as strings.
e1f48ead 2211
123dc839
DJ
2212* Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
2213for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
8d5f9c6f 2214only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
123dc839 2215
05a4558a
DJ
2216* GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
2217iWMMXt coprocessor.
fb1e4ffc 2218
7c963485
PA
2219* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
2220ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
2221has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
2222
b18be20d
DJ
2223* GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
2224
0ca420ce
UW
2225* GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
2226
31d99776
DJ
2227* The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
2228layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
2229segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
2230
a4642986
MR
2231* The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
2232immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
2233
cfa9d6d9
DJ
2234* The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
2235"library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
2236packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
2237where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
2238Windows and SymbianOS).
255e7678
DJ
2239
2240* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
2241(DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
f5db8714
JK
2242
2243* GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
2244according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
cfa9d6d9 2245
c9bb8148
DJ
2246* New commands
2247
23776285
MR
2248set remoteflow
2249show remoteflow
2250 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
2251 when debugging using remote targets.
2252
c9bb8148
DJ
2253set mem inaccessible-by-default
2254show mem inaccessible-by-default
2255 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
2256 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
2257 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
2258 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
2259 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
2260
2261set breakpoint auto-hw
2262show breakpoint auto-hw
2263 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
2264 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
2265 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
2266 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
2267 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
2268 including "next" and "finish".
2269
0e420bd8
JB
2270catch exception
2271catch exception unhandled
2272 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
2273
2274catch assert
2275 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
2276
f822c95b
DJ
2277set sysroot
2278show sysroot
2279 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
2280 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
2281 an alias to "set sysroot".
2282
83cc5c53
UW
2283info spu
2284 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
2285 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
2286 architecture.
2287
bd372731
MK
2288* New native configurations
2289
2290OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
2291
23181151
DJ
2292set tdesc filename
2293unset tdesc filename
2294show tdesc filename
2295 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
2296 not query the target for its built-in description.
2297
c9bb8148
DJ
2298* New targets
2299
54fe9172 2300OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
c9bb8148 2301MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
c077150c 2302Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
c9bb8148 2303
6dd09645
JB
2304* New remote packets
2305
2306QPassSignals:
2307 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
2308 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
2309
23181151
DJ
2310qXfer:features:read:
2311 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
2312 features.
6dd09645 2313
83cc5c53
UW
2314qXfer:spu:read:
2315qXfer:spu:write:
2316 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
2317 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
2318
cfa9d6d9
DJ
2319qXfer:libraries:read:
2320 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
2321 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
2322 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
2323 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
2324
483367ee
DJ
2325* Removed targets
2326
2327Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
2328
d08950c4
UW
2329alpha*-*-osf1*
2330alpha*-*-osf2*
7ce59000 2331d10v-*-*
483367ee
DJ
2332hppa*-*-hiux*
2333i[34567]86-ncr-*
2334i[34567]86-*-dgux*
2335i[34567]86-*-lynxos*
2336i[34567]86-*-netware*
2337i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
2338i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
2339i[34567]86-*-sco*
2340i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
2341i[34567]86-*-sysv4*
2342i[34567]86-*-sysv5*
2343i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
2344i[34567]86-*-unixware*
2345i[34567]86-*-sysv*
2346i[34567]86-*-isc*
2347m68*-cisco*-*
2348m68*-tandem-*
ad527d2e 2349mips*-*-pe
483367ee 2350rs6000-*-lynxos*
ad527d2e 2351sh*-*-pe
483367ee 2352
7ce59000
DJ
2353* Other removed features
2354
2355target abug
2356target cpu32bug
2357target est
2358target rom68k
2359
2360 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
2361
ea35711c
DJ
2362target hms
2363target e7000
2364target sh3
2365target sh3e
2366
2367 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
2368 H8/300.
2369
2370target ocd
2371
2372 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
2373 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
2374 interfaces.
2375
7ce59000
DJ
2376DWARF 1 support
2377
2378 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
2379 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
2380
54d61198
DJ
2381Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
2382
2383 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
2384 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
2385 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
2386 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
2387
ea35711c
DJ
2388MIPS ".pdr" sections
2389
2390 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
2391 in debugging information.
2392
2393Scheme support
2394
2395 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
2396 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
2397
1a69e1e4
DJ
2398set mips stack-arg-size
2399set mips saved-gpreg-size
2400
2401 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
2402
6dd09645 2403*** Changes in GDB 6.6
e374b601 2404
ca3bf3bd
DJ
2405* New targets
2406
2407Xtensa xtensa-elf
9c309e77 2408Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
ca3bf3bd 2409
6aec2e11
DJ
2410* GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
2411(mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
2412running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
2413
2414* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
2415Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
2416supported.
2417
17218d91
DJ
2418* The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
2419broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
2420
9ebce043
DJ
2421* The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
2422stub provides the required support.
2423
7d3d3ece
DJ
2424* Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
2425longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
2426
4f8253f3
JB
2427* New commands
2428
2429set substitute-path
2430unset substitute-path
2431show substitute-path
2432 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
2433 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
2434 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
2435 between compilation and debugging.
2436
9fa66fd7
AS
2437set trace-commands
2438show trace-commands
2439 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
2440 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
2441 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
2442
1f5befc1
DJ
2443* REMOVED features
2444
2445The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
2446
2ec3381a
DJ
2447Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
2448an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
2449
3d00d119
DJ
2450The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
2451
be2a5f71
DJ
2452* New remote packets
2453
2454qSupported:
2455 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
2456 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
2457 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
2458 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
2459 target.
2460
0876f84a
DJ
2461qXfer:auxv:read:
2462 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
2463 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
2464
9ebce043
DJ
2465qXfer:memory-map:read:
2466 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
2467 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
2468
2469vFlashErase:
2470vFlashWrite:
2471vFlashDone:
2472 Erase and program a flash memory device.
2473
0876f84a
DJ
2474* Removed remote packets
2475
2476qPart:auxv:read:
2477 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
2478 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
2479
e374b601 2480*** Changes in GDB 6.5
53e5f3cf 2481
96309189
MS
2482* New targets
2483
2484Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
2485
2486Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
2487
53e5f3cf
AS
2488* New commands
2489
2490init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
2491 only if it doesn't already have a value.
2492
ac264b3b
MS
2493The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
2494
2495checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
2496
2497restart <n> Return the program state to a
2498 previously saved state.
2499
2500info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
2501
2502delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
2503
2504set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
2505 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
2506
2507info forks List forks of the user program that
2508 are available to be debugged.
2509
2510fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
2511 forks of the user program that are
2512 available to be debugged.
2513
2514delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
2515 that are available to be debugged (and
2516 kill the forked process).
2517
2518detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
2519 that are available to be debugged (and
2520 allow the process to continue).
2521
3950dc3f
NS
2522* New architecture
2523
2524Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
2525
0ea3f30e
DJ
2526* Improved Windows host support
2527
2528GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
2529native console support, and remote communications using either
2530network sockets or serial ports.
2531
f79daebb
GM
2532* Improved Modula-2 language support
2533
2534GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
2535basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
2536pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
2537printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
2538written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
2539GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
2540
acab6ab2
MM
2541* REMOVED features
2542
2543The ARM rdi-share module.
2544
f4267320
DJ
2545The Netware NLM debug server.
2546
53e5f3cf 2547*** Changes in GDB 6.4
156a53ca 2548
e0ecbda1
MK
2549* New native configurations
2550
02a677ac 2551OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
e0ecbda1
MK
2552OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
2553
d64a6579
KB
2554* New targets
2555
2556Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
2557
b33a6190
AS
2558* New command line options
2559
2560--batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
2561--return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
2562 the child (debugged) program exited with.
2563--eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
2564 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
2565 specified multiple times and in conjunction
2566 with the --command (-x) option.
2567
11dced61
AC
2568* Deprecated commands removed
2569
2570The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
2571removed:
2572
2573 Command Replacement
2574 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
2575 othernames set arm disassembler
2576 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
2577 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
2578 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
2579 regs info registers
2580
6fe85783
MK
2581* New BSD user-level threads support
2582
2583It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
2584library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
2585configurations are:
2586
2587FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
2588FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
2589OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
2590
2591Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
2592are not yet supported.
2593
5260ca71
MS
2594* New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
2595(Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
2596
e84ecc99
AC
2597* REMOVED configurations and files
2598
2599VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
9445aa30 2600Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
9445aa30 2601National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
156a53ca 2602
31e35378
JB
2603* New "set print array-indexes" command
2604
2605After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
2606when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
2607behavior.
2608
e85e5c83
MK
2609* VAX floating point support
2610
2611GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
2612
d91e9901
AS
2613* User-defined command support
2614
2615In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
2616to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
2617section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
2618
f2cb65ca
MC
2619*** Changes in GDB 6.3:
2620
f47b1503
AS
2621* New command line option
2622
2623GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
2624debugging.
2625
f2cb65ca
MC
2626* GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
2627
2628GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
2629information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
2630by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
2631proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
2632to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
860660cb 2633
d08c0230
AC
2634* Internationalization
2635
2636When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
2637internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
2638continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
2639
117ea3cf
PH
2640* Ada
2641
2642Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
2643implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
2644into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
2645
d08c0230
AC
2646* New native configurations
2647
2648GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
2649
2650* Remote 'p' packet
2651
2652GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
2653packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
2654
2655* END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
2656
2657GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
2658The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
2659features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
2660i386 application).
2661
2662GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
2663compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
2664continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
2665configurations:
2666
2667hppa-*-hpux
2668ia64-*-aix
2669mips-*-irix*
2670*-*-lynx
2671mips-*-linux-gnu
2672sds protocol
2673xdr protocol
2674powerpc bdm protocol
2675
2676Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
2677made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
2678
2679* OBSOLETE configurations and files
2680
2681Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2682been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2683configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2684permanently REMOVED.
2685
2686h8300-*-*
2687mcore-*-*
2688mn10300-*-*
2689ns32k-*-*
2690sh64-*-*
2691v850-*-*
2692
ebb7c577
AC
2693*** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
2694
2695* MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
2696
2697When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
2698heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
2699been fixed.
2700
2701* MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
2702
2703When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
2704fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
2705IRIX long double values).
2706
2707* VAX and "next"
2708
2709A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
2710command. This problem has been fixed.
2711
860660cb 2712*** Changes in GDB 6.2:
faae5abe 2713
0dea2468
AC
2714* Fix for ``many threads''
2715
2716On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
2717rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
2718error message:
2719
2720 ptrace: No such process.
2721 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
2722
2723This problem has been fixed.
2724
2c07db7a
AC
2725* "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
2726
2727Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
2728GDB to dump core).
2729
c23968a2
JB
2730* New ``start'' command.
2731
2732This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
2733
71009278
MK
2734* New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
2735
2736Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
2737live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
2738platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
2739
2740FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
2741FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
2742NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
2743NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
2744NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
2745OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
2746OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
2747OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
2748OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
2749
3c0b7db2
AC
2750* Signal trampoline code overhauled
2751
2752Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
2753These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
2754of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
2755call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
2756signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
2757
73cc75f3
AC
2758Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
2759features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
2760include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
3c0b7db2 2761
7243600a
BF
2762* Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
2763
6f606e1c
MK
2764* New native configurations
2765
97dc871c 2766GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
0e56aeaf 2767OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
bf2ca189
MK
2768OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
2769OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
d195bc9f 2770OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 2771NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
9f076e7a 2772OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 2773
a1b461bf
AC
2774* END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
2775
2776GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
2777The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
2778including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
2779migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
2780compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
2781work, was also included.
2782
2783GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
2784module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
2785
2786h8300-*-*
2787mcore-*-*
2788mn10300-*-*
2789ns32k-*-*
2790sh64-*-*
2791v850-*-*
2792xstormy16-*-*
2793
2794Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
2795made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
2796
3c7012f5
AC
2797* REMOVED configurations and files
2798
2799Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
2800Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
2801Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
2802Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
2803Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
2804AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
2805Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
2806decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
2807riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
2808sonymips mips-sony-*
2809sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
2810
e5fe55f7
AC
2811*** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
2812
2813* TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
2814
2815The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
2816GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
2817command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
2818program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
2819with GDB".
2820
2821* Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
2822
2823Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
2824libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
2825cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
2826GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
2827shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
2828the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
2829are created.
2830
2831Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
2832
2833* Fixed ISO-C build problems
2834
2835The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
2836non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
2837compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
2838
2839* Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
2840
2841Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
2842wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
2843
2844* Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
2845
2846The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
2847permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
2848systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
2849
2850* Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
2851
2852Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
2853has been updated to use constant array sizes.
2854
2855* Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
2856
2857GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
2858its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
2859panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
2860
2861* Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
2862
2863When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
2864by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
2865not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
2866
faae5abe 2867*** Changes in GDB 6.1:
f2c06f52 2868
9175c9a3
MC
2869* Removed --with-mmalloc
2870
2871Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
2872conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
2873
3cc87ec0
MK
2874* Changes in AMD64 configurations
2875
2876The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
2877the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
2878and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
2879you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
2880
f0424ef6
MK
2881* Revised SPARC target
2882
2883The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
2884FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
03cebad2
MK
2885support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
2886from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
2887(Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
f0424ef6 2888
59659be2
ILT
2889* New C++ demangler
2890
2891GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
2892names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
2893with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
2894programs.
2895
9e08b29b
DJ
2896* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
2897
2898GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
2899arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
2900encountered these.
2901
8dfe8985
DC
2902* C++ nested types and namespaces
2903
2904GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
2905improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
2906is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
2907Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
2908namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
2909"Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
2910frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
2911if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
2912GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
2913
cced5e27
MK
2914* New native configurations
2915
2916NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
27d1e716 2917OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
2031c21a 2918OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
f2cab569
MK
2919OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
2920OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
cced5e27 2921
b4b4b794
KI
2922* New debugging protocols
2923
2924M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
2925
7989c619
AC
2926* "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
2927
2928The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
2929and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
2930tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
2931
5994185b
AC
2932* OBSOLETE configurations and files
2933
2934Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2935been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2936configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2937permanently REMOVED.
2938
2939Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
2940Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
2941Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
2942Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
2943Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
2944AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
2945Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
0748d941
AC
2946decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
2947riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
2948sonymips mips-sony-*
2949sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
5994185b 2950
0ddabb4c
AC
2951* REMOVED configurations and files
2952
2953SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
2954SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
4a8269c0
AC
2955Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
2956Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
2957H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
2958HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
2959HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
2960HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
2961PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
cf7c5c23 2962386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
4a8269c0
AC
2963Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
2964 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
2965 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
f0424ef6
MK
2966SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
2967SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
4a8269c0
AC
2968Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2969Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
0ddabb4c 2970
c7f1390e
DJ
2971*** Changes in GDB 6.0:
2972
1fe43d45
AC
2973* Objective-C
2974
2975Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
2976integrated into GDB.
2977
e6beb428
AC
2978* New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
2979
2980DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
2981information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
2982By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
2983backtraces.
2984
2985The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
2986have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
2987DWARF 2 CFI support.
2988
2989* Hosted file I/O.
2990
2991GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
2992file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
2993remote protocol documentation for details.
2994
2995* All targets using the new architecture framework.
2996
2997All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
2998architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
2999to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
3000ppc32 on ppc64).
3001
3002* GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
3003
3004GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
3005per-thread variables.
3006
3007* GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
3008
3009GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
3010GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
3011
3012* Separate debug info.
3013
3014GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
3015automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
3016of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
3017system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
3018and optional debug files.
3019
3020* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
3021
3022DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
3023describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
3024debugger.
3025
3026GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
3027for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
3028
3029* Java
3030
3031A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
3032Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
3033considered "useable".
3034
85f8f974
DJ
3035* GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
3036
3037The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
3038commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
3039kernel.
3040
0fac0b41
DJ
3041* GDB supports logging output to a file
3042
3043There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
3044used to capture GDB's output to a file.
f2c06f52 3045
6ad8ae5c
DJ
3046* The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
3047
3048The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
3049disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
3050command.
3051
e286caf2 3052* d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
5f601589
AC
3053
3054The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
3055registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
3056
d28f9cdf
DJ
3057* Profiling support
3058
3059A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
3060be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
3061session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
3062"--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
3063data, for more informative profiling results.
3064
da0f9dcd
AC
3065* Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
3066
3067The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
3068option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
b68767c1 3069"mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
da0f9dcd
AC
3070
3071Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
3072removed.
3073
fb9b6b35
JJ
3074Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
3075Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
3076Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
3077 in a subsequent -var-update.
3078
954a4db8
MK
3079* New native configurations.
3080
3081FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
3082
6760f9e6
JB
3083* Multi-arched targets.
3084
b4263afa 3085HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
85a453d5 3086Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
6760f9e6 3087
1b831c93
AC
3088* OBSOLETE configurations and files
3089
3090Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
3091been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
3092configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
3093permanently REMOVED.
3094
8b0e5691 3095Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
67f16606 3096Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
fd2299bd 3097H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
56056df7
AC
3098HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
3099HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
3100HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
78c43945 3101PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
2fbce691
AC
3102Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
3103 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
3104 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
f81824a9
AC
3105Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
3106Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
fd2299bd 3107
5835abe7
NC
3108* REMOVED configurations and files
3109
3110V850EA ISA
1b831c93
AC
3111Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
3112IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
3113i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
3114i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
3115i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
3116HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
3117 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
3118 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
3119Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
3120Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
3121Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
3122OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
3123I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
5835abe7 3124
a094c6fb
AC
3125* MIPS $fp behavior changed
3126
3127The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
3128the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
3129context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
3130address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
3131The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
3132
299ffc64 3133*** Changes in GDB 5.3:
37057839 3134
46248966
AC
3135* GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
3136
3137When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
3138`/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
3139in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
3140library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
3141shared libs like mad''.
3142
b9d14705 3143* ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
6da02953 3144
b9d14705
DJ
3145Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
3146the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
3147arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
3148powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
6da02953 3149
e0e9281e
JB
3150* GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
3151
3152GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
3153and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
3154they expand.
3155
dd73b9bb
AC
3156The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
3157invocations in expression, and shows the result.
3158
3159The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
3160macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
3161
e0e9281e
JB
3162Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
3163information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
3164your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
3165information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
3166
2250ee0c
CV
3167* Multi-arched targets.
3168
6e3ba3b8
JT
3169DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
3170DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
2250ee0c 3171NEC V850 v850-*-*
6e3ba3b8 3172National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
a1789893
GS
3173Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
3174Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
2250ee0c 3175
cd9bfe15 3176* New targets.
e33ce519 3177
456f8b9d
DB
3178Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
3179
e33ce519 3180
da8ca43d
JT
3181* New native configurations
3182
3183Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
029923d4 3184SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
45888261 3185MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
9ce5c36a 3186UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
da8ca43d 3187
cd9bfe15
AC
3188* OBSOLETE configurations and files
3189
3190Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
3191been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
3192configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
3193permanently REMOVED.
3194
92eb23c5 3195Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
a99a9e1b 3196OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1c7cc583 3197IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
7a3085c1 3198Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
7fb623f7 3199Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
eb4c54a2 3200Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
d8ee244c
MK
3201i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
3202i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
3203i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
822e978b
AC
3204HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
3205 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
3206 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
4d210288 3207I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
92eb23c5 3208
db034ac5
AC
3209* OBSOLETE languages
3210
3211CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
3212
cd9bfe15
AC
3213* REMOVED configurations and files
3214
3215AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
3216A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
3217AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
3218AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
3219AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
3220
3221testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
3222
20f01a46
DH
3223* New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
3224
3225This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
3226commands. The default is 1024.
3227
a5941fbf
MK
3228* Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
3229
3230Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
3231
89743e04
MS
3232* New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
3233
3234These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
3235to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
3236from a file into memory (restore).
37057839 3237
9fb14e79
JB
3238* Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
3239
3240The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
3241including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
3242of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
3243
2037aebb
AC
3244*** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
3245
3246* New targets.
3247
3248Atmel AVR avr*-*-*
3249
3250* Bug fixes
3251
3252gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
3253mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
3254Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
3255
3256gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
3257dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
3258Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
3259
3260Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
3261Surprisingly enough, it works now.
3262By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
3263
3264i386 hardware watchpoint support:
3265avoid misses on second run for some targets.
3266By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
3267
37057839 3268*** Changes in GDB 5.2:
eb7cedd9 3269
1a703748
MS
3270* New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
3271
3272This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
3273really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
3274In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
3275target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
3276This can be a significant performance improvement on some
3277(notably embedded) targets.
3278
cefd4ef5
MS
3279* New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
3280
55241689
AC
3281This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
3282process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
3283GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
3284hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
cefd4ef5 3285
352ed7b4
MS
3286* New command line option
3287
3288GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
3289
3290* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
3291
3292There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
3293command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
3294a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
3295be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
3296open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
3297issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
3298a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
3299it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
3300GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
3301is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
3302
fe419ffc
RE
3303* Changes in ARM configurations.
3304
3305Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
3306configuration is fully multi-arch.
3307
eb7cedd9
MK
3308* New native configurations
3309
fe419ffc 3310ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
eb7cedd9 3311x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
55241689 3312AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
768f0842 3313Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
eb7cedd9 3314
c9f63e6b
CV
3315* New targets
3316
3317Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
3318
9b4ff276
AC
3319* OBSOLETE configurations and files
3320
3321Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
3322been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
3323configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
3324permanently REMOVED.
3325
3326AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
3327A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
3328AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
3329AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
3330AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
3331
b4ceaee6 3332testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
9b4ff276 3333
e2caac18
AC
3334* REMOVED configurations and files
3335
3336TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
7bc65f05 3337WDC 65816 w65-*-*
7768dd6c
AC
3338PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
3339PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
3340PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
5e734e1f 3341Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1406caf7
AC
3342Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
3343 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
7e24f0b1 3344SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
9b567150 3345Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
3680c638
AC
3346Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
3347ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
a752853e 3348Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
e2caac18 3349
c2a727fa
TT
3350* Changes to command line processing
3351
3352The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
3353for the inferior from gdb's command line.
3354
467d8519
TT
3355* Changes to key bindings
3356
3357There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
3358
7072a954
AC
3359*** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
3360
3361Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
3362
3363Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
3364corrupted.
3365
3366Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
3367
3368Numerous documentation fixes.
3369
3370Numerous testsuite fixes.
3371
34f47bc4 3372*** Changes in GDB 5.1:
139760b7
MK
3373
3374* New native configurations
3375
3376Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
3377x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
55241689 3378MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
e23194cb
EZ
3379MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
3380ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
55241689 3381s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
139760b7 3382
bf64bfd6
AC
3383* New targets
3384
def90278 3385Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
24be5c34 3386CRIS cris-axis
55241689 3387UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
def90278 3388
17e78a56 3389* OBSOLETE configurations and files
bf64bfd6
AC
3390
3391x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
9b9c068d 3392Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
bb19ff3b
AC
3393Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
3394 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
76f4ea53
AC
3395TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
3396WDC 65816 w65-*-*
4a1968f4 3397Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1b2b2c16
AC
3398PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
3399PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
3400PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
24f89b68 3401SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
514e603d
AC
3402Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
3403ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
d036b4d9 3404Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
bf64bfd6 3405
17e78a56
AC
3406stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
3407kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
3408
7fcca85b
AC
3409Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
3410been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
3411configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
3412permanently REMOVED.
3413
a196c81c 3414* REMOVED configurations and files
7fcca85b
AC
3415
3416Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
3417Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
3418Pyramid pyramid-*-*
3419ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
3420Tahoe tahoe-*-*
a196c81c 3421ser-ocd.c *-*-*
bf64bfd6 3422
6d6b80e5 3423* GDB has been converted to ISO C.
e23194cb 3424
6d6b80e5 3425GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
e23194cb
EZ
3426sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
3427present.
3428
bf64bfd6
AC
3429* Other news:
3430
e23194cb
EZ
3431* "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
3432
3433* The MI enabled by default.
3434
3435The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
3436revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
3437engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
3438using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
3439which is now deprecated.
3440
3441* Support for debugging Pascal programs.
3442
3443GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
3444main features are supported:
3445
3446 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
3447
3448 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
3449 extension;
3450
3451 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
3452
3453 - a Pascal expression parser.
3454
3455However, some important features are not yet supported.
3456
3457 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
3458
3459 - there are some problems with boolean types;
3460
3461 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
3462 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
3463
3464 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
3465
3466 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
3467
3468* Changes in completion.
3469
3470Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
3471to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
3472users expect at the shell prompt.
3473
3474Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
3475`breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
3476program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
3477files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
3478be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
3479considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
3480name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
3481
3482`set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
3483
3484* New platform-independent commands:
3485
3486It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
3487hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
3488documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
3489
3490* Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
3491
d7275149
MK
3492Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
3493revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
3494many threads as your system allows you to have.
3495
e23194cb
EZ
3496Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
3497
d7275149
MK
3498Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
3499multi-threaded programs though.
e23194cb
EZ
3500
3501* Changes in MIPS configurations.
bf64bfd6
AC
3502
3503Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
3504
e23194cb
EZ
3505GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
3506debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
3507supported.)
3508
3509* Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
3510
3511Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
3512breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
3513implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
3514put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
3515and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
3516registers.
3517
3518The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
3519debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
3520watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
3521
3522* Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
3523
3524New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
3525the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
3526
3527New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
3528display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
3529IDT.
3530
3531New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
3532from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
3533New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
3534a given linear address.
3535
3536GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
3537program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
3538which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
3539
3540DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
3541
6c56c069
EZ
3542It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
3543
e23194cb
EZ
3544* Changes in documentation.
3545
3546All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
3547Documentation License.
3548
3549Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
3550manual.
3551
3552TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
3553
3554Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
3555manual.
3556
3557The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
3558documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
3559hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
3560
5d6640b1
AC
3561* GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
3562
3563The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
3564``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
3565contents of this file.
3566
1a1d8446
AC
3567* gdba.el deleted
3568
3569GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
139760b7 3570
9debab2f 3571*** Changes in GDB 5.0:
7a292a7a 3572
c63ce875
EZ
3573* Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
3574
3575Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
3576programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
3577displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
3578greater level of detail.
3579
3580* Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
3581
3582It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
3583bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
3584on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
3585written.
3586
3587* Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
3588
3589The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
3590necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
3591machines ``out of the box''.
3592
3593The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
3594possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
3595signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
3596would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
3597interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
3598
3599It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
3600standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
3601even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
3602and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
3603terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
3604
3605The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
3606enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
3607also works.
3608
3609DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
3610GDB.
3611
3612It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
3613directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
3614times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
3615breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
3616
ed9a39eb
JM
3617* New native configurations
3618
3619ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
afc05dd4 3620PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
ed9a39eb 3621
7a292a7a
SS
3622* New targets
3623
96baa820 3624Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
adf40b2e
JM
3625x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
3626PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
7a292a7a
SS
3627TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
3628
085dd6e6
JM
3629* OBSOLETE configurations
3630
3631Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
3632Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
9846de1b 3633Pyramid pyramid-*-*
ed9a39eb 3634ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
104c1213 3635Tahoe tahoe-*-*
7a292a7a 3636
9debab2f
AC
3637Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
3638but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
3639these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
3640be permanently REMOVED.
3641
5330533d
SS
3642* Gould support removed
3643
3644Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
3645
bc9e5bbf
AC
3646* New features for SVR4
3647
3648On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
3649without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
3650load symbols from the running process's executable file.
3651
3652* Many C++ enhancements
3653
3654C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
3655in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
3656
adf40b2e
JM
3657* Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
3658
3659A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
3660sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
3661with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
3662``|<program> <args>'' vis:
3663
3664 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
3665 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
3666
43e526b9
JM
3667* MIPS 64 remote protocol
3668
3669A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
3670expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
3671instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
3672
3673The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
3674added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
3675
96baa820
JM
3676* ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
3677
3678The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
3679``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
3680include ``set remote P-packet''.
3681
11cf8741
JM
3682* Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
3683
3684The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
3685accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
3686``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
3687
7876dd43
DB
3688* ``apropos'' command added.
3689
3690The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
3691documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
3692try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
3693
bc9e5bbf
AC
3694* New MI interface
3695
3696A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
3697interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
7162c0ca
EZ
3698process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
3699"GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
3700enabled by configuring with:
bc9e5bbf
AC
3701
3702 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
3703
c906108c
SS
3704*** Changes in GDB-4.18:
3705
3706* New native configurations
3707
3708HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
3709HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
55241689 3710M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
c906108c
SS
3711
3712* New targets
3713
3714Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
3715Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
3716Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
3717
3718* OBSOLETE configurations
3719
3720Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
3721
3722Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
3723but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
3724these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
3725be permanently REMOVED.
3726
3727* ANSI/ISO C
3728
3729As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
3730buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
3731containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
3732use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
3733available. If this is not true, please report the affected
3734configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
3735information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
3736already.
3737
3738* Readline 2.2
3739
3740GDB now uses readline 2.2.
3741
3742* set extension-language
3743
3744You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
3745languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
3746you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
3747 set extension-language .c c++
3748The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
3749and their associated languages.
3750
3751* Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
3752
3753When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
3754you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
3755PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
3756
3757 set processor NAME
3758
3759sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
3760following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
3761
3762 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
3763 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
3764 403 IBM PowerPC 403
3765 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
3766 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
3767 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
3768 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
3769 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
3770 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
3771 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
3772 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
3773
3774At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
3775special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
3776registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
3777only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
3778
3779* HP-UX support
3780
3781Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
3782more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
3783library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
3784support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
3785for xdb and dbx commands.
3786
3787* Catchpoints
3788
3789HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
3790generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
3791to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
3792
3793This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
3794argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
3795output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
3796
3797* Debugging across forks
3798
3799On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
3800in the inferior.
3801
3802* TUI
3803
3804HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
3805it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
3806configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
3807
3808* GDB remote protocol additions
3809
3810A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
3811Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
3812fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
3813allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
3814
3815For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
3816full 64-bit address. The command
3817
3818 set remoteaddresssize 32
3819
3820can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
3821the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
3822will be discarded.
3823
3824In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
3825command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
3826
3827 maint packet heythere
3828
3829sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
3830disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
3831time.
3832
3833The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
3834target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
3835downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
3836
3837* Tracing can collect general expressions
3838
3839You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
3840further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
3841doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
3842
3843* mask-address variable for Mips
3844
3845For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
3846a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
3847of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
3848
3849* Higher serial baud rates
3850
3851GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
3852230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
3853to achieve all of these rates.)
3854
3855* i960 simulator
3856
3857The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
3858builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
3859
3860
3861*** Changes in GDB-4.17:
3862
3863* New native configurations
3864
3865Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
3866Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
3867Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
3868PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
3869PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
3870Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
3871Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
3872
3873* New targets
3874
3875Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
3876Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
3877Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
3878Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
3879MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
3880MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
3881MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
3882Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
3883Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
3884Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
3885NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
3886
3887* New debugging protocols
3888
3889ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
3890M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
3891DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
3892PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
3893PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
3894Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
3895
3896* DWARF 2
3897
3898All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
3899format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
3900information.
3901
3902* Java frontend
3903
3904GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
3905only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
3906
3907* solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
3908
3909For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
3910loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
3911locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
3912
3913* Live range splitting
3914
3915GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
3916range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
3917more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
3918
3919* Hurd support
3920
3921GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
3922updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
3923
3924* ARM Thumb support
3925
3926GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
3927instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
3928instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
3929accordingly.
3930
3931* MIPS16 support
3932
3933GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
3934instruction set.
3935
3936* Overlay support
3937
3938GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
3939linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
3940will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
3941control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
3942additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
3943in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
3944
3945* info symbol
3946
3947The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
3948the symbol at the specified address.
3949
3950* Trace support
3951
3952The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
3953asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
3954extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
3955includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
3956file tracepoint.c for more details.
3957
3958* MIPS simulator
3959
3960Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
3961by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
3962of most MIPS variants.
3963
3964* Sparc simulator
3965
3966Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
3967by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
3968Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
3969
3970* set architecture
3971
3972For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
3973basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
3974architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
3975the possible architectures.
3976
3977*** Changes in GDB-4.16:
3978
3979* New native configurations
3980
3981Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
3982M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
3983PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
3984PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
3985PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
3986RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
3987
3988* New targets
3989
3990ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
3991I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
3992MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
3993MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
3994PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
3995Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
3996Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
3997
3998* PowerPC simulator
3999
4000The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
4001contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
4002PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
4003basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
4004performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
4005
4006* Solaris 2.5
4007
4008GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
4009
4010* Windows 95/NT native
4011
4012GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
4013To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
4014which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
4015Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
4016ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
4017
4018* dont-repeat command
4019
4020If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
4021command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
4022useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
4023extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
4024
4025* Send break instead of ^C
4026
4027The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
4028rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
4029GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
4030
4031* Remote protocol timeout
4032
4033The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
4034that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
4035to read from the target. The default value is 2.
4036
4037* Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
4038
4039By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
4040loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
4041stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
4042when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
4043in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
4044
4045Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
4046/usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
4047automatically on hpux10.
4048
4049* Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
4050
4051Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
4052
4053* Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
4054
4055When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
4056may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
4057the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
4058every character. The default value is 1050.
4059
4060* Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
4061
4062If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
4063a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
4064replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
4065details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
4066remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
4067to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
4068
4069* Speedups for remote debugging
4070
4071GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
4072the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
4073and more efficient S-record downloading.
4074
4075* Memory use reductions and statistics collection
4076
4077GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
4078Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
4079
4080*** Changes in GDB-4.15:
4081
4082* Psymtabs for XCOFF
4083
4084The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
4085can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
4086
4087* Remote targets use caching
4088
4089Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
4090remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
4091it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
4092debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
4093off' turns the the data cache off.
4094
4095* Remote targets may have threads
4096
4097The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
4098in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
4099gdb/remote.c for details.
4100
4101* NetROM support
4102
4103If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
4104support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
4105acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
4106write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
4107support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
4108another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
4109sequence is something like
4110
4111 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
4112 load <prog>
4113 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
4114
4115* Macintosh host
4116
4117GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
4118may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
4119it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
4120available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
4121device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
4122directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
4123scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
4124mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
4125
4126* Autoconf
4127
4128GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
4129but does simplify configuration and building.
4130
4131* hpux10
4132
4133GDB now supports hpux10.
4134
4135*** Changes in GDB-4.14:
4136
4137* New native configurations
4138
4139x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
4140x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
4141NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
4142Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
4143
4144* New targets
4145
4146A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
4147HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
4148CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
4149PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
4150WDC 65816 w65-*-*
4151
4152* Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
4153
4154GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
4155possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
4156filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
4157the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
4158if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
4159
4160* Arguments to user-defined commands
4161
4162User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
4163Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
4164trivial example:
4165define adder
4166 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
4167
4168To execute the command use:
4169adder 1 2 3
4170
4171Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
4172Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
4173use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
4174
4175* New `if' and `while' commands
4176
4177This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
4178commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
4179expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
4180execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
4181terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
4182`else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
4183if the expression is zero.
4184
4185* Fortran source language mode
4186
4187GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
4188Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
4189variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
4190with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
4191Fortran compilers.
4192
4193* Better HPUX support
4194
4195Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
4196running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
4197processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
4198for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
4199that behavior do the following before running the program:
4200
4201 adb -w a.out
4202 __dld_flags?W 0x5
4203 control-d
4204
4205This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
4206To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
4207
4208 adb -w a.out
4209 __dld_flags?W 0x4
4210 control-d
4211
4212You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
4213the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
4214external linkage.
4215
4216GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
4217HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
4218
4219* Target byte order now dynamically selectable
4220
4221You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
4222commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
4223current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
4224"set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
4225associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
4226configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
4227
4228* New DOS host serial code
4229
4230This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
4231no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
4232a PC's serial port.
4233
4234*** Changes in GDB-4.13:
4235
4236* New "complete" command
4237
4238This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
4239were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
4240
4241* Trailing space optional in prompt
4242
4243"set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
4244allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
4245
4246* Breakpoint hit counts
4247
4248"info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
4249has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
4250can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
4251to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
4252less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
4253that breakpoint.
4254
4255* Ability to stop printing at NULL character
4256
4257"set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
4258an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
4259arrays actually contain only short strings.
4260
4261* Shared library breakpoints
4262
4263In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
4264breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
4265
4266* Hardware watchpoints
4267
4268There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
4269targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
4270
55241689 4271Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
c906108c
SS
4272
4273* Annotations
4274
4275Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
4276and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
4277
4278* Improved Irix 5 support
4279
4280GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
4281
4282* Improved HPPA support
4283
4284GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
4285
4286* New native configurations
4287
4288Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
4289HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
4290Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
4291RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
4292
4293* New targets
4294
4295OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
4296MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
4297Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
4298
4299* Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
4300
4301There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
4302This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
4303
4304* Fixes
4305
4306As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
4307and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
4308
4309*** Changes in GDB-4.12:
4310
4311* Irix 5 is now supported
4312
4313* HPPA support
4314
4315GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
4316to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
4317GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
4318of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
4319can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
4320
4321
4322*** Changes in GDB-4.11:
4323
4324* User visible changes:
4325
4326* Remote Debugging
4327
4328The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
4329target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
4330debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
4331integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
4332debugging info for the mips target).
4333
4334* DEC Alpha native support
4335
4336GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
4337debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
4338work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
4339Alpha-specific notes.
4340
4341* Preliminary thread implementation
4342
4343GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
4344
4345* LynxOS native and target support for 386
4346
4347This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
4348to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
4349for details).
4350
4351* Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
4352
4353This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
4354mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
4355call methods, ...etc.
4356
4357*** Changes in GDB-4.10:
4358
4359 * User visible changes:
4360
4361Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
4362supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
4363other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
4364somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
4365
4366Filename completion now works.
4367
4368When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
4369arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
4370addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
4371
4372All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
4373vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
4374should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
4375your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
4376to be on the far side of a thin network line.
4377
4378 * DEC alpha support
4379
4380This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
4381cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
4382
4383
4384*** Changes in GDB-4.9:
4385
4386 * Testsuite
4387
4388This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
4389The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
4390via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
4391
4392 * C++ demangling
4393
4394'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
4395emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
4396Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
4397disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
4398use gdb with AT&T cfront.
4399
4400 * Simulators
4401
4402GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
4403So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
4404Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
4405
4406 * New targets supported
4407
4408H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
4409H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
4410SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
4411Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
4412IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
4413
4414Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
4415version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
4416GO32 memory extender.
4417
4418 * New remote protocols
4419
4420MIPS remote debugging protocol.
4421
4422 * New source languages supported
4423
4424This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
4425used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
4426into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
4427
4428
4429*** Changes in GDB-4.8:
4430
4431 * HP Precision Architecture supported
4432
4433GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
4434version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
4435University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
4436compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
4437format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
4438(as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
4439
4440Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
4441
4442 * Faster and better demangling
4443
4444We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
4445demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
4446character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
4447only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
4448This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
4449increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
4450symbol lookups.
4451
4452`Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
4453from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
4454compiler does not actually implement.
4455
4456 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
4457
4458In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
4459inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
4460recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
4461very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
4462The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
4463circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
4464fix.
4465
4466The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
4467release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
4468
4469 * Improved configure script
4470
4471The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
4472you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
4473host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
4474done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
4475
4476We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
4477version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
4478`--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
4479The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
4480only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
4481We hope to make this the default in a future release.
4482
4483 * Documentation improvements
4484
4485There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
4486produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
4487before submitting changes.
4488
4489The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
4490M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
4491`info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
4492you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
4493a future texinfo-X.Y release.
4494
4495*NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
4496We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
4497been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
4498or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
4499`texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
4500around this problem.
4501
4502 * New features
4503
4504GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
4505the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
4506`print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
4507the target program.
4508
4509The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
4510how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
4511
4512 * New native hosts supported
4513
4514HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
4515386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
4516
4517 * New targets supported
4518
4519AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
4520
4521 * New file formats supported
4522
4523BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
4524HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
4525
4526 * Major bug fixes
4527
4528Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
4529
4530We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
4531printf_filtered("%s") problems.
4532
4533We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
4534for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
4535release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
4536
4537You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
4538will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
4539
4540We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
4541for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
4542especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
4543libraries.
4544
4545The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
4546information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
4547command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
4548any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
4549when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
4550
4551 * Internal improvements
4552
4553GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
4554debugging of multiple languages in the future.
4555
4556GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
4557Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
4558symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
4559contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
4560shared code that handles any of them.
4561
4562 * New command line options
4563
4564We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
4565
4566 * Mmalloc licensing
4567
4568The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
4569General Public License.
4570
4571*** Changes in GDB-4.7:
4572
4573 * Host/native/target split
4574
4575GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
4576hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
4577target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
4578local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
4579ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
4580
4581The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
4582GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
4583is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
4584code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
4585any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
4586built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
4587handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
4588
4589GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
4590It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
4591plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
4592
4593 * New hosts supported
4594
4595HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
4596386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
4597386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
4598
4599 * New targets supported
4600
4601Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
460268030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
4603
4604 * New native hosts supported
4605
4606386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
4607 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
4608386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
4609
4610 * New file formats supported
4611
4612BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
4613supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
4614format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
4615
4616 * New commands
4617
4618`show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
4619`show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
4620These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
4621
4622`info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
4623
4624You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
4625scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
4626prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
4627executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
4628
4629 * C++ improvements
4630
4631We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
4632info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
4633symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
4634
4635Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
4636
4637 * Major bug fixes
4638
4639The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
4640fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
4641by the compiler.
4642
4643We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
4644support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
4645
4646John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
4647slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
4648that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
4649purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
4650the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
4651mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
4652
4653Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
4654about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
4655completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
4656we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
4657
4658 * AMD 29k support
4659
4660A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
4661specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
4662calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
4663usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
4664in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
4665
4666We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
4667Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
4668of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
4669resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
4670
4671 * Remote interfaces
4672
4673We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
4674with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
4675message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
4676This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
4677needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
4678breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
4679each instruction being stepped through.
4680
4681The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
4682registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
4683
4684There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
4685find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
4686Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
4687processor with a serial port.
4688
4689 * Configuration
4690
4691Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
4692`table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
4693supported, and what files each one uses.
4694
4695 * Library changes
4696
4697There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
4698disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
4699Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
4700disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
4701
4702The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
4703Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
4704can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
4705grants all the rights from the General Public License.
4706
4707 * Documentation
4708
4709The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
4710reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
4711as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
4712encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
4713system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
4714bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
4715
4716And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
4717
4718
4719*** Changes in GDB-4.6:
4720
4721 * Better support for C++ function names
4722
4723GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
4724names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
4725(using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
4726single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
4727Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
4728
4729GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
4730the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
4731You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
4732lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
4733for the list of formats.
4734
4735 * G++ symbol mangling problem
4736
4737Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
4738C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
4739directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
4740can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
4741usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
4742about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
4743this problem.)
4744
4745 * New 'maintenance' command
4746
4747All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
4748the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
4749can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
4750
4751 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
4752 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
4753 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
4754 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
4755 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
4756 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
4757
4758The following commands are new:
4759
4760 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
4761 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
4762 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
4763
4764 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
4765
4766We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
4767(e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
4768be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
4769read after argv processing.
4770
4771 * New hosts supported
4772
4773Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
4774
55241689 4775GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
c906108c
SS
4776
4777We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
4778is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
4779for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
4780masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
4781fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
4782It costs extra.
4783
4784 * New targets supported
4785
4786Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
4787
4788 * More smarts about finding #include files
4789
4790GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
4791all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
4792greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
4793especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
4794the one that contains your sources.
4795
4796We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
4797breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
4798try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
4799
4800 * Interesting infernals change
4801
4802GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
4803section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
4804target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
4805stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
4806
4807 * Bug fixes (of course!)
4808
4809There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
4810 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
4811 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
4812
4813See the ChangeLog for details.
4814
4815*** Changes in GDB-4.5:
4816
4817 * New machines supported (host and target)
4818
4819IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
4820
4821SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
4822
4823 * New malloc package
4824
4825GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
4826Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
4827capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
4828This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
4829pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
4830more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
4831
4832 * info proc
4833
4834The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
4835'help info proc' for details.
4836
4837 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
4838
4839The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
4840Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
4841possible.
4842
4843 * File name changes for MS-DOS
4844
4845Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
4846support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
4847conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
4848environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
4849that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
4850in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
4851
4852 * Cross byte order fixes
4853
4854Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
4855targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
4856
4857 * New -mapped and -readnow options
4858
4859If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
4860system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
4861`symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
4862program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
4863called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
4864Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
4865and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
4866the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
4867option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
4868starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
4869
4870You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
4871the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
4872information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
4873slower, but makes future operations faster.
4874
4875The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
4876build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
4877A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
4878use is:
4879
4880 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
4881
4882The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
4883It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
4884shared across multiple host platforms.
4885
4886 * longjmp() handling
4887
4888GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
4889siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
4890all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
4891platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
4892
4893 * Solaris 2.0
4894
4895Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
4896this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
4897reading symbols.
4898
4899 * Bug fixes
4900
4901As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
4902People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
4903crashes and trashed symbol tables.
4904
4905*** Changes in GDB-4.4:
4906
4907 * New machines supported (host and target)
4908
4909SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
4910 (except core files)
4911BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
4912Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
4913
4914 * New machines supported (target)
4915
4916AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
4917
4918 * C++ support
4919
4920GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
4921The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
4922per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
4923
4924GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
4925`ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
4926extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
4927good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
4928will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
4929released.
4930
4931 * New features for SVR4
4932
4933GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
4934shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
4935only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
4936
4937The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
4938on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
4939it prints the address mappings of the process.
4940
4941If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
4942bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
4943
4944 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
4945
4946Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
4947now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
4948skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
4949make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
4950same code linked statically.
4951
4952 * New Getopt
4953
4954GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
4955version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
4956continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
4957Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
4958added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
4959future by other options that begin with the same letter.
4960
4961 * Bugs fixed
4962
4963The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
4964Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
4965See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
4966
4967
4968*** Changes in GDB-4.3:
4969
4970 * New machines supported (host and target)
4971
4972Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
4973NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
4974Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
4975
4976 * Almost SCO Unix support
4977
4978We had hoped to support:
4979SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
4980(except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
4981that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
4982about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
4983
4984 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
4985
4986GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
4987debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
4988is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
4989send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
4990reqired (if any).
4991
4992 * New Readline
4993
4994GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
4995is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
4996required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
4997
4998 * Bugs fixed
4999
5000The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
5001Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
5002See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
5003
5004 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
5005
5006GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
5007supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
5008symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
5009
5010Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
5011mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
5012debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
5013mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
5014version 2.
5015
5016Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
5017really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
5018line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
5019variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
5020situation somewhat.
5021
5022When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
5023However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
5024methods.
5025
5026We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
5027DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
5028encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
5029
5030
5031*** Changes in GDB-4.2:
5032
5033 * Improved configuration
5034
5035Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
5036Porting BFD is simpler.
5037
5038 * Stepping improved
5039
5040The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
5041of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
5042in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
5043function that has debugging information is called within the line.
5044
5045 * Bug fixing
5046
5047Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
5048
5049 * New host supported (not target)
5050
5051Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
5052
5053
5054*** Changes in GDB-4.1:
5055
5056 * Multiple source language support
5057
5058GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
5059It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
5060and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
5061language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
5062You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
5063`set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
5064
5065 * GDB and Modula-2
5066
5067GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
5068currently under development at the State University of New York at
5069Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
5070continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
5071
5072Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
5073debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
5074symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
5075
5076There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
5077in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
5078
5079 * set write on/off
5080
5081GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
5082a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
5083the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
5084by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
5085effect immediately.
5086
5087 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
5088
5089When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
5090shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
5091The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
5092examining core files.
5093
5094 * set listsize
5095
5096You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
5097The default is 10.
5098
5099 * New machines supported (host and target)
5100
5101SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
5102Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
5103Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
5104
5105 * New hosts supported (not targets)
5106
5107IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
5108
5109 * New targets supported (not hosts)
5110
5111AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
5112AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
5113Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
5114
5115 * New remote interfaces
5116
5117AMD 29000 Adapt
5118AMD 29000 Minimon
5119
5120
5121*** Changes in GDB-4.0:
5122
5123 * New Facilities
5124
5125Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
5126
5127Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
5128target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
5129is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
5130remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
5131remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
5132also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
5133using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
5134stub on the target system.
5135
5136New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
5137
5138GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
5139library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
5140object file types such as a.out and coff.
5141
5142There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
5143refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
5144
5145
5146 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
5147
5148All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
5149by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
5150
5151For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
5152``Show prompt'' produces the response:
5153Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
5154
5155What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
5156print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
5157will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
5158all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
5159
5160confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
5161 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
5162 it is already running. Default is ON.
5163
5164editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
5165 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
5166 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
5167 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
5168 Default is ON.
5169
5170history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
5171 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
5172 or the value of the environment variable
5173 GDBHISTFILE.
5174
5175history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
5176 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
5177 HISTSIZE.
5178
5179history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
5180 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
5181 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
5182
5183history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
5184 history expansion will be performed on
5185 command line input. The default is OFF.
5186
5187radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
5188 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
5189 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
5190
5191height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
5192 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
5193 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
5194 variable TERM.
5195
5196width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
5197 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
5198 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
5199 variable TERM.
5200
5201Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
5202``set width'' instead.
5203
5204print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
5205 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
5206 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
5207 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
5208
5209print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
5210 is OFF.
5211
5212print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
5213 "raw" form if off.
5214
5215print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
5216 like instructions.
5217
5218print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
5219
5220
5221 * Support for Epoch Environment.
5222
5223The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
5224new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
5225are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
5226window.
5227
5228
5229 * Support for Shared Libraries
5230
5231GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
5232Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
5233before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
5234happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
5235At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
5236from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
5237shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
5238It can be abbreviated ``share''.
5239
5240sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
5241 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
5242 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
5243
5244info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
5245
5246
5247 * Watchpoints
5248
5249A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
5250expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
5251tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
5252quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
5253problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
5254more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
5255
5256watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
5257
5258info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
5259
5260delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
5261disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
5262enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
5263
5264
5265 * C++ multiple inheritance
5266
5267When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
5268for C++ programs.
5269
5270 * C++ exception handling
5271
5272Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
5273ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
5274the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
5275handler's context).
5276
5277catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
5278 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
5279 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
5280
5281info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
5282 current stack frame.
5283
5284
5285 * Minor command changes
5286
5287The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
5288command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
5289is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
5290
5291The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
5292at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
5293frames without printing.
5294
5295 * New directory command
5296
5297'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
5298The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
5299about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
5300with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
5301find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
5302
5303 * Configuring GDB for compilation
5304
5305For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
5306for more details.
5307
5308GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
5309two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
5310Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
5311where the program that you are debugging will run.
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