Zap all but ns32k-netbsd NS32k targets and hosts.
[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 5.1:
5
6* New native configurations
7
8x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
9
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10* REMOVED configurations and files
11
12TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
7bc65f05 13WDC 65816 w65-*-*
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14PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
15PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
16PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
5e734e1f 17Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
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18Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
19 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
e2caac18 20
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21* Changes to command line processing
22
23The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
24for the inferior from gdb's command line.
25
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26* Changes to key bindings
27
28There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
29
34f47bc4 30*** Changes in GDB 5.1:
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31
32* New native configurations
33
34Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
35x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
2aa830e4 36MIPS Linux mips*-*-linux*
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37MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
38ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
5769d3cd 39s390 and s390x Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
139760b7 40
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41* New targets
42
def90278 43Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
24be5c34 44CRIS cris-axis
e23194cb 45UltraSparc running Linux sparc64-*-linux*
def90278 46
17e78a56 47* OBSOLETE configurations and files
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48
49x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
9b9c068d 50Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
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51Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
52 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
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53TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
54WDC 65816 w65-*-*
4a1968f4 55Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
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56PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
57PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
58PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
24f89b68 59SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
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60Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
61ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
d036b4d9 62Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
bf64bfd6 63
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64stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
65kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
66
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67Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
68been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
69configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
70permanently REMOVED.
71
a196c81c 72* REMOVED configurations and files
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73
74Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
75Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
76Pyramid pyramid-*-*
77ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
78Tahoe tahoe-*-*
a196c81c 79ser-ocd.c *-*-*
bf64bfd6 80
6d6b80e5 81* GDB has been converted to ISO C.
e23194cb 82
6d6b80e5 83GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
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84sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
85present.
86
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87* Other news:
88
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89* "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
90
91* The MI enabled by default.
92
93The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
94revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
95engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
96using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
97which is now deprecated.
98
99* Support for debugging Pascal programs.
100
101GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
102main features are supported:
103
104 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
105
106 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
107 extension;
108
109 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
110
111 - a Pascal expression parser.
112
113However, some important features are not yet supported.
114
115 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
116
117 - there are some problems with boolean types;
118
119 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
120 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
121
122 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
123
124 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
125
126* Changes in completion.
127
128Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
129to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
130users expect at the shell prompt.
131
132Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
133`breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
134program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
135files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
136be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
137considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
138name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
139
140`set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
141
142* New platform-independent commands:
143
144It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
145hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
146documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
147
148* Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
149
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150Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
151revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
152many threads as your system allows you to have.
153
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154Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
155
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156Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
157multi-threaded programs though.
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158
159* Changes in MIPS configurations.
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160
161Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
162
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163GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
164debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
165supported.)
166
167* Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
168
169Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
170breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
171implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
172put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
173and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
174registers.
175
176The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
177debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
178watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
179
180* Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
181
182New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
183the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
184
185New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
186display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
187IDT.
188
189New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
190from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
191New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
192a given linear address.
193
194GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
195program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
196which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
197
198DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
199
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200It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
201
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202* Changes in documentation.
203
204All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
205Documentation License.
206
207Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
208manual.
209
210TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
211
212Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
213manual.
214
215The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
216documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
217hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
218
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219* GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
220
221The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
222``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
223contents of this file.
224
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225* gdba.el deleted
226
227GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
139760b7 228
9debab2f 229*** Changes in GDB 5.0:
7a292a7a 230
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231* Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
232
233Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
234programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
235displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
236greater level of detail.
237
238* Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
239
240It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
241bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
242on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
243written.
244
245* Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
246
247The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
248necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
249machines ``out of the box''.
250
251The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
252possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
253signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
254would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
255interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
256
257It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
258standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
259even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
260and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
261terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
262
263The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
264enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
265also works.
266
267DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
268GDB.
269
270It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
271directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
272times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
273breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
274
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275* New native configurations
276
277ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
afc05dd4 278PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
ed9a39eb 279
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280* New targets
281
96baa820 282Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
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283x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
284PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
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285TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
286
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287* OBSOLETE configurations
288
289Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
290Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
9846de1b 291Pyramid pyramid-*-*
ed9a39eb 292ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
104c1213 293Tahoe tahoe-*-*
7a292a7a 294
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295Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
296but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
297these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
298be permanently REMOVED.
299
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300* Gould support removed
301
302Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
303
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304* New features for SVR4
305
306On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
307without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
308load symbols from the running process's executable file.
309
310* Many C++ enhancements
311
312C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
313in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
314
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315* Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
316
317A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
318sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
319with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
320``|<program> <args>'' vis:
321
322 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
323 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
324
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325* MIPS 64 remote protocol
326
327A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
328expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
329instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
330
331The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
332added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
333
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334* ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
335
336The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
337``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
338include ``set remote P-packet''.
339
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340* Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
341
342The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
343accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
344``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
345
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346* ``apropos'' command added.
347
348The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
349documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
350try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
351
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352* New MI interface
353
354A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
355interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
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356process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
357"GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
358enabled by configuring with:
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359
360 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
361
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362*** Changes in GDB-4.18:
363
364* New native configurations
365
366HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
367HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
368M68K Linux m68*-*-linux*
369
370* New targets
371
372Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
373Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
374Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
375
376* OBSOLETE configurations
377
378Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
379
380Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
381but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
382these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
383be permanently REMOVED.
384
385* ANSI/ISO C
386
387As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
388buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
389containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
390use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
391available. If this is not true, please report the affected
392configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
393information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
394already.
395
396* Readline 2.2
397
398GDB now uses readline 2.2.
399
400* set extension-language
401
402You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
403languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
404you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
405 set extension-language .c c++
406The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
407and their associated languages.
408
409* Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
410
411When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
412you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
413PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
414
415 set processor NAME
416
417sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
418following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
419
420 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
421 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
422 403 IBM PowerPC 403
423 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
424 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
425 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
426 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
427 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
428 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
429 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
430 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
431
432At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
433special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
434registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
435only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
436
437* HP-UX support
438
439Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
440more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
441library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
442support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
443for xdb and dbx commands.
444
445* Catchpoints
446
447HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
448generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
449to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
450
451This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
452argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
453output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
454
455* Debugging across forks
456
457On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
458in the inferior.
459
460* TUI
461
462HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
463it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
464configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
465
466* GDB remote protocol additions
467
468A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
469Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
470fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
471allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
472
473For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
474full 64-bit address. The command
475
476 set remoteaddresssize 32
477
478can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
479the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
480will be discarded.
481
482In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
483command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
484
485 maint packet heythere
486
487sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
488disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
489time.
490
491The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
492target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
493downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
494
495* Tracing can collect general expressions
496
497You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
498further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
499doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
500
501* mask-address variable for Mips
502
503For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
504a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
505of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
506
507* Higher serial baud rates
508
509GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
510230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
511to achieve all of these rates.)
512
513* i960 simulator
514
515The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
516builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
517
518
519*** Changes in GDB-4.17:
520
521* New native configurations
522
523Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
524Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
525Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
526PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
527PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
528Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
529Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
530
531* New targets
532
533Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
534Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
535Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
536Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
537MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
538MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
539MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
540Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
541Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
542Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
543NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
544
545* New debugging protocols
546
547ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
548M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
549DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
550PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
551PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
552Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
553
554* DWARF 2
555
556All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
557format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
558information.
559
560* Java frontend
561
562GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
563only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
564
565* solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
566
567For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
568loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
569locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
570
571* Live range splitting
572
573GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
574range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
575more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
576
577* Hurd support
578
579GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
580updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
581
582* ARM Thumb support
583
584GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
585instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
586instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
587accordingly.
588
589* MIPS16 support
590
591GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
592instruction set.
593
594* Overlay support
595
596GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
597linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
598will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
599control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
600additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
601in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
602
603* info symbol
604
605The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
606the symbol at the specified address.
607
608* Trace support
609
610The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
611asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
612extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
613includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
614file tracepoint.c for more details.
615
616* MIPS simulator
617
618Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
619by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
620of most MIPS variants.
621
622* Sparc simulator
623
624Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
625by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
626Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
627
628* set architecture
629
630For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
631basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
632architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
633the possible architectures.
634
635*** Changes in GDB-4.16:
636
637* New native configurations
638
639Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
640M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
641PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
642PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
643PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
644RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
645
646* New targets
647
648ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
649I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
650MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
651MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
652PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
653Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
654Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
655
656* PowerPC simulator
657
658The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
659contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
660PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
661basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
662performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
663
664* Solaris 2.5
665
666GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
667
668* Windows 95/NT native
669
670GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
671To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
672which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
673Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
674ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
675
676* dont-repeat command
677
678If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
679command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
680useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
681extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
682
683* Send break instead of ^C
684
685The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
686rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
687GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
688
689* Remote protocol timeout
690
691The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
692that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
693to read from the target. The default value is 2.
694
695* Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
696
697By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
698loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
699stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
700when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
701in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
702
703Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
704/usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
705automatically on hpux10.
706
707* Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
708
709Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
710
711* Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
712
713When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
714may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
715the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
716every character. The default value is 1050.
717
718* Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
719
720If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
721a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
722replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
723details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
724remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
725to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
726
727* Speedups for remote debugging
728
729GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
730the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
731and more efficient S-record downloading.
732
733* Memory use reductions and statistics collection
734
735GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
736Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
737
738*** Changes in GDB-4.15:
739
740* Psymtabs for XCOFF
741
742The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
743can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
744
745* Remote targets use caching
746
747Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
748remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
749it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
750debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
751off' turns the the data cache off.
752
753* Remote targets may have threads
754
755The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
756in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
757gdb/remote.c for details.
758
759* NetROM support
760
761If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
762support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
763acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
764write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
765support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
766another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
767sequence is something like
768
769 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
770 load <prog>
771 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
772
773* Macintosh host
774
775GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
776may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
777it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
778available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
779device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
780directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
781scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
782mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
783
784* Autoconf
785
786GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
787but does simplify configuration and building.
788
789* hpux10
790
791GDB now supports hpux10.
792
793*** Changes in GDB-4.14:
794
795* New native configurations
796
797x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
798x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
799NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
800Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
801
802* New targets
803
804A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
805HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
806CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
807PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
808WDC 65816 w65-*-*
809
810* Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
811
812GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
813possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
814filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
815the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
816if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
817
818* Arguments to user-defined commands
819
820User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
821Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
822trivial example:
823define adder
824 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
825
826To execute the command use:
827adder 1 2 3
828
829Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
830Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
831use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
832
833* New `if' and `while' commands
834
835This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
836commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
837expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
838execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
839terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
840`else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
841if the expression is zero.
842
843* Fortran source language mode
844
845GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
846Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
847variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
848with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
849Fortran compilers.
850
851* Better HPUX support
852
853Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
854running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
855processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
856for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
857that behavior do the following before running the program:
858
859 adb -w a.out
860 __dld_flags?W 0x5
861 control-d
862
863This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
864To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
865
866 adb -w a.out
867 __dld_flags?W 0x4
868 control-d
869
870You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
871the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
872external linkage.
873
874GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
875HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
876
877* Target byte order now dynamically selectable
878
879You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
880commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
881current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
882"set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
883associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
884configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
885
886* New DOS host serial code
887
888This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
889no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
890a PC's serial port.
891
892*** Changes in GDB-4.13:
893
894* New "complete" command
895
896This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
897were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
898
899* Trailing space optional in prompt
900
901"set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
902allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
903
904* Breakpoint hit counts
905
906"info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
907has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
908can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
909to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
910less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
911that breakpoint.
912
913* Ability to stop printing at NULL character
914
915"set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
916an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
917arrays actually contain only short strings.
918
919* Shared library breakpoints
920
921In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
922breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
923
924* Hardware watchpoints
925
926There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
927targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
928
929Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under Linux.
930
931* Annotations
932
933Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
934and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
935
936* Improved Irix 5 support
937
938GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
939
940* Improved HPPA support
941
942GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
943
944* New native configurations
945
946Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
947HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
948Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
949RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
950
951* New targets
952
953OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
954MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
955Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
956
957* Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
958
959There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
960This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
961
962* Fixes
963
964As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
965and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
966
967*** Changes in GDB-4.12:
968
969* Irix 5 is now supported
970
971* HPPA support
972
973GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
974to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
975GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
976of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
977can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
978
979
980*** Changes in GDB-4.11:
981
982* User visible changes:
983
984* Remote Debugging
985
986The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
987target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
988debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
989integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
990debugging info for the mips target).
991
992* DEC Alpha native support
993
994GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
995debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
996work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
997Alpha-specific notes.
998
999* Preliminary thread implementation
1000
1001GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
1002
1003* LynxOS native and target support for 386
1004
1005This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
1006to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
1007for details).
1008
1009* Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
1010
1011This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
1012mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
1013call methods, ...etc.
1014
1015*** Changes in GDB-4.10:
1016
1017 * User visible changes:
1018
1019Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
1020supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
1021other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
1022somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
1023
1024Filename completion now works.
1025
1026When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
1027arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
1028addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
1029
1030All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
1031vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
1032should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
1033your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
1034to be on the far side of a thin network line.
1035
1036 * DEC alpha support
1037
1038This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
1039cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
1040
1041
1042*** Changes in GDB-4.9:
1043
1044 * Testsuite
1045
1046This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
1047The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
1048via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
1049
1050 * C++ demangling
1051
1052'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
1053emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
1054Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
1055disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
1056use gdb with AT&T cfront.
1057
1058 * Simulators
1059
1060GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
1061So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
1062Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
1063
1064 * New targets supported
1065
1066H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1067H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1068SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
1069Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1070IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
1071
1072Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
1073version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
1074GO32 memory extender.
1075
1076 * New remote protocols
1077
1078MIPS remote debugging protocol.
1079
1080 * New source languages supported
1081
1082This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
1083used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
1084into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
1085
1086
1087*** Changes in GDB-4.8:
1088
1089 * HP Precision Architecture supported
1090
1091GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
1092version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
1093University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
1094compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
1095format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
1096(as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
1097
1098Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
1099
1100 * Faster and better demangling
1101
1102We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
1103demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
1104character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
1105only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
1106This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
1107increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
1108symbol lookups.
1109
1110`Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
1111from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
1112compiler does not actually implement.
1113
1114 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
1115
1116In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
1117inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
1118recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
1119very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
1120The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
1121circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
1122fix.
1123
1124The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
1125release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
1126
1127 * Improved configure script
1128
1129The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
1130you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
1131host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
1132done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
1133
1134We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
1135version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
1136`--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
1137The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
1138only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
1139We hope to make this the default in a future release.
1140
1141 * Documentation improvements
1142
1143There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
1144produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
1145before submitting changes.
1146
1147The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
1148M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
1149`info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
1150you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
1151a future texinfo-X.Y release.
1152
1153*NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
1154We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
1155been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
1156or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
1157`texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
1158around this problem.
1159
1160 * New features
1161
1162GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
1163the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
1164`print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
1165the target program.
1166
1167The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
1168how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
1169
1170 * New native hosts supported
1171
1172HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
1173386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
1174
1175 * New targets supported
1176
1177AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
1178
1179 * New file formats supported
1180
1181BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
1182HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
1183
1184 * Major bug fixes
1185
1186Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
1187
1188We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
1189printf_filtered("%s") problems.
1190
1191We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
1192for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
1193release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
1194
1195You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
1196will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
1197
1198We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
1199for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
1200especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
1201libraries.
1202
1203The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
1204information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
1205command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
1206any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
1207when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
1208
1209 * Internal improvements
1210
1211GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
1212debugging of multiple languages in the future.
1213
1214GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
1215Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
1216symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
1217contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
1218shared code that handles any of them.
1219
1220 * New command line options
1221
1222We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
1223
1224 * Mmalloc licensing
1225
1226The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
1227General Public License.
1228
1229*** Changes in GDB-4.7:
1230
1231 * Host/native/target split
1232
1233GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
1234hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
1235target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
1236local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
1237ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
1238
1239The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
1240GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
1241is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
1242code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
1243any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
1244built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
1245handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
1246
1247GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
1248It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
1249plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
1250
1251 * New hosts supported
1252
1253HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
1254386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1255386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
1256
1257 * New targets supported
1258
1259Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
126068030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
1261
1262 * New native hosts supported
1263
1264386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1265 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
1266386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
1267
1268 * New file formats supported
1269
1270BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
1271supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
1272format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
1273
1274 * New commands
1275
1276`show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
1277`show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
1278These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
1279
1280`info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
1281
1282You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
1283scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
1284prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
1285executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
1286
1287 * C++ improvements
1288
1289We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
1290info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
1291symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
1292
1293Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
1294
1295 * Major bug fixes
1296
1297The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
1298fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
1299by the compiler.
1300
1301We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
1302support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
1303
1304John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
1305slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
1306that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
1307purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
1308the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
1309mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
1310
1311Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
1312about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
1313completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
1314we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
1315
1316 * AMD 29k support
1317
1318A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
1319specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
1320calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
1321usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
1322in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
1323
1324We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
1325Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
1326of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
1327resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
1328
1329 * Remote interfaces
1330
1331We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
1332with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
1333message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
1334This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
1335needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
1336breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
1337each instruction being stepped through.
1338
1339The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
1340registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
1341
1342There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
1343find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
1344Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
1345processor with a serial port.
1346
1347 * Configuration
1348
1349Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
1350`table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
1351supported, and what files each one uses.
1352
1353 * Library changes
1354
1355There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
1356disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
1357Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
1358disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
1359
1360The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
1361Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
1362can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
1363grants all the rights from the General Public License.
1364
1365 * Documentation
1366
1367The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
1368reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
1369as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
1370encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
1371system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
1372bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
1373
1374And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
1375
1376
1377*** Changes in GDB-4.6:
1378
1379 * Better support for C++ function names
1380
1381GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
1382names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
1383(using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
1384single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
1385Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
1386
1387GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
1388the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
1389You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
1390lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
1391for the list of formats.
1392
1393 * G++ symbol mangling problem
1394
1395Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
1396C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
1397directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
1398can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
1399usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
1400about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
1401this problem.)
1402
1403 * New 'maintenance' command
1404
1405All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
1406the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
1407can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
1408
1409 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
1410 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
1411 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
1412 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
1413 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
1414 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
1415
1416The following commands are new:
1417
1418 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
1419 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
1420 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
1421
1422 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
1423
1424We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
1425(e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
1426be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
1427read after argv processing.
1428
1429 * New hosts supported
1430
1431Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
1432
1433Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
1434
1435We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
1436is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
1437for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
1438masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
1439fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
1440It costs extra.
1441
1442 * New targets supported
1443
1444Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1445
1446 * More smarts about finding #include files
1447
1448GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
1449all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
1450greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
1451especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
1452the one that contains your sources.
1453
1454We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
1455breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
1456try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
1457
1458 * Interesting infernals change
1459
1460GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
1461section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
1462target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
1463stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
1464
1465 * Bug fixes (of course!)
1466
1467There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
1468 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
1469 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
1470
1471See the ChangeLog for details.
1472
1473*** Changes in GDB-4.5:
1474
1475 * New machines supported (host and target)
1476
1477IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
1478
1479SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
1480
1481 * New malloc package
1482
1483GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
1484Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
1485capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
1486This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
1487pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
1488more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
1489
1490 * info proc
1491
1492The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
1493'help info proc' for details.
1494
1495 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
1496
1497The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
1498Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
1499possible.
1500
1501 * File name changes for MS-DOS
1502
1503Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
1504support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
1505conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
1506environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
1507that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
1508in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
1509
1510 * Cross byte order fixes
1511
1512Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
1513targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
1514
1515 * New -mapped and -readnow options
1516
1517If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
1518system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
1519`symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
1520program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
1521called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
1522Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
1523and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
1524the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
1525option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
1526starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
1527
1528You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
1529the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
1530information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
1531slower, but makes future operations faster.
1532
1533The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
1534build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
1535A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
1536use is:
1537
1538 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
1539
1540The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
1541It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
1542shared across multiple host platforms.
1543
1544 * longjmp() handling
1545
1546GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
1547siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
1548all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
1549platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
1550
1551 * Solaris 2.0
1552
1553Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
1554this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
1555reading symbols.
1556
1557 * Bug fixes
1558
1559As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
1560People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
1561crashes and trashed symbol tables.
1562
1563*** Changes in GDB-4.4:
1564
1565 * New machines supported (host and target)
1566
1567SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
1568 (except core files)
1569BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
1570Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
1571
1572 * New machines supported (target)
1573
1574AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1575
1576 * C++ support
1577
1578GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
1579The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
1580per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
1581
1582GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
1583`ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
1584extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
1585good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
1586will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
1587released.
1588
1589 * New features for SVR4
1590
1591GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
1592shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
1593only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
1594
1595The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
1596on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
1597it prints the address mappings of the process.
1598
1599If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
1600bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
1601
1602 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
1603
1604Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
1605now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
1606skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
1607make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
1608same code linked statically.
1609
1610 * New Getopt
1611
1612GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
1613version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
1614continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
1615Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
1616added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
1617future by other options that begin with the same letter.
1618
1619 * Bugs fixed
1620
1621The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
1622Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
1623See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
1624
1625
1626*** Changes in GDB-4.3:
1627
1628 * New machines supported (host and target)
1629
1630Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
1631NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
1632Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
1633
1634 * Almost SCO Unix support
1635
1636We had hoped to support:
1637SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
1638(except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
1639that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
1640about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
1641
1642 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
1643
1644GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
1645debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
1646is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
1647send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
1648reqired (if any).
1649
1650 * New Readline
1651
1652GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
1653is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
1654required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
1655
1656 * Bugs fixed
1657
1658The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
1659Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
1660See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
1661
1662 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
1663
1664GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
1665supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
1666symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
1667
1668Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
1669mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
1670debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
1671mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
1672version 2.
1673
1674Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
1675really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
1676line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
1677variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
1678situation somewhat.
1679
1680When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
1681However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
1682methods.
1683
1684We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
1685DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
1686encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
1687
1688
1689*** Changes in GDB-4.2:
1690
1691 * Improved configuration
1692
1693Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
1694Porting BFD is simpler.
1695
1696 * Stepping improved
1697
1698The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
1699of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
1700in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
1701function that has debugging information is called within the line.
1702
1703 * Bug fixing
1704
1705Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
1706
1707 * New host supported (not target)
1708
1709Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
1710
1711
1712*** Changes in GDB-4.1:
1713
1714 * Multiple source language support
1715
1716GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
1717It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
1718and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
1719language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
1720You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
1721`set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
1722
1723 * GDB and Modula-2
1724
1725GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
1726currently under development at the State University of New York at
1727Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
1728continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
1729
1730Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
1731debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
1732symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
1733
1734There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
1735in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
1736
1737 * set write on/off
1738
1739GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
1740a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
1741the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
1742by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
1743effect immediately.
1744
1745 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
1746
1747When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
1748shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
1749The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
1750examining core files.
1751
1752 * set listsize
1753
1754You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
1755The default is 10.
1756
1757 * New machines supported (host and target)
1758
1759SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
1760Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
1761Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
1762
1763 * New hosts supported (not targets)
1764
1765IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
1766
1767 * New targets supported (not hosts)
1768
1769AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1770AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1771Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
1772
1773 * New remote interfaces
1774
1775AMD 29000 Adapt
1776AMD 29000 Minimon
1777
1778
1779*** Changes in GDB-4.0:
1780
1781 * New Facilities
1782
1783Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
1784
1785Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
1786target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
1787is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
1788remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
1789remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
1790also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
1791using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
1792stub on the target system.
1793
1794New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
1795
1796GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
1797library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
1798object file types such as a.out and coff.
1799
1800There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
1801refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
1802
1803
1804 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
1805
1806All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
1807by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
1808
1809For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
1810``Show prompt'' produces the response:
1811Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
1812
1813What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
1814print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
1815will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
1816all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
1817
1818confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
1819 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
1820 it is already running. Default is ON.
1821
1822editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
1823 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
1824 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
1825 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
1826 Default is ON.
1827
1828history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
1829 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
1830 or the value of the environment variable
1831 GDBHISTFILE.
1832
1833history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
1834 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
1835 HISTSIZE.
1836
1837history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
1838 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
1839 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
1840
1841history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
1842 history expansion will be performed on
1843 command line input. The default is OFF.
1844
1845radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
1846 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
1847 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
1848
1849height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
1850 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
1851 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
1852 variable TERM.
1853
1854width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
1855 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
1856 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
1857 variable TERM.
1858
1859Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
1860``set width'' instead.
1861
1862print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
1863 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
1864 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
1865 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
1866
1867print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
1868 is OFF.
1869
1870print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
1871 "raw" form if off.
1872
1873print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
1874 like instructions.
1875
1876print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
1877
1878
1879 * Support for Epoch Environment.
1880
1881The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
1882new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
1883are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
1884window.
1885
1886
1887 * Support for Shared Libraries
1888
1889GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
1890Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
1891before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
1892happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
1893At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
1894from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
1895shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
1896It can be abbreviated ``share''.
1897
1898sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
1899 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
1900 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
1901
1902info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
1903
1904
1905 * Watchpoints
1906
1907A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
1908expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
1909tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
1910quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
1911problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
1912more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
1913
1914watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
1915
1916info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
1917
1918delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
1919disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
1920enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
1921
1922
1923 * C++ multiple inheritance
1924
1925When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
1926for C++ programs.
1927
1928 * C++ exception handling
1929
1930Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
1931ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
1932the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
1933handler's context).
1934
1935catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
1936 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
1937 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
1938
1939info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
1940 current stack frame.
1941
1942
1943 * Minor command changes
1944
1945The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
1946command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
1947is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
1948
1949The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
1950at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
1951frames without printing.
1952
1953 * New directory command
1954
1955'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
1956The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
1957about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
1958with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
1959find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
1960
1961 * Configuring GDB for compilation
1962
1963For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
1964for more details.
1965
1966GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
1967two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
1968Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
1969where the program that you are debugging will run.
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