* NEWS: Document python gdb.printing.register_pretty_printer's new
[deliverable/binutils-gdb.git] / gdb / NEWS
CommitLineData
c906108c
SS
1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
3
31916278 4*** Changes since GDB 7.3.1
d6e00af6 5
480a3f21
PW
6* GDB has two new commands: "set remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit"
7 and "show remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit". These allows to
8 set or show the maximum length limit (in bytes) of a remote
9 target hardware watchpoint.
10
11 This allows e.g. to use "unlimited" hardware watchpoints with the
12 gdbserver integrated in Valgrind version >= 3.7.0. Such Valgrind
13 watchpoints are slower than real hardware watchpoints but are
14 significantly faster than gdb software watchpoints.
15
3a7bf607
PM
16* Python scripting
17
32d1c362
DE
18 ** The register_pretty_printer function in module gdb.printing now takes
19 an optional `replace' argument. If True the new printer replaces any
20 existing one.
21
3a7bf607
PM
22 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" command has been
23 deprecated, and a new command: "set python print-stack on|off" has
24 replaced it. Additionally, the default for "print-stack" is now
25 "off".
26
27 ** A prompt subsitution hook (prompt_hook) is now available to the
28 Python API.
713389e0 29
fa3a4f15
PM
30 ** A new command set/show extended-prompt has been added.
31
32 ** A new Python module, gdb.prompt has been added to the GDB Python
33 modules library. This module provides functionality for
34 escape sequentions in prompts (used by set/show
35 extended-prompt). These escape sequences are replaced by their
36 corresponding value.
37
5e239b84
PM
38 ** Python commands and convenience-functions located in
39 'data-directory'/python/gdb/command and
40 'data-directory'/python/gdb/function are now automatically loaded
41 on GDB start-up.
42
457e09f0
DE
43 ** Symbols now provide the "type" attribute, the type of the symbol.
44
6839b47f
KP
45 ** The "gdb.breakpoint" function has been deprecated in favor of
46 "gdb.breakpoints".
47
84ad80e6
PK
48 ** Type objects for struct and union types now allow access to
49 the fields using standard Python dictionary (mapping) methods.
50 For example, "some_type['myfield']" now works, as does
51 "some_type.items()".
52
20c168b5
KP
53 ** A new event "gdb.new_objfile" has been added, triggered by loading a
54 new object file.
55
98a5dd13
DE
56* libthread-db-search-path now supports two special values: $sdir and $pdir.
57 $sdir specifies the default system locations of shared libraries.
58 $pdir specifies the directory where the libpthread used by the application
59 lives.
60
61 GDB no longer looks in $sdir and $pdir after it has searched the directories
62 mentioned in libthread-db-search-path. If you want to search those
63 directories, they must be specified in libthread-db-search-path.
64 The default value of libthread-db-search-path on GNU/Linux and Solaris
65 systems is now "$sdir:$pdir".
66
67 $pdir is not supported by gdbserver, it is currently ignored.
68 $sdir is supported by gdbserver.
69
478aac75
DE
70* New configure option --with-iconv-bin.
71 When using the internationalization support like the one in the GNU C
72 library, GDB will invoke the "iconv" program to get a list of supported
73 character sets. If this program lives in a non-standard location, one can
74 use this option to specify where to find it.
75
9c06b0b4
TJB
76* When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
77 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports masked hardware
78 watchpoints, which specify a mask in addition to an address to watch.
79 The mask specifies that some bits of an address (the bits which are
80 reset in the mask) should be ignored when matching the address accessed
81 by the inferior against the watchpoint address. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
82 section in the user manual for more details.
83
03f2bd59
JK
84* The new option --once causes GDBserver to stop listening for connections once
85 the first connection is made. The listening port used by GDBserver will
86 become available after that.
87
5a56e9c5
DE
88* New commands "info macros", "info definitions",
89 and "alias" have been added.
edc84990 90
2bda9cc5
JK
91* New function parameters suffix @entry specifies value of function parameter
92 at the time the function got called. Entry values are available only since
93 gcc version 4.7.
94
9c06b0b4
TJB
95* Changed commands
96
97watch EXPRESSION mask MASK_VALUE
98 The watch command now supports the mask argument which allows creation
99 of masked watchpoints, if the current architecture supports this feature.
100
dbaefcf7
DE
101info auto-load-scripts [REGEXP]
102 This command was formerly named "maintenance print section-scripts".
103 It is now generally useful and is no longer a maintenance-only command.
104
d248b706
KY
105* Tracepoints can now be enabled and disabled at any time after a trace
106 experiment has been started using the standard "enable" and "disable"
107 commands. It is now possible to start a trace experiment with no enabled
108 tracepoints; GDB will display a warning, but will allow the experiment to
109 begin, assuming that tracepoints will be enabled as needed while the trace
110 is running.
111
2bda9cc5
JK
112* New options
113
114set print entry-values (both|compact|default|if-needed|no|only|preferred)
115show print entry-values
116 Set printing of frame argument values at function entry. In some cases
117 GDB can determine the value of function argument which was passed by the
118 function caller, even if the value was modified inside the called function.
119
120set debug entry-values
121show debug entry-values
122 Control display of debugging info for determining frame argument values at
123 function entry and virtual tail call frames.
124
d248b706
KY
125* New remote packets
126
127QTEnable
128
129 Dynamically enable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
130
131QTDisable
132
133 Dynamically disable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
134
1a532630
PP
135* Dcache size (number of lines) and line-size are now runtime-configurable
136 via "set dcache line" and "set dcache line-size" commands.
137
11315641
YQ
138* New targets
139
140Texas Instruments TMS320C6x tic6x-*-*
141
e8d56f18
JB
142*** Changes in GDB 7.3.1
143
144* The build failure for NetBSD and OpenBSD targets have now been fixed.
145
d6e00af6 146*** Changes in GDB 7.3
797054e6 147
60f98dde
MS
148* GDB has a new command: "thread find [REGEXP]".
149 It finds the thread id whose name, target id, or thread extra info
150 matches the given regular expression.
151
eee5b35e
DD
152* The "catch syscall" command now works on mips*-linux* targets.
153
b716877b
AB
154* The -data-disassemble MI command now supports modes 2 and 3 for
155 dumping the instruction opcodes.
156
aae1c79a
DE
157* New command line options
158
159-data-directory DIR Specify DIR as the "data-directory".
160 This is mostly for testing purposes.
161
a86caf66
DE
162* The "maint set python auto-load on|off" command has been renamed to
163 "set auto-load-scripts on|off".
164
99e7ae30
DE
165* GDB has a new command: "set directories".
166 It is like the "dir" command except that it replaces the
167 source path list instead of augmenting it.
168
4694da01
TT
169* GDB now understands thread names.
170
171 On GNU/Linux, "info threads" will display the thread name as set by
172 prctl or pthread_setname_np.
173
174 There is also a new command, "thread name", which can be used to
175 assign a name internally for GDB to display.
176
f4b8a18d
KW
177* OpenCL C
178 Initial support for the OpenCL C language (http://www.khronos.org/opencl)
179 has been integrated into GDB.
180
585d1eb8
PM
181* Python scripting
182
da5d4055
PM
183 ** The function gdb.Write now accepts an optional keyword 'stream'.
184 This keyword, when provided, will direct the output to either
185 stdout, stderr, or GDB's logging output.
186
9a6f1302
PM
187 ** Parameters can now be be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
188 you may implement the get_set_doc and get_show_doc functions.
189 This improves how Parameter set/show documentation is processed
190 and allows for more dynamic content.
191
29703da4
PM
192 ** Symbols, Symbol Table, Symbol Table and Line, Object Files,
193 Inferior, Inferior Thread, Blocks, and Block Iterator APIs now
194 have an is_valid method.
195
350c6c65
PM
196 ** Breakpoints can now be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
197 you may implement a 'stop' function that is executed each time
198 the inferior reaches that breakpoint.
199
6e6fbe60
DE
200 ** New function gdb.lookup_global_symbol looks up a global symbol.
201
585d1eb8
PM
202 ** GDB values in Python are now callable if the value represents a
203 function. For example, if 'some_value' represents a function that
204 takes two integer parameters and returns a value, you can call
205 that function like so:
206
207 result = some_value (10,20)
208
0e3509db
DE
209 ** Module gdb.types has been added.
210 It contains a collection of utilities for working with gdb.Types objects:
211 get_basic_type, has_field, make_enum_dict.
212
7b51bc51
DE
213 ** Module gdb.printing has been added.
214 It contains utilities for writing and registering pretty-printers.
215 New classes: PrettyPrinter, SubPrettyPrinter,
216 RegexpCollectionPrettyPrinter.
217 New function: register_pretty_printer.
218
219 ** New commands "info pretty-printers", "enable pretty-printer" and
220 "disable pretty-printer" have been added.
221
99e7ae30
DE
222 ** gdb.parameter("directories") is now available.
223
d8e22779
TT
224 ** New function gdb.newest_frame returns the newest frame in the
225 selected thread.
226
4694da01
TT
227 ** The gdb.InferiorThread class has a new "name" attribute. This
228 holds the thread's name.
229
505500db
SW
230 ** Python Support for Inferior events.
231 Python scripts can add observers to be notified of events
824446ad 232 occurring in the process being debugged.
c17a9e46
HZ
233 The following events are currently supported:
234 - gdb.events.cont Continue event.
235 - gdb.events.exited Inferior exited event.
236 - gdb.events.stop Signal received, and Breakpoint hit events.
237
def98928
TT
238* C++ Improvements:
239
240 ** GDB now puts template parameters in scope when debugging in an
241 instantiation. For example, if you have:
242
243 template<int X> int func (void) { return X; }
244
245 then if you step into func<5>, "print X" will show "5". This
246 feature requires proper debuginfo support from the compiler; it
247 was added to GCC 4.5.
248
66cb8159
TT
249 ** The motion commands "next", "finish", "until", and "advance" now
250 work better when exceptions are thrown. In particular, GDB will
251 no longer lose control of the inferior; instead, the GDB will
252 stop the inferior at the point at which the exception is caught.
253 This functionality requires a change in the exception handling
254 code that was introduced in GCC 4.5.
255
4aac0db7
UW
256* GDB now follows GCC's rules on accessing volatile objects when
257 reading or writing target state during expression evaluation.
258 One notable difference to prior behavior is that "print x = 0"
259 no longer generates a read of x; the value of the assignment is
260 now always taken directly from the value being assigned.
261
283e6a52
TT
262* GDB now has some support for using labels in the program's source in
263 linespecs. For instance, you can use "advance label" to continue
264 execution to a label.
265
266* GDB now has support for reading and writing a new .gdb_index
267 section. This section holds a fast index of DWARF debugging
268 information and can be used to greatly speed up GDB startup and
269 operation. See the documentation for `save gdb-index' for details.
270
b56df873 271* The "watch" command now accepts an optional "-location" argument.
14c0d4e1 272 When used, this causes GDB to watch the memory referred to by the
b56df873
TT
273 expression. Such a watchpoint is never deleted due to it going out
274 of scope.
275
ae53ffa4
PA
276* GDB now supports thread debugging of core dumps on GNU/Linux.
277
278 GDB now activates thread debugging using the libthread_db library
279 when debugging GNU/Linux core dumps, similarly to when debugging
280 live processes. As a result, when debugging a core dump file, GDB
281 is now able to display pthread_t ids of threads. For example, "info
282 threads" shows the same output as when debugging the process when it
283 was live. In earlier releases, you'd see something like this:
284
285 (gdb) info threads
286 * 1 LWP 6780 main () at main.c:10
287
288 While now you see this:
289
290 (gdb) info threads
291 * 1 Thread 0x7f0f5712a700 (LWP 6780) main () at main.c:10
292
293 It is also now possible to inspect TLS variables when debugging core
294 dumps.
295
296 When debugging a core dump generated on a machine other than the one
297 used to run GDB, you may need to point GDB at the correct
298 libthread_db library with the "set libthread-db-search-path"
299 command. See the user manual for more details on this command.
300
f1310107
TJB
301* When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
302 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports ranged breakpoints,
303 which stop execution of the inferior whenever it executes an instruction
304 at any address within the specified range. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
305 section in the user manual for more details.
306
248c9dbc
JB
307* New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
308
1aee7009
JB
309 ** GDBserver is now supported on PowerPC LynxOS (versions 4.x and 5.x),
310 and i686 LynxOS (version 5.x).
248c9dbc 311
eb826dc6
MF
312 ** GDBserver is now supported on Blackfin Linux.
313
44603653
JB
314* New native configurations
315
316ia64 HP-UX ia64-*-hpux*
317
91021223
MF
318* New targets:
319
320Analog Devices, Inc. Blackfin Processor bfin-*
321
6e1bb179
JB
322* Ada task switching is now supported on sparc-elf targets when
323 debugging a program using the Ravenscar Profile. For more information,
324 see the "Tasking Support when using the Ravenscar Profile" section
325 in the GDB user manual.
326
50c97f38
TT
327* Guile support was removed.
328
448a92bf
MF
329* New features in the GNU simulator
330
331 ** The --map-info flag lists all known core mappings.
332
66ee2731
MF
333 ** CFI flashes may be simulated via the "cfi" device.
334
76b8507d 335*** Changes in GDB 7.2
bfbf3774 336
ba25b921
PA
337* Shared library support for remote targets by default
338
339 When GDB is configured for a generic, non-OS specific target, like
340 for example, --target=arm-eabi or one of the many *-*-elf targets,
341 GDB now queries remote stubs for loaded shared libraries using the
342 `qXfer:libraries:read' packet. Previously, shared library support
343 was always disabled for such configurations.
344
4656f5c6
SW
345* C++ Improvements:
346
347 ** Argument Dependent Lookup (ADL)
348
349 In C++ ADL lookup directs function search to the namespaces of its
350 arguments even if the namespace has not been imported.
351 For example:
352 namespace A
353 {
354 class B { };
355 void foo (B) { }
356 }
357 ...
358 A::B b
359 foo(b)
360 Here the compiler will search for `foo' in the namespace of 'b'
361 and find A::foo. GDB now supports this. This construct is commonly
362 used in the Standard Template Library for operators.
363
364 ** Improved User Defined Operator Support
365
366 In addition to member operators, GDB now supports lookup of operators
367 defined in a namespace and imported with a `using' directive, operators
368 defined in the global scope, operators imported implicitly from an
369 anonymous namespace, and the ADL operators mentioned in the previous
370 entry.
371 GDB now also supports proper overload resolution for all the previously
372 mentioned flavors of operators.
373
254e6b9e
DE
374 ** static const class members
375
376 Printing of static const class members that are initialized in the
377 class definition has been fixed.
378
711e434b
PM
379* Windows Thread Information Block access.
380
381 On Windows targets, GDB now supports displaying the Windows Thread
382 Information Block (TIB) structure. This structure is visible either
383 by using the new command `info w32 thread-information-block' or, by
384 dereferencing the new convenience variable named `$_tlb', a
385 thread-specific pointer to the TIB. This feature is also supported
386 when remote debugging using GDBserver.
387
0fb4aa4b
PA
388* Static tracepoints
389
390 Static tracepoints are calls in the user program into a tracing
391 library. One such library is a port of the LTTng kernel tracer to
392 userspace --- UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer, http://lttng.org/ust).
393 When debugging with GDBserver, GDB now supports combining the GDB
394 tracepoint machinery with such libraries. For example: the user can
395 use GDB to probe a static tracepoint marker (a call from the user
396 program into the tracing library) with the new "strace" command (see
397 "New commands" below). This creates a "static tracepoint" in the
398 breakpoint list, that can be manipulated with the same feature set
399 as fast and regular tracepoints. E.g., collect registers, local and
400 global variables, collect trace state variables, and define
401 tracepoint conditions. In addition, the user can collect extra
402 static tracepoint marker specific data, by collecting the new
403 $_sdata internal variable. When analyzing the trace buffer, you can
404 inspect $_sdata like any other variable available to GDB. For more
405 information, see the "Tracepoints" chapter in GDB user manual. New
406 remote packets have been defined to support static tracepoints, see
407 the "New remote packets" section below.
408
ca11e899
SS
409* Better reconstruction of tracepoints after disconnected tracing
410
411 GDB will attempt to download the original source form of tracepoint
412 definitions when starting a trace run, and then will upload these
413 upon reconnection to the target, resulting in a more accurate
414 reconstruction of the tracepoints that are in use on the target.
415
416* Observer mode
417
418 You can now exercise direct control over the ways that GDB can
419 affect your program. For instance, you can disallow the setting of
420 breakpoints, so that the program can run continuously (assuming
421 non-stop mode). In addition, the "observer" variable is available
422 to switch all of the different controls; in observer mode, GDB
423 cannot affect the target's behavior at all, which is useful for
424 tasks like diagnosing live systems in the field.
425
426* The new convenience variable $_thread holds the number of the
427 current thread.
428
711e434b
PM
429* New remote packets
430
431qGetTIBAddr
432
433 Return the address of the Windows Thread Information Block of a given thread.
434
dde08ee1
PA
435qRelocInsn
436
437 In response to several of the tracepoint packets, the target may now
438 also respond with a number of intermediate `qRelocInsn' request
439 packets before the final result packet, to have GDB handle
440 relocating an instruction to execute at a different address. This
441 is particularly useful for stubs that support fast tracepoints. GDB
442 reports support for this feature in the qSupported packet.
443
0fb4aa4b
PA
444qTfSTM, qTsSTM
445
446 List static tracepoint markers in the target program.
447
448qTSTMat
449
450 List static tracepoint markers at a given address in the target
451 program.
452
453qXfer:statictrace:read
454
455 Read the static trace data collected (by a `collect $_sdata'
456 tracepoint action). The remote stub reports support for this packet
457 to gdb's qSupported query.
458
ca11e899
SS
459QAllow
460
461 Send the current settings of GDB's permission flags.
462
463QTDPsrc
464
465 Send part of the source (textual) form of a tracepoint definition,
466 which includes location, conditional, and action list.
467
3f7b2faa
DE
468* The source command now accepts a -s option to force searching for the
469 script in the source search path even if the script name specifies
470 a directory.
471
d337e9f0
PA
472* New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
473
0fb4aa4b
PA
474 - GDBserver now support tracepoints (including fast tracepoints, and
475 static tracepoints). The feature is currently supported by the
476 i386-linux and amd64-linux builds. See the "Tracepoints support
477 in gdbserver" section in the manual for more information.
478
479 GDBserver JIT compiles the tracepoint's conditional agent
480 expression bytecode into native code whenever possible for low
481 overhead dynamic tracepoints conditionals. For such tracepoints,
482 an expression that examines program state is evaluated when the
483 tracepoint is reached, in order to determine whether to capture
484 trace data. If the condition is simple and false, processing the
485 tracepoint finishes very quickly and no data is gathered.
486
487 GDBserver interfaces with the UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer) library
488 for static tracepoints support.
d337e9f0 489
c24d0242
PM
490 - GDBserver now supports x86_64 Windows 64-bit debugging.
491
c8d5aac9
L
492* GDB now sends xmlRegisters= in qSupported packet to indicate that
493 it understands register description.
494
7c953934
TT
495* The --batch flag now disables pagination and queries.
496
8685c86f
L
497* X86 general purpose registers
498
499 GDB now supports reading/writing byte, word and double-word x86
500 general purpose registers directly. This means you can use, say,
501 $ah or $ax to refer, respectively, to the byte register AH and
502 16-bit word register AX that are actually portions of the 32-bit
503 register EAX or 64-bit register RAX.
504
95a42b64 505* The `commands' command now accepts a range of breakpoints to modify.
86b17b60
PA
506 A plain `commands' following a command that creates multiple
507 breakpoints affects all the breakpoints set by that command. This
508 applies to breakpoints set by `rbreak', and also applies when a
509 single `break' command creates multiple breakpoints (e.g.,
510 breakpoints on overloaded c++ functions).
95a42b64 511
8bd10a10
CM
512* The `rbreak' command now accepts a filename specification as part of
513 its argument, limiting the functions selected by the regex to those
514 in the specified file.
515
ab38a727
PA
516* Support for remote debugging Windows and SymbianOS shared libraries
517 from Unix hosts has been improved. Non Windows GDB builds now can
518 understand target reported file names that follow MS-DOS based file
519 system semantics, such as file names that include drive letters and
520 use the backslash character as directory separator. This makes it
521 possible to transparently use the "set sysroot" and "set
522 solib-search-path" on Unix hosts to point as host copies of the
523 target's shared libraries. See the new command "set
524 target-file-system-kind" described below, and the "Commands to
525 specify files" section in the user manual for more information.
526
6149aea9
PA
527* New commands
528
f1421989
HZ
529eval template, expressions...
530 Convert the values of one or more expressions under the control
531 of the string template to a command line, and call it.
532
ab38a727
PA
533set target-file-system-kind unix|dos-based|auto
534show target-file-system-kind
535 Set or show the assumed file system kind for target reported file
536 names.
537
6149aea9
PA
538save breakpoints <filename>
539 Save all current breakpoint definitions to a file suitable for use
540 in a later debugging session. To read the saved breakpoint
541 definitions, use the `source' command.
542
543`save tracepoints' is a new alias for `save-tracepoints'. The latter
544is now deprecated.
545
0fb4aa4b
PA
546info static-tracepoint-markers
547 Display information about static tracepoint markers in the target.
548
549strace FN | FILE:LINE | *ADDR | -m MARKER_ID
550 Define a static tracepoint by probing a marker at the given
551 function, line, address, or marker ID.
552
ca11e899
SS
553set observer on|off
554show observer
555 Enable and disable observer mode.
556
557set may-write-registers on|off
558set may-write-memory on|off
559set may-insert-breakpoints on|off
560set may-insert-tracepoints on|off
561set may-insert-fast-tracepoints on|off
562set may-interrupt on|off
563 Set individual permissions for GDB effects on the target. Note that
564 some of these settings can have undesirable or surprising
565 consequences, particularly when changed in the middle of a session.
566 For instance, disabling the writing of memory can prevent
567 breakpoints from being inserted, cause single-stepping to fail, or
568 even crash your program, if you disable after breakpoints have been
569 inserted. However, GDB should not crash.
570
571set record memory-query on|off
572show record memory-query
573 Control whether to stop the inferior if memory changes caused
574 by an instruction cannot be recorded.
575
53a71c06
CR
576* Changed commands
577
578disassemble
579 The disassemble command now supports "start,+length" form of two arguments.
580
f3e9a817
PM
581* Python scripting
582
9279c692
JB
583** GDB now provides a new directory location, called the python directory,
584 where Python scripts written for GDB can be installed. The location
585 of that directory is <data-directory>/python, where <data-directory>
586 is the GDB data directory. For more details, see section `Scripting
587 GDB using Python' in the manual.
588
adc36818 589** The GDB Python API now has access to breakpoints, symbols, symbol
595939de
PM
590 tables, program spaces, inferiors, threads and frame's code blocks.
591 Additionally, GDB Parameters can now be created from the API, and
592 manipulated via set/show in the CLI.
f870a310 593
fa33c3cd 594** New functions gdb.target_charset, gdb.target_wide_charset,
07ca107c
DE
595 gdb.progspaces, gdb.current_progspace, and gdb.string_to_argv.
596
597** New exception gdb.GdbError.
fa33c3cd
DE
598
599** Pretty-printers are now also looked up in the current program space.
f3e9a817 600
967cf477
DE
601** Pretty-printers can now be individually enabled and disabled.
602
8a1ea21f
DE
603** GDB now looks for names of Python scripts to auto-load in a
604 special section named `.debug_gdb_scripts', in addition to looking
605 for a OBJFILE-gdb.py script when OBJFILE is read by the debugger.
606
a7bdde9e
VP
607* Tracepoint actions were unified with breakpoint commands. In particular,
608there are no longer differences in "info break" output for breakpoints and
609tracepoints and the "commands" command can be used for both tracepoints and
610regular breakpoints.
611
05071a4d
PA
612* New targets
613
614ARM Symbian arm*-*-symbianelf*
615
6aecb9c2
JB
616* D language support.
617 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the D programming
618 language.
619
431e49aa
TJB
620* GDB now supports the extended ptrace interface for PowerPC which is
621 available since Linux kernel version 2.6.34. This automatically enables
622 any hardware breakpoints and additional hardware watchpoints available in
623 the processor. The old ptrace interface exposes just one hardware
624 watchpoint and no hardware breakpoints.
625
626* GDB is now able to use the Data Value Compare (DVC) register available on
627 embedded PowerPC processors to implement in hardware simple watchpoint
628 conditions of the form:
629
630 watch ADDRESS|VARIABLE if ADDRESS|VARIABLE == CONSTANT EXPRESSION
631
632 This works in native GDB running on Linux kernels with the extended ptrace
633 interface mentioned above.
634
bfbf3774 635*** Changes in GDB 7.1
abc7453d 636
4eef138c
TT
637* C++ Improvements
638
639 ** Namespace Support
71dee663
SW
640
641 GDB now supports importing of namespaces in C++. This enables the
642 user to inspect variables from imported namespaces. Support for
643 namepace aliasing has also been added. So, if a namespace is
644 aliased in the current scope (e.g. namepace C=A; ) the user can
645 print variables using the alias (e.g. (gdb) print C::x).
646
4eef138c
TT
647 ** Bug Fixes
648
649 All known bugs relating to the printing of virtual base class were
650 fixed. It is now possible to call overloaded static methods using a
651 qualified name.
652
653 ** Cast Operators
654
655 The C++ cast operators static_cast<>, dynamic_cast<>, const_cast<>,
656 and reinterpret_cast<> are now handled by the C++ expression parser.
657
2d1c1221
ME
658* New targets
659
660Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze-*-*
34207b9e 661Renesas RX rx-*-elf
2d1c1221
ME
662
663* New Simulators
664
665Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze
34207b9e 666Renesas RX rx
2d1c1221 667
6c95b8df
PA
668* Multi-program debugging.
669
670 GDB now has support for multi-program (a.k.a. multi-executable or
671 multi-exec) debugging. This allows for debugging multiple inferiors
672 simultaneously each running a different program under the same GDB
673 session. See "Debugging Multiple Inferiors and Programs" in the
674 manual for more information. This implied some user visible changes
675 in the multi-inferior support. For example, "info inferiors" now
676 lists inferiors that are not running yet or that have exited
677 already. See also "New commands" and "New options" below.
678
d5551862
SS
679* New tracing features
680
681 GDB's tracepoint facility now includes several new features:
682
683 ** Trace state variables
f61e138d
SS
684
685 GDB tracepoints now include support for trace state variables, which
686 are variables managed by the target agent during a tracing
687 experiment. They are useful for tracepoints that trigger each
688 other, so for instance one tracepoint can count hits in a variable,
689 and then a second tracepoint has a condition that is true when the
690 count reaches a particular value. Trace state variables share the
691 $-syntax of GDB convenience variables, and can appear in both
692 tracepoint actions and condition expressions. Use the "tvariable"
693 command to create, and "info tvariables" to view; see "Trace State
694 Variables" in the manual for more detail.
7a697b8d 695
d5551862 696 ** Fast tracepoints
7a697b8d
SS
697
698 GDB now includes an option for defining fast tracepoints, which
699 targets may implement more efficiently, such as by installing a jump
700 into the target agent rather than a trap instruction. The resulting
701 speedup can be by two orders of magnitude or more, although the
702 tradeoff is that some program locations on some target architectures
703 might not allow fast tracepoint installation, for instance if the
704 instruction to be replaced is shorter than the jump. To request a
705 fast tracepoint, use the "ftrace" command, with syntax identical to
706 the regular trace command.
707
d5551862
SS
708 ** Disconnected tracing
709
710 It is now possible to detach GDB from the target while it is running
711 a trace experiment, then reconnect later to see how the experiment
712 is going. In addition, a new variable disconnected-tracing lets you
713 tell the target agent whether to continue running a trace if the
714 connection is lost unexpectedly.
715
00bf0b85
SS
716 ** Trace files
717
718 GDB now has the ability to save the trace buffer into a file, and
719 then use that file as a target, similarly to you can do with
720 corefiles. You can select trace frames, print data that was
721 collected in them, and use tstatus to display the state of the
722 tracing run at the moment that it was saved. To create a trace
723 file, use "tsave <filename>", and to use it, do "target tfile
724 <name>".
4daf5ac0
SS
725
726 ** Circular trace buffer
727
728 You can ask the target agent to handle the trace buffer as a
729 circular buffer, discarding the oldest trace frames to make room for
730 newer ones, by setting circular-trace-buffer to on. This feature may
731 not be available for all target agents.
732
21a0512e
PP
733* Changed commands
734
735disassemble
736 The disassemble command, when invoked with two arguments, now requires
737 the arguments to be comma-separated.
738
0fe7935b
DJ
739info variables
740 The info variables command now displays variable definitions. Files
741 which only declare a variable are not shown.
742
fb2e7cb4
JB
743source
744 The source command is now capable of sourcing Python scripts.
745 This feature is dependent on the debugger being build with Python
746 support.
747
748 Related to this enhancement is also the introduction of a new command
749 "set script-extension" (see below).
750
6c95b8df
PA
751* New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
752
399cd161
MS
753record save [<FILENAME>]
754 Save a file (in core file format) containing the process record
755 execution log for replay debugging at a later time.
756
757record restore <FILENAME>
758 Restore the process record execution log that was saved at an
759 earlier time, for replay debugging.
760
6c95b8df
PA
761add-inferior [-copies <N>] [-exec <FILENAME>]
762 Add a new inferior.
763
764clone-inferior [-copies <N>] [ID]
765 Make a new inferior ready to execute the same program another
766 inferior has loaded.
767
768remove-inferior ID
769 Remove an inferior.
770
771maint info program-spaces
772 List the program spaces loaded into GDB.
773
9a7071a8
JB
774set remote interrupt-sequence [Ctrl-C | BREAK | BREAK-g]
775show remote interrupt-sequence
776 Allow the user to select one of ^C, a BREAK signal or BREAK-g
777 as the sequence to the remote target in order to interrupt the execution.
778 Ctrl-C is a default. Some system prefers BREAK which is high level of
779 serial line for some certain time. Linux kernel prefers BREAK-g, a.k.a
780 Magic SysRq g. It is BREAK signal and character 'g'.
781
782set remote interrupt-on-connect [on | off]
783show remote interrupt-on-connect
784 When interrupt-on-connect is ON, gdb sends interrupt-sequence to
785 remote target when gdb connects to it. This is needed when you debug
786 Linux kernel.
787
788set remotebreak [on | off]
789show remotebreak
790Deprecated. Use "set/show remote interrupt-sequence" instead.
791
f61e138d
SS
792tvariable $NAME [ = EXP ]
793 Create or modify a trace state variable.
794
795info tvariables
796 List trace state variables and their values.
797
798delete tvariable $NAME ...
799 Delete one or more trace state variables.
800
6da95a67
SS
801teval EXPR, ...
802 Evaluate the given expressions without collecting anything into the
803 trace buffer. (Valid in tracepoint actions only.)
804
7a697b8d
SS
805ftrace FN / FILE:LINE / *ADDR
806 Define a fast tracepoint at the given function, line, or address.
807
b0f02ee9
JK
808* New expression syntax
809
810 GDB now parses the 0b prefix of binary numbers the same way as GCC does.
811 GDB now parses 0b101010 identically with 42.
812
6c95b8df
PA
813* New options
814
815set follow-exec-mode new|same
816show follow-exec-mode
817 Control whether GDB reuses the same inferior across an exec call or
818 creates a new one. This is useful to be able to restart the old
819 executable after the inferior having done an exec call.
820
236f1d4d
SS
821set default-collect EXPR, ...
822show default-collect
823 Define a list of expressions to be collected at each tracepoint.
824 This is a useful way to ensure essential items are not overlooked,
825 such as registers or a critical global variable.
826
d5551862
SS
827set disconnected-tracing
828show disconnected-tracing
829 If set to 1, the target is instructed to continue tracing if it
830 loses its connection to GDB. If 0, the target is to stop tracing
831 upon disconnection.
832
4daf5ac0
SS
833set circular-trace-buffer
834show circular-trace-buffer
835 If set to on, the target is instructed to use a circular trace buffer
836 and discard the oldest trace frames instead of stopping the trace due
837 to a full trace buffer. If set to off, the trace stops when the buffer
838 fills up. Some targets may not support this.
839
fb2e7cb4
JB
840set script-extension off|soft|strict
841show script-extension
842 If set to "off", the debugger does not perform any script language
843 recognition, and all sourced files are assumed to be GDB scripts.
844 If set to "soft" (the default), files are sourced according to
845 filename extension, falling back to GDB scripts if the first
846 evaluation failed.
847 If set to "strict", files are sourced according to filename extension.
848
2b71fc8e
JB
849set ada trust-PAD-over-XVS on|off
850show ada trust-PAD-over-XVS
851 If off, activate a workaround against a bug in the debugging information
852 generated by the compiler for PAD types (see gcc/exp_dbug.ads in
853 the GCC sources for more information about the GNAT encoding and
854 PAD types in particular). It is always safe to set this option to
855 off, but this introduces a slight performance penalty. The default
856 is on.
857
de2e5182
TT
858* Python API Improvements
859
860 ** GDB provides the new class gdb.LazyString. This is useful in
861 some pretty-printing cases. The new method gdb.Value.lazy_string
862 provides a simple way to create objects of this type.
863
864 ** The fields returned by gdb.Type.fields now have an
865 `is_base_class' attribute.
866
867 ** The new method gdb.Type.range returns the range of an array type.
868
869 ** The new method gdb.parse_and_eval can be used to parse and
870 evaluate an expression.
871
f61e138d
SS
872* New remote packets
873
874QTDV
875 Define a trace state variable.
876
877qTV
878 Get the current value of a trace state variable.
879
d5551862
SS
880QTDisconnected
881 Set desired tracing behavior upon disconnection.
882
4daf5ac0
SS
883QTBuffer:circular
884 Set the trace buffer to be linear or circular.
885
d5551862
SS
886qTfP, qTsP
887 Get data about the tracepoints currently in use.
888
2d483d34
MS
889* Bug fixes
890
891Process record now works correctly with hardware watchpoints.
892
6e0e5977
JB
893Multiple bug fixes have been made to the mips-irix port, making it
894much more reliable. In particular:
895 - Debugging threaded applications is now possible again. Previously,
896 GDB would hang while starting the program, or while waiting for
897 the program to stop at a breakpoint.
898 - Attaching to a running process no longer hangs.
899 - An error occurring while loading a core file has been fixed.
900 - Changing the value of the PC register now works again. This fixes
901 problems observed when using the "jump" command, or when calling
902 a function from GDB, or even when assigning a new value to $pc.
903 - With the "finish" and "return" commands, the return value for functions
904 returning a small array is now correctly printed.
905 - It is now possible to break on shared library code which gets executed
906 during a shared library init phase (code executed while executing
907 their .init section). Previously, the breakpoint would have no effect.
908 - GDB is now able to backtrace through the signal handler for
909 non-threaded programs.
910
93c26624
JK
911PIE (Position Independent Executable) programs debugging is now supported.
912This includes debugging execution of PIC (Position Independent Code) shared
913libraries although for that, it should be possible to run such libraries as an
914executable program.
915
abc7453d 916*** Changes in GDB 7.0
75feb17d 917
4efc6507
DE
918* GDB now has an interface for JIT compilation. Applications that
919dynamically generate code can create symbol files in memory and register
920them with GDB. For users, the feature should work transparently, and
921for JIT developers, the interface is documented in the GDB manual in the
922"JIT Compilation Interface" chapter.
923
782b2b07
SS
924* Tracepoints may now be conditional. The syntax is as for
925breakpoints; either an "if" clause appended to the "trace" command,
926or the "condition" command is available. GDB sends the condition to
927the target for evaluation using the same bytecode format as is used
928for tracepoint actions.
929
53a71c06
CR
930* The disassemble command now supports: an optional /r modifier, print the
931raw instructions in hex as well as in symbolic form, and an optional /m
932modifier to print mixed source+assembly.
e6158f16 933
e7a8dbfb
HZ
934* Process record and replay
935
936 In a architecture environment that supports ``process record and
937 replay'', ``process record and replay'' target can record a log of
938 the process execution, and replay it with both forward and reverse
939 execute commands.
940
64644d9b
MS
941* Reverse debugging: GDB now has new commands reverse-continue, reverse-
942step, reverse-next, reverse-finish, reverse-stepi, reverse-nexti, and
943set execution-direction {forward|reverse}, for targets that support
944reverse execution.
945
b9412953
DD
946* GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on MIPS/Linux systems. This
947feature is available with a native GDB running on kernel version
9482.6.28 or later.
949
6c7a06a3
TT
950* GDB now has support for multi-byte and wide character sets on the
951target. Strings whose character type is wchar_t, char16_t, or
952char32_t are now correctly printed. GDB supports wide- and unicode-
953literals in C, that is, L'x', L"string", u'x', u"string", U'x', and
954U"string" syntax. And, GDB allows the "%ls" and "%lc" formats in
955`printf'. This feature requires iconv to work properly; if your
956system does not have a working iconv, GDB can use GNU libiconv. See
957the installation instructions for more information.
958
f1838a98
UW
959* GDB now supports automatic retrieval of shared library files from
960remote targets. To use this feature, specify a system root that begins
961with the `remote:' prefix, either via the `set sysroot' command or via
962the `--with-sysroot' configure-time option.
963
55333a84
DE
964* "info sharedlibrary" now takes an optional regex of libraries to show,
965and it now reports if a shared library has no debugging information.
966
7f6a6314
PM
967* Commands `set debug-file-directory', `set solib-search-path' and `set args'
968now complete on file names.
969
65d12d83
TT
970* When completing in expressions, gdb will attempt to limit
971completions to allowable structure or union fields, where appropriate.
972For instance, consider:
973
974 # struct example { int f1; double f2; };
975 # struct example variable;
976 (gdb) p variable.
977
978If the user types TAB at the end of this command line, the available
979completions will be "f1" and "f2".
980
edb3359d
DJ
981* Inlined functions are now supported. They show up in backtraces, and
982the "step", "next", and "finish" commands handle them automatically.
983
2fae03e8
TT
984* GDB now supports the token-splicing (##) and stringification (#)
985operators when expanding macros. It also supports variable-arity
986macros.
987
47a3467a 988* GDB now supports inspecting extra signal information, exported by
58d6951d
DJ
989the new $_siginfo convenience variable. The feature is currently
990implemented on linux ARM, i386 and amd64.
991
992* GDB can now display the VFP floating point registers and NEON vector
993registers on ARM targets. Both ARM GNU/Linux native GDB and gdbserver
994can provide these registers (requires Linux 2.6.30 or later). Remote
995and simulator targets may also provide them.
47a3467a 996
08388c79
DE
997* New remote packets
998
999qSearch:memory:
1000 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
1001
a6f3e723
SL
1002QStartNoAckMode
1003 Turn off `+'/`-' protocol acknowledgments to permit more efficient
1004 operation over reliable transport links. Use of this packet is
1005 controlled by the `set remote noack-packet' command.
1006
d7713ae0
EZ
1007vKill
1008 Kill the process with the specified process ID. Use this in preference
1009 to `k' when multiprocess protocol extensions are supported.
1010
07e059b5
VP
1011qXfer:osdata:read
1012 Obtains additional operating system information
1013
47a3467a
PA
1014qXfer:siginfo:read
1015qXfer:siginfo:write
1016 Read or write additional signal information.
1017
060871df
PA
1018* Removed remote protocol undocumented extension
1019
1020 An undocumented extension to the remote protocol's `S' stop reply
1021 packet that permited the stub to pass a process id was removed.
1022 Remote servers should use the `T' stop reply packet instead.
1023
c055b101 1024* GDB now supports multiple function calling conventions according to the
a0ef4274 1025DWARF-2 DW_AT_calling_convention function attribute.
c055b101
CV
1026
1027* The SH target utilizes the aforementioned change to distinguish between gcc
a0ef4274
DJ
1028and Renesas calling convention. It also adds the new CLI commands
1029`set/show sh calling-convention'.
c055b101 1030
31fffb02
CS
1031* GDB can now read compressed debug sections, as produced by GNU gold
1032with the --compress-debug-sections=zlib flag.
1033
88d8a8e0
JB
1034* 64-bit core files are now supported on AIX.
1035
7f99b190
JB
1036* Thread switching is now supported on Tru64.
1037
ccd213ac
DJ
1038* Watchpoints can now be set on unreadable memory locations, e.g. addresses
1039which will be allocated using malloc later in program execution.
1040
1fddbabb 1041* The qXfer:libraries:read remote procotol packet now allows passing a
31fffb02 1042list of section offsets.
1fddbabb 1043
a0ef4274
DJ
1044* On GNU/Linux, GDB can now attach to stopped processes. Several race
1045conditions handling signals delivered during attach or thread creation
1046have also been fixed.
1047
bfb8797a 1048* GDB now supports the use of DWARF boolean types for Ada's type Boolean.
158c7665
PH
1049From the user's standpoint, all unqualified instances of True and False
1050are treated as the standard definitions, regardless of context.
bfb8797a 1051
71c25dea
TT
1052* GDB now parses C++ symbol and type names more flexibly. For
1053example, given:
1054
1055 template<typename T> class C { };
1056 C<char const *> c;
1057
1058GDB will now correctly handle all of:
1059
1060 ptype C<char const *>
1061 ptype C<char const*>
1062 ptype C<const char *>
1063 ptype C<const char*>
1064
ccd213ac
DJ
1065* New features in the GDB remote stub, gdbserver
1066
1067 - The "--wrapper" command-line argument tells gdbserver to use a
1068 wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
1069
7ae0e2a2
UW
1070 - On PowerPC and S/390 targets, it is now possible to use a single
1071 gdbserver executable to debug both 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
1072 (This requires gdbserver itself to be built as a 64-bit executable.)
1073
a6f3e723
SL
1074 - gdbserver uses the new noack protocol mode for TCP connections to
1075 reduce communications latency, if also supported and enabled in GDB.
1076
da8bd9a3
DJ
1077 - Support for the sparc64-linux-gnu target is now included in
1078 gdbserver.
1079
d70e31dd
DE
1080 - The amd64-linux build of gdbserver now supports debugging both
1081 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
1082
1083 - The i386-linux, amd64-linux, and i386-win32 builds of gdbserver
1084 now support hardware watchpoints, and will use them automatically
1085 as appropriate.
1086
d57a3c85
TJB
1087* Python scripting
1088
1089 GDB now has support for scripting using Python. Whether this is
1090 available is determined at configure time.
1091
d8906c6f
TJB
1092 New GDB commands can now be written in Python.
1093
aadc346a
JB
1094* Ada tasking support
1095
1096 Ada tasks can now be inspected in GDB. The following commands have
1097 been introduced:
1098
1099 info tasks
1100 Print the list of Ada tasks.
1101 info task N
1102 Print detailed information about task number N.
1103 task
1104 Print the task number of the current task.
1105 task N
1106 Switch the context of debugging to task number N.
1107
adb483fe
DJ
1108* Support for user-defined prefixed commands. The "define" command can
1109add new commands to existing prefixes, e.g. "target".
1110
2277426b
PA
1111* Multi-inferior, multi-process debugging.
1112
1113 GDB now has generalized support for multi-inferior debugging. See
1114 "Debugging Multiple Inferiors" in the manual for more information.
1115 Although availability still depends on target support, the command
1116 set is more uniform now. The GNU/Linux specific multi-forks support
1117 has been migrated to this new framework. This implied some user
1118 visible changes; see "New commands" and also "Removed commands"
1119 below.
1120
08d16641
PA
1121* Target descriptions can now describe the target OS ABI. See the
1122"Target Description Format" section in the user manual for more
1123information.
1124
e35359c5
UW
1125* Target descriptions can now describe "compatible" architectures
1126to indicate that the target can execute applications for a different
1127architecture in addition to those for the main target architecture.
1128See the "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for
1129more information.
1130
85e747d2
UW
1131* Multi-architecture debugging.
1132
1133 GDB now includes general supports for debugging applications on
1134 hybrid systems that use more than one single processor architecture
1135 at the same time. Each such hybrid architecture still requires
1136 specific support to be added. The only hybrid architecture supported
1137 in this version of GDB is the Cell Broadband Engine.
1138
1139* GDB now supports integrated debugging of Cell/B.E. applications that
1140use both the PPU and SPU architectures. To enable support for hybrid
1141Cell/B.E. debugging, you need to configure GDB to support both the
1142powerpc-linux or powerpc64-linux and the spu-elf targets, using the
1143--enable-targets configure option.
1144
11ade57a
PA
1145* Non-stop mode debugging.
1146
1147 For some targets, GDB now supports an optional mode of operation in
1148 which you can examine stopped threads while other threads continue
1149 to execute freely. This is referred to as non-stop mode, with the
1150 old mode referred to as all-stop mode. See the "Non-Stop Mode"
1151 section in the user manual for more information.
1152
1153 To be able to support remote non-stop debugging, a remote stub needs
1154 to implement the non-stop mode remote protocol extensions, as
1155 described in the "Remote Non-Stop" section of the user manual. The
1156 GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been adjusted to support these
1157 extensions on linux targets.
1158
d7713ae0 1159* New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
75feb17d 1160
a96d9b2e
SDJ
1161catch syscall [NAME(S) | NUMBER(S)]
1162 Catch system calls. Arguments, which should be names of system
1163 calls or their numbers, mean catch only those syscalls. Without
1164 arguments, every syscall will be caught. When the inferior issues
1165 any of the specified syscalls, GDB will stop and announce the system
1166 call, both when it is called and when its call returns. This
1167 feature is currently available with a native GDB running on the
1168 Linux Kernel, under the following architectures: x86, x86_64,
1169 PowerPC and PowerPC64.
1170
08388c79
DE
1171find [/size-char] [/max-count] start-address, end-address|+search-space-size,
1172 val1 [, val2, ...]
1173 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
1174
d57a3c85
TJB
1175maint set python print-stack
1176maint show python print-stack
1177 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Python script.
1178
1179python [CODE]
1180 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Python interpreter.
1181
d7713ae0
EZ
1182macro define
1183macro list
1184macro undef
1185 These allow macros to be defined, undefined, and listed
1186 interactively.
1187
1188info os processes
1189 Show operating system information about processes.
1190
2277426b
PA
1191info inferiors
1192 List the inferiors currently under GDB's control.
1193
1194inferior NUM
1195 Switch focus to inferior number NUM.
1196
1197detach inferior NUM
1198 Detach from inferior number NUM.
1199
1200kill inferior NUM
1201 Kill inferior number NUM.
1202
d7713ae0
EZ
1203* New options
1204
3285f3fe
UW
1205set spu stop-on-load
1206show spu stop-on-load
1207 Control whether to stop for new SPE threads during Cell/B.E. debugging.
1208
ff1a52c6
UW
1209set spu auto-flush-cache
1210show spu auto-flush-cache
1211 Control whether to automatically flush the software-managed cache
1212 during Cell/B.E. debugging.
1213
d7713ae0
EZ
1214set sh calling-convention
1215show sh calling-convention
1216 Control the calling convention used when calling SH target functions.
1217
e0a3ce09 1218set debug timestamp
75feb17d 1219show debug timestamp
d7713ae0
EZ
1220 Control display of timestamps with GDB debugging output.
1221
1222set disassemble-next-line
1223show disassemble-next-line
1224 Control display of disassembled source lines or instructions when
1225 the debuggee stops.
1226
1227set remote noack-packet
1228show remote noack-packet
1229 Set/show the use of remote protocol QStartNoAckMode packet. See above
1230 under "New remote packets."
1231
1232set remote query-attached-packet
1233show remote query-attached-packet
1234 Control use of remote protocol `qAttached' (query-attached) packet.
1235
1236set remote read-siginfo-object
1237show remote read-siginfo-object
1238 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:read' (read-siginfo-object)
1239 packet.
1240
1241set remote write-siginfo-object
1242show remote write-siginfo-object
1243 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:write' (write-siginfo-object)
1244 packet.
1245
40ab02ce
MS
1246set remote reverse-continue
1247show remote reverse-continue
1248 Control use of remote protocol 'bc' (reverse-continue) packet.
1249
1250set remote reverse-step
1251show remote reverse-step
1252 Control use of remote protocol 'bs' (reverse-step) packet.
1253
d7713ae0
EZ
1254set displaced-stepping
1255show displaced-stepping
1256 Control displaced stepping mode. Displaced stepping is a way to
1257 single-step over breakpoints without removing them from the debuggee.
1258 Also known as "out-of-line single-stepping".
1259
1260set debug displaced
1261show debug displaced
1262 Control display of debugging info for displaced stepping.
1263
1264maint set internal-error
1265maint show internal-error
1266 Control what GDB does when an internal error is detected.
1267
1268maint set internal-warning
1269maint show internal-warning
1270 Control what GDB does when an internal warning is detected.
75feb17d 1271
ccd213ac
DJ
1272set exec-wrapper
1273show exec-wrapper
1274unset exec-wrapper
1275 Use a wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
fa4727a6 1276
aad4b048
JB
1277set multiple-symbols (all|ask|cancel)
1278show multiple-symbols
1279 The value of this variable can be changed to adjust the debugger behavior
1280 when an expression or a breakpoint location contains an ambiguous symbol
1281 name (an overloaded function name, for instance).
1282
74960c60
VP
1283set breakpoint always-inserted
1284show breakpoint always-inserted
1285 Keep breakpoints always inserted in the target, as opposed to inserting
1286 them when resuming the target, and removing them when the target stops.
1287 This option can improve debugger performance on slow remote targets.
1288
0428b8f5
DJ
1289set arm fallback-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
1290show arm fallback-mode
1291set arm force-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
1292show arm force-mode
1293 These commands control how ARM GDB determines whether instructions
1294 are ARM or Thumb. The default for both settings is auto, which uses
1295 the current CPSR value for instructions without symbols; previous
1296 versions of GDB behaved as if "set arm fallback-mode arm".
1297
10568435
JK
1298set disable-randomization
1299show disable-randomization
1300 Standalone programs run with the virtual address space randomization enabled
1301 by default on some platforms. This option keeps the addresses stable across
1302 multiple debugging sessions.
1303
d7713ae0
EZ
1304set non-stop
1305show non-stop
1306 Control whether other threads are stopped or not when some thread hits
1307 a breakpoint.
1308
b3eb342c 1309set target-async
d7713ae0 1310show target-async
b3eb342c
VP
1311 Requests that asynchronous execution is enabled in the target, if available.
1312 In this case, it's possible to resume target in the background, and interact
1313 with GDB while the target is running. "show target-async" displays the
1314 current state of asynchronous execution of the target.
1315
6c7a06a3
TT
1316set target-wide-charset
1317show target-wide-charset
1318 The target-wide-charset is the name of the character set that GDB
1319 uses when printing characters whose type is wchar_t.
1320
84603566
SL
1321set tcp auto-retry (on|off)
1322show tcp auto-retry
1323set tcp connect-timeout
1324show tcp connect-timeout
1325 These commands allow GDB to retry failed TCP connections to a remote stub
1326 with a specified timeout period; this is useful if the stub is launched
1327 in parallel with GDB but may not be ready to accept connections immediately.
1328
17a37d48
PP
1329set libthread-db-search-path
1330show libthread-db-search-path
1331 Control list of directories which GDB will search for appropriate
1332 libthread_db.
1333
d4db2f36
PA
1334set schedule-multiple (on|off)
1335show schedule-multiple
1336 Allow GDB to resume all threads of all processes or only threads of
1337 the current process.
1338
4e5d721f
DE
1339set stack-cache
1340show stack-cache
1341 Use more aggressive caching for accesses to the stack. This improves
1342 performance of remote debugging (particularly backtraces) without
1343 affecting correctness.
1344
910c5da8
JB
1345set interactive-mode (on|off|auto)
1346show interactive-mode
1347 Control whether GDB runs in interactive mode (on) or not (off).
1348 When in interactive mode, GDB waits for the user to answer all
1349 queries. Otherwise, GDB does not wait and assumes the default
1350 answer. When set to auto (the default), GDB determines which
1351 mode to use based on the stdin settings.
1352
2277426b
PA
1353* Removed commands
1354
1355info forks
1356 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `info
1357 inferiors' command. To list checkpoints, you can still use the
1358 `info checkpoints' command, which was an alias for the `info forks'
1359 command.
1360
1361fork NUM
1362 Replaced by the new `inferior' command. To switch between
1363 checkpoints, you can still use the `restart' command, which was an
1364 alias for the `fork' command.
1365
1366process PID
1367 This is removed, since some targets don't have a notion of
1368 processes. To switch between processes, you can still use the
1369 `inferior' command using GDB's own inferior number.
1370
1371delete fork NUM
1372 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `kill
1373 inferior' command. To delete a checkpoint, you can still use the
1374 `delete checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `delete
1375 fork' command.
1376
1377detach fork NUM
1378 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `detach
1379 inferior' command. To detach a checkpoint, you can still use the
1380 `detach checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `detach
1381 fork' command.
1382
a80b95ba
TG
1383* New native configurations
1384
1385x86/x86_64 Darwin i[34567]86-*-darwin*
1386
b8bfd3ed
JB
1387x86_64 MinGW x86_64-*-mingw*
1388
75a2d5e7
TT
1389* New targets
1390
c28c63d8 1391Lattice Mico32 lm32-*
75a2d5e7 1392x86 DICOS i[34567]86-*-dicos*
4c1d2973 1393x86_64 DICOS x86_64-*-dicos*
5f814c3b 1394S+core 3 score-*-*
75a2d5e7 1395
6de3146c
PA
1396* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports x86 Windows CE
1397 (mingw32ce) debugging.
1398
d5cbbe6e
JB
1399* Removed commands
1400
1401catch load
1402catch unload
1403 These commands were actually not implemented on any target.
1404
75feb17d 1405*** Changes in GDB 6.8
f9ed52be 1406
af5ca30d
NH
1407* New native configurations
1408
1409NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*netbsd*
94a0e877 1410Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
af5ca30d
NH
1411
1412* New targets
1413
1414NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*-netbsd*
94a0e877 1415Xtensa GNU/Lunux xtensa*-*-linux*
af5ca30d 1416
7a404eba
PA
1417* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
1418
1419 When the '-p NUMBER' or '--pid NUMBER' options are used, and
1420 attaching to process NUMBER fails, GDB no longer attempts to open a
1421 core file named NUMBER. Attaching to a program using the -c option
1422 is no longer supported. Instead, use the '-p' or '--pid' options.
1423
430ebac9
PA
1424* GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
1425(mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
1426
fe6fbf8b 1427* Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
8d5f9c6f 1428is resolved.
fe6fbf8b
VP
1429
1430* GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
8d5f9c6f
DJ
1431including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
1432and in inlined functions.
fe6fbf8b 1433
10665d76
JB
1434* GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
1435accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
1436more than one contiguous range of addresses.
1437
7cc46491
DJ
1438* Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
1439
d71340b8
DJ
1440* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
1441registers on PowerPC targets.
1442
523c4513
DJ
1443* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
1444targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
1445
a6b151f1
DJ
1446* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
1447commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
1448
2d717e4f
DJ
1449* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports run and attach in
1450extended-remote mode.
1451
24a836bd 1452* hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
d001be7a
DJ
1453The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
1454error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
1455The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
24a836bd 1456
d0c678e6
UW
1457* GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
1458building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
1459target architectures.
1460
d64a946d
TJB
1461* GDB now supports debugging C and C++ programs which use the
1462Decimal Floating Point extension. In addition, the PowerPC target
1463now has a set of pseudo-registers to inspect decimal float values
1464stored in two consecutive float registers.
1465
ee163bf5
VP
1466* The -break-insert MI command can optionally create pending
1467breakpoints now.
1468
b93b6ca7 1469* Improved support for debugging Ada
d001be7a
DJ
1470Many improvements to the Ada language support have been made. These
1471include:
b93b6ca7
JB
1472 - Better support for Ada2005 interface types
1473 - Improved handling of arrays and slices in general
1474 - Better support for Taft-amendment types
1475 - The '{type} ADDRESS' expression is now allowed on the left hand-side
1476 of an assignment
1477 - Improved command completion in Ada
1478 - Several bug fixes
1479
d001be7a
DJ
1480* GDB on GNU/Linux and HP/UX can now debug through "exec" of a new
1481process.
1482
a6b151f1
DJ
1483* New commands
1484
6d53d0af
JB
1485set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
1486show print frame-arguments
1487 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
1488 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
1489
a6b151f1
DJ
1490remote put
1491remote get
1492remote delete
1493 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
1494
1495* New MI commands
1496
1497-target-file-put
1498-target-file-get
1499-target-file-delete
1500 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
1501
1502* New remote packets
1503
1504vFile:open:
1505vFile:close:
1506vFile:pread:
1507vFile:pwrite:
1508vFile:unlink:
1509 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
d0c678e6 1510
2d717e4f
DJ
1511vAttach
1512 Attach to an existing process on the remote system, in extended-remote
1513 mode.
1514
1515vRun
1516 Run a new process on the remote system, in extended-remote mode.
1517
8d5f9c6f 1518*** Changes in GDB 6.7
6dd09645 1519
19d378fc
MS
1520* Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
1521bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
1522Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
1523
3a40aaa0
UW
1524* When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
1525symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
1526-Bsymbolic linker option.
1527
a6ec25f2
BW
1528* When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
1529recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
1530is not supported.
1531
6dd09645
JB
1532* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
1533frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
1534
c9bb8148
DJ
1535* GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
153632-bit or 64-bit register values.
1537
0d5de010
DJ
1538* Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
1539
23181151
DJ
1540* GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
1541target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
1542a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
1543
ea37ba09
DJ
1544* Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
1545automatically displayed as character or string data.
1546
1547* The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
1548arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
1549as strings.
e1f48ead 1550
123dc839
DJ
1551* Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
1552for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
8d5f9c6f 1553only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
123dc839 1554
05a4558a
DJ
1555* GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
1556iWMMXt coprocessor.
fb1e4ffc 1557
7c963485
PA
1558* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
1559ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
1560has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
1561
b18be20d
DJ
1562* GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
1563
0ca420ce
UW
1564* GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
1565
31d99776
DJ
1566* The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
1567layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
1568segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
1569
a4642986
MR
1570* The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
1571immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
1572
cfa9d6d9
DJ
1573* The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
1574"library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
1575packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
1576where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
1577Windows and SymbianOS).
255e7678
DJ
1578
1579* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
1580(DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
f5db8714
JK
1581
1582* GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
1583according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
cfa9d6d9 1584
c9bb8148
DJ
1585* New commands
1586
23776285
MR
1587set remoteflow
1588show remoteflow
1589 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
1590 when debugging using remote targets.
1591
c9bb8148
DJ
1592set mem inaccessible-by-default
1593show mem inaccessible-by-default
1594 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
1595 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
1596 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
1597 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
1598 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
1599
1600set breakpoint auto-hw
1601show breakpoint auto-hw
1602 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
1603 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
1604 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
1605 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
1606 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
1607 including "next" and "finish".
1608
0e420bd8
JB
1609catch exception
1610catch exception unhandled
1611 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
1612
1613catch assert
1614 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
1615
f822c95b
DJ
1616set sysroot
1617show sysroot
1618 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
1619 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
1620 an alias to "set sysroot".
1621
83cc5c53
UW
1622info spu
1623 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
1624 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
1625 architecture.
1626
bd372731
MK
1627* New native configurations
1628
1629OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
1630
23181151
DJ
1631set tdesc filename
1632unset tdesc filename
1633show tdesc filename
1634 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
1635 not query the target for its built-in description.
1636
c9bb8148
DJ
1637* New targets
1638
54fe9172 1639OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
c9bb8148 1640MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
c077150c 1641Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
c9bb8148 1642
6dd09645
JB
1643* New remote packets
1644
1645QPassSignals:
1646 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
1647 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
1648
23181151
DJ
1649qXfer:features:read:
1650 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
1651 features.
6dd09645 1652
83cc5c53
UW
1653qXfer:spu:read:
1654qXfer:spu:write:
1655 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
1656 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
1657
cfa9d6d9
DJ
1658qXfer:libraries:read:
1659 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
1660 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
1661 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
1662 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
1663
483367ee
DJ
1664* Removed targets
1665
1666Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
1667
d08950c4
UW
1668alpha*-*-osf1*
1669alpha*-*-osf2*
7ce59000 1670d10v-*-*
483367ee
DJ
1671hppa*-*-hiux*
1672i[34567]86-ncr-*
1673i[34567]86-*-dgux*
1674i[34567]86-*-lynxos*
1675i[34567]86-*-netware*
1676i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
1677i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
1678i[34567]86-*-sco*
1679i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
1680i[34567]86-*-sysv4*
1681i[34567]86-*-sysv5*
1682i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
1683i[34567]86-*-unixware*
1684i[34567]86-*-sysv*
1685i[34567]86-*-isc*
1686m68*-cisco*-*
1687m68*-tandem-*
ad527d2e 1688mips*-*-pe
483367ee 1689rs6000-*-lynxos*
ad527d2e 1690sh*-*-pe
483367ee 1691
7ce59000
DJ
1692* Other removed features
1693
1694target abug
1695target cpu32bug
1696target est
1697target rom68k
1698
1699 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
1700
ea35711c
DJ
1701target hms
1702target e7000
1703target sh3
1704target sh3e
1705
1706 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
1707 H8/300.
1708
1709target ocd
1710
1711 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
1712 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
1713 interfaces.
1714
7ce59000
DJ
1715DWARF 1 support
1716
1717 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
1718 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
1719
54d61198
DJ
1720Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
1721
1722 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
1723 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
1724 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
1725 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
1726
ea35711c
DJ
1727MIPS ".pdr" sections
1728
1729 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
1730 in debugging information.
1731
1732Scheme support
1733
1734 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
1735 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
1736
1a69e1e4
DJ
1737set mips stack-arg-size
1738set mips saved-gpreg-size
1739
1740 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
1741
6dd09645 1742*** Changes in GDB 6.6
e374b601 1743
ca3bf3bd
DJ
1744* New targets
1745
1746Xtensa xtensa-elf
9c309e77 1747Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
ca3bf3bd 1748
6aec2e11
DJ
1749* GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
1750(mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
1751running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
1752
1753* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
1754Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
1755supported.
1756
17218d91
DJ
1757* The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
1758broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
1759
9ebce043
DJ
1760* The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
1761stub provides the required support.
1762
7d3d3ece
DJ
1763* Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
1764longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
1765
4f8253f3
JB
1766* New commands
1767
1768set substitute-path
1769unset substitute-path
1770show substitute-path
1771 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
1772 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
1773 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
1774 between compilation and debugging.
1775
9fa66fd7
AS
1776set trace-commands
1777show trace-commands
1778 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
1779 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
1780 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
1781
1f5befc1
DJ
1782* REMOVED features
1783
1784The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
1785
2ec3381a
DJ
1786Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
1787an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
1788
3d00d119
DJ
1789The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
1790
be2a5f71
DJ
1791* New remote packets
1792
1793qSupported:
1794 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
1795 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
1796 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
1797 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
1798 target.
1799
0876f84a
DJ
1800qXfer:auxv:read:
1801 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
1802 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
1803
9ebce043
DJ
1804qXfer:memory-map:read:
1805 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
1806 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
1807
1808vFlashErase:
1809vFlashWrite:
1810vFlashDone:
1811 Erase and program a flash memory device.
1812
0876f84a
DJ
1813* Removed remote packets
1814
1815qPart:auxv:read:
1816 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
1817 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
1818
e374b601 1819*** Changes in GDB 6.5
53e5f3cf 1820
96309189
MS
1821* New targets
1822
1823Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
1824
1825Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
1826
53e5f3cf
AS
1827* New commands
1828
1829init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
1830 only if it doesn't already have a value.
1831
ac264b3b
MS
1832The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
1833
1834checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
1835
1836restart <n> Return the program state to a
1837 previously saved state.
1838
1839info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
1840
1841delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
1842
1843set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
1844 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
1845
1846info forks List forks of the user program that
1847 are available to be debugged.
1848
1849fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
1850 forks of the user program that are
1851 available to be debugged.
1852
1853delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
1854 that are available to be debugged (and
1855 kill the forked process).
1856
1857detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
1858 that are available to be debugged (and
1859 allow the process to continue).
1860
3950dc3f
NS
1861* New architecture
1862
1863Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
1864
0ea3f30e
DJ
1865* Improved Windows host support
1866
1867GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
1868native console support, and remote communications using either
1869network sockets or serial ports.
1870
f79daebb
GM
1871* Improved Modula-2 language support
1872
1873GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
1874basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
1875pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
1876printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
1877written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
1878GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
1879
acab6ab2
MM
1880* REMOVED features
1881
1882The ARM rdi-share module.
1883
f4267320
DJ
1884The Netware NLM debug server.
1885
53e5f3cf 1886*** Changes in GDB 6.4
156a53ca 1887
e0ecbda1
MK
1888* New native configurations
1889
02a677ac 1890OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
e0ecbda1
MK
1891OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
1892
d64a6579
KB
1893* New targets
1894
1895Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
1896
b33a6190
AS
1897* New command line options
1898
1899--batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
1900--return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
1901 the child (debugged) program exited with.
1902--eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
1903 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
1904 specified multiple times and in conjunction
1905 with the --command (-x) option.
1906
11dced61
AC
1907* Deprecated commands removed
1908
1909The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
1910removed:
1911
1912 Command Replacement
1913 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
1914 othernames set arm disassembler
1915 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
1916 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
1917 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
1918 regs info registers
1919
6fe85783
MK
1920* New BSD user-level threads support
1921
1922It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
1923library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
1924configurations are:
1925
1926FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
1927FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
1928OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
1929
1930Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
1931are not yet supported.
1932
5260ca71
MS
1933* New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
1934(Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
1935
e84ecc99
AC
1936* REMOVED configurations and files
1937
1938VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
9445aa30 1939Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
9445aa30 1940National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
156a53ca 1941
31e35378
JB
1942* New "set print array-indexes" command
1943
1944After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
1945when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
1946behavior.
1947
e85e5c83
MK
1948* VAX floating point support
1949
1950GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
1951
d91e9901
AS
1952* User-defined command support
1953
1954In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
1955to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
1956section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
1957
f2cb65ca
MC
1958*** Changes in GDB 6.3:
1959
f47b1503
AS
1960* New command line option
1961
1962GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
1963debugging.
1964
f2cb65ca
MC
1965* GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
1966
1967GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
1968information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
1969by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
1970proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
1971to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
860660cb 1972
d08c0230
AC
1973* Internationalization
1974
1975When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
1976internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
1977continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
1978
117ea3cf
PH
1979* Ada
1980
1981Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
1982implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
1983into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
1984
d08c0230
AC
1985* New native configurations
1986
1987GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
1988
1989* Remote 'p' packet
1990
1991GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
1992packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
1993
1994* END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
1995
1996GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
1997The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
1998features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
1999i386 application).
2000
2001GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
2002compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
2003continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
2004configurations:
2005
2006hppa-*-hpux
2007ia64-*-aix
2008mips-*-irix*
2009*-*-lynx
2010mips-*-linux-gnu
2011sds protocol
2012xdr protocol
2013powerpc bdm protocol
2014
2015Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
2016made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
2017
2018* OBSOLETE configurations and files
2019
2020Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2021been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2022configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2023permanently REMOVED.
2024
2025h8300-*-*
2026mcore-*-*
2027mn10300-*-*
2028ns32k-*-*
2029sh64-*-*
2030v850-*-*
2031
ebb7c577
AC
2032*** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
2033
2034* MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
2035
2036When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
2037heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
2038been fixed.
2039
2040* MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
2041
2042When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
2043fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
2044IRIX long double values).
2045
2046* VAX and "next"
2047
2048A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
2049command. This problem has been fixed.
2050
860660cb 2051*** Changes in GDB 6.2:
faae5abe 2052
0dea2468
AC
2053* Fix for ``many threads''
2054
2055On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
2056rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
2057error message:
2058
2059 ptrace: No such process.
2060 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
2061
2062This problem has been fixed.
2063
2c07db7a
AC
2064* "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
2065
2066Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
2067GDB to dump core).
2068
c23968a2
JB
2069* New ``start'' command.
2070
2071This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
2072
71009278
MK
2073* New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
2074
2075Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
2076live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
2077platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
2078
2079FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
2080FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
2081NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
2082NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
2083NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
2084OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
2085OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
2086OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
2087OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
2088
3c0b7db2
AC
2089* Signal trampoline code overhauled
2090
2091Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
2092These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
2093of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
2094call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
2095signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
2096
73cc75f3
AC
2097Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
2098features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
2099include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
3c0b7db2 2100
7243600a
BF
2101* Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
2102
6f606e1c
MK
2103* New native configurations
2104
97dc871c 2105GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
0e56aeaf 2106OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
bf2ca189
MK
2107OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
2108OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
d195bc9f 2109OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 2110NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
9f076e7a 2111OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 2112
a1b461bf
AC
2113* END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
2114
2115GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
2116The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
2117including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
2118migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
2119compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
2120work, was also included.
2121
2122GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
2123module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
2124
2125h8300-*-*
2126mcore-*-*
2127mn10300-*-*
2128ns32k-*-*
2129sh64-*-*
2130v850-*-*
2131xstormy16-*-*
2132
2133Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
2134made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
2135
3c7012f5
AC
2136* REMOVED configurations and files
2137
2138Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
2139Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
2140Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
2141Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
2142Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
2143AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
2144Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
2145decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
2146riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
2147sonymips mips-sony-*
2148sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
2149
e5fe55f7
AC
2150*** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
2151
2152* TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
2153
2154The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
2155GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
2156command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
2157program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
2158with GDB".
2159
2160* Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
2161
2162Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
2163libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
2164cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
2165GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
2166shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
2167the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
2168are created.
2169
2170Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
2171
2172* Fixed ISO-C build problems
2173
2174The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
2175non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
2176compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
2177
2178* Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
2179
2180Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
2181wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
2182
2183* Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
2184
2185The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
2186permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
2187systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
2188
2189* Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
2190
2191Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
2192has been updated to use constant array sizes.
2193
2194* Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
2195
2196GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
2197its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
2198panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
2199
2200* Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
2201
2202When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
2203by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
2204not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
2205
faae5abe 2206*** Changes in GDB 6.1:
f2c06f52 2207
9175c9a3
MC
2208* Removed --with-mmalloc
2209
2210Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
2211conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
2212
3cc87ec0
MK
2213* Changes in AMD64 configurations
2214
2215The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
2216the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
2217and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
2218you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
2219
f0424ef6
MK
2220* Revised SPARC target
2221
2222The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
2223FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
03cebad2
MK
2224support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
2225from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
2226(Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
f0424ef6 2227
59659be2
ILT
2228* New C++ demangler
2229
2230GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
2231names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
2232with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
2233programs.
2234
9e08b29b
DJ
2235* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
2236
2237GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
2238arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
2239encountered these.
2240
8dfe8985
DC
2241* C++ nested types and namespaces
2242
2243GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
2244improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
2245is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
2246Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
2247namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
2248"Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
2249frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
2250if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
2251GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
2252
cced5e27
MK
2253* New native configurations
2254
2255NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
27d1e716 2256OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
2031c21a 2257OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
f2cab569
MK
2258OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
2259OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
cced5e27 2260
b4b4b794
KI
2261* New debugging protocols
2262
2263M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
2264
7989c619
AC
2265* "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
2266
2267The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
2268and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
2269tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
2270
5994185b
AC
2271* OBSOLETE configurations and files
2272
2273Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2274been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2275configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2276permanently REMOVED.
2277
2278Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
2279Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
2280Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
2281Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
2282Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
2283AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
2284Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
0748d941
AC
2285decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
2286riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
2287sonymips mips-sony-*
2288sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
5994185b 2289
0ddabb4c
AC
2290* REMOVED configurations and files
2291
2292SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
2293SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
4a8269c0
AC
2294Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
2295Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
2296H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
2297HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
2298HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
2299HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
2300PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
cf7c5c23 2301386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
4a8269c0
AC
2302Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
2303 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
2304 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
f0424ef6
MK
2305SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
2306SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
4a8269c0
AC
2307Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2308Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
0ddabb4c 2309
c7f1390e
DJ
2310*** Changes in GDB 6.0:
2311
1fe43d45
AC
2312* Objective-C
2313
2314Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
2315integrated into GDB.
2316
e6beb428
AC
2317* New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
2318
2319DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
2320information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
2321By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
2322backtraces.
2323
2324The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
2325have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
2326DWARF 2 CFI support.
2327
2328* Hosted file I/O.
2329
2330GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
2331file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
2332remote protocol documentation for details.
2333
2334* All targets using the new architecture framework.
2335
2336All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
2337architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
2338to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
2339ppc32 on ppc64).
2340
2341* GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
2342
2343GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
2344per-thread variables.
2345
2346* GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
2347
2348GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
2349GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
2350
2351* Separate debug info.
2352
2353GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
2354automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
2355of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
2356system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
2357and optional debug files.
2358
2359* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
2360
2361DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
2362describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
2363debugger.
2364
2365GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
2366for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
2367
2368* Java
2369
2370A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
2371Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
2372considered "useable".
2373
85f8f974
DJ
2374* GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
2375
2376The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
2377commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
2378kernel.
2379
0fac0b41
DJ
2380* GDB supports logging output to a file
2381
2382There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
2383used to capture GDB's output to a file.
f2c06f52 2384
6ad8ae5c
DJ
2385* The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
2386
2387The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
2388disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
2389command.
2390
e286caf2 2391* d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
5f601589
AC
2392
2393The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
2394registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
2395
d28f9cdf
DJ
2396* Profiling support
2397
2398A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
2399be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
2400session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
2401"--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
2402data, for more informative profiling results.
2403
da0f9dcd
AC
2404* Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
2405
2406The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
2407option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
b68767c1 2408"mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
da0f9dcd
AC
2409
2410Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
2411removed.
2412
fb9b6b35
JJ
2413Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
2414Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
2415Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
2416 in a subsequent -var-update.
2417
954a4db8
MK
2418* New native configurations.
2419
2420FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
2421
6760f9e6
JB
2422* Multi-arched targets.
2423
b4263afa 2424HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
85a453d5 2425Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
6760f9e6 2426
1b831c93
AC
2427* OBSOLETE configurations and files
2428
2429Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2430been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2431configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2432permanently REMOVED.
2433
8b0e5691 2434Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
67f16606 2435Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
fd2299bd 2436H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
56056df7
AC
2437HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
2438HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
2439HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
78c43945 2440PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
2fbce691
AC
2441Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
2442 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
2443 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
f81824a9
AC
2444Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2445Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
fd2299bd 2446
5835abe7
NC
2447* REMOVED configurations and files
2448
2449V850EA ISA
1b831c93
AC
2450Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
2451IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
2452i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
2453i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
2454i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
2455HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
2456 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
2457 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
2458Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
2459Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
2460Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
2461OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
2462I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
5835abe7 2463
a094c6fb
AC
2464* MIPS $fp behavior changed
2465
2466The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
2467the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
2468context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
2469address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
2470The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
2471
299ffc64 2472*** Changes in GDB 5.3:
37057839 2473
46248966
AC
2474* GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
2475
2476When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
2477`/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
2478in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
2479library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
2480shared libs like mad''.
2481
b9d14705 2482* ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
6da02953 2483
b9d14705
DJ
2484Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
2485the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
2486arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
2487powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
6da02953 2488
e0e9281e
JB
2489* GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
2490
2491GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
2492and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
2493they expand.
2494
dd73b9bb
AC
2495The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
2496invocations in expression, and shows the result.
2497
2498The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
2499macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
2500
e0e9281e
JB
2501Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
2502information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
2503your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
2504information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
2505
2250ee0c
CV
2506* Multi-arched targets.
2507
6e3ba3b8
JT
2508DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
2509DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
2250ee0c 2510NEC V850 v850-*-*
6e3ba3b8 2511National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
a1789893
GS
2512Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
2513Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
2250ee0c 2514
cd9bfe15 2515* New targets.
e33ce519 2516
456f8b9d
DB
2517Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
2518
e33ce519 2519
da8ca43d
JT
2520* New native configurations
2521
2522Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
029923d4 2523SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
45888261 2524MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
9ce5c36a 2525UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
da8ca43d 2526
cd9bfe15
AC
2527* OBSOLETE configurations and files
2528
2529Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2530been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2531configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2532permanently REMOVED.
2533
92eb23c5 2534Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
a99a9e1b 2535OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1c7cc583 2536IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
7a3085c1 2537Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
7fb623f7 2538Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
eb4c54a2 2539Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
d8ee244c
MK
2540i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
2541i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
2542i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
822e978b
AC
2543HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
2544 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
2545 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
4d210288 2546I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
92eb23c5 2547
db034ac5
AC
2548* OBSOLETE languages
2549
2550CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
2551
cd9bfe15
AC
2552* REMOVED configurations and files
2553
2554AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
2555A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
2556AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2557AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2558AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2559
2560testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
2561
20f01a46
DH
2562* New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
2563
2564This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
2565commands. The default is 1024.
2566
a5941fbf
MK
2567* Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
2568
2569Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
2570
89743e04
MS
2571* New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
2572
2573These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
2574to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
2575from a file into memory (restore).
37057839 2576
9fb14e79
JB
2577* Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
2578
2579The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
2580including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
2581of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
2582
2037aebb
AC
2583*** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
2584
2585* New targets.
2586
2587Atmel AVR avr*-*-*
2588
2589* Bug fixes
2590
2591gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
2592mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
2593Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
2594
2595gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
2596dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
2597Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
2598
2599Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
2600Surprisingly enough, it works now.
2601By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
2602
2603i386 hardware watchpoint support:
2604avoid misses on second run for some targets.
2605By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
2606
37057839 2607*** Changes in GDB 5.2:
eb7cedd9 2608
1a703748
MS
2609* New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
2610
2611This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
2612really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
2613In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
2614target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
2615This can be a significant performance improvement on some
2616(notably embedded) targets.
2617
cefd4ef5
MS
2618* New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
2619
55241689
AC
2620This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
2621process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
2622GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
2623hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
cefd4ef5 2624
352ed7b4
MS
2625* New command line option
2626
2627GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
2628
2629* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
2630
2631There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
2632command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
2633a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
2634be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
2635open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
2636issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
2637a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
2638it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
2639GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
2640is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
2641
fe419ffc
RE
2642* Changes in ARM configurations.
2643
2644Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
2645configuration is fully multi-arch.
2646
eb7cedd9
MK
2647* New native configurations
2648
fe419ffc 2649ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
eb7cedd9 2650x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
55241689 2651AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
768f0842 2652Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
eb7cedd9 2653
c9f63e6b
CV
2654* New targets
2655
2656Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
2657
9b4ff276
AC
2658* OBSOLETE configurations and files
2659
2660Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2661been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2662configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2663permanently REMOVED.
2664
2665AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
2666A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
2667AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2668AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2669AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2670
b4ceaee6 2671testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
9b4ff276 2672
e2caac18
AC
2673* REMOVED configurations and files
2674
2675TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
7bc65f05 2676WDC 65816 w65-*-*
7768dd6c
AC
2677PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
2678PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
2679PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
5e734e1f 2680Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1406caf7
AC
2681Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
2682 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
7e24f0b1 2683SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
9b567150 2684Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
3680c638
AC
2685Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
2686ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
a752853e 2687Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
e2caac18 2688
c2a727fa
TT
2689* Changes to command line processing
2690
2691The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
2692for the inferior from gdb's command line.
2693
467d8519
TT
2694* Changes to key bindings
2695
2696There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
2697
7072a954
AC
2698*** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
2699
2700Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
2701
2702Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
2703corrupted.
2704
2705Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
2706
2707Numerous documentation fixes.
2708
2709Numerous testsuite fixes.
2710
34f47bc4 2711*** Changes in GDB 5.1:
139760b7
MK
2712
2713* New native configurations
2714
2715Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
2716x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
55241689 2717MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
e23194cb
EZ
2718MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
2719ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
55241689 2720s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
139760b7 2721
bf64bfd6
AC
2722* New targets
2723
def90278 2724Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
24be5c34 2725CRIS cris-axis
55241689 2726UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
def90278 2727
17e78a56 2728* OBSOLETE configurations and files
bf64bfd6
AC
2729
2730x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
9b9c068d 2731Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
bb19ff3b
AC
2732Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
2733 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
76f4ea53
AC
2734TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
2735WDC 65816 w65-*-*
4a1968f4 2736Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1b2b2c16
AC
2737PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
2738PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
2739PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
24f89b68 2740SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
514e603d
AC
2741Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
2742ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
d036b4d9 2743Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
bf64bfd6 2744
17e78a56
AC
2745stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
2746kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
2747
7fcca85b
AC
2748Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2749been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2750configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2751permanently REMOVED.
2752
a196c81c 2753* REMOVED configurations and files
7fcca85b
AC
2754
2755Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
2756Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
2757Pyramid pyramid-*-*
2758ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
2759Tahoe tahoe-*-*
a196c81c 2760ser-ocd.c *-*-*
bf64bfd6 2761
6d6b80e5 2762* GDB has been converted to ISO C.
e23194cb 2763
6d6b80e5 2764GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
e23194cb
EZ
2765sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
2766present.
2767
bf64bfd6
AC
2768* Other news:
2769
e23194cb
EZ
2770* "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
2771
2772* The MI enabled by default.
2773
2774The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
2775revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
2776engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
2777using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
2778which is now deprecated.
2779
2780* Support for debugging Pascal programs.
2781
2782GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
2783main features are supported:
2784
2785 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
2786
2787 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
2788 extension;
2789
2790 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
2791
2792 - a Pascal expression parser.
2793
2794However, some important features are not yet supported.
2795
2796 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
2797
2798 - there are some problems with boolean types;
2799
2800 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
2801 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
2802
2803 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
2804
2805 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
2806
2807* Changes in completion.
2808
2809Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
2810to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
2811users expect at the shell prompt.
2812
2813Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
2814`breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
2815program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
2816files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
2817be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
2818considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
2819name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
2820
2821`set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
2822
2823* New platform-independent commands:
2824
2825It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
2826hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
2827documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
2828
2829* Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
2830
d7275149
MK
2831Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
2832revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
2833many threads as your system allows you to have.
2834
e23194cb
EZ
2835Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
2836
d7275149
MK
2837Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
2838multi-threaded programs though.
e23194cb
EZ
2839
2840* Changes in MIPS configurations.
bf64bfd6
AC
2841
2842Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
2843
e23194cb
EZ
2844GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
2845debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
2846supported.)
2847
2848* Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
2849
2850Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
2851breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
2852implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
2853put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
2854and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
2855registers.
2856
2857The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
2858debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
2859watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
2860
2861* Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
2862
2863New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
2864the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
2865
2866New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
2867display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
2868IDT.
2869
2870New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
2871from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
2872New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
2873a given linear address.
2874
2875GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
2876program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
2877which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
2878
2879DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
2880
6c56c069
EZ
2881It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
2882
e23194cb
EZ
2883* Changes in documentation.
2884
2885All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
2886Documentation License.
2887
2888Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
2889manual.
2890
2891TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
2892
2893Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
2894manual.
2895
2896The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
2897documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
2898hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
2899
5d6640b1
AC
2900* GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
2901
2902The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
2903``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
2904contents of this file.
2905
1a1d8446
AC
2906* gdba.el deleted
2907
2908GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
139760b7 2909
9debab2f 2910*** Changes in GDB 5.0:
7a292a7a 2911
c63ce875
EZ
2912* Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
2913
2914Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
2915programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
2916displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
2917greater level of detail.
2918
2919* Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
2920
2921It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
2922bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
2923on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
2924written.
2925
2926* Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
2927
2928The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
2929necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
2930machines ``out of the box''.
2931
2932The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
2933possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
2934signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
2935would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
2936interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
2937
2938It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
2939standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
2940even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
2941and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
2942terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
2943
2944The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
2945enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
2946also works.
2947
2948DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
2949GDB.
2950
2951It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
2952directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
2953times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
2954breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
2955
ed9a39eb
JM
2956* New native configurations
2957
2958ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
afc05dd4 2959PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
ed9a39eb 2960
7a292a7a
SS
2961* New targets
2962
96baa820 2963Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
adf40b2e
JM
2964x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
2965PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
7a292a7a
SS
2966TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
2967
085dd6e6
JM
2968* OBSOLETE configurations
2969
2970Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
2971Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
9846de1b 2972Pyramid pyramid-*-*
ed9a39eb 2973ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
104c1213 2974Tahoe tahoe-*-*
7a292a7a 2975
9debab2f
AC
2976Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
2977but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
2978these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
2979be permanently REMOVED.
2980
5330533d
SS
2981* Gould support removed
2982
2983Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
2984
bc9e5bbf
AC
2985* New features for SVR4
2986
2987On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
2988without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
2989load symbols from the running process's executable file.
2990
2991* Many C++ enhancements
2992
2993C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
2994in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
2995
adf40b2e
JM
2996* Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
2997
2998A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
2999sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
3000with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
3001``|<program> <args>'' vis:
3002
3003 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
3004 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
3005
43e526b9
JM
3006* MIPS 64 remote protocol
3007
3008A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
3009expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
3010instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
3011
3012The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
3013added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
3014
96baa820
JM
3015* ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
3016
3017The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
3018``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
3019include ``set remote P-packet''.
3020
11cf8741
JM
3021* Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
3022
3023The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
3024accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
3025``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
3026
7876dd43
DB
3027* ``apropos'' command added.
3028
3029The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
3030documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
3031try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
3032
bc9e5bbf
AC
3033* New MI interface
3034
3035A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
3036interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
7162c0ca
EZ
3037process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
3038"GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
3039enabled by configuring with:
bc9e5bbf
AC
3040
3041 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
3042
c906108c
SS
3043*** Changes in GDB-4.18:
3044
3045* New native configurations
3046
3047HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
3048HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
55241689 3049M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
c906108c
SS
3050
3051* New targets
3052
3053Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
3054Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
3055Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
3056
3057* OBSOLETE configurations
3058
3059Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
3060
3061Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
3062but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
3063these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
3064be permanently REMOVED.
3065
3066* ANSI/ISO C
3067
3068As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
3069buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
3070containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
3071use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
3072available. If this is not true, please report the affected
3073configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
3074information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
3075already.
3076
3077* Readline 2.2
3078
3079GDB now uses readline 2.2.
3080
3081* set extension-language
3082
3083You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
3084languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
3085you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
3086 set extension-language .c c++
3087The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
3088and their associated languages.
3089
3090* Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
3091
3092When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
3093you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
3094PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
3095
3096 set processor NAME
3097
3098sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
3099following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
3100
3101 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
3102 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
3103 403 IBM PowerPC 403
3104 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
3105 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
3106 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
3107 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
3108 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
3109 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
3110 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
3111 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
3112
3113At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
3114special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
3115registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
3116only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
3117
3118* HP-UX support
3119
3120Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
3121more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
3122library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
3123support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
3124for xdb and dbx commands.
3125
3126* Catchpoints
3127
3128HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
3129generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
3130to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
3131
3132This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
3133argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
3134output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
3135
3136* Debugging across forks
3137
3138On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
3139in the inferior.
3140
3141* TUI
3142
3143HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
3144it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
3145configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
3146
3147* GDB remote protocol additions
3148
3149A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
3150Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
3151fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
3152allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
3153
3154For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
3155full 64-bit address. The command
3156
3157 set remoteaddresssize 32
3158
3159can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
3160the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
3161will be discarded.
3162
3163In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
3164command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
3165
3166 maint packet heythere
3167
3168sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
3169disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
3170time.
3171
3172The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
3173target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
3174downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
3175
3176* Tracing can collect general expressions
3177
3178You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
3179further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
3180doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
3181
3182* mask-address variable for Mips
3183
3184For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
3185a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
3186of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
3187
3188* Higher serial baud rates
3189
3190GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
3191230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
3192to achieve all of these rates.)
3193
3194* i960 simulator
3195
3196The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
3197builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
3198
3199
3200*** Changes in GDB-4.17:
3201
3202* New native configurations
3203
3204Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
3205Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
3206Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
3207PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
3208PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
3209Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
3210Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
3211
3212* New targets
3213
3214Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
3215Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
3216Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
3217Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
3218MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
3219MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
3220MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
3221Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
3222Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
3223Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
3224NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
3225
3226* New debugging protocols
3227
3228ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
3229M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
3230DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
3231PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
3232PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
3233Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
3234
3235* DWARF 2
3236
3237All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
3238format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
3239information.
3240
3241* Java frontend
3242
3243GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
3244only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
3245
3246* solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
3247
3248For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
3249loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
3250locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
3251
3252* Live range splitting
3253
3254GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
3255range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
3256more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
3257
3258* Hurd support
3259
3260GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
3261updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
3262
3263* ARM Thumb support
3264
3265GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
3266instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
3267instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
3268accordingly.
3269
3270* MIPS16 support
3271
3272GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
3273instruction set.
3274
3275* Overlay support
3276
3277GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
3278linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
3279will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
3280control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
3281additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
3282in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
3283
3284* info symbol
3285
3286The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
3287the symbol at the specified address.
3288
3289* Trace support
3290
3291The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
3292asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
3293extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
3294includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
3295file tracepoint.c for more details.
3296
3297* MIPS simulator
3298
3299Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
3300by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
3301of most MIPS variants.
3302
3303* Sparc simulator
3304
3305Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
3306by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
3307Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
3308
3309* set architecture
3310
3311For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
3312basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
3313architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
3314the possible architectures.
3315
3316*** Changes in GDB-4.16:
3317
3318* New native configurations
3319
3320Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
3321M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
3322PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
3323PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
3324PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
3325RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
3326
3327* New targets
3328
3329ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
3330I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
3331MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
3332MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
3333PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
3334Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
3335Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
3336
3337* PowerPC simulator
3338
3339The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
3340contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
3341PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
3342basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
3343performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
3344
3345* Solaris 2.5
3346
3347GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
3348
3349* Windows 95/NT native
3350
3351GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
3352To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
3353which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
3354Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
3355ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
3356
3357* dont-repeat command
3358
3359If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
3360command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
3361useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
3362extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
3363
3364* Send break instead of ^C
3365
3366The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
3367rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
3368GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
3369
3370* Remote protocol timeout
3371
3372The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
3373that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
3374to read from the target. The default value is 2.
3375
3376* Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
3377
3378By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
3379loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
3380stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
3381when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
3382in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
3383
3384Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
3385/usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
3386automatically on hpux10.
3387
3388* Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
3389
3390Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
3391
3392* Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
3393
3394When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
3395may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
3396the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
3397every character. The default value is 1050.
3398
3399* Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
3400
3401If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
3402a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
3403replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
3404details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
3405remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
3406to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
3407
3408* Speedups for remote debugging
3409
3410GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
3411the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
3412and more efficient S-record downloading.
3413
3414* Memory use reductions and statistics collection
3415
3416GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
3417Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
3418
3419*** Changes in GDB-4.15:
3420
3421* Psymtabs for XCOFF
3422
3423The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
3424can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
3425
3426* Remote targets use caching
3427
3428Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
3429remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
3430it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
3431debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
3432off' turns the the data cache off.
3433
3434* Remote targets may have threads
3435
3436The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
3437in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
3438gdb/remote.c for details.
3439
3440* NetROM support
3441
3442If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
3443support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
3444acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
3445write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
3446support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
3447another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
3448sequence is something like
3449
3450 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
3451 load <prog>
3452 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
3453
3454* Macintosh host
3455
3456GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
3457may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
3458it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
3459available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
3460device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
3461directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
3462scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
3463mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
3464
3465* Autoconf
3466
3467GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
3468but does simplify configuration and building.
3469
3470* hpux10
3471
3472GDB now supports hpux10.
3473
3474*** Changes in GDB-4.14:
3475
3476* New native configurations
3477
3478x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
3479x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
3480NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
3481Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
3482
3483* New targets
3484
3485A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
3486HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
3487CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
3488PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
3489WDC 65816 w65-*-*
3490
3491* Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
3492
3493GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
3494possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
3495filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
3496the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
3497if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
3498
3499* Arguments to user-defined commands
3500
3501User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
3502Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
3503trivial example:
3504define adder
3505 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
3506
3507To execute the command use:
3508adder 1 2 3
3509
3510Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
3511Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
3512use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
3513
3514* New `if' and `while' commands
3515
3516This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
3517commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
3518expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
3519execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
3520terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
3521`else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
3522if the expression is zero.
3523
3524* Fortran source language mode
3525
3526GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
3527Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
3528variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
3529with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
3530Fortran compilers.
3531
3532* Better HPUX support
3533
3534Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
3535running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
3536processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
3537for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
3538that behavior do the following before running the program:
3539
3540 adb -w a.out
3541 __dld_flags?W 0x5
3542 control-d
3543
3544This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
3545To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
3546
3547 adb -w a.out
3548 __dld_flags?W 0x4
3549 control-d
3550
3551You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
3552the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
3553external linkage.
3554
3555GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
3556HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
3557
3558* Target byte order now dynamically selectable
3559
3560You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
3561commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
3562current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
3563"set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
3564associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
3565configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
3566
3567* New DOS host serial code
3568
3569This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
3570no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
3571a PC's serial port.
3572
3573*** Changes in GDB-4.13:
3574
3575* New "complete" command
3576
3577This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
3578were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
3579
3580* Trailing space optional in prompt
3581
3582"set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
3583allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
3584
3585* Breakpoint hit counts
3586
3587"info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
3588has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
3589can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
3590to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
3591less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
3592that breakpoint.
3593
3594* Ability to stop printing at NULL character
3595
3596"set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
3597an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
3598arrays actually contain only short strings.
3599
3600* Shared library breakpoints
3601
3602In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
3603breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
3604
3605* Hardware watchpoints
3606
3607There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
3608targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
3609
55241689 3610Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
c906108c
SS
3611
3612* Annotations
3613
3614Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
3615and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
3616
3617* Improved Irix 5 support
3618
3619GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
3620
3621* Improved HPPA support
3622
3623GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
3624
3625* New native configurations
3626
3627Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
3628HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
3629Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
3630RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
3631
3632* New targets
3633
3634OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
3635MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
3636Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
3637
3638* Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
3639
3640There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
3641This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
3642
3643* Fixes
3644
3645As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
3646and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
3647
3648*** Changes in GDB-4.12:
3649
3650* Irix 5 is now supported
3651
3652* HPPA support
3653
3654GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
3655to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
3656GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
3657of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
3658can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
3659
3660
3661*** Changes in GDB-4.11:
3662
3663* User visible changes:
3664
3665* Remote Debugging
3666
3667The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
3668target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
3669debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
3670integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
3671debugging info for the mips target).
3672
3673* DEC Alpha native support
3674
3675GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
3676debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
3677work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
3678Alpha-specific notes.
3679
3680* Preliminary thread implementation
3681
3682GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
3683
3684* LynxOS native and target support for 386
3685
3686This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
3687to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
3688for details).
3689
3690* Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
3691
3692This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
3693mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
3694call methods, ...etc.
3695
3696*** Changes in GDB-4.10:
3697
3698 * User visible changes:
3699
3700Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
3701supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
3702other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
3703somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
3704
3705Filename completion now works.
3706
3707When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
3708arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
3709addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
3710
3711All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
3712vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
3713should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
3714your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
3715to be on the far side of a thin network line.
3716
3717 * DEC alpha support
3718
3719This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
3720cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
3721
3722
3723*** Changes in GDB-4.9:
3724
3725 * Testsuite
3726
3727This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
3728The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
3729via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
3730
3731 * C++ demangling
3732
3733'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
3734emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
3735Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
3736disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
3737use gdb with AT&T cfront.
3738
3739 * Simulators
3740
3741GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
3742So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
3743Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
3744
3745 * New targets supported
3746
3747H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
3748H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
3749SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
3750Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
3751IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
3752
3753Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
3754version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
3755GO32 memory extender.
3756
3757 * New remote protocols
3758
3759MIPS remote debugging protocol.
3760
3761 * New source languages supported
3762
3763This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
3764used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
3765into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
3766
3767
3768*** Changes in GDB-4.8:
3769
3770 * HP Precision Architecture supported
3771
3772GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
3773version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
3774University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
3775compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
3776format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
3777(as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
3778
3779Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
3780
3781 * Faster and better demangling
3782
3783We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
3784demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
3785character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
3786only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
3787This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
3788increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
3789symbol lookups.
3790
3791`Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
3792from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
3793compiler does not actually implement.
3794
3795 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
3796
3797In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
3798inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
3799recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
3800very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
3801The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
3802circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
3803fix.
3804
3805The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
3806release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
3807
3808 * Improved configure script
3809
3810The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
3811you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
3812host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
3813done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
3814
3815We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
3816version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
3817`--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
3818The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
3819only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
3820We hope to make this the default in a future release.
3821
3822 * Documentation improvements
3823
3824There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
3825produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
3826before submitting changes.
3827
3828The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
3829M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
3830`info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
3831you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
3832a future texinfo-X.Y release.
3833
3834*NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
3835We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
3836been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
3837or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
3838`texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
3839around this problem.
3840
3841 * New features
3842
3843GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
3844the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
3845`print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
3846the target program.
3847
3848The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
3849how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
3850
3851 * New native hosts supported
3852
3853HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
3854386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
3855
3856 * New targets supported
3857
3858AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
3859
3860 * New file formats supported
3861
3862BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
3863HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
3864
3865 * Major bug fixes
3866
3867Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
3868
3869We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
3870printf_filtered("%s") problems.
3871
3872We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
3873for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
3874release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
3875
3876You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
3877will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
3878
3879We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
3880for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
3881especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
3882libraries.
3883
3884The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
3885information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
3886command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
3887any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
3888when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
3889
3890 * Internal improvements
3891
3892GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
3893debugging of multiple languages in the future.
3894
3895GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
3896Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
3897symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
3898contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
3899shared code that handles any of them.
3900
3901 * New command line options
3902
3903We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
3904
3905 * Mmalloc licensing
3906
3907The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
3908General Public License.
3909
3910*** Changes in GDB-4.7:
3911
3912 * Host/native/target split
3913
3914GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
3915hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
3916target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
3917local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
3918ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
3919
3920The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
3921GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
3922is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
3923code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
3924any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
3925built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
3926handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
3927
3928GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
3929It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
3930plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
3931
3932 * New hosts supported
3933
3934HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
3935386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
3936386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
3937
3938 * New targets supported
3939
3940Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
394168030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
3942
3943 * New native hosts supported
3944
3945386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
3946 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
3947386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
3948
3949 * New file formats supported
3950
3951BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
3952supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
3953format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
3954
3955 * New commands
3956
3957`show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
3958`show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
3959These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
3960
3961`info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
3962
3963You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
3964scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
3965prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
3966executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
3967
3968 * C++ improvements
3969
3970We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
3971info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
3972symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
3973
3974Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
3975
3976 * Major bug fixes
3977
3978The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
3979fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
3980by the compiler.
3981
3982We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
3983support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
3984
3985John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
3986slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
3987that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
3988purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
3989the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
3990mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
3991
3992Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
3993about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
3994completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
3995we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
3996
3997 * AMD 29k support
3998
3999A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
4000specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
4001calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
4002usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
4003in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
4004
4005We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
4006Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
4007of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
4008resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
4009
4010 * Remote interfaces
4011
4012We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
4013with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
4014message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
4015This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
4016needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
4017breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
4018each instruction being stepped through.
4019
4020The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
4021registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
4022
4023There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
4024find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
4025Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
4026processor with a serial port.
4027
4028 * Configuration
4029
4030Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
4031`table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
4032supported, and what files each one uses.
4033
4034 * Library changes
4035
4036There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
4037disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
4038Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
4039disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
4040
4041The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
4042Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
4043can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
4044grants all the rights from the General Public License.
4045
4046 * Documentation
4047
4048The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
4049reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
4050as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
4051encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
4052system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
4053bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
4054
4055And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
4056
4057
4058*** Changes in GDB-4.6:
4059
4060 * Better support for C++ function names
4061
4062GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
4063names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
4064(using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
4065single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
4066Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
4067
4068GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
4069the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
4070You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
4071lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
4072for the list of formats.
4073
4074 * G++ symbol mangling problem
4075
4076Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
4077C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
4078directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
4079can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
4080usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
4081about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
4082this problem.)
4083
4084 * New 'maintenance' command
4085
4086All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
4087the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
4088can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
4089
4090 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
4091 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
4092 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
4093 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
4094 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
4095 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
4096
4097The following commands are new:
4098
4099 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
4100 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
4101 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
4102
4103 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
4104
4105We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
4106(e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
4107be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
4108read after argv processing.
4109
4110 * New hosts supported
4111
4112Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
4113
55241689 4114GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
c906108c
SS
4115
4116We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
4117is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
4118for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
4119masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
4120fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
4121It costs extra.
4122
4123 * New targets supported
4124
4125Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
4126
4127 * More smarts about finding #include files
4128
4129GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
4130all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
4131greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
4132especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
4133the one that contains your sources.
4134
4135We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
4136breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
4137try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
4138
4139 * Interesting infernals change
4140
4141GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
4142section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
4143target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
4144stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
4145
4146 * Bug fixes (of course!)
4147
4148There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
4149 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
4150 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
4151
4152See the ChangeLog for details.
4153
4154*** Changes in GDB-4.5:
4155
4156 * New machines supported (host and target)
4157
4158IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
4159
4160SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
4161
4162 * New malloc package
4163
4164GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
4165Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
4166capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
4167This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
4168pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
4169more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
4170
4171 * info proc
4172
4173The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
4174'help info proc' for details.
4175
4176 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
4177
4178The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
4179Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
4180possible.
4181
4182 * File name changes for MS-DOS
4183
4184Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
4185support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
4186conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
4187environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
4188that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
4189in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
4190
4191 * Cross byte order fixes
4192
4193Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
4194targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
4195
4196 * New -mapped and -readnow options
4197
4198If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
4199system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
4200`symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
4201program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
4202called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
4203Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
4204and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
4205the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
4206option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
4207starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
4208
4209You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
4210the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
4211information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
4212slower, but makes future operations faster.
4213
4214The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
4215build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
4216A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
4217use is:
4218
4219 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
4220
4221The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
4222It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
4223shared across multiple host platforms.
4224
4225 * longjmp() handling
4226
4227GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
4228siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
4229all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
4230platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
4231
4232 * Solaris 2.0
4233
4234Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
4235this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
4236reading symbols.
4237
4238 * Bug fixes
4239
4240As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
4241People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
4242crashes and trashed symbol tables.
4243
4244*** Changes in GDB-4.4:
4245
4246 * New machines supported (host and target)
4247
4248SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
4249 (except core files)
4250BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
4251Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
4252
4253 * New machines supported (target)
4254
4255AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
4256
4257 * C++ support
4258
4259GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
4260The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
4261per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
4262
4263GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
4264`ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
4265extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
4266good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
4267will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
4268released.
4269
4270 * New features for SVR4
4271
4272GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
4273shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
4274only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
4275
4276The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
4277on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
4278it prints the address mappings of the process.
4279
4280If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
4281bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
4282
4283 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
4284
4285Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
4286now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
4287skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
4288make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
4289same code linked statically.
4290
4291 * New Getopt
4292
4293GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
4294version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
4295continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
4296Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
4297added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
4298future by other options that begin with the same letter.
4299
4300 * Bugs fixed
4301
4302The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
4303Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
4304See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
4305
4306
4307*** Changes in GDB-4.3:
4308
4309 * New machines supported (host and target)
4310
4311Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
4312NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
4313Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
4314
4315 * Almost SCO Unix support
4316
4317We had hoped to support:
4318SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
4319(except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
4320that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
4321about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
4322
4323 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
4324
4325GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
4326debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
4327is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
4328send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
4329reqired (if any).
4330
4331 * New Readline
4332
4333GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
4334is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
4335required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
4336
4337 * Bugs fixed
4338
4339The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
4340Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
4341See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
4342
4343 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
4344
4345GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
4346supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
4347symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
4348
4349Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
4350mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
4351debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
4352mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
4353version 2.
4354
4355Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
4356really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
4357line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
4358variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
4359situation somewhat.
4360
4361When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
4362However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
4363methods.
4364
4365We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
4366DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
4367encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
4368
4369
4370*** Changes in GDB-4.2:
4371
4372 * Improved configuration
4373
4374Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
4375Porting BFD is simpler.
4376
4377 * Stepping improved
4378
4379The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
4380of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
4381in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
4382function that has debugging information is called within the line.
4383
4384 * Bug fixing
4385
4386Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
4387
4388 * New host supported (not target)
4389
4390Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
4391
4392
4393*** Changes in GDB-4.1:
4394
4395 * Multiple source language support
4396
4397GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
4398It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
4399and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
4400language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
4401You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
4402`set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
4403
4404 * GDB and Modula-2
4405
4406GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
4407currently under development at the State University of New York at
4408Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
4409continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
4410
4411Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
4412debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
4413symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
4414
4415There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
4416in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
4417
4418 * set write on/off
4419
4420GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
4421a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
4422the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
4423by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
4424effect immediately.
4425
4426 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
4427
4428When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
4429shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
4430The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
4431examining core files.
4432
4433 * set listsize
4434
4435You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
4436The default is 10.
4437
4438 * New machines supported (host and target)
4439
4440SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
4441Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
4442Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
4443
4444 * New hosts supported (not targets)
4445
4446IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
4447
4448 * New targets supported (not hosts)
4449
4450AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
4451AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
4452Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
4453
4454 * New remote interfaces
4455
4456AMD 29000 Adapt
4457AMD 29000 Minimon
4458
4459
4460*** Changes in GDB-4.0:
4461
4462 * New Facilities
4463
4464Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
4465
4466Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
4467target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
4468is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
4469remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
4470remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
4471also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
4472using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
4473stub on the target system.
4474
4475New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
4476
4477GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
4478library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
4479object file types such as a.out and coff.
4480
4481There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
4482refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
4483
4484
4485 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
4486
4487All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
4488by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
4489
4490For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
4491``Show prompt'' produces the response:
4492Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
4493
4494What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
4495print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
4496will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
4497all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
4498
4499confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
4500 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
4501 it is already running. Default is ON.
4502
4503editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
4504 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
4505 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
4506 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
4507 Default is ON.
4508
4509history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
4510 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
4511 or the value of the environment variable
4512 GDBHISTFILE.
4513
4514history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
4515 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
4516 HISTSIZE.
4517
4518history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
4519 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
4520 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
4521
4522history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
4523 history expansion will be performed on
4524 command line input. The default is OFF.
4525
4526radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
4527 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
4528 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
4529
4530height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
4531 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
4532 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
4533 variable TERM.
4534
4535width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
4536 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
4537 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
4538 variable TERM.
4539
4540Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
4541``set width'' instead.
4542
4543print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
4544 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
4545 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
4546 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
4547
4548print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
4549 is OFF.
4550
4551print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
4552 "raw" form if off.
4553
4554print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
4555 like instructions.
4556
4557print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
4558
4559
4560 * Support for Epoch Environment.
4561
4562The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
4563new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
4564are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
4565window.
4566
4567
4568 * Support for Shared Libraries
4569
4570GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
4571Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
4572before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
4573happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
4574At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
4575from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
4576shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
4577It can be abbreviated ``share''.
4578
4579sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
4580 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
4581 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
4582
4583info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
4584
4585
4586 * Watchpoints
4587
4588A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
4589expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
4590tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
4591quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
4592problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
4593more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
4594
4595watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
4596
4597info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
4598
4599delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
4600disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
4601enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
4602
4603
4604 * C++ multiple inheritance
4605
4606When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
4607for C++ programs.
4608
4609 * C++ exception handling
4610
4611Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
4612ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
4613the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
4614handler's context).
4615
4616catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
4617 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
4618 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
4619
4620info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
4621 current stack frame.
4622
4623
4624 * Minor command changes
4625
4626The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
4627command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
4628is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
4629
4630The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
4631at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
4632frames without printing.
4633
4634 * New directory command
4635
4636'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
4637The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
4638about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
4639with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
4640find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
4641
4642 * Configuring GDB for compilation
4643
4644For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
4645for more details.
4646
4647GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
4648two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
4649Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
4650where the program that you are debugging will run.
This page took 1.127641 seconds and 4 git commands to generate.