2010-07-22 Thomas Schwinge <thomas@codesourcery.com>
[deliverable/binutils-gdb.git] / gdb / NEWS
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1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
3
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4*** Changes since GDB 7.2
5
76b8507d 6*** Changes in GDB 7.2
bfbf3774 7
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8* C++ Improvements:
9
10 ** Argument Dependent Lookup (ADL)
11
12 In C++ ADL lookup directs function search to the namespaces of its
13 arguments even if the namespace has not been imported.
14 For example:
15 namespace A
16 {
17 class B { };
18 void foo (B) { }
19 }
20 ...
21 A::B b
22 foo(b)
23 Here the compiler will search for `foo' in the namespace of 'b'
24 and find A::foo. GDB now supports this. This construct is commonly
25 used in the Standard Template Library for operators.
26
27 ** Improved User Defined Operator Support
28
29 In addition to member operators, GDB now supports lookup of operators
30 defined in a namespace and imported with a `using' directive, operators
31 defined in the global scope, operators imported implicitly from an
32 anonymous namespace, and the ADL operators mentioned in the previous
33 entry.
34 GDB now also supports proper overload resolution for all the previously
35 mentioned flavors of operators.
36
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37 ** static const class members
38
39 Printing of static const class members that are initialized in the
40 class definition has been fixed.
41
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42* Windows Thread Information Block access.
43
44 On Windows targets, GDB now supports displaying the Windows Thread
45 Information Block (TIB) structure. This structure is visible either
46 by using the new command `info w32 thread-information-block' or, by
47 dereferencing the new convenience variable named `$_tlb', a
48 thread-specific pointer to the TIB. This feature is also supported
49 when remote debugging using GDBserver.
50
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51* Static tracepoints
52
53 Static tracepoints are calls in the user program into a tracing
54 library. One such library is a port of the LTTng kernel tracer to
55 userspace --- UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer, http://lttng.org/ust).
56 When debugging with GDBserver, GDB now supports combining the GDB
57 tracepoint machinery with such libraries. For example: the user can
58 use GDB to probe a static tracepoint marker (a call from the user
59 program into the tracing library) with the new "strace" command (see
60 "New commands" below). This creates a "static tracepoint" in the
61 breakpoint list, that can be manipulated with the same feature set
62 as fast and regular tracepoints. E.g., collect registers, local and
63 global variables, collect trace state variables, and define
64 tracepoint conditions. In addition, the user can collect extra
65 static tracepoint marker specific data, by collecting the new
66 $_sdata internal variable. When analyzing the trace buffer, you can
67 inspect $_sdata like any other variable available to GDB. For more
68 information, see the "Tracepoints" chapter in GDB user manual. New
69 remote packets have been defined to support static tracepoints, see
70 the "New remote packets" section below.
71
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72* New remote packets
73
74qGetTIBAddr
75
76 Return the address of the Windows Thread Information Block of a given thread.
77
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78qRelocInsn
79
80 In response to several of the tracepoint packets, the target may now
81 also respond with a number of intermediate `qRelocInsn' request
82 packets before the final result packet, to have GDB handle
83 relocating an instruction to execute at a different address. This
84 is particularly useful for stubs that support fast tracepoints. GDB
85 reports support for this feature in the qSupported packet.
86
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87qTfSTM, qTsSTM
88
89 List static tracepoint markers in the target program.
90
91qTSTMat
92
93 List static tracepoint markers at a given address in the target
94 program.
95
96qXfer:statictrace:read
97
98 Read the static trace data collected (by a `collect $_sdata'
99 tracepoint action). The remote stub reports support for this packet
100 to gdb's qSupported query.
101
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102* The source command now accepts a -s option to force searching for the
103 script in the source search path even if the script name specifies
104 a directory.
105
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106* New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
107
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108 - GDBserver now support tracepoints (including fast tracepoints, and
109 static tracepoints). The feature is currently supported by the
110 i386-linux and amd64-linux builds. See the "Tracepoints support
111 in gdbserver" section in the manual for more information.
112
113 GDBserver JIT compiles the tracepoint's conditional agent
114 expression bytecode into native code whenever possible for low
115 overhead dynamic tracepoints conditionals. For such tracepoints,
116 an expression that examines program state is evaluated when the
117 tracepoint is reached, in order to determine whether to capture
118 trace data. If the condition is simple and false, processing the
119 tracepoint finishes very quickly and no data is gathered.
120
121 GDBserver interfaces with the UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer) library
122 for static tracepoints support.
d337e9f0 123
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124 - GDBserver now supports x86_64 Windows 64-bit debugging.
125
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126* GDB now sends xmlRegisters= in qSupported packet to indicate that
127 it understands register description.
128
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129* The --batch flag now disables pagination and queries.
130
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131* X86 general purpose registers
132
133 GDB now supports reading/writing byte, word and double-word x86
134 general purpose registers directly. This means you can use, say,
135 $ah or $ax to refer, respectively, to the byte register AH and
136 16-bit word register AX that are actually portions of the 32-bit
137 register EAX or 64-bit register RAX.
138
95a42b64 139* The `commands' command now accepts a range of breakpoints to modify.
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140 A plain `commands' following a command that creates multiple
141 breakpoints affects all the breakpoints set by that command. This
142 applies to breakpoints set by `rbreak', and also applies when a
143 single `break' command creates multiple breakpoints (e.g.,
144 breakpoints on overloaded c++ functions).
95a42b64 145
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146* The `rbreak' command now accepts a filename specification as part of
147 its argument, limiting the functions selected by the regex to those
148 in the specified file.
149
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150* Support for remote debugging Windows and SymbianOS shared libraries
151 from Unix hosts has been improved. Non Windows GDB builds now can
152 understand target reported file names that follow MS-DOS based file
153 system semantics, such as file names that include drive letters and
154 use the backslash character as directory separator. This makes it
155 possible to transparently use the "set sysroot" and "set
156 solib-search-path" on Unix hosts to point as host copies of the
157 target's shared libraries. See the new command "set
158 target-file-system-kind" described below, and the "Commands to
159 specify files" section in the user manual for more information.
160
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161* New commands
162
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163eval template, expressions...
164 Convert the values of one or more expressions under the control
165 of the string template to a command line, and call it.
166
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167set target-file-system-kind unix|dos-based|auto
168show target-file-system-kind
169 Set or show the assumed file system kind for target reported file
170 names.
171
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172save breakpoints <filename>
173 Save all current breakpoint definitions to a file suitable for use
174 in a later debugging session. To read the saved breakpoint
175 definitions, use the `source' command.
176
177`save tracepoints' is a new alias for `save-tracepoints'. The latter
178is now deprecated.
179
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180info static-tracepoint-markers
181 Display information about static tracepoint markers in the target.
182
183strace FN | FILE:LINE | *ADDR | -m MARKER_ID
184 Define a static tracepoint by probing a marker at the given
185 function, line, address, or marker ID.
186
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187* Python scripting
188
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189** GDB now provides a new directory location, called the python directory,
190 where Python scripts written for GDB can be installed. The location
191 of that directory is <data-directory>/python, where <data-directory>
192 is the GDB data directory. For more details, see section `Scripting
193 GDB using Python' in the manual.
194
adc36818 195** The GDB Python API now has access to breakpoints, symbols, symbol
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196 tables, program spaces, inferiors, threads and frame's code blocks.
197 Additionally, GDB Parameters can now be created from the API, and
198 manipulated via set/show in the CLI.
f870a310 199
fa33c3cd 200** New functions gdb.target_charset, gdb.target_wide_charset,
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201 gdb.progspaces, gdb.current_progspace, and gdb.string_to_argv.
202
203** New exception gdb.GdbError.
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204
205** Pretty-printers are now also looked up in the current program space.
f3e9a817 206
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207** Pretty-printers can now be individually enabled and disabled.
208
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209** GDB now looks for names of Python scripts to auto-load in a
210 special section named `.debug_gdb_scripts', in addition to looking
211 for a OBJFILE-gdb.py script when OBJFILE is read by the debugger.
212
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213* Tracepoint actions were unified with breakpoint commands. In particular,
214there are no longer differences in "info break" output for breakpoints and
215tracepoints and the "commands" command can be used for both tracepoints and
216regular breakpoints.
217
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218* New targets
219
220ARM Symbian arm*-*-symbianelf*
221
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222* D language support.
223 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the D programming
224 language.
225
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226* GDB now supports the extended ptrace interface for PowerPC which is
227 available since Linux kernel version 2.6.34. This automatically enables
228 any hardware breakpoints and additional hardware watchpoints available in
229 the processor. The old ptrace interface exposes just one hardware
230 watchpoint and no hardware breakpoints.
231
232* GDB is now able to use the Data Value Compare (DVC) register available on
233 embedded PowerPC processors to implement in hardware simple watchpoint
234 conditions of the form:
235
236 watch ADDRESS|VARIABLE if ADDRESS|VARIABLE == CONSTANT EXPRESSION
237
238 This works in native GDB running on Linux kernels with the extended ptrace
239 interface mentioned above.
240
bfbf3774 241*** Changes in GDB 7.1
abc7453d 242
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243* C++ Improvements
244
245 ** Namespace Support
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246
247 GDB now supports importing of namespaces in C++. This enables the
248 user to inspect variables from imported namespaces. Support for
249 namepace aliasing has also been added. So, if a namespace is
250 aliased in the current scope (e.g. namepace C=A; ) the user can
251 print variables using the alias (e.g. (gdb) print C::x).
252
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253 ** Bug Fixes
254
255 All known bugs relating to the printing of virtual base class were
256 fixed. It is now possible to call overloaded static methods using a
257 qualified name.
258
259 ** Cast Operators
260
261 The C++ cast operators static_cast<>, dynamic_cast<>, const_cast<>,
262 and reinterpret_cast<> are now handled by the C++ expression parser.
263
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264* New targets
265
266Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze-*-*
34207b9e 267Renesas RX rx-*-elf
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268
269* New Simulators
270
271Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze
34207b9e 272Renesas RX rx
2d1c1221 273
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274* Multi-program debugging.
275
276 GDB now has support for multi-program (a.k.a. multi-executable or
277 multi-exec) debugging. This allows for debugging multiple inferiors
278 simultaneously each running a different program under the same GDB
279 session. See "Debugging Multiple Inferiors and Programs" in the
280 manual for more information. This implied some user visible changes
281 in the multi-inferior support. For example, "info inferiors" now
282 lists inferiors that are not running yet or that have exited
283 already. See also "New commands" and "New options" below.
284
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285* New tracing features
286
287 GDB's tracepoint facility now includes several new features:
288
289 ** Trace state variables
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290
291 GDB tracepoints now include support for trace state variables, which
292 are variables managed by the target agent during a tracing
293 experiment. They are useful for tracepoints that trigger each
294 other, so for instance one tracepoint can count hits in a variable,
295 and then a second tracepoint has a condition that is true when the
296 count reaches a particular value. Trace state variables share the
297 $-syntax of GDB convenience variables, and can appear in both
298 tracepoint actions and condition expressions. Use the "tvariable"
299 command to create, and "info tvariables" to view; see "Trace State
300 Variables" in the manual for more detail.
7a697b8d 301
d5551862 302 ** Fast tracepoints
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303
304 GDB now includes an option for defining fast tracepoints, which
305 targets may implement more efficiently, such as by installing a jump
306 into the target agent rather than a trap instruction. The resulting
307 speedup can be by two orders of magnitude or more, although the
308 tradeoff is that some program locations on some target architectures
309 might not allow fast tracepoint installation, for instance if the
310 instruction to be replaced is shorter than the jump. To request a
311 fast tracepoint, use the "ftrace" command, with syntax identical to
312 the regular trace command.
313
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314 ** Disconnected tracing
315
316 It is now possible to detach GDB from the target while it is running
317 a trace experiment, then reconnect later to see how the experiment
318 is going. In addition, a new variable disconnected-tracing lets you
319 tell the target agent whether to continue running a trace if the
320 connection is lost unexpectedly.
321
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322 ** Trace files
323
324 GDB now has the ability to save the trace buffer into a file, and
325 then use that file as a target, similarly to you can do with
326 corefiles. You can select trace frames, print data that was
327 collected in them, and use tstatus to display the state of the
328 tracing run at the moment that it was saved. To create a trace
329 file, use "tsave <filename>", and to use it, do "target tfile
330 <name>".
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331
332 ** Circular trace buffer
333
334 You can ask the target agent to handle the trace buffer as a
335 circular buffer, discarding the oldest trace frames to make room for
336 newer ones, by setting circular-trace-buffer to on. This feature may
337 not be available for all target agents.
338
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339* Changed commands
340
341disassemble
342 The disassemble command, when invoked with two arguments, now requires
343 the arguments to be comma-separated.
344
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345info variables
346 The info variables command now displays variable definitions. Files
347 which only declare a variable are not shown.
348
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349source
350 The source command is now capable of sourcing Python scripts.
351 This feature is dependent on the debugger being build with Python
352 support.
353
354 Related to this enhancement is also the introduction of a new command
355 "set script-extension" (see below).
356
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357* New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
358
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359record save [<FILENAME>]
360 Save a file (in core file format) containing the process record
361 execution log for replay debugging at a later time.
362
363record restore <FILENAME>
364 Restore the process record execution log that was saved at an
365 earlier time, for replay debugging.
366
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367add-inferior [-copies <N>] [-exec <FILENAME>]
368 Add a new inferior.
369
370clone-inferior [-copies <N>] [ID]
371 Make a new inferior ready to execute the same program another
372 inferior has loaded.
373
374remove-inferior ID
375 Remove an inferior.
376
377maint info program-spaces
378 List the program spaces loaded into GDB.
379
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380set remote interrupt-sequence [Ctrl-C | BREAK | BREAK-g]
381show remote interrupt-sequence
382 Allow the user to select one of ^C, a BREAK signal or BREAK-g
383 as the sequence to the remote target in order to interrupt the execution.
384 Ctrl-C is a default. Some system prefers BREAK which is high level of
385 serial line for some certain time. Linux kernel prefers BREAK-g, a.k.a
386 Magic SysRq g. It is BREAK signal and character 'g'.
387
388set remote interrupt-on-connect [on | off]
389show remote interrupt-on-connect
390 When interrupt-on-connect is ON, gdb sends interrupt-sequence to
391 remote target when gdb connects to it. This is needed when you debug
392 Linux kernel.
393
394set remotebreak [on | off]
395show remotebreak
396Deprecated. Use "set/show remote interrupt-sequence" instead.
397
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398tvariable $NAME [ = EXP ]
399 Create or modify a trace state variable.
400
401info tvariables
402 List trace state variables and their values.
403
404delete tvariable $NAME ...
405 Delete one or more trace state variables.
406
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407teval EXPR, ...
408 Evaluate the given expressions without collecting anything into the
409 trace buffer. (Valid in tracepoint actions only.)
410
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411ftrace FN / FILE:LINE / *ADDR
412 Define a fast tracepoint at the given function, line, or address.
413
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414* New expression syntax
415
416 GDB now parses the 0b prefix of binary numbers the same way as GCC does.
417 GDB now parses 0b101010 identically with 42.
418
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419* New options
420
421set follow-exec-mode new|same
422show follow-exec-mode
423 Control whether GDB reuses the same inferior across an exec call or
424 creates a new one. This is useful to be able to restart the old
425 executable after the inferior having done an exec call.
426
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427set default-collect EXPR, ...
428show default-collect
429 Define a list of expressions to be collected at each tracepoint.
430 This is a useful way to ensure essential items are not overlooked,
431 such as registers or a critical global variable.
432
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433set disconnected-tracing
434show disconnected-tracing
435 If set to 1, the target is instructed to continue tracing if it
436 loses its connection to GDB. If 0, the target is to stop tracing
437 upon disconnection.
438
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439set circular-trace-buffer
440show circular-trace-buffer
441 If set to on, the target is instructed to use a circular trace buffer
442 and discard the oldest trace frames instead of stopping the trace due
443 to a full trace buffer. If set to off, the trace stops when the buffer
444 fills up. Some targets may not support this.
445
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446set script-extension off|soft|strict
447show script-extension
448 If set to "off", the debugger does not perform any script language
449 recognition, and all sourced files are assumed to be GDB scripts.
450 If set to "soft" (the default), files are sourced according to
451 filename extension, falling back to GDB scripts if the first
452 evaluation failed.
453 If set to "strict", files are sourced according to filename extension.
454
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455set ada trust-PAD-over-XVS on|off
456show ada trust-PAD-over-XVS
457 If off, activate a workaround against a bug in the debugging information
458 generated by the compiler for PAD types (see gcc/exp_dbug.ads in
459 the GCC sources for more information about the GNAT encoding and
460 PAD types in particular). It is always safe to set this option to
461 off, but this introduces a slight performance penalty. The default
462 is on.
463
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464* Python API Improvements
465
466 ** GDB provides the new class gdb.LazyString. This is useful in
467 some pretty-printing cases. The new method gdb.Value.lazy_string
468 provides a simple way to create objects of this type.
469
470 ** The fields returned by gdb.Type.fields now have an
471 `is_base_class' attribute.
472
473 ** The new method gdb.Type.range returns the range of an array type.
474
475 ** The new method gdb.parse_and_eval can be used to parse and
476 evaluate an expression.
477
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478* New remote packets
479
480QTDV
481 Define a trace state variable.
482
483qTV
484 Get the current value of a trace state variable.
485
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486QTDisconnected
487 Set desired tracing behavior upon disconnection.
488
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489QTBuffer:circular
490 Set the trace buffer to be linear or circular.
491
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492qTfP, qTsP
493 Get data about the tracepoints currently in use.
494
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495* Bug fixes
496
497Process record now works correctly with hardware watchpoints.
498
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499Multiple bug fixes have been made to the mips-irix port, making it
500much more reliable. In particular:
501 - Debugging threaded applications is now possible again. Previously,
502 GDB would hang while starting the program, or while waiting for
503 the program to stop at a breakpoint.
504 - Attaching to a running process no longer hangs.
505 - An error occurring while loading a core file has been fixed.
506 - Changing the value of the PC register now works again. This fixes
507 problems observed when using the "jump" command, or when calling
508 a function from GDB, or even when assigning a new value to $pc.
509 - With the "finish" and "return" commands, the return value for functions
510 returning a small array is now correctly printed.
511 - It is now possible to break on shared library code which gets executed
512 during a shared library init phase (code executed while executing
513 their .init section). Previously, the breakpoint would have no effect.
514 - GDB is now able to backtrace through the signal handler for
515 non-threaded programs.
516
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517PIE (Position Independent Executable) programs debugging is now supported.
518This includes debugging execution of PIC (Position Independent Code) shared
519libraries although for that, it should be possible to run such libraries as an
520executable program.
521
abc7453d 522*** Changes in GDB 7.0
75feb17d 523
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524* GDB now has an interface for JIT compilation. Applications that
525dynamically generate code can create symbol files in memory and register
526them with GDB. For users, the feature should work transparently, and
527for JIT developers, the interface is documented in the GDB manual in the
528"JIT Compilation Interface" chapter.
529
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530* Tracepoints may now be conditional. The syntax is as for
531breakpoints; either an "if" clause appended to the "trace" command,
532or the "condition" command is available. GDB sends the condition to
533the target for evaluation using the same bytecode format as is used
534for tracepoint actions.
535
e6158f16 536* "disassemble" command with a /r modifier, print the raw instructions
7280022e 537in hex as well as in symbolic form.
e6158f16 538
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539* Process record and replay
540
541 In a architecture environment that supports ``process record and
542 replay'', ``process record and replay'' target can record a log of
543 the process execution, and replay it with both forward and reverse
544 execute commands.
545
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546* Reverse debugging: GDB now has new commands reverse-continue, reverse-
547step, reverse-next, reverse-finish, reverse-stepi, reverse-nexti, and
548set execution-direction {forward|reverse}, for targets that support
549reverse execution.
550
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551* GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on MIPS/Linux systems. This
552feature is available with a native GDB running on kernel version
5532.6.28 or later.
554
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555* GDB now has support for multi-byte and wide character sets on the
556target. Strings whose character type is wchar_t, char16_t, or
557char32_t are now correctly printed. GDB supports wide- and unicode-
558literals in C, that is, L'x', L"string", u'x', u"string", U'x', and
559U"string" syntax. And, GDB allows the "%ls" and "%lc" formats in
560`printf'. This feature requires iconv to work properly; if your
561system does not have a working iconv, GDB can use GNU libiconv. See
562the installation instructions for more information.
563
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564* GDB now supports automatic retrieval of shared library files from
565remote targets. To use this feature, specify a system root that begins
566with the `remote:' prefix, either via the `set sysroot' command or via
567the `--with-sysroot' configure-time option.
568
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569* "info sharedlibrary" now takes an optional regex of libraries to show,
570and it now reports if a shared library has no debugging information.
571
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572* Commands `set debug-file-directory', `set solib-search-path' and `set args'
573now complete on file names.
574
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575* When completing in expressions, gdb will attempt to limit
576completions to allowable structure or union fields, where appropriate.
577For instance, consider:
578
579 # struct example { int f1; double f2; };
580 # struct example variable;
581 (gdb) p variable.
582
583If the user types TAB at the end of this command line, the available
584completions will be "f1" and "f2".
585
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586* Inlined functions are now supported. They show up in backtraces, and
587the "step", "next", and "finish" commands handle them automatically.
588
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589* GDB now supports the token-splicing (##) and stringification (#)
590operators when expanding macros. It also supports variable-arity
591macros.
592
47a3467a 593* GDB now supports inspecting extra signal information, exported by
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594the new $_siginfo convenience variable. The feature is currently
595implemented on linux ARM, i386 and amd64.
596
597* GDB can now display the VFP floating point registers and NEON vector
598registers on ARM targets. Both ARM GNU/Linux native GDB and gdbserver
599can provide these registers (requires Linux 2.6.30 or later). Remote
600and simulator targets may also provide them.
47a3467a 601
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602* New remote packets
603
604qSearch:memory:
605 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
606
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607QStartNoAckMode
608 Turn off `+'/`-' protocol acknowledgments to permit more efficient
609 operation over reliable transport links. Use of this packet is
610 controlled by the `set remote noack-packet' command.
611
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612vKill
613 Kill the process with the specified process ID. Use this in preference
614 to `k' when multiprocess protocol extensions are supported.
615
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616qXfer:osdata:read
617 Obtains additional operating system information
618
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619qXfer:siginfo:read
620qXfer:siginfo:write
621 Read or write additional signal information.
622
060871df
PA
623* Removed remote protocol undocumented extension
624
625 An undocumented extension to the remote protocol's `S' stop reply
626 packet that permited the stub to pass a process id was removed.
627 Remote servers should use the `T' stop reply packet instead.
628
d14508fe
DE
629* The "disassemble" command now supports an optional /m modifier to print mixed
630source+assembly.
631
c055b101 632* GDB now supports multiple function calling conventions according to the
a0ef4274 633DWARF-2 DW_AT_calling_convention function attribute.
c055b101
CV
634
635* The SH target utilizes the aforementioned change to distinguish between gcc
a0ef4274
DJ
636and Renesas calling convention. It also adds the new CLI commands
637`set/show sh calling-convention'.
c055b101 638
31fffb02
CS
639* GDB can now read compressed debug sections, as produced by GNU gold
640with the --compress-debug-sections=zlib flag.
641
88d8a8e0
JB
642* 64-bit core files are now supported on AIX.
643
7f99b190
JB
644* Thread switching is now supported on Tru64.
645
ccd213ac
DJ
646* Watchpoints can now be set on unreadable memory locations, e.g. addresses
647which will be allocated using malloc later in program execution.
648
1fddbabb 649* The qXfer:libraries:read remote procotol packet now allows passing a
31fffb02 650list of section offsets.
1fddbabb 651
a0ef4274
DJ
652* On GNU/Linux, GDB can now attach to stopped processes. Several race
653conditions handling signals delivered during attach or thread creation
654have also been fixed.
655
bfb8797a 656* GDB now supports the use of DWARF boolean types for Ada's type Boolean.
158c7665
PH
657From the user's standpoint, all unqualified instances of True and False
658are treated as the standard definitions, regardless of context.
bfb8797a 659
71c25dea
TT
660* GDB now parses C++ symbol and type names more flexibly. For
661example, given:
662
663 template<typename T> class C { };
664 C<char const *> c;
665
666GDB will now correctly handle all of:
667
668 ptype C<char const *>
669 ptype C<char const*>
670 ptype C<const char *>
671 ptype C<const char*>
672
ccd213ac
DJ
673* New features in the GDB remote stub, gdbserver
674
675 - The "--wrapper" command-line argument tells gdbserver to use a
676 wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
677
7ae0e2a2
UW
678 - On PowerPC and S/390 targets, it is now possible to use a single
679 gdbserver executable to debug both 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
680 (This requires gdbserver itself to be built as a 64-bit executable.)
681
a6f3e723
SL
682 - gdbserver uses the new noack protocol mode for TCP connections to
683 reduce communications latency, if also supported and enabled in GDB.
684
da8bd9a3
DJ
685 - Support for the sparc64-linux-gnu target is now included in
686 gdbserver.
687
d70e31dd
DE
688 - The amd64-linux build of gdbserver now supports debugging both
689 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
690
691 - The i386-linux, amd64-linux, and i386-win32 builds of gdbserver
692 now support hardware watchpoints, and will use them automatically
693 as appropriate.
694
d57a3c85
TJB
695* Python scripting
696
697 GDB now has support for scripting using Python. Whether this is
698 available is determined at configure time.
699
d8906c6f
TJB
700 New GDB commands can now be written in Python.
701
aadc346a
JB
702* Ada tasking support
703
704 Ada tasks can now be inspected in GDB. The following commands have
705 been introduced:
706
707 info tasks
708 Print the list of Ada tasks.
709 info task N
710 Print detailed information about task number N.
711 task
712 Print the task number of the current task.
713 task N
714 Switch the context of debugging to task number N.
715
adb483fe
DJ
716* Support for user-defined prefixed commands. The "define" command can
717add new commands to existing prefixes, e.g. "target".
718
2277426b
PA
719* Multi-inferior, multi-process debugging.
720
721 GDB now has generalized support for multi-inferior debugging. See
722 "Debugging Multiple Inferiors" in the manual for more information.
723 Although availability still depends on target support, the command
724 set is more uniform now. The GNU/Linux specific multi-forks support
725 has been migrated to this new framework. This implied some user
726 visible changes; see "New commands" and also "Removed commands"
727 below.
728
08d16641
PA
729* Target descriptions can now describe the target OS ABI. See the
730"Target Description Format" section in the user manual for more
731information.
732
e35359c5
UW
733* Target descriptions can now describe "compatible" architectures
734to indicate that the target can execute applications for a different
735architecture in addition to those for the main target architecture.
736See the "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for
737more information.
738
85e747d2
UW
739* Multi-architecture debugging.
740
741 GDB now includes general supports for debugging applications on
742 hybrid systems that use more than one single processor architecture
743 at the same time. Each such hybrid architecture still requires
744 specific support to be added. The only hybrid architecture supported
745 in this version of GDB is the Cell Broadband Engine.
746
747* GDB now supports integrated debugging of Cell/B.E. applications that
748use both the PPU and SPU architectures. To enable support for hybrid
749Cell/B.E. debugging, you need to configure GDB to support both the
750powerpc-linux or powerpc64-linux and the spu-elf targets, using the
751--enable-targets configure option.
752
11ade57a
PA
753* Non-stop mode debugging.
754
755 For some targets, GDB now supports an optional mode of operation in
756 which you can examine stopped threads while other threads continue
757 to execute freely. This is referred to as non-stop mode, with the
758 old mode referred to as all-stop mode. See the "Non-Stop Mode"
759 section in the user manual for more information.
760
761 To be able to support remote non-stop debugging, a remote stub needs
762 to implement the non-stop mode remote protocol extensions, as
763 described in the "Remote Non-Stop" section of the user manual. The
764 GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been adjusted to support these
765 extensions on linux targets.
766
d7713ae0 767* New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
75feb17d 768
a96d9b2e
SDJ
769catch syscall [NAME(S) | NUMBER(S)]
770 Catch system calls. Arguments, which should be names of system
771 calls or their numbers, mean catch only those syscalls. Without
772 arguments, every syscall will be caught. When the inferior issues
773 any of the specified syscalls, GDB will stop and announce the system
774 call, both when it is called and when its call returns. This
775 feature is currently available with a native GDB running on the
776 Linux Kernel, under the following architectures: x86, x86_64,
777 PowerPC and PowerPC64.
778
08388c79
DE
779find [/size-char] [/max-count] start-address, end-address|+search-space-size,
780 val1 [, val2, ...]
781 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
782
d57a3c85
TJB
783maint set python print-stack
784maint show python print-stack
785 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Python script.
786
787python [CODE]
788 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Python interpreter.
789
d7713ae0
EZ
790macro define
791macro list
792macro undef
793 These allow macros to be defined, undefined, and listed
794 interactively.
795
796info os processes
797 Show operating system information about processes.
798
2277426b
PA
799info inferiors
800 List the inferiors currently under GDB's control.
801
802inferior NUM
803 Switch focus to inferior number NUM.
804
805detach inferior NUM
806 Detach from inferior number NUM.
807
808kill inferior NUM
809 Kill inferior number NUM.
810
d7713ae0
EZ
811* New options
812
3285f3fe
UW
813set spu stop-on-load
814show spu stop-on-load
815 Control whether to stop for new SPE threads during Cell/B.E. debugging.
816
ff1a52c6
UW
817set spu auto-flush-cache
818show spu auto-flush-cache
819 Control whether to automatically flush the software-managed cache
820 during Cell/B.E. debugging.
821
d7713ae0
EZ
822set sh calling-convention
823show sh calling-convention
824 Control the calling convention used when calling SH target functions.
825
e0a3ce09 826set debug timestamp
75feb17d 827show debug timestamp
d7713ae0
EZ
828 Control display of timestamps with GDB debugging output.
829
830set disassemble-next-line
831show disassemble-next-line
832 Control display of disassembled source lines or instructions when
833 the debuggee stops.
834
835set remote noack-packet
836show remote noack-packet
837 Set/show the use of remote protocol QStartNoAckMode packet. See above
838 under "New remote packets."
839
840set remote query-attached-packet
841show remote query-attached-packet
842 Control use of remote protocol `qAttached' (query-attached) packet.
843
844set remote read-siginfo-object
845show remote read-siginfo-object
846 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:read' (read-siginfo-object)
847 packet.
848
849set remote write-siginfo-object
850show remote write-siginfo-object
851 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:write' (write-siginfo-object)
852 packet.
853
40ab02ce
MS
854set remote reverse-continue
855show remote reverse-continue
856 Control use of remote protocol 'bc' (reverse-continue) packet.
857
858set remote reverse-step
859show remote reverse-step
860 Control use of remote protocol 'bs' (reverse-step) packet.
861
d7713ae0
EZ
862set displaced-stepping
863show displaced-stepping
864 Control displaced stepping mode. Displaced stepping is a way to
865 single-step over breakpoints without removing them from the debuggee.
866 Also known as "out-of-line single-stepping".
867
868set debug displaced
869show debug displaced
870 Control display of debugging info for displaced stepping.
871
872maint set internal-error
873maint show internal-error
874 Control what GDB does when an internal error is detected.
875
876maint set internal-warning
877maint show internal-warning
878 Control what GDB does when an internal warning is detected.
75feb17d 879
ccd213ac
DJ
880set exec-wrapper
881show exec-wrapper
882unset exec-wrapper
883 Use a wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
fa4727a6 884
aad4b048
JB
885set multiple-symbols (all|ask|cancel)
886show multiple-symbols
887 The value of this variable can be changed to adjust the debugger behavior
888 when an expression or a breakpoint location contains an ambiguous symbol
889 name (an overloaded function name, for instance).
890
74960c60
VP
891set breakpoint always-inserted
892show breakpoint always-inserted
893 Keep breakpoints always inserted in the target, as opposed to inserting
894 them when resuming the target, and removing them when the target stops.
895 This option can improve debugger performance on slow remote targets.
896
0428b8f5
DJ
897set arm fallback-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
898show arm fallback-mode
899set arm force-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
900show arm force-mode
901 These commands control how ARM GDB determines whether instructions
902 are ARM or Thumb. The default for both settings is auto, which uses
903 the current CPSR value for instructions without symbols; previous
904 versions of GDB behaved as if "set arm fallback-mode arm".
905
10568435
JK
906set disable-randomization
907show disable-randomization
908 Standalone programs run with the virtual address space randomization enabled
909 by default on some platforms. This option keeps the addresses stable across
910 multiple debugging sessions.
911
d7713ae0
EZ
912set non-stop
913show non-stop
914 Control whether other threads are stopped or not when some thread hits
915 a breakpoint.
916
b3eb342c 917set target-async
d7713ae0 918show target-async
b3eb342c
VP
919 Requests that asynchronous execution is enabled in the target, if available.
920 In this case, it's possible to resume target in the background, and interact
921 with GDB while the target is running. "show target-async" displays the
922 current state of asynchronous execution of the target.
923
6c7a06a3
TT
924set target-wide-charset
925show target-wide-charset
926 The target-wide-charset is the name of the character set that GDB
927 uses when printing characters whose type is wchar_t.
928
84603566
SL
929set tcp auto-retry (on|off)
930show tcp auto-retry
931set tcp connect-timeout
932show tcp connect-timeout
933 These commands allow GDB to retry failed TCP connections to a remote stub
934 with a specified timeout period; this is useful if the stub is launched
935 in parallel with GDB but may not be ready to accept connections immediately.
936
17a37d48
PP
937set libthread-db-search-path
938show libthread-db-search-path
939 Control list of directories which GDB will search for appropriate
940 libthread_db.
941
d4db2f36
PA
942set schedule-multiple (on|off)
943show schedule-multiple
944 Allow GDB to resume all threads of all processes or only threads of
945 the current process.
946
4e5d721f
DE
947set stack-cache
948show stack-cache
949 Use more aggressive caching for accesses to the stack. This improves
950 performance of remote debugging (particularly backtraces) without
951 affecting correctness.
952
910c5da8
JB
953set interactive-mode (on|off|auto)
954show interactive-mode
955 Control whether GDB runs in interactive mode (on) or not (off).
956 When in interactive mode, GDB waits for the user to answer all
957 queries. Otherwise, GDB does not wait and assumes the default
958 answer. When set to auto (the default), GDB determines which
959 mode to use based on the stdin settings.
960
2277426b
PA
961* Removed commands
962
963info forks
964 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `info
965 inferiors' command. To list checkpoints, you can still use the
966 `info checkpoints' command, which was an alias for the `info forks'
967 command.
968
969fork NUM
970 Replaced by the new `inferior' command. To switch between
971 checkpoints, you can still use the `restart' command, which was an
972 alias for the `fork' command.
973
974process PID
975 This is removed, since some targets don't have a notion of
976 processes. To switch between processes, you can still use the
977 `inferior' command using GDB's own inferior number.
978
979delete fork NUM
980 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `kill
981 inferior' command. To delete a checkpoint, you can still use the
982 `delete checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `delete
983 fork' command.
984
985detach fork NUM
986 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `detach
987 inferior' command. To detach a checkpoint, you can still use the
988 `detach checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `detach
989 fork' command.
990
a80b95ba
TG
991* New native configurations
992
993x86/x86_64 Darwin i[34567]86-*-darwin*
994
b8bfd3ed
JB
995x86_64 MinGW x86_64-*-mingw*
996
75a2d5e7
TT
997* New targets
998
c28c63d8 999Lattice Mico32 lm32-*
75a2d5e7 1000x86 DICOS i[34567]86-*-dicos*
4c1d2973 1001x86_64 DICOS x86_64-*-dicos*
5f814c3b 1002S+core 3 score-*-*
75a2d5e7 1003
6de3146c
PA
1004* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports x86 Windows CE
1005 (mingw32ce) debugging.
1006
d5cbbe6e
JB
1007* Removed commands
1008
1009catch load
1010catch unload
1011 These commands were actually not implemented on any target.
1012
75feb17d 1013*** Changes in GDB 6.8
f9ed52be 1014
af5ca30d
NH
1015* New native configurations
1016
1017NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*netbsd*
94a0e877 1018Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
af5ca30d
NH
1019
1020* New targets
1021
1022NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*-netbsd*
94a0e877 1023Xtensa GNU/Lunux xtensa*-*-linux*
af5ca30d 1024
7a404eba
PA
1025* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
1026
1027 When the '-p NUMBER' or '--pid NUMBER' options are used, and
1028 attaching to process NUMBER fails, GDB no longer attempts to open a
1029 core file named NUMBER. Attaching to a program using the -c option
1030 is no longer supported. Instead, use the '-p' or '--pid' options.
1031
430ebac9
PA
1032* GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
1033(mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
1034
fe6fbf8b 1035* Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
8d5f9c6f 1036is resolved.
fe6fbf8b
VP
1037
1038* GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
8d5f9c6f
DJ
1039including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
1040and in inlined functions.
fe6fbf8b 1041
10665d76
JB
1042* GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
1043accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
1044more than one contiguous range of addresses.
1045
7cc46491
DJ
1046* Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
1047
d71340b8
DJ
1048* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
1049registers on PowerPC targets.
1050
523c4513
DJ
1051* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
1052targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
1053
a6b151f1
DJ
1054* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
1055commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
1056
2d717e4f
DJ
1057* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports run and attach in
1058extended-remote mode.
1059
24a836bd 1060* hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
d001be7a
DJ
1061The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
1062error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
1063The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
24a836bd 1064
d0c678e6
UW
1065* GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
1066building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
1067target architectures.
1068
d64a946d
TJB
1069* GDB now supports debugging C and C++ programs which use the
1070Decimal Floating Point extension. In addition, the PowerPC target
1071now has a set of pseudo-registers to inspect decimal float values
1072stored in two consecutive float registers.
1073
ee163bf5
VP
1074* The -break-insert MI command can optionally create pending
1075breakpoints now.
1076
b93b6ca7 1077* Improved support for debugging Ada
d001be7a
DJ
1078Many improvements to the Ada language support have been made. These
1079include:
b93b6ca7
JB
1080 - Better support for Ada2005 interface types
1081 - Improved handling of arrays and slices in general
1082 - Better support for Taft-amendment types
1083 - The '{type} ADDRESS' expression is now allowed on the left hand-side
1084 of an assignment
1085 - Improved command completion in Ada
1086 - Several bug fixes
1087
d001be7a
DJ
1088* GDB on GNU/Linux and HP/UX can now debug through "exec" of a new
1089process.
1090
a6b151f1
DJ
1091* New commands
1092
6d53d0af
JB
1093set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
1094show print frame-arguments
1095 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
1096 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
1097
a6b151f1
DJ
1098remote put
1099remote get
1100remote delete
1101 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
1102
1103* New MI commands
1104
1105-target-file-put
1106-target-file-get
1107-target-file-delete
1108 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
1109
1110* New remote packets
1111
1112vFile:open:
1113vFile:close:
1114vFile:pread:
1115vFile:pwrite:
1116vFile:unlink:
1117 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
d0c678e6 1118
2d717e4f
DJ
1119vAttach
1120 Attach to an existing process on the remote system, in extended-remote
1121 mode.
1122
1123vRun
1124 Run a new process on the remote system, in extended-remote mode.
1125
8d5f9c6f 1126*** Changes in GDB 6.7
6dd09645 1127
19d378fc
MS
1128* Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
1129bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
1130Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
1131
3a40aaa0
UW
1132* When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
1133symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
1134-Bsymbolic linker option.
1135
a6ec25f2
BW
1136* When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
1137recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
1138is not supported.
1139
6dd09645
JB
1140* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
1141frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
1142
c9bb8148
DJ
1143* GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
114432-bit or 64-bit register values.
1145
0d5de010
DJ
1146* Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
1147
23181151
DJ
1148* GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
1149target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
1150a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
1151
ea37ba09
DJ
1152* Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
1153automatically displayed as character or string data.
1154
1155* The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
1156arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
1157as strings.
e1f48ead 1158
123dc839
DJ
1159* Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
1160for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
8d5f9c6f 1161only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
123dc839 1162
05a4558a
DJ
1163* GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
1164iWMMXt coprocessor.
fb1e4ffc 1165
7c963485
PA
1166* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
1167ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
1168has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
1169
b18be20d
DJ
1170* GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
1171
0ca420ce
UW
1172* GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
1173
31d99776
DJ
1174* The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
1175layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
1176segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
1177
a4642986
MR
1178* The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
1179immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
1180
cfa9d6d9
DJ
1181* The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
1182"library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
1183packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
1184where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
1185Windows and SymbianOS).
255e7678
DJ
1186
1187* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
1188(DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
f5db8714
JK
1189
1190* GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
1191according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
cfa9d6d9 1192
c9bb8148
DJ
1193* New commands
1194
23776285
MR
1195set remoteflow
1196show remoteflow
1197 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
1198 when debugging using remote targets.
1199
c9bb8148
DJ
1200set mem inaccessible-by-default
1201show mem inaccessible-by-default
1202 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
1203 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
1204 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
1205 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
1206 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
1207
1208set breakpoint auto-hw
1209show breakpoint auto-hw
1210 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
1211 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
1212 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
1213 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
1214 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
1215 including "next" and "finish".
1216
0e420bd8
JB
1217catch exception
1218catch exception unhandled
1219 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
1220
1221catch assert
1222 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
1223
f822c95b
DJ
1224set sysroot
1225show sysroot
1226 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
1227 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
1228 an alias to "set sysroot".
1229
83cc5c53
UW
1230info spu
1231 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
1232 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
1233 architecture.
1234
bd372731
MK
1235* New native configurations
1236
1237OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
1238
23181151
DJ
1239set tdesc filename
1240unset tdesc filename
1241show tdesc filename
1242 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
1243 not query the target for its built-in description.
1244
c9bb8148
DJ
1245* New targets
1246
54fe9172 1247OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
c9bb8148 1248MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
c077150c 1249Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
c9bb8148 1250
6dd09645
JB
1251* New remote packets
1252
1253QPassSignals:
1254 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
1255 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
1256
23181151
DJ
1257qXfer:features:read:
1258 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
1259 features.
6dd09645 1260
83cc5c53
UW
1261qXfer:spu:read:
1262qXfer:spu:write:
1263 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
1264 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
1265
cfa9d6d9
DJ
1266qXfer:libraries:read:
1267 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
1268 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
1269 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
1270 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
1271
483367ee
DJ
1272* Removed targets
1273
1274Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
1275
d08950c4
UW
1276alpha*-*-osf1*
1277alpha*-*-osf2*
7ce59000 1278d10v-*-*
483367ee
DJ
1279hppa*-*-hiux*
1280i[34567]86-ncr-*
1281i[34567]86-*-dgux*
1282i[34567]86-*-lynxos*
1283i[34567]86-*-netware*
1284i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
1285i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
1286i[34567]86-*-sco*
1287i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
1288i[34567]86-*-sysv4*
1289i[34567]86-*-sysv5*
1290i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
1291i[34567]86-*-unixware*
1292i[34567]86-*-sysv*
1293i[34567]86-*-isc*
1294m68*-cisco*-*
1295m68*-tandem-*
ad527d2e 1296mips*-*-pe
483367ee 1297rs6000-*-lynxos*
ad527d2e 1298sh*-*-pe
483367ee 1299
7ce59000
DJ
1300* Other removed features
1301
1302target abug
1303target cpu32bug
1304target est
1305target rom68k
1306
1307 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
1308
ea35711c
DJ
1309target hms
1310target e7000
1311target sh3
1312target sh3e
1313
1314 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
1315 H8/300.
1316
1317target ocd
1318
1319 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
1320 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
1321 interfaces.
1322
7ce59000
DJ
1323DWARF 1 support
1324
1325 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
1326 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
1327
54d61198
DJ
1328Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
1329
1330 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
1331 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
1332 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
1333 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
1334
ea35711c
DJ
1335MIPS ".pdr" sections
1336
1337 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
1338 in debugging information.
1339
1340Scheme support
1341
1342 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
1343 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
1344
1a69e1e4
DJ
1345set mips stack-arg-size
1346set mips saved-gpreg-size
1347
1348 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
1349
6dd09645 1350*** Changes in GDB 6.6
e374b601 1351
ca3bf3bd
DJ
1352* New targets
1353
1354Xtensa xtensa-elf
9c309e77 1355Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
ca3bf3bd 1356
6aec2e11
DJ
1357* GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
1358(mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
1359running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
1360
1361* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
1362Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
1363supported.
1364
17218d91
DJ
1365* The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
1366broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
1367
9ebce043
DJ
1368* The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
1369stub provides the required support.
1370
7d3d3ece
DJ
1371* Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
1372longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
1373
4f8253f3
JB
1374* New commands
1375
1376set substitute-path
1377unset substitute-path
1378show substitute-path
1379 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
1380 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
1381 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
1382 between compilation and debugging.
1383
9fa66fd7
AS
1384set trace-commands
1385show trace-commands
1386 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
1387 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
1388 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
1389
1f5befc1
DJ
1390* REMOVED features
1391
1392The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
1393
2ec3381a
DJ
1394Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
1395an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
1396
3d00d119
DJ
1397The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
1398
be2a5f71
DJ
1399* New remote packets
1400
1401qSupported:
1402 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
1403 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
1404 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
1405 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
1406 target.
1407
0876f84a
DJ
1408qXfer:auxv:read:
1409 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
1410 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
1411
9ebce043
DJ
1412qXfer:memory-map:read:
1413 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
1414 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
1415
1416vFlashErase:
1417vFlashWrite:
1418vFlashDone:
1419 Erase and program a flash memory device.
1420
0876f84a
DJ
1421* Removed remote packets
1422
1423qPart:auxv:read:
1424 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
1425 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
1426
e374b601 1427*** Changes in GDB 6.5
53e5f3cf 1428
96309189
MS
1429* New targets
1430
1431Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
1432
1433Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
1434
53e5f3cf
AS
1435* New commands
1436
1437init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
1438 only if it doesn't already have a value.
1439
ac264b3b
MS
1440The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
1441
1442checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
1443
1444restart <n> Return the program state to a
1445 previously saved state.
1446
1447info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
1448
1449delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
1450
1451set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
1452 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
1453
1454info forks List forks of the user program that
1455 are available to be debugged.
1456
1457fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
1458 forks of the user program that are
1459 available to be debugged.
1460
1461delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
1462 that are available to be debugged (and
1463 kill the forked process).
1464
1465detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
1466 that are available to be debugged (and
1467 allow the process to continue).
1468
3950dc3f
NS
1469* New architecture
1470
1471Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
1472
0ea3f30e
DJ
1473* Improved Windows host support
1474
1475GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
1476native console support, and remote communications using either
1477network sockets or serial ports.
1478
f79daebb
GM
1479* Improved Modula-2 language support
1480
1481GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
1482basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
1483pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
1484printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
1485written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
1486GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
1487
acab6ab2
MM
1488* REMOVED features
1489
1490The ARM rdi-share module.
1491
f4267320
DJ
1492The Netware NLM debug server.
1493
53e5f3cf 1494*** Changes in GDB 6.4
156a53ca 1495
e0ecbda1
MK
1496* New native configurations
1497
02a677ac 1498OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
e0ecbda1
MK
1499OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
1500
d64a6579
KB
1501* New targets
1502
1503Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
1504
b33a6190
AS
1505* New command line options
1506
1507--batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
1508--return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
1509 the child (debugged) program exited with.
1510--eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
1511 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
1512 specified multiple times and in conjunction
1513 with the --command (-x) option.
1514
11dced61
AC
1515* Deprecated commands removed
1516
1517The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
1518removed:
1519
1520 Command Replacement
1521 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
1522 othernames set arm disassembler
1523 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
1524 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
1525 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
1526 regs info registers
1527
6fe85783
MK
1528* New BSD user-level threads support
1529
1530It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
1531library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
1532configurations are:
1533
1534FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
1535FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
1536OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
1537
1538Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
1539are not yet supported.
1540
5260ca71
MS
1541* New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
1542(Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
1543
e84ecc99
AC
1544* REMOVED configurations and files
1545
1546VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
9445aa30 1547Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
9445aa30 1548National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
156a53ca 1549
31e35378
JB
1550* New "set print array-indexes" command
1551
1552After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
1553when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
1554behavior.
1555
e85e5c83
MK
1556* VAX floating point support
1557
1558GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
1559
d91e9901
AS
1560* User-defined command support
1561
1562In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
1563to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
1564section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
1565
f2cb65ca
MC
1566*** Changes in GDB 6.3:
1567
f47b1503
AS
1568* New command line option
1569
1570GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
1571debugging.
1572
f2cb65ca
MC
1573* GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
1574
1575GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
1576information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
1577by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
1578proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
1579to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
860660cb 1580
d08c0230
AC
1581* Internationalization
1582
1583When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
1584internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
1585continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
1586
117ea3cf
PH
1587* Ada
1588
1589Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
1590implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
1591into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
1592
d08c0230
AC
1593* New native configurations
1594
1595GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
1596
1597* Remote 'p' packet
1598
1599GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
1600packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
1601
1602* END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
1603
1604GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
1605The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
1606features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
1607i386 application).
1608
1609GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
1610compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
1611continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
1612configurations:
1613
1614hppa-*-hpux
1615ia64-*-aix
1616mips-*-irix*
1617*-*-lynx
1618mips-*-linux-gnu
1619sds protocol
1620xdr protocol
1621powerpc bdm protocol
1622
1623Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
1624made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
1625
1626* OBSOLETE configurations and files
1627
1628Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1629been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1630configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1631permanently REMOVED.
1632
1633h8300-*-*
1634mcore-*-*
1635mn10300-*-*
1636ns32k-*-*
1637sh64-*-*
1638v850-*-*
1639
ebb7c577
AC
1640*** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
1641
1642* MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
1643
1644When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
1645heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
1646been fixed.
1647
1648* MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
1649
1650When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
1651fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
1652IRIX long double values).
1653
1654* VAX and "next"
1655
1656A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
1657command. This problem has been fixed.
1658
860660cb 1659*** Changes in GDB 6.2:
faae5abe 1660
0dea2468
AC
1661* Fix for ``many threads''
1662
1663On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
1664rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
1665error message:
1666
1667 ptrace: No such process.
1668 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
1669
1670This problem has been fixed.
1671
2c07db7a
AC
1672* "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
1673
1674Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
1675GDB to dump core).
1676
c23968a2
JB
1677* New ``start'' command.
1678
1679This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
1680
71009278
MK
1681* New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
1682
1683Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
1684live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
1685platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
1686
1687FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
1688FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
1689NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
1690NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
1691NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
1692OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
1693OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
1694OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
1695OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
1696
3c0b7db2
AC
1697* Signal trampoline code overhauled
1698
1699Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
1700These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
1701of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
1702call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
1703signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
1704
73cc75f3
AC
1705Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
1706features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
1707include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
3c0b7db2 1708
7243600a
BF
1709* Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
1710
6f606e1c
MK
1711* New native configurations
1712
97dc871c 1713GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
0e56aeaf 1714OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
bf2ca189
MK
1715OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
1716OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
d195bc9f 1717OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 1718NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
9f076e7a 1719OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 1720
a1b461bf
AC
1721* END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
1722
1723GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
1724The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
1725including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
1726migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
1727compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
1728work, was also included.
1729
1730GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
1731module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
1732
1733h8300-*-*
1734mcore-*-*
1735mn10300-*-*
1736ns32k-*-*
1737sh64-*-*
1738v850-*-*
1739xstormy16-*-*
1740
1741Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
1742made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
1743
3c7012f5
AC
1744* REMOVED configurations and files
1745
1746Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
1747Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
1748Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
1749Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
1750Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
1751AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
1752Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
1753decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
1754riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
1755sonymips mips-sony-*
1756sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
1757
e5fe55f7
AC
1758*** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
1759
1760* TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
1761
1762The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
1763GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
1764command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
1765program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
1766with GDB".
1767
1768* Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
1769
1770Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
1771libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
1772cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
1773GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
1774shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
1775the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
1776are created.
1777
1778Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
1779
1780* Fixed ISO-C build problems
1781
1782The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
1783non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
1784compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
1785
1786* Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
1787
1788Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
1789wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
1790
1791* Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
1792
1793The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
1794permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
1795systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
1796
1797* Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
1798
1799Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
1800has been updated to use constant array sizes.
1801
1802* Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
1803
1804GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
1805its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
1806panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
1807
1808* Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
1809
1810When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
1811by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
1812not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
1813
faae5abe 1814*** Changes in GDB 6.1:
f2c06f52 1815
9175c9a3
MC
1816* Removed --with-mmalloc
1817
1818Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
1819conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
1820
3cc87ec0
MK
1821* Changes in AMD64 configurations
1822
1823The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
1824the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
1825and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
1826you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
1827
f0424ef6
MK
1828* Revised SPARC target
1829
1830The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
1831FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
03cebad2
MK
1832support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
1833from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
1834(Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
f0424ef6 1835
59659be2
ILT
1836* New C++ demangler
1837
1838GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
1839names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
1840with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
1841programs.
1842
9e08b29b
DJ
1843* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
1844
1845GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
1846arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
1847encountered these.
1848
8dfe8985
DC
1849* C++ nested types and namespaces
1850
1851GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
1852improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
1853is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
1854Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
1855namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
1856"Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
1857frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
1858if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
1859GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
1860
cced5e27
MK
1861* New native configurations
1862
1863NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
27d1e716 1864OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
2031c21a 1865OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
f2cab569
MK
1866OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
1867OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
cced5e27 1868
b4b4b794
KI
1869* New debugging protocols
1870
1871M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
1872
7989c619
AC
1873* "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
1874
1875The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
1876and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
1877tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
1878
5994185b
AC
1879* OBSOLETE configurations and files
1880
1881Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1882been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1883configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1884permanently REMOVED.
1885
1886Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
1887Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
1888Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
1889Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
1890Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
1891AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
1892Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
0748d941
AC
1893decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
1894riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
1895sonymips mips-sony-*
1896sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
5994185b 1897
0ddabb4c
AC
1898* REMOVED configurations and files
1899
1900SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
1901SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
4a8269c0
AC
1902Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1903Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1904H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1905HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
1906HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1907HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
1908PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
cf7c5c23 1909386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
4a8269c0
AC
1910Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
1911 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
1912 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
f0424ef6
MK
1913SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
1914SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
4a8269c0
AC
1915Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1916Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
0ddabb4c 1917
c7f1390e
DJ
1918*** Changes in GDB 6.0:
1919
1fe43d45
AC
1920* Objective-C
1921
1922Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
1923integrated into GDB.
1924
e6beb428
AC
1925* New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
1926
1927DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
1928information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
1929By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
1930backtraces.
1931
1932The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
1933have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
1934DWARF 2 CFI support.
1935
1936* Hosted file I/O.
1937
1938GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
1939file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
1940remote protocol documentation for details.
1941
1942* All targets using the new architecture framework.
1943
1944All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
1945architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
1946to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
1947ppc32 on ppc64).
1948
1949* GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
1950
1951GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
1952per-thread variables.
1953
1954* GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
1955
1956GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
1957GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
1958
1959* Separate debug info.
1960
1961GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
1962automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
1963of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
1964system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
1965and optional debug files.
1966
1967* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
1968
1969DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
1970describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
1971debugger.
1972
1973GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
1974for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
1975
1976* Java
1977
1978A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
1979Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
1980considered "useable".
1981
85f8f974
DJ
1982* GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
1983
1984The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
1985commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
1986kernel.
1987
0fac0b41
DJ
1988* GDB supports logging output to a file
1989
1990There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
1991used to capture GDB's output to a file.
f2c06f52 1992
6ad8ae5c
DJ
1993* The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
1994
1995The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
1996disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
1997command.
1998
e286caf2 1999* d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
5f601589
AC
2000
2001The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
2002registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
2003
d28f9cdf
DJ
2004* Profiling support
2005
2006A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
2007be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
2008session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
2009"--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
2010data, for more informative profiling results.
2011
da0f9dcd
AC
2012* Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
2013
2014The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
2015option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
b68767c1 2016"mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
da0f9dcd
AC
2017
2018Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
2019removed.
2020
fb9b6b35
JJ
2021Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
2022Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
2023Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
2024 in a subsequent -var-update.
2025
954a4db8
MK
2026* New native configurations.
2027
2028FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
2029
6760f9e6
JB
2030* Multi-arched targets.
2031
b4263afa 2032HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
85a453d5 2033Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
6760f9e6 2034
1b831c93
AC
2035* OBSOLETE configurations and files
2036
2037Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2038been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2039configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2040permanently REMOVED.
2041
8b0e5691 2042Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
67f16606 2043Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
fd2299bd 2044H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
56056df7
AC
2045HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
2046HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
2047HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
78c43945 2048PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
2fbce691
AC
2049Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
2050 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
2051 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
f81824a9
AC
2052Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2053Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
fd2299bd 2054
5835abe7
NC
2055* REMOVED configurations and files
2056
2057V850EA ISA
1b831c93
AC
2058Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
2059IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
2060i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
2061i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
2062i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
2063HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
2064 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
2065 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
2066Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
2067Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
2068Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
2069OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
2070I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
5835abe7 2071
a094c6fb
AC
2072* MIPS $fp behavior changed
2073
2074The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
2075the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
2076context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
2077address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
2078The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
2079
299ffc64 2080*** Changes in GDB 5.3:
37057839 2081
46248966
AC
2082* GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
2083
2084When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
2085`/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
2086in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
2087library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
2088shared libs like mad''.
2089
b9d14705 2090* ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
6da02953 2091
b9d14705
DJ
2092Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
2093the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
2094arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
2095powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
6da02953 2096
e0e9281e
JB
2097* GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
2098
2099GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
2100and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
2101they expand.
2102
dd73b9bb
AC
2103The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
2104invocations in expression, and shows the result.
2105
2106The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
2107macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
2108
e0e9281e
JB
2109Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
2110information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
2111your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
2112information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
2113
2250ee0c
CV
2114* Multi-arched targets.
2115
6e3ba3b8
JT
2116DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
2117DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
2250ee0c 2118NEC V850 v850-*-*
6e3ba3b8 2119National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
a1789893
GS
2120Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
2121Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
2250ee0c 2122
cd9bfe15 2123* New targets.
e33ce519 2124
456f8b9d
DB
2125Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
2126
e33ce519 2127
da8ca43d
JT
2128* New native configurations
2129
2130Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
029923d4 2131SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
45888261 2132MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
9ce5c36a 2133UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
da8ca43d 2134
cd9bfe15
AC
2135* OBSOLETE configurations and files
2136
2137Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2138been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2139configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2140permanently REMOVED.
2141
92eb23c5 2142Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
a99a9e1b 2143OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1c7cc583 2144IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
7a3085c1 2145Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
7fb623f7 2146Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
eb4c54a2 2147Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
d8ee244c
MK
2148i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
2149i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
2150i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
822e978b
AC
2151HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
2152 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
2153 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
4d210288 2154I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
92eb23c5 2155
db034ac5
AC
2156* OBSOLETE languages
2157
2158CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
2159
cd9bfe15
AC
2160* REMOVED configurations and files
2161
2162AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
2163A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
2164AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2165AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2166AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2167
2168testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
2169
20f01a46
DH
2170* New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
2171
2172This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
2173commands. The default is 1024.
2174
a5941fbf
MK
2175* Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
2176
2177Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
2178
89743e04
MS
2179* New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
2180
2181These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
2182to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
2183from a file into memory (restore).
37057839 2184
9fb14e79
JB
2185* Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
2186
2187The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
2188including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
2189of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
2190
2037aebb
AC
2191*** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
2192
2193* New targets.
2194
2195Atmel AVR avr*-*-*
2196
2197* Bug fixes
2198
2199gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
2200mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
2201Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
2202
2203gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
2204dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
2205Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
2206
2207Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
2208Surprisingly enough, it works now.
2209By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
2210
2211i386 hardware watchpoint support:
2212avoid misses on second run for some targets.
2213By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
2214
37057839 2215*** Changes in GDB 5.2:
eb7cedd9 2216
1a703748
MS
2217* New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
2218
2219This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
2220really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
2221In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
2222target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
2223This can be a significant performance improvement on some
2224(notably embedded) targets.
2225
cefd4ef5
MS
2226* New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
2227
55241689
AC
2228This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
2229process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
2230GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
2231hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
cefd4ef5 2232
352ed7b4
MS
2233* New command line option
2234
2235GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
2236
2237* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
2238
2239There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
2240command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
2241a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
2242be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
2243open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
2244issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
2245a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
2246it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
2247GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
2248is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
2249
fe419ffc
RE
2250* Changes in ARM configurations.
2251
2252Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
2253configuration is fully multi-arch.
2254
eb7cedd9
MK
2255* New native configurations
2256
fe419ffc 2257ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
eb7cedd9 2258x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
55241689 2259AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
768f0842 2260Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
eb7cedd9 2261
c9f63e6b
CV
2262* New targets
2263
2264Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
2265
9b4ff276
AC
2266* OBSOLETE configurations and files
2267
2268Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2269been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2270configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2271permanently REMOVED.
2272
2273AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
2274A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
2275AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2276AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2277AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2278
b4ceaee6 2279testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
9b4ff276 2280
e2caac18
AC
2281* REMOVED configurations and files
2282
2283TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
7bc65f05 2284WDC 65816 w65-*-*
7768dd6c
AC
2285PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
2286PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
2287PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
5e734e1f 2288Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1406caf7
AC
2289Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
2290 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
7e24f0b1 2291SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
9b567150 2292Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
3680c638
AC
2293Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
2294ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
a752853e 2295Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
e2caac18 2296
c2a727fa
TT
2297* Changes to command line processing
2298
2299The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
2300for the inferior from gdb's command line.
2301
467d8519
TT
2302* Changes to key bindings
2303
2304There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
2305
7072a954
AC
2306*** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
2307
2308Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
2309
2310Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
2311corrupted.
2312
2313Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
2314
2315Numerous documentation fixes.
2316
2317Numerous testsuite fixes.
2318
34f47bc4 2319*** Changes in GDB 5.1:
139760b7
MK
2320
2321* New native configurations
2322
2323Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
2324x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
55241689 2325MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
e23194cb
EZ
2326MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
2327ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
55241689 2328s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
139760b7 2329
bf64bfd6
AC
2330* New targets
2331
def90278 2332Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
24be5c34 2333CRIS cris-axis
55241689 2334UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
def90278 2335
17e78a56 2336* OBSOLETE configurations and files
bf64bfd6
AC
2337
2338x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
9b9c068d 2339Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
bb19ff3b
AC
2340Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
2341 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
76f4ea53
AC
2342TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
2343WDC 65816 w65-*-*
4a1968f4 2344Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1b2b2c16
AC
2345PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
2346PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
2347PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
24f89b68 2348SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
514e603d
AC
2349Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
2350ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
d036b4d9 2351Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
bf64bfd6 2352
17e78a56
AC
2353stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
2354kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
2355
7fcca85b
AC
2356Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2357been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2358configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2359permanently REMOVED.
2360
a196c81c 2361* REMOVED configurations and files
7fcca85b
AC
2362
2363Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
2364Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
2365Pyramid pyramid-*-*
2366ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
2367Tahoe tahoe-*-*
a196c81c 2368ser-ocd.c *-*-*
bf64bfd6 2369
6d6b80e5 2370* GDB has been converted to ISO C.
e23194cb 2371
6d6b80e5 2372GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
e23194cb
EZ
2373sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
2374present.
2375
bf64bfd6
AC
2376* Other news:
2377
e23194cb
EZ
2378* "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
2379
2380* The MI enabled by default.
2381
2382The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
2383revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
2384engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
2385using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
2386which is now deprecated.
2387
2388* Support for debugging Pascal programs.
2389
2390GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
2391main features are supported:
2392
2393 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
2394
2395 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
2396 extension;
2397
2398 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
2399
2400 - a Pascal expression parser.
2401
2402However, some important features are not yet supported.
2403
2404 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
2405
2406 - there are some problems with boolean types;
2407
2408 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
2409 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
2410
2411 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
2412
2413 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
2414
2415* Changes in completion.
2416
2417Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
2418to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
2419users expect at the shell prompt.
2420
2421Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
2422`breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
2423program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
2424files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
2425be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
2426considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
2427name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
2428
2429`set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
2430
2431* New platform-independent commands:
2432
2433It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
2434hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
2435documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
2436
2437* Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
2438
d7275149
MK
2439Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
2440revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
2441many threads as your system allows you to have.
2442
e23194cb
EZ
2443Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
2444
d7275149
MK
2445Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
2446multi-threaded programs though.
e23194cb
EZ
2447
2448* Changes in MIPS configurations.
bf64bfd6
AC
2449
2450Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
2451
e23194cb
EZ
2452GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
2453debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
2454supported.)
2455
2456* Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
2457
2458Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
2459breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
2460implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
2461put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
2462and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
2463registers.
2464
2465The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
2466debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
2467watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
2468
2469* Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
2470
2471New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
2472the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
2473
2474New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
2475display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
2476IDT.
2477
2478New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
2479from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
2480New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
2481a given linear address.
2482
2483GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
2484program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
2485which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
2486
2487DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
2488
6c56c069
EZ
2489It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
2490
e23194cb
EZ
2491* Changes in documentation.
2492
2493All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
2494Documentation License.
2495
2496Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
2497manual.
2498
2499TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
2500
2501Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
2502manual.
2503
2504The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
2505documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
2506hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
2507
5d6640b1
AC
2508* GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
2509
2510The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
2511``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
2512contents of this file.
2513
1a1d8446
AC
2514* gdba.el deleted
2515
2516GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
139760b7 2517
9debab2f 2518*** Changes in GDB 5.0:
7a292a7a 2519
c63ce875
EZ
2520* Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
2521
2522Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
2523programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
2524displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
2525greater level of detail.
2526
2527* Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
2528
2529It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
2530bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
2531on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
2532written.
2533
2534* Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
2535
2536The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
2537necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
2538machines ``out of the box''.
2539
2540The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
2541possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
2542signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
2543would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
2544interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
2545
2546It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
2547standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
2548even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
2549and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
2550terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
2551
2552The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
2553enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
2554also works.
2555
2556DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
2557GDB.
2558
2559It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
2560directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
2561times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
2562breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
2563
ed9a39eb
JM
2564* New native configurations
2565
2566ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
afc05dd4 2567PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
ed9a39eb 2568
7a292a7a
SS
2569* New targets
2570
96baa820 2571Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
adf40b2e
JM
2572x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
2573PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
7a292a7a
SS
2574TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
2575
085dd6e6
JM
2576* OBSOLETE configurations
2577
2578Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
2579Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
9846de1b 2580Pyramid pyramid-*-*
ed9a39eb 2581ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
104c1213 2582Tahoe tahoe-*-*
7a292a7a 2583
9debab2f
AC
2584Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
2585but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
2586these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
2587be permanently REMOVED.
2588
5330533d
SS
2589* Gould support removed
2590
2591Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
2592
bc9e5bbf
AC
2593* New features for SVR4
2594
2595On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
2596without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
2597load symbols from the running process's executable file.
2598
2599* Many C++ enhancements
2600
2601C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
2602in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
2603
adf40b2e
JM
2604* Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
2605
2606A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
2607sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
2608with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
2609``|<program> <args>'' vis:
2610
2611 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
2612 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
2613
43e526b9
JM
2614* MIPS 64 remote protocol
2615
2616A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
2617expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
2618instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
2619
2620The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
2621added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
2622
96baa820
JM
2623* ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
2624
2625The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
2626``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
2627include ``set remote P-packet''.
2628
11cf8741
JM
2629* Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
2630
2631The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
2632accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
2633``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
2634
7876dd43
DB
2635* ``apropos'' command added.
2636
2637The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
2638documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
2639try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
2640
bc9e5bbf
AC
2641* New MI interface
2642
2643A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
2644interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
7162c0ca
EZ
2645process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
2646"GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
2647enabled by configuring with:
bc9e5bbf
AC
2648
2649 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
2650
c906108c
SS
2651*** Changes in GDB-4.18:
2652
2653* New native configurations
2654
2655HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
2656HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
55241689 2657M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
c906108c
SS
2658
2659* New targets
2660
2661Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
2662Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
2663Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
2664
2665* OBSOLETE configurations
2666
2667Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
2668
2669Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
2670but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
2671these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
2672be permanently REMOVED.
2673
2674* ANSI/ISO C
2675
2676As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
2677buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
2678containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
2679use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
2680available. If this is not true, please report the affected
2681configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
2682information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
2683already.
2684
2685* Readline 2.2
2686
2687GDB now uses readline 2.2.
2688
2689* set extension-language
2690
2691You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
2692languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
2693you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
2694 set extension-language .c c++
2695The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
2696and their associated languages.
2697
2698* Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
2699
2700When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
2701you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
2702PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
2703
2704 set processor NAME
2705
2706sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
2707following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
2708
2709 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
2710 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
2711 403 IBM PowerPC 403
2712 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
2713 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
2714 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
2715 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
2716 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
2717 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
2718 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
2719 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
2720
2721At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
2722special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
2723registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
2724only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
2725
2726* HP-UX support
2727
2728Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
2729more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
2730library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
2731support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
2732for xdb and dbx commands.
2733
2734* Catchpoints
2735
2736HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
2737generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
2738to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
2739
2740This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
2741argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
2742output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
2743
2744* Debugging across forks
2745
2746On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
2747in the inferior.
2748
2749* TUI
2750
2751HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
2752it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
2753configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
2754
2755* GDB remote protocol additions
2756
2757A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
2758Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
2759fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
2760allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
2761
2762For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
2763full 64-bit address. The command
2764
2765 set remoteaddresssize 32
2766
2767can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
2768the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
2769will be discarded.
2770
2771In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
2772command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
2773
2774 maint packet heythere
2775
2776sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
2777disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
2778time.
2779
2780The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
2781target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
2782downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
2783
2784* Tracing can collect general expressions
2785
2786You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
2787further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
2788doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
2789
2790* mask-address variable for Mips
2791
2792For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
2793a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
2794of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
2795
2796* Higher serial baud rates
2797
2798GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
2799230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
2800to achieve all of these rates.)
2801
2802* i960 simulator
2803
2804The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
2805builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
2806
2807
2808*** Changes in GDB-4.17:
2809
2810* New native configurations
2811
2812Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
2813Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
2814Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
2815PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
2816PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
2817Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
2818Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
2819
2820* New targets
2821
2822Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
2823Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
2824Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
2825Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
2826MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
2827MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
2828MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
2829Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
2830Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
2831Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2832NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
2833
2834* New debugging protocols
2835
2836ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
2837M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
2838DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
2839PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
2840PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
2841Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
2842
2843* DWARF 2
2844
2845All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
2846format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
2847information.
2848
2849* Java frontend
2850
2851GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
2852only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
2853
2854* solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
2855
2856For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
2857loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
2858locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
2859
2860* Live range splitting
2861
2862GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
2863range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
2864more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
2865
2866* Hurd support
2867
2868GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
2869updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
2870
2871* ARM Thumb support
2872
2873GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
2874instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
2875instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
2876accordingly.
2877
2878* MIPS16 support
2879
2880GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
2881instruction set.
2882
2883* Overlay support
2884
2885GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
2886linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
2887will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
2888control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
2889additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
2890in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
2891
2892* info symbol
2893
2894The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
2895the symbol at the specified address.
2896
2897* Trace support
2898
2899The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
2900asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
2901extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
2902includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
2903file tracepoint.c for more details.
2904
2905* MIPS simulator
2906
2907Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
2908by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
2909of most MIPS variants.
2910
2911* Sparc simulator
2912
2913Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
2914by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
2915Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
2916
2917* set architecture
2918
2919For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
2920basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
2921architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
2922the possible architectures.
2923
2924*** Changes in GDB-4.16:
2925
2926* New native configurations
2927
2928Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
2929M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
2930PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
2931PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
2932PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
2933RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
2934
2935* New targets
2936
2937ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
2938I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
2939MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
2940MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
2941PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
2942Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
2943Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2944
2945* PowerPC simulator
2946
2947The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
2948contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
2949PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
2950basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
2951performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
2952
2953* Solaris 2.5
2954
2955GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
2956
2957* Windows 95/NT native
2958
2959GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
2960To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
2961which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
2962Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
2963ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
2964
2965* dont-repeat command
2966
2967If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
2968command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
2969useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
2970extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
2971
2972* Send break instead of ^C
2973
2974The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
2975rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
2976GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
2977
2978* Remote protocol timeout
2979
2980The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
2981that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
2982to read from the target. The default value is 2.
2983
2984* Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
2985
2986By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
2987loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
2988stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
2989when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
2990in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
2991
2992Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
2993/usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
2994automatically on hpux10.
2995
2996* Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
2997
2998Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
2999
3000* Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
3001
3002When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
3003may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
3004the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
3005every character. The default value is 1050.
3006
3007* Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
3008
3009If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
3010a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
3011replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
3012details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
3013remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
3014to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
3015
3016* Speedups for remote debugging
3017
3018GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
3019the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
3020and more efficient S-record downloading.
3021
3022* Memory use reductions and statistics collection
3023
3024GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
3025Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
3026
3027*** Changes in GDB-4.15:
3028
3029* Psymtabs for XCOFF
3030
3031The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
3032can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
3033
3034* Remote targets use caching
3035
3036Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
3037remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
3038it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
3039debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
3040off' turns the the data cache off.
3041
3042* Remote targets may have threads
3043
3044The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
3045in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
3046gdb/remote.c for details.
3047
3048* NetROM support
3049
3050If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
3051support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
3052acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
3053write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
3054support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
3055another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
3056sequence is something like
3057
3058 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
3059 load <prog>
3060 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
3061
3062* Macintosh host
3063
3064GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
3065may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
3066it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
3067available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
3068device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
3069directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
3070scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
3071mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
3072
3073* Autoconf
3074
3075GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
3076but does simplify configuration and building.
3077
3078* hpux10
3079
3080GDB now supports hpux10.
3081
3082*** Changes in GDB-4.14:
3083
3084* New native configurations
3085
3086x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
3087x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
3088NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
3089Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
3090
3091* New targets
3092
3093A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
3094HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
3095CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
3096PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
3097WDC 65816 w65-*-*
3098
3099* Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
3100
3101GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
3102possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
3103filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
3104the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
3105if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
3106
3107* Arguments to user-defined commands
3108
3109User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
3110Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
3111trivial example:
3112define adder
3113 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
3114
3115To execute the command use:
3116adder 1 2 3
3117
3118Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
3119Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
3120use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
3121
3122* New `if' and `while' commands
3123
3124This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
3125commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
3126expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
3127execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
3128terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
3129`else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
3130if the expression is zero.
3131
3132* Fortran source language mode
3133
3134GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
3135Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
3136variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
3137with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
3138Fortran compilers.
3139
3140* Better HPUX support
3141
3142Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
3143running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
3144processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
3145for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
3146that behavior do the following before running the program:
3147
3148 adb -w a.out
3149 __dld_flags?W 0x5
3150 control-d
3151
3152This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
3153To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
3154
3155 adb -w a.out
3156 __dld_flags?W 0x4
3157 control-d
3158
3159You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
3160the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
3161external linkage.
3162
3163GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
3164HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
3165
3166* Target byte order now dynamically selectable
3167
3168You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
3169commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
3170current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
3171"set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
3172associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
3173configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
3174
3175* New DOS host serial code
3176
3177This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
3178no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
3179a PC's serial port.
3180
3181*** Changes in GDB-4.13:
3182
3183* New "complete" command
3184
3185This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
3186were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
3187
3188* Trailing space optional in prompt
3189
3190"set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
3191allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
3192
3193* Breakpoint hit counts
3194
3195"info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
3196has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
3197can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
3198to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
3199less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
3200that breakpoint.
3201
3202* Ability to stop printing at NULL character
3203
3204"set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
3205an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
3206arrays actually contain only short strings.
3207
3208* Shared library breakpoints
3209
3210In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
3211breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
3212
3213* Hardware watchpoints
3214
3215There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
3216targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
3217
55241689 3218Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
c906108c
SS
3219
3220* Annotations
3221
3222Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
3223and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
3224
3225* Improved Irix 5 support
3226
3227GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
3228
3229* Improved HPPA support
3230
3231GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
3232
3233* New native configurations
3234
3235Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
3236HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
3237Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
3238RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
3239
3240* New targets
3241
3242OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
3243MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
3244Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
3245
3246* Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
3247
3248There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
3249This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
3250
3251* Fixes
3252
3253As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
3254and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
3255
3256*** Changes in GDB-4.12:
3257
3258* Irix 5 is now supported
3259
3260* HPPA support
3261
3262GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
3263to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
3264GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
3265of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
3266can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
3267
3268
3269*** Changes in GDB-4.11:
3270
3271* User visible changes:
3272
3273* Remote Debugging
3274
3275The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
3276target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
3277debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
3278integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
3279debugging info for the mips target).
3280
3281* DEC Alpha native support
3282
3283GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
3284debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
3285work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
3286Alpha-specific notes.
3287
3288* Preliminary thread implementation
3289
3290GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
3291
3292* LynxOS native and target support for 386
3293
3294This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
3295to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
3296for details).
3297
3298* Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
3299
3300This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
3301mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
3302call methods, ...etc.
3303
3304*** Changes in GDB-4.10:
3305
3306 * User visible changes:
3307
3308Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
3309supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
3310other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
3311somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
3312
3313Filename completion now works.
3314
3315When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
3316arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
3317addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
3318
3319All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
3320vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
3321should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
3322your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
3323to be on the far side of a thin network line.
3324
3325 * DEC alpha support
3326
3327This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
3328cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
3329
3330
3331*** Changes in GDB-4.9:
3332
3333 * Testsuite
3334
3335This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
3336The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
3337via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
3338
3339 * C++ demangling
3340
3341'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
3342emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
3343Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
3344disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
3345use gdb with AT&T cfront.
3346
3347 * Simulators
3348
3349GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
3350So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
3351Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
3352
3353 * New targets supported
3354
3355H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
3356H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
3357SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
3358Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
3359IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
3360
3361Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
3362version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
3363GO32 memory extender.
3364
3365 * New remote protocols
3366
3367MIPS remote debugging protocol.
3368
3369 * New source languages supported
3370
3371This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
3372used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
3373into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
3374
3375
3376*** Changes in GDB-4.8:
3377
3378 * HP Precision Architecture supported
3379
3380GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
3381version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
3382University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
3383compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
3384format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
3385(as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
3386
3387Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
3388
3389 * Faster and better demangling
3390
3391We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
3392demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
3393character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
3394only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
3395This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
3396increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
3397symbol lookups.
3398
3399`Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
3400from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
3401compiler does not actually implement.
3402
3403 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
3404
3405In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
3406inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
3407recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
3408very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
3409The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
3410circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
3411fix.
3412
3413The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
3414release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
3415
3416 * Improved configure script
3417
3418The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
3419you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
3420host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
3421done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
3422
3423We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
3424version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
3425`--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
3426The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
3427only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
3428We hope to make this the default in a future release.
3429
3430 * Documentation improvements
3431
3432There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
3433produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
3434before submitting changes.
3435
3436The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
3437M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
3438`info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
3439you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
3440a future texinfo-X.Y release.
3441
3442*NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
3443We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
3444been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
3445or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
3446`texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
3447around this problem.
3448
3449 * New features
3450
3451GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
3452the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
3453`print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
3454the target program.
3455
3456The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
3457how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
3458
3459 * New native hosts supported
3460
3461HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
3462386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
3463
3464 * New targets supported
3465
3466AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
3467
3468 * New file formats supported
3469
3470BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
3471HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
3472
3473 * Major bug fixes
3474
3475Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
3476
3477We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
3478printf_filtered("%s") problems.
3479
3480We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
3481for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
3482release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
3483
3484You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
3485will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
3486
3487We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
3488for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
3489especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
3490libraries.
3491
3492The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
3493information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
3494command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
3495any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
3496when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
3497
3498 * Internal improvements
3499
3500GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
3501debugging of multiple languages in the future.
3502
3503GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
3504Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
3505symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
3506contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
3507shared code that handles any of them.
3508
3509 * New command line options
3510
3511We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
3512
3513 * Mmalloc licensing
3514
3515The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
3516General Public License.
3517
3518*** Changes in GDB-4.7:
3519
3520 * Host/native/target split
3521
3522GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
3523hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
3524target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
3525local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
3526ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
3527
3528The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
3529GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
3530is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
3531code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
3532any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
3533built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
3534handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
3535
3536GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
3537It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
3538plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
3539
3540 * New hosts supported
3541
3542HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
3543386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
3544386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
3545
3546 * New targets supported
3547
3548Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
354968030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
3550
3551 * New native hosts supported
3552
3553386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
3554 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
3555386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
3556
3557 * New file formats supported
3558
3559BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
3560supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
3561format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
3562
3563 * New commands
3564
3565`show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
3566`show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
3567These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
3568
3569`info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
3570
3571You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
3572scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
3573prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
3574executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
3575
3576 * C++ improvements
3577
3578We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
3579info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
3580symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
3581
3582Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
3583
3584 * Major bug fixes
3585
3586The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
3587fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
3588by the compiler.
3589
3590We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
3591support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
3592
3593John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
3594slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
3595that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
3596purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
3597the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
3598mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
3599
3600Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
3601about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
3602completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
3603we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
3604
3605 * AMD 29k support
3606
3607A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
3608specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
3609calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
3610usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
3611in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
3612
3613We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
3614Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
3615of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
3616resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
3617
3618 * Remote interfaces
3619
3620We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
3621with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
3622message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
3623This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
3624needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
3625breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
3626each instruction being stepped through.
3627
3628The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
3629registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
3630
3631There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
3632find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
3633Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
3634processor with a serial port.
3635
3636 * Configuration
3637
3638Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
3639`table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
3640supported, and what files each one uses.
3641
3642 * Library changes
3643
3644There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
3645disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
3646Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
3647disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
3648
3649The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
3650Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
3651can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
3652grants all the rights from the General Public License.
3653
3654 * Documentation
3655
3656The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
3657reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
3658as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
3659encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
3660system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
3661bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
3662
3663And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
3664
3665
3666*** Changes in GDB-4.6:
3667
3668 * Better support for C++ function names
3669
3670GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
3671names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
3672(using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
3673single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
3674Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
3675
3676GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
3677the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
3678You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
3679lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
3680for the list of formats.
3681
3682 * G++ symbol mangling problem
3683
3684Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
3685C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
3686directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
3687can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
3688usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
3689about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
3690this problem.)
3691
3692 * New 'maintenance' command
3693
3694All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
3695the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
3696can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
3697
3698 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
3699 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
3700 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
3701 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
3702 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
3703 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
3704
3705The following commands are new:
3706
3707 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
3708 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
3709 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
3710
3711 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
3712
3713We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
3714(e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
3715be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
3716read after argv processing.
3717
3718 * New hosts supported
3719
3720Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
3721
55241689 3722GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
c906108c
SS
3723
3724We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
3725is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
3726for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
3727masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
3728fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
3729It costs extra.
3730
3731 * New targets supported
3732
3733Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
3734
3735 * More smarts about finding #include files
3736
3737GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
3738all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
3739greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
3740especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
3741the one that contains your sources.
3742
3743We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
3744breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
3745try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
3746
3747 * Interesting infernals change
3748
3749GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
3750section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
3751target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
3752stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
3753
3754 * Bug fixes (of course!)
3755
3756There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
3757 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
3758 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
3759
3760See the ChangeLog for details.
3761
3762*** Changes in GDB-4.5:
3763
3764 * New machines supported (host and target)
3765
3766IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
3767
3768SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
3769
3770 * New malloc package
3771
3772GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
3773Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
3774capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
3775This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
3776pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
3777more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
3778
3779 * info proc
3780
3781The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
3782'help info proc' for details.
3783
3784 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
3785
3786The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
3787Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
3788possible.
3789
3790 * File name changes for MS-DOS
3791
3792Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
3793support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
3794conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
3795environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
3796that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
3797in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
3798
3799 * Cross byte order fixes
3800
3801Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
3802targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
3803
3804 * New -mapped and -readnow options
3805
3806If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
3807system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
3808`symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
3809program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
3810called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
3811Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
3812and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
3813the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
3814option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
3815starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
3816
3817You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
3818the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
3819information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
3820slower, but makes future operations faster.
3821
3822The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
3823build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
3824A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
3825use is:
3826
3827 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
3828
3829The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
3830It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
3831shared across multiple host platforms.
3832
3833 * longjmp() handling
3834
3835GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
3836siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
3837all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
3838platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
3839
3840 * Solaris 2.0
3841
3842Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
3843this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
3844reading symbols.
3845
3846 * Bug fixes
3847
3848As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
3849People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
3850crashes and trashed symbol tables.
3851
3852*** Changes in GDB-4.4:
3853
3854 * New machines supported (host and target)
3855
3856SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
3857 (except core files)
3858BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
3859Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
3860
3861 * New machines supported (target)
3862
3863AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
3864
3865 * C++ support
3866
3867GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
3868The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
3869per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
3870
3871GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
3872`ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
3873extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
3874good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
3875will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
3876released.
3877
3878 * New features for SVR4
3879
3880GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
3881shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
3882only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
3883
3884The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
3885on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
3886it prints the address mappings of the process.
3887
3888If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
3889bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
3890
3891 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
3892
3893Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
3894now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
3895skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
3896make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
3897same code linked statically.
3898
3899 * New Getopt
3900
3901GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
3902version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
3903continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
3904Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
3905added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
3906future by other options that begin with the same letter.
3907
3908 * Bugs fixed
3909
3910The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
3911Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
3912See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
3913
3914
3915*** Changes in GDB-4.3:
3916
3917 * New machines supported (host and target)
3918
3919Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
3920NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
3921Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
3922
3923 * Almost SCO Unix support
3924
3925We had hoped to support:
3926SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
3927(except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
3928that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
3929about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
3930
3931 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
3932
3933GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
3934debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
3935is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
3936send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
3937reqired (if any).
3938
3939 * New Readline
3940
3941GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
3942is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
3943required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
3944
3945 * Bugs fixed
3946
3947The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
3948Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
3949See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
3950
3951 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
3952
3953GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
3954supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
3955symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
3956
3957Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
3958mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
3959debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
3960mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
3961version 2.
3962
3963Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
3964really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
3965line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
3966variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
3967situation somewhat.
3968
3969When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
3970However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
3971methods.
3972
3973We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
3974DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
3975encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
3976
3977
3978*** Changes in GDB-4.2:
3979
3980 * Improved configuration
3981
3982Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
3983Porting BFD is simpler.
3984
3985 * Stepping improved
3986
3987The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
3988of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
3989in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
3990function that has debugging information is called within the line.
3991
3992 * Bug fixing
3993
3994Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
3995
3996 * New host supported (not target)
3997
3998Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
3999
4000
4001*** Changes in GDB-4.1:
4002
4003 * Multiple source language support
4004
4005GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
4006It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
4007and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
4008language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
4009You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
4010`set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
4011
4012 * GDB and Modula-2
4013
4014GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
4015currently under development at the State University of New York at
4016Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
4017continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
4018
4019Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
4020debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
4021symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
4022
4023There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
4024in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
4025
4026 * set write on/off
4027
4028GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
4029a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
4030the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
4031by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
4032effect immediately.
4033
4034 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
4035
4036When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
4037shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
4038The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
4039examining core files.
4040
4041 * set listsize
4042
4043You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
4044The default is 10.
4045
4046 * New machines supported (host and target)
4047
4048SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
4049Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
4050Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
4051
4052 * New hosts supported (not targets)
4053
4054IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
4055
4056 * New targets supported (not hosts)
4057
4058AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
4059AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
4060Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
4061
4062 * New remote interfaces
4063
4064AMD 29000 Adapt
4065AMD 29000 Minimon
4066
4067
4068*** Changes in GDB-4.0:
4069
4070 * New Facilities
4071
4072Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
4073
4074Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
4075target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
4076is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
4077remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
4078remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
4079also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
4080using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
4081stub on the target system.
4082
4083New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
4084
4085GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
4086library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
4087object file types such as a.out and coff.
4088
4089There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
4090refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
4091
4092
4093 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
4094
4095All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
4096by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
4097
4098For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
4099``Show prompt'' produces the response:
4100Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
4101
4102What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
4103print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
4104will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
4105all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
4106
4107confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
4108 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
4109 it is already running. Default is ON.
4110
4111editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
4112 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
4113 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
4114 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
4115 Default is ON.
4116
4117history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
4118 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
4119 or the value of the environment variable
4120 GDBHISTFILE.
4121
4122history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
4123 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
4124 HISTSIZE.
4125
4126history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
4127 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
4128 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
4129
4130history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
4131 history expansion will be performed on
4132 command line input. The default is OFF.
4133
4134radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
4135 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
4136 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
4137
4138height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
4139 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
4140 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
4141 variable TERM.
4142
4143width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
4144 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
4145 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
4146 variable TERM.
4147
4148Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
4149``set width'' instead.
4150
4151print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
4152 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
4153 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
4154 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
4155
4156print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
4157 is OFF.
4158
4159print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
4160 "raw" form if off.
4161
4162print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
4163 like instructions.
4164
4165print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
4166
4167
4168 * Support for Epoch Environment.
4169
4170The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
4171new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
4172are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
4173window.
4174
4175
4176 * Support for Shared Libraries
4177
4178GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
4179Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
4180before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
4181happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
4182At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
4183from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
4184shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
4185It can be abbreviated ``share''.
4186
4187sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
4188 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
4189 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
4190
4191info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
4192
4193
4194 * Watchpoints
4195
4196A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
4197expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
4198tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
4199quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
4200problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
4201more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
4202
4203watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
4204
4205info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
4206
4207delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
4208disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
4209enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
4210
4211
4212 * C++ multiple inheritance
4213
4214When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
4215for C++ programs.
4216
4217 * C++ exception handling
4218
4219Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
4220ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
4221the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
4222handler's context).
4223
4224catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
4225 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
4226 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
4227
4228info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
4229 current stack frame.
4230
4231
4232 * Minor command changes
4233
4234The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
4235command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
4236is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
4237
4238The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
4239at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
4240frames without printing.
4241
4242 * New directory command
4243
4244'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
4245The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
4246about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
4247with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
4248find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
4249
4250 * Configuring GDB for compilation
4251
4252For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
4253for more details.
4254
4255GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
4256two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
4257Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
4258where the program that you are debugging will run.
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