2012-11-09 Yao Qi <yao@codesourcery.com>
[deliverable/binutils-gdb.git] / gdb / NEWS
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1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
3
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4*** Changes since GDB 7.5
5
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6* New command line options:
7
8-nh Disables auto-loading of ~/.gdbinit, but still executes all the
9 other initialization files, unlike -nx which disables all of them.
10
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11* Python scripting
12
13 ** Vectors can be created with gdb.Type.vector.
14
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15 ** Python's atexit.register now works in GDB.
16
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17* New Python-based convenience functions:
18
19 ** $_memeq(buf1, buf2, length)
20 ** $_streq(str1, str2)
21 ** $_strlen(str)
22 ** $_regex(str, regex)
23
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24* The 'cd' command now defaults to using '~' (the home directory) if not
25 given an argument.
26
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27* The command 'forward-search' can now be abbreviated as 'fo'.
28
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29* New configure options
30
31--enable-libmcheck/--disable-libmcheck
32 By default, development versions are built with -lmcheck on hosts
33 that support it, in order to help track memory corruption issues.
34 Release versions, on the other hand, are built without -lmcheck
35 by default. The --enable-libmcheck/--disable-libmcheck configure
36 options allow the user to override that default.
37
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38* New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
39
40maint info bfds
41 List the BFDs known to GDB.
42
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43python-interactive [command]
44pi [command]
45 Start a Python interactive prompt, or evaluate the optional command
46 and print the result of expressions.
47
48py [command]
49 "py" is a new alias for "python".
50
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51* Removed commands
52
53 ** For the Renesas Super-H architecture, the "regs" command has been removed
54 (has been deprecated in GDB 7.5), and "info all-registers" should be used
55 instead.
56
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57* MI changes
58
59 ** Command parameter changes are now notified using new async record
60 "=cmd-param-changed".
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61 ** Trace frame changes caused by command "tfind" are now notified using
62 new async record "=traceframe-changed".
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63 ** The creation and deletion of trace state variables are now notified
64 using new async records "=tsv-created" and "=tsv-deleted".
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65 ** The start and stop of process record are now notified using new
66 async record "=record-started" and "=record-stopped".
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67 ** Memory changes are now notified using new async record
68 "=memory-changed".
5b9afe8a 69
80c8d323 70*** Changes in GDB 7.5
d6e00af6 71
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72* GDB now supports x32 ABI. Visit <http://sites.google.com/site/x32abi/>
73 for more x32 ABI info.
74
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75* GDB now supports access to MIPS DSP registers on Linux targets.
76
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77* GDB now supports debugging microMIPS binaries.
78
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79* The "info os" command on GNU/Linux can now display information on
80 several new classes of objects managed by the operating system:
81 "info os procgroups" lists process groups
82 "info os files" lists file descriptors
83 "info os sockets" lists internet-domain sockets
84 "info os shm" lists shared-memory regions
85 "info os semaphores" lists semaphores
86 "info os msg" lists message queues
87 "info os modules" lists loaded kernel modules
88
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89* GDB now has support for SDT (Static Defined Tracing) probes. Currently,
90 the only implemented backend is for SystemTap probes (<sys/sdt.h>). You
91 can set a breakpoint using the new "-probe, "-pstap" or "-probe-stap"
92 options and inspect the probe arguments using the new $_probe_arg family
93 of convenience variables. You can obtain more information about SystemTap
94 in <http://sourceware.org/systemtap/>.
95
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96* GDB now supports reversible debugging on ARM, it allows you to
97 debug basic ARM and THUMB instructions, and provides
98 record/replay support.
99
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100* The option "symbol-reloading" has been deleted as it is no longer used.
101
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102* Python scripting
103
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104 ** GDB commands implemented in Python can now be put in command class
105 "gdb.COMMAND_USER".
106
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107 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" is now deleted.
108
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109 ** A new class, gdb.printing.FlagEnumerationPrinter, can be used to
110 apply "flag enum"-style pretty-printing to any enum.
111
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112 ** gdb.lookup_symbol can now work when there is no current frame.
113
114 ** gdb.Symbol now has a 'line' attribute, holding the line number in
115 the source at which the symbol was defined.
116
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117 ** gdb.Symbol now has the new attribute 'needs_frame' and the new
118 method 'value'. The former indicates whether the symbol needs a
119 frame in order to compute its value, and the latter computes the
120 symbol's value.
121
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122 ** A new method 'referenced_value' on gdb.Value objects which can
123 dereference pointer as well as C++ reference values.
124
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125 ** New methods 'global_block' and 'static_block' on gdb.Symtab objects
126 which return the global and static blocks (as gdb.Block objects),
127 of the underlying symbol table, respectively.
128
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129 ** New function gdb.find_pc_line which returns the gdb.Symtab_and_line
130 object associated with a PC value.
131
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132 ** gdb.Symtab_and_line has new attribute 'last' which holds the end
133 of the address range occupied by code for the current source line.
134
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135* Go language support.
136 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the Go programming
137 language.
138
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139* GDBserver now supports stdio connections.
140 E.g. (gdb) target remote | ssh myhost gdbserver - hello
141
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142* The binary "gdbtui" can no longer be built or installed.
143 Use "gdb -tui" instead.
144
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145* GDB will now print "flag" enums specially. A flag enum is one where
146 all the enumerator values have no bits in common when pairwise
147 "and"ed. When printing a value whose type is a flag enum, GDB will
148 show all the constants, e.g., for enum E { ONE = 1, TWO = 2}:
149 (gdb) print (enum E) 3
150 $1 = (ONE | TWO)
151
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152* The filename part of a linespec will now match trailing components
153 of a source file name. For example, "break gcc/expr.c:1000" will
154 now set a breakpoint in build/gcc/expr.c, but not
155 build/libcpp/expr.c.
156
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157* The "info proc" and "generate-core-file" commands will now also
158 work on remote targets connected to GDBserver on Linux.
159
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160* The command "info catch" has been removed. It has been disabled
161 since December 2007.
162
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163* The "catch exception" and "catch assert" commands now accept
164 a condition at the end of the command, much like the "break"
165 command does. For instance:
166
167 (gdb) catch exception Constraint_Error if Barrier = True
168
169 Previously, it was possible to add a condition to such catchpoints,
170 but it had to be done as a second step, after the catchpoint had been
171 created, using the "condition" command.
172
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173* The "info static-tracepoint-marker" command will now also work on
174 native Linux targets with in-process agent.
175
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176* GDB can now set breakpoints on inlined functions.
177
178* The .gdb_index section has been updated to include symbols for
179 inlined functions. GDB will ignore older .gdb_index sections by
180 default, which could cause symbol files to be loaded more slowly
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181 until their .gdb_index sections can be recreated. The new command
182 "set use-deprecated-index-sections on" will cause GDB to use any older
183 .gdb_index sections it finds. This will restore performance, but the
184 ability to set breakpoints on inlined functions will be lost in symbol
185 files with older .gdb_index sections.
481860b3 186
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187 The .gdb_index section has also been updated to record more information
188 about each symbol. This speeds up the "info variables", "info functions"
189 and "info types" commands when used with programs having the .gdb_index
190 section, as well as speeding up debugging with shared libraries using
191 the .gdb_index section.
192
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193* Ada support for GDB/MI Variable Objects has been added.
194
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195* GDB can now support 'breakpoint always-inserted mode' in 'record'
196 target.
197
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198* MI changes
199
200 ** New command -info-os is the MI equivalent of "info os".
201
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202 ** Output logs ("set logging" and related) now include MI output.
203
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204* New commands
205
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206 ** "set use-deprecated-index-sections on|off"
207 "show use-deprecated-index-sections on|off"
208 Controls the use of deprecated .gdb_index sections.
209
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210 ** "catch load" and "catch unload" can be used to stop when a shared
211 library is loaded or unloaded, respectively.
212
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213 ** "enable count" can be used to auto-disable a breakpoint after
214 several hits.
215
57651221 216 ** "info vtbl" can be used to show the virtual method tables for
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217 C++ and Java objects.
218
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219 ** "explore" and its sub commands "explore value" and "explore type"
220 can be used to reccursively explore values and types of
221 expressions. These commands are available only if GDB is
222 configured with '--with-python'.
223
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224 ** "info auto-load" shows status of all kinds of auto-loaded files,
225 "info auto-load gdb-scripts" shows status of auto-loading GDB canned
226 sequences of commands files, "info auto-load python-scripts"
227 shows status of auto-loading Python script files,
228 "info auto-load local-gdbinit" shows status of loading init file
229 (.gdbinit) from current directory and "info auto-load libthread-db" shows
230 status of inferior specific thread debugging shared library loading.
231
232 ** "info auto-load-scripts", "set auto-load-scripts on|off"
233 and "show auto-load-scripts" commands have been deprecated, use their
234 "info auto-load python-scripts", "set auto-load python-scripts on|off"
235 and "show auto-load python-scripts" counterparts instead.
236
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237 ** "dprintf location,format,args..." creates a dynamic printf, which
238 is basically a breakpoint that does a printf and immediately
239 resumes your program's execution, so it is like a printf that you
240 can insert dynamically at runtime instead of at compiletime.
241
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242 ** "set print symbol"
243 "show print symbol"
244 Controls whether GDB attempts to display the symbol, if any,
245 corresponding to addresses it prints. This defaults to "on", but
246 you can set it to "off" to restore GDB's previous behavior.
247
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248* Deprecated commands
249
250 ** For the Renesas Super-H architecture, the "regs" command has been
251 deprecated, and "info all-registers" should be used instead.
252
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253* New targets
254
255Renesas RL78 rl78-*-elf
60c9a3c0 256HP OpenVMS ia64 ia64-hp-openvms*
a58b110a 257
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258* GDBserver supports evaluation of breakpoint conditions. When
259 support is advertised by GDBserver, GDB may be told to send the
260 breakpoint conditions in bytecode form to GDBserver. GDBserver
261 will only report the breakpoint trigger to GDB when its condition
262 evaluates to true.
263
264* New options
265
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266set mips compression
267show mips compression
268 Select the compressed ISA encoding used in functions that have no symbol
269 information available. The encoding can be set to either of:
270 mips16
271 micromips
272 and is updated automatically from ELF file flags if available.
273
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274set breakpoint condition-evaluation
275show breakpoint condition-evaluation
cf65ecd3 276 Control whether breakpoint conditions are evaluated by GDB ("host") or by
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277 GDBserver ("target"). Default option "auto" chooses the most efficient
278 available mode.
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279 This option can improve debugger efficiency depending on the speed of the
280 target.
281
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282set auto-load off
283 Disable auto-loading globally.
284
285show auto-load
286 Show auto-loading setting of all kinds of auto-loaded files.
287
288set auto-load gdb-scripts on|off
289show auto-load gdb-scripts
290 Control auto-loading of GDB canned sequences of commands files.
291
292set auto-load python-scripts on|off
293show auto-load python-scripts
294 Control auto-loading of Python script files.
295
296set auto-load local-gdbinit on|off
297show auto-load local-gdbinit
298 Control loading of init file (.gdbinit) from current directory.
299
300set auto-load libthread-db on|off
301show auto-load libthread-db
302 Control auto-loading of inferior specific thread debugging shared library.
303
7349ff92 304set auto-load scripts-directory <dir1>[:<dir2>...]
9cc815f5 305show auto-load scripts-directory
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306 Set a list of directories from which to load auto-loaded scripts.
307 Automatically loaded Python scripts and GDB scripts are located in one
308 of the directories listed by this option.
309 The delimiter (':' above) may differ according to the host platform.
310
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311set auto-load safe-path <dir1>[:<dir2>...]
312show auto-load safe-path
313 Set a list of directories from which it is safe to auto-load files.
314 The delimiter (':' above) may differ according to the host platform.
315
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316set debug auto-load on|off
317show debug auto-load
318 Control display of debugging info for auto-loading the files above.
319
d3ce09f5 320set dprintf-style gdb|call|agent
e7e0cddf 321show dprintf-style
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322 Control the way in which a dynamic printf is performed; "gdb"
323 requests a GDB printf command, while "call" causes dprintf to call a
324 function in the inferior. "agent" requests that the target agent
325 (such as GDBserver) do the printing.
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326
327set dprintf-function <expr>
328show dprintf-function
329set dprintf-channel <expr>
330show dprintf-channel
331 Set the function and optional first argument to the call when using
332 the "call" style of dynamic printf.
333
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334set disconnected-dprintf on|off
335show disconnected-dprintf
336 Control whether agent-style dynamic printfs continue to be in effect
337 after GDB disconnects.
338
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339* New configure options
340
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341--with-auto-load-dir
342 Configure default value for the 'set auto-load scripts-directory'
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343 setting above. It defaults to '$debugdir:$datadir/auto-load',
344 $debugdir representing global debugging info directories (available
345 via 'show debug-file-directory') and $datadir representing GDB's data
346 directory (available via 'show data-directory').
7349ff92 347
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348--with-auto-load-safe-path
349 Configure default value for the 'set auto-load safe-path' setting
7349ff92 350 above. It defaults to the --with-auto-load-dir setting.
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351
352--without-auto-load-safe-path
353 Set 'set auto-load safe-path' to '/', effectively disabling this
354 security feature.
355
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356* New remote packets
357
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358z0/z1 conditional breakpoints extension
359
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360 The z0/z1 breakpoint insertion packets have been extended to carry
361 a list of conditional expressions over to the remote stub depending on the
362 condition evaluation mode. The use of this extension can be controlled
363 via the "set remote conditional-breakpoints-packet" command.
364
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365QProgramSignals:
366
367 Specify the signals which the remote stub may pass to the debugged
368 program without GDB involvement.
369
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370* New command line options
371
372--init-command=FILE, -ix Like --command, -x but execute it
373 before loading inferior.
374--init-eval-command=COMMAND, -iex Like --eval-command=COMMAND, -ex but
375 execute it before loading inferior.
376
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377*** Changes in GDB 7.4
378
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379* GDB now handles ambiguous linespecs more consistently; the existing
380 FILE:LINE support has been expanded to other types of linespecs. A
381 breakpoint will now be set on all matching locations in all
382 inferiors, and locations will be added or removed according to
383 inferior changes.
384
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385* GDB now allows you to skip uninteresting functions and files when
386 stepping with the "skip function" and "skip file" commands.
387
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388* GDB has two new commands: "set remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit"
389 and "show remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit". These allows to
390 set or show the maximum length limit (in bytes) of a remote
391 target hardware watchpoint.
392
393 This allows e.g. to use "unlimited" hardware watchpoints with the
394 gdbserver integrated in Valgrind version >= 3.7.0. Such Valgrind
395 watchpoints are slower than real hardware watchpoints but are
396 significantly faster than gdb software watchpoints.
397
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398* Python scripting
399
32d1c362 400 ** The register_pretty_printer function in module gdb.printing now takes
7d0aff21 401 an optional `replace' argument. If True, the new printer replaces any
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402 existing one.
403
3a7bf607 404 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" command has been
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405 deprecated and will be deleted in GDB 7.5.
406 A new command: "set python print-stack none|full|message" has
407 replaced it. Additionally, the default for "print-stack" is
408 now "message", which just prints the error message without
409 the stack trace.
3a7bf607 410
baacfb07 411 ** A prompt substitution hook (prompt_hook) is now available to the
3a7bf607 412 Python API.
713389e0 413
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414 ** A new Python module, gdb.prompt has been added to the GDB Python
415 modules library. This module provides functionality for
baacfb07 416 escape sequences in prompts (used by set/show
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417 extended-prompt). These escape sequences are replaced by their
418 corresponding value.
419
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420 ** Python commands and convenience-functions located in
421 'data-directory'/python/gdb/command and
422 'data-directory'/python/gdb/function are now automatically loaded
423 on GDB start-up.
424
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425 ** Blocks now provide four new attributes. global_block and
426 static_block will return the global and static blocks
427 respectively. is_static and is_global are boolean attributes
428 that indicate if the block is one of those two types.
429
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430 ** Symbols now provide the "type" attribute, the type of the symbol.
431
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432 ** The "gdb.breakpoint" function has been deprecated in favor of
433 "gdb.breakpoints".
434
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435 ** A new class "gdb.FinishBreakpoint" is provided to catch the return
436 of a function. This class is based on the "finish" command
437 available in the CLI.
438
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439 ** Type objects for struct and union types now allow access to
440 the fields using standard Python dictionary (mapping) methods.
441 For example, "some_type['myfield']" now works, as does
442 "some_type.items()".
443
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444 ** A new event "gdb.new_objfile" has been added, triggered by loading a
445 new object file.
446
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447 ** A new function, "deep_items" has been added to the gdb.types
448 module in the GDB Python modules library. This function returns
449 an iterator over the fields of a struct or union type. Unlike
450 the standard Python "iteritems" method, it will recursively traverse
451 any anonymous fields.
452
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453* MI changes
454
455 ** "*stopped" events can report several new "reason"s, such as
456 "solib-event".
457
458 ** Breakpoint changes are now notified using new async records, like
459 "=breakpoint-modified".
460
461 ** New command -ada-task-info.
462
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463* libthread-db-search-path now supports two special values: $sdir and $pdir.
464 $sdir specifies the default system locations of shared libraries.
465 $pdir specifies the directory where the libpthread used by the application
466 lives.
467
468 GDB no longer looks in $sdir and $pdir after it has searched the directories
469 mentioned in libthread-db-search-path. If you want to search those
470 directories, they must be specified in libthread-db-search-path.
471 The default value of libthread-db-search-path on GNU/Linux and Solaris
472 systems is now "$sdir:$pdir".
473
474 $pdir is not supported by gdbserver, it is currently ignored.
475 $sdir is supported by gdbserver.
476
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477* New configure option --with-iconv-bin.
478 When using the internationalization support like the one in the GNU C
479 library, GDB will invoke the "iconv" program to get a list of supported
480 character sets. If this program lives in a non-standard location, one can
481 use this option to specify where to find it.
482
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483* When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
484 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports masked hardware
485 watchpoints, which specify a mask in addition to an address to watch.
486 The mask specifies that some bits of an address (the bits which are
487 reset in the mask) should be ignored when matching the address accessed
488 by the inferior against the watchpoint address. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
489 section in the user manual for more details.
490
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491* The new option --once causes GDBserver to stop listening for connections once
492 the first connection is made. The listening port used by GDBserver will
493 become available after that.
494
71eba9c2 495* New commands "info macros" and "alias" have been added.
edc84990 496
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497* New function parameters suffix @entry specifies value of function parameter
498 at the time the function got called. Entry values are available only since
499 gcc version 4.7.
500
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501* New commands
502
503!SHELL COMMAND
504 "!" is now an alias of the "shell" command.
505 Note that no space is needed between "!" and SHELL COMMAND.
506
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507* Changed commands
508
509watch EXPRESSION mask MASK_VALUE
510 The watch command now supports the mask argument which allows creation
511 of masked watchpoints, if the current architecture supports this feature.
512
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513info auto-load-scripts [REGEXP]
514 This command was formerly named "maintenance print section-scripts".
515 It is now generally useful and is no longer a maintenance-only command.
516
71eba9c2 517info macro [-all] [--] MACRO
518 The info macro command has new options `-all' and `--'. The first for
519 printing all definitions of a macro. The second for explicitly specifying
520 the end of arguments and the beginning of the macro name in case the macro
521 name starts with a hyphen.
522
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523collect[/s] EXPRESSIONS
524 The tracepoint collect command now takes an optional modifier "/s"
525 that directs it to dereference pointer-to-character types and
526 collect the bytes of memory up to a zero byte. The behavior is
527 similar to what you see when you use the regular print command on a
528 string. An optional integer following the "/s" sets a bound on the
529 number of bytes that will be collected.
530
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531tstart [NOTES]
532 The trace start command now interprets any supplied arguments as a
533 note to be recorded with the trace run, with an effect similar to
534 setting the variable trace-notes.
535
536tstop [NOTES]
537 The trace stop command now interprets any arguments as a note to be
538 mentioned along with the tstatus report that the trace was stopped
539 with a command. The effect is similar to setting the variable
540 trace-stop-notes.
541
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542* Tracepoints can now be enabled and disabled at any time after a trace
543 experiment has been started using the standard "enable" and "disable"
544 commands. It is now possible to start a trace experiment with no enabled
545 tracepoints; GDB will display a warning, but will allow the experiment to
546 begin, assuming that tracepoints will be enabled as needed while the trace
547 is running.
548
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549* Fast tracepoints on 32-bit x86-architectures can now be placed at
550 locations with 4-byte instructions, when they were previously
551 limited to locations with instructions of 5 bytes or longer.
552
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553* New options
554
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555set debug dwarf2-read
556show debug dwarf2-read
557 Turns on or off display of debugging messages related to reading
558 DWARF debug info. The default is off.
559
560set debug symtab-create
561show debug symtab-create
562 Turns on or off display of debugging messages related to symbol table
563 creation. The default is off.
564
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565set extended-prompt
566show extended-prompt
567 Set the GDB prompt, and allow escape sequences to be inserted to
568 display miscellaneous information (see 'help set extended-prompt'
569 for the list of sequences). This prompt (and any information
570 accessed through the escape sequences) is updated every time the
571 prompt is displayed.
572
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573set print entry-values (both|compact|default|if-needed|no|only|preferred)
574show print entry-values
575 Set printing of frame argument values at function entry. In some cases
576 GDB can determine the value of function argument which was passed by the
577 function caller, even if the value was modified inside the called function.
578
579set debug entry-values
580show debug entry-values
581 Control display of debugging info for determining frame argument values at
582 function entry and virtual tail call frames.
583
c011a4f4
DE
584set basenames-may-differ
585show basenames-may-differ
586 Set whether a source file may have multiple base names.
587 (A "base name" is the name of a file with the directory part removed.
588 Example: The base name of "/home/user/hello.c" is "hello.c".)
589 If set, GDB will canonicalize file names (e.g., expand symlinks)
590 before comparing them. Canonicalization is an expensive operation,
591 but it allows the same file be known by more than one base name.
592 If not set (the default), all source files are assumed to have just
593 one base name, and gdb will do file name comparisons more efficiently.
594
f196051f
SS
595set trace-user
596show trace-user
597set trace-notes
598show trace-notes
599 Set a user name and notes for the current and any future trace runs.
600 This is useful for long-running and/or disconnected traces, to
601 inform others (or yourself) as to who is running the trace, supply
602 contact information, or otherwise explain what is going on.
603
604set trace-stop-notes
605show trace-stop-notes
606 Set a note attached to the trace run, that is displayed when the
607 trace has been stopped by a tstop command. This is useful for
608 instance as an explanation, if you are stopping a trace run that was
609 started by someone else.
610
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KY
611* New remote packets
612
613QTEnable
614
615 Dynamically enable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
616
617QTDisable
618
619 Dynamically disable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
620
f196051f
SS
621QTNotes
622
623 Set the user and notes of the trace run.
624
625qTP
626
627 Query the current status of a tracepoint.
628
405f8e94
SS
629qTMinFTPILen
630
631 Query the minimum length of instruction at which a fast tracepoint may
632 be placed.
633
1a532630
PP
634* Dcache size (number of lines) and line-size are now runtime-configurable
635 via "set dcache line" and "set dcache line-size" commands.
636
11315641
YQ
637* New targets
638
639Texas Instruments TMS320C6x tic6x-*-*
640
87326c78
DD
641* New Simulators
642
643Renesas RL78 rl78-*-elf
644
e8d56f18
JB
645*** Changes in GDB 7.3.1
646
647* The build failure for NetBSD and OpenBSD targets have now been fixed.
648
d6e00af6 649*** Changes in GDB 7.3
797054e6 650
60f98dde
MS
651* GDB has a new command: "thread find [REGEXP]".
652 It finds the thread id whose name, target id, or thread extra info
653 matches the given regular expression.
654
eee5b35e
DD
655* The "catch syscall" command now works on mips*-linux* targets.
656
b716877b
AB
657* The -data-disassemble MI command now supports modes 2 and 3 for
658 dumping the instruction opcodes.
659
aae1c79a
DE
660* New command line options
661
662-data-directory DIR Specify DIR as the "data-directory".
663 This is mostly for testing purposes.
664
a86caf66
DE
665* The "maint set python auto-load on|off" command has been renamed to
666 "set auto-load-scripts on|off".
667
99e7ae30
DE
668* GDB has a new command: "set directories".
669 It is like the "dir" command except that it replaces the
670 source path list instead of augmenting it.
671
4694da01
TT
672* GDB now understands thread names.
673
674 On GNU/Linux, "info threads" will display the thread name as set by
675 prctl or pthread_setname_np.
676
677 There is also a new command, "thread name", which can be used to
678 assign a name internally for GDB to display.
679
f4b8a18d
KW
680* OpenCL C
681 Initial support for the OpenCL C language (http://www.khronos.org/opencl)
682 has been integrated into GDB.
683
585d1eb8
PM
684* Python scripting
685
da5d4055
PM
686 ** The function gdb.Write now accepts an optional keyword 'stream'.
687 This keyword, when provided, will direct the output to either
688 stdout, stderr, or GDB's logging output.
689
9a6f1302
PM
690 ** Parameters can now be be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
691 you may implement the get_set_doc and get_show_doc functions.
692 This improves how Parameter set/show documentation is processed
693 and allows for more dynamic content.
694
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695 ** Symbols, Symbol Table, Symbol Table and Line, Object Files,
696 Inferior, Inferior Thread, Blocks, and Block Iterator APIs now
697 have an is_valid method.
698
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PM
699 ** Breakpoints can now be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
700 you may implement a 'stop' function that is executed each time
701 the inferior reaches that breakpoint.
702
6e6fbe60
DE
703 ** New function gdb.lookup_global_symbol looks up a global symbol.
704
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PM
705 ** GDB values in Python are now callable if the value represents a
706 function. For example, if 'some_value' represents a function that
707 takes two integer parameters and returns a value, you can call
708 that function like so:
709
710 result = some_value (10,20)
711
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DE
712 ** Module gdb.types has been added.
713 It contains a collection of utilities for working with gdb.Types objects:
714 get_basic_type, has_field, make_enum_dict.
715
7b51bc51
DE
716 ** Module gdb.printing has been added.
717 It contains utilities for writing and registering pretty-printers.
718 New classes: PrettyPrinter, SubPrettyPrinter,
719 RegexpCollectionPrettyPrinter.
720 New function: register_pretty_printer.
721
722 ** New commands "info pretty-printers", "enable pretty-printer" and
723 "disable pretty-printer" have been added.
724
99e7ae30
DE
725 ** gdb.parameter("directories") is now available.
726
d8e22779
TT
727 ** New function gdb.newest_frame returns the newest frame in the
728 selected thread.
729
4694da01
TT
730 ** The gdb.InferiorThread class has a new "name" attribute. This
731 holds the thread's name.
732
505500db
SW
733 ** Python Support for Inferior events.
734 Python scripts can add observers to be notified of events
824446ad 735 occurring in the process being debugged.
c17a9e46
HZ
736 The following events are currently supported:
737 - gdb.events.cont Continue event.
738 - gdb.events.exited Inferior exited event.
739 - gdb.events.stop Signal received, and Breakpoint hit events.
740
def98928
TT
741* C++ Improvements:
742
743 ** GDB now puts template parameters in scope when debugging in an
744 instantiation. For example, if you have:
745
746 template<int X> int func (void) { return X; }
747
748 then if you step into func<5>, "print X" will show "5". This
749 feature requires proper debuginfo support from the compiler; it
750 was added to GCC 4.5.
751
66cb8159
TT
752 ** The motion commands "next", "finish", "until", and "advance" now
753 work better when exceptions are thrown. In particular, GDB will
754 no longer lose control of the inferior; instead, the GDB will
755 stop the inferior at the point at which the exception is caught.
756 This functionality requires a change in the exception handling
757 code that was introduced in GCC 4.5.
758
4aac0db7
UW
759* GDB now follows GCC's rules on accessing volatile objects when
760 reading or writing target state during expression evaluation.
761 One notable difference to prior behavior is that "print x = 0"
762 no longer generates a read of x; the value of the assignment is
763 now always taken directly from the value being assigned.
764
283e6a52
TT
765* GDB now has some support for using labels in the program's source in
766 linespecs. For instance, you can use "advance label" to continue
767 execution to a label.
768
769* GDB now has support for reading and writing a new .gdb_index
770 section. This section holds a fast index of DWARF debugging
771 information and can be used to greatly speed up GDB startup and
772 operation. See the documentation for `save gdb-index' for details.
773
b56df873 774* The "watch" command now accepts an optional "-location" argument.
14c0d4e1 775 When used, this causes GDB to watch the memory referred to by the
b56df873
TT
776 expression. Such a watchpoint is never deleted due to it going out
777 of scope.
778
ae53ffa4
PA
779* GDB now supports thread debugging of core dumps on GNU/Linux.
780
781 GDB now activates thread debugging using the libthread_db library
782 when debugging GNU/Linux core dumps, similarly to when debugging
783 live processes. As a result, when debugging a core dump file, GDB
784 is now able to display pthread_t ids of threads. For example, "info
785 threads" shows the same output as when debugging the process when it
786 was live. In earlier releases, you'd see something like this:
787
788 (gdb) info threads
789 * 1 LWP 6780 main () at main.c:10
790
791 While now you see this:
792
793 (gdb) info threads
794 * 1 Thread 0x7f0f5712a700 (LWP 6780) main () at main.c:10
795
796 It is also now possible to inspect TLS variables when debugging core
797 dumps.
798
799 When debugging a core dump generated on a machine other than the one
800 used to run GDB, you may need to point GDB at the correct
801 libthread_db library with the "set libthread-db-search-path"
802 command. See the user manual for more details on this command.
803
f1310107
TJB
804* When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
805 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports ranged breakpoints,
806 which stop execution of the inferior whenever it executes an instruction
807 at any address within the specified range. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
808 section in the user manual for more details.
809
248c9dbc
JB
810* New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
811
1aee7009
JB
812 ** GDBserver is now supported on PowerPC LynxOS (versions 4.x and 5.x),
813 and i686 LynxOS (version 5.x).
248c9dbc 814
eb826dc6
MF
815 ** GDBserver is now supported on Blackfin Linux.
816
44603653
JB
817* New native configurations
818
819ia64 HP-UX ia64-*-hpux*
820
91021223
MF
821* New targets:
822
823Analog Devices, Inc. Blackfin Processor bfin-*
824
6e1bb179
JB
825* Ada task switching is now supported on sparc-elf targets when
826 debugging a program using the Ravenscar Profile. For more information,
827 see the "Tasking Support when using the Ravenscar Profile" section
828 in the GDB user manual.
829
50c97f38
TT
830* Guile support was removed.
831
448a92bf
MF
832* New features in the GNU simulator
833
834 ** The --map-info flag lists all known core mappings.
835
66ee2731
MF
836 ** CFI flashes may be simulated via the "cfi" device.
837
76b8507d 838*** Changes in GDB 7.2
bfbf3774 839
ba25b921
PA
840* Shared library support for remote targets by default
841
842 When GDB is configured for a generic, non-OS specific target, like
843 for example, --target=arm-eabi or one of the many *-*-elf targets,
844 GDB now queries remote stubs for loaded shared libraries using the
845 `qXfer:libraries:read' packet. Previously, shared library support
846 was always disabled for such configurations.
847
4656f5c6
SW
848* C++ Improvements:
849
850 ** Argument Dependent Lookup (ADL)
851
852 In C++ ADL lookup directs function search to the namespaces of its
853 arguments even if the namespace has not been imported.
854 For example:
855 namespace A
856 {
857 class B { };
858 void foo (B) { }
859 }
860 ...
861 A::B b
862 foo(b)
863 Here the compiler will search for `foo' in the namespace of 'b'
864 and find A::foo. GDB now supports this. This construct is commonly
865 used in the Standard Template Library for operators.
866
867 ** Improved User Defined Operator Support
868
869 In addition to member operators, GDB now supports lookup of operators
870 defined in a namespace and imported with a `using' directive, operators
871 defined in the global scope, operators imported implicitly from an
872 anonymous namespace, and the ADL operators mentioned in the previous
873 entry.
874 GDB now also supports proper overload resolution for all the previously
875 mentioned flavors of operators.
876
254e6b9e
DE
877 ** static const class members
878
879 Printing of static const class members that are initialized in the
880 class definition has been fixed.
881
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PM
882* Windows Thread Information Block access.
883
884 On Windows targets, GDB now supports displaying the Windows Thread
885 Information Block (TIB) structure. This structure is visible either
886 by using the new command `info w32 thread-information-block' or, by
887 dereferencing the new convenience variable named `$_tlb', a
888 thread-specific pointer to the TIB. This feature is also supported
889 when remote debugging using GDBserver.
890
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PA
891* Static tracepoints
892
893 Static tracepoints are calls in the user program into a tracing
894 library. One such library is a port of the LTTng kernel tracer to
895 userspace --- UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer, http://lttng.org/ust).
896 When debugging with GDBserver, GDB now supports combining the GDB
897 tracepoint machinery with such libraries. For example: the user can
898 use GDB to probe a static tracepoint marker (a call from the user
899 program into the tracing library) with the new "strace" command (see
900 "New commands" below). This creates a "static tracepoint" in the
901 breakpoint list, that can be manipulated with the same feature set
902 as fast and regular tracepoints. E.g., collect registers, local and
903 global variables, collect trace state variables, and define
904 tracepoint conditions. In addition, the user can collect extra
905 static tracepoint marker specific data, by collecting the new
906 $_sdata internal variable. When analyzing the trace buffer, you can
907 inspect $_sdata like any other variable available to GDB. For more
908 information, see the "Tracepoints" chapter in GDB user manual. New
909 remote packets have been defined to support static tracepoints, see
910 the "New remote packets" section below.
911
ca11e899
SS
912* Better reconstruction of tracepoints after disconnected tracing
913
914 GDB will attempt to download the original source form of tracepoint
915 definitions when starting a trace run, and then will upload these
916 upon reconnection to the target, resulting in a more accurate
917 reconstruction of the tracepoints that are in use on the target.
918
919* Observer mode
920
921 You can now exercise direct control over the ways that GDB can
922 affect your program. For instance, you can disallow the setting of
923 breakpoints, so that the program can run continuously (assuming
924 non-stop mode). In addition, the "observer" variable is available
925 to switch all of the different controls; in observer mode, GDB
926 cannot affect the target's behavior at all, which is useful for
927 tasks like diagnosing live systems in the field.
928
929* The new convenience variable $_thread holds the number of the
930 current thread.
931
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PM
932* New remote packets
933
934qGetTIBAddr
935
936 Return the address of the Windows Thread Information Block of a given thread.
937
dde08ee1
PA
938qRelocInsn
939
940 In response to several of the tracepoint packets, the target may now
941 also respond with a number of intermediate `qRelocInsn' request
942 packets before the final result packet, to have GDB handle
943 relocating an instruction to execute at a different address. This
944 is particularly useful for stubs that support fast tracepoints. GDB
945 reports support for this feature in the qSupported packet.
946
0fb4aa4b
PA
947qTfSTM, qTsSTM
948
949 List static tracepoint markers in the target program.
950
951qTSTMat
952
953 List static tracepoint markers at a given address in the target
954 program.
955
956qXfer:statictrace:read
957
958 Read the static trace data collected (by a `collect $_sdata'
959 tracepoint action). The remote stub reports support for this packet
960 to gdb's qSupported query.
961
ca11e899
SS
962QAllow
963
964 Send the current settings of GDB's permission flags.
965
966QTDPsrc
967
968 Send part of the source (textual) form of a tracepoint definition,
969 which includes location, conditional, and action list.
970
3f7b2faa
DE
971* The source command now accepts a -s option to force searching for the
972 script in the source search path even if the script name specifies
973 a directory.
974
d337e9f0
PA
975* New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
976
0fb4aa4b
PA
977 - GDBserver now support tracepoints (including fast tracepoints, and
978 static tracepoints). The feature is currently supported by the
979 i386-linux and amd64-linux builds. See the "Tracepoints support
980 in gdbserver" section in the manual for more information.
981
982 GDBserver JIT compiles the tracepoint's conditional agent
983 expression bytecode into native code whenever possible for low
984 overhead dynamic tracepoints conditionals. For such tracepoints,
985 an expression that examines program state is evaluated when the
986 tracepoint is reached, in order to determine whether to capture
987 trace data. If the condition is simple and false, processing the
988 tracepoint finishes very quickly and no data is gathered.
989
990 GDBserver interfaces with the UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer) library
991 for static tracepoints support.
d337e9f0 992
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PM
993 - GDBserver now supports x86_64 Windows 64-bit debugging.
994
c8d5aac9
L
995* GDB now sends xmlRegisters= in qSupported packet to indicate that
996 it understands register description.
997
7c953934
TT
998* The --batch flag now disables pagination and queries.
999
8685c86f
L
1000* X86 general purpose registers
1001
1002 GDB now supports reading/writing byte, word and double-word x86
1003 general purpose registers directly. This means you can use, say,
1004 $ah or $ax to refer, respectively, to the byte register AH and
1005 16-bit word register AX that are actually portions of the 32-bit
1006 register EAX or 64-bit register RAX.
1007
95a42b64 1008* The `commands' command now accepts a range of breakpoints to modify.
86b17b60
PA
1009 A plain `commands' following a command that creates multiple
1010 breakpoints affects all the breakpoints set by that command. This
1011 applies to breakpoints set by `rbreak', and also applies when a
1012 single `break' command creates multiple breakpoints (e.g.,
1013 breakpoints on overloaded c++ functions).
95a42b64 1014
8bd10a10
CM
1015* The `rbreak' command now accepts a filename specification as part of
1016 its argument, limiting the functions selected by the regex to those
1017 in the specified file.
1018
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PA
1019* Support for remote debugging Windows and SymbianOS shared libraries
1020 from Unix hosts has been improved. Non Windows GDB builds now can
1021 understand target reported file names that follow MS-DOS based file
1022 system semantics, such as file names that include drive letters and
1023 use the backslash character as directory separator. This makes it
1024 possible to transparently use the "set sysroot" and "set
1025 solib-search-path" on Unix hosts to point as host copies of the
1026 target's shared libraries. See the new command "set
1027 target-file-system-kind" described below, and the "Commands to
1028 specify files" section in the user manual for more information.
1029
6149aea9
PA
1030* New commands
1031
f1421989
HZ
1032eval template, expressions...
1033 Convert the values of one or more expressions under the control
1034 of the string template to a command line, and call it.
1035
ab38a727
PA
1036set target-file-system-kind unix|dos-based|auto
1037show target-file-system-kind
1038 Set or show the assumed file system kind for target reported file
1039 names.
1040
6149aea9
PA
1041save breakpoints <filename>
1042 Save all current breakpoint definitions to a file suitable for use
1043 in a later debugging session. To read the saved breakpoint
1044 definitions, use the `source' command.
1045
1046`save tracepoints' is a new alias for `save-tracepoints'. The latter
1047is now deprecated.
1048
0fb4aa4b
PA
1049info static-tracepoint-markers
1050 Display information about static tracepoint markers in the target.
1051
1052strace FN | FILE:LINE | *ADDR | -m MARKER_ID
1053 Define a static tracepoint by probing a marker at the given
1054 function, line, address, or marker ID.
1055
ca11e899
SS
1056set observer on|off
1057show observer
1058 Enable and disable observer mode.
1059
1060set may-write-registers on|off
1061set may-write-memory on|off
1062set may-insert-breakpoints on|off
1063set may-insert-tracepoints on|off
1064set may-insert-fast-tracepoints on|off
1065set may-interrupt on|off
1066 Set individual permissions for GDB effects on the target. Note that
1067 some of these settings can have undesirable or surprising
1068 consequences, particularly when changed in the middle of a session.
1069 For instance, disabling the writing of memory can prevent
1070 breakpoints from being inserted, cause single-stepping to fail, or
1071 even crash your program, if you disable after breakpoints have been
1072 inserted. However, GDB should not crash.
1073
1074set record memory-query on|off
1075show record memory-query
1076 Control whether to stop the inferior if memory changes caused
1077 by an instruction cannot be recorded.
1078
53a71c06
CR
1079* Changed commands
1080
1081disassemble
1082 The disassemble command now supports "start,+length" form of two arguments.
1083
f3e9a817
PM
1084* Python scripting
1085
9279c692
JB
1086** GDB now provides a new directory location, called the python directory,
1087 where Python scripts written for GDB can be installed. The location
1088 of that directory is <data-directory>/python, where <data-directory>
1089 is the GDB data directory. For more details, see section `Scripting
1090 GDB using Python' in the manual.
1091
adc36818 1092** The GDB Python API now has access to breakpoints, symbols, symbol
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PM
1093 tables, program spaces, inferiors, threads and frame's code blocks.
1094 Additionally, GDB Parameters can now be created from the API, and
1095 manipulated via set/show in the CLI.
f870a310 1096
fa33c3cd 1097** New functions gdb.target_charset, gdb.target_wide_charset,
07ca107c
DE
1098 gdb.progspaces, gdb.current_progspace, and gdb.string_to_argv.
1099
1100** New exception gdb.GdbError.
fa33c3cd
DE
1101
1102** Pretty-printers are now also looked up in the current program space.
f3e9a817 1103
967cf477
DE
1104** Pretty-printers can now be individually enabled and disabled.
1105
8a1ea21f
DE
1106** GDB now looks for names of Python scripts to auto-load in a
1107 special section named `.debug_gdb_scripts', in addition to looking
1108 for a OBJFILE-gdb.py script when OBJFILE is read by the debugger.
1109
a7bdde9e
VP
1110* Tracepoint actions were unified with breakpoint commands. In particular,
1111there are no longer differences in "info break" output for breakpoints and
1112tracepoints and the "commands" command can be used for both tracepoints and
1113regular breakpoints.
1114
05071a4d
PA
1115* New targets
1116
1117ARM Symbian arm*-*-symbianelf*
1118
6aecb9c2
JB
1119* D language support.
1120 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the D programming
1121 language.
1122
431e49aa
TJB
1123* GDB now supports the extended ptrace interface for PowerPC which is
1124 available since Linux kernel version 2.6.34. This automatically enables
1125 any hardware breakpoints and additional hardware watchpoints available in
1126 the processor. The old ptrace interface exposes just one hardware
1127 watchpoint and no hardware breakpoints.
1128
1129* GDB is now able to use the Data Value Compare (DVC) register available on
1130 embedded PowerPC processors to implement in hardware simple watchpoint
1131 conditions of the form:
1132
1133 watch ADDRESS|VARIABLE if ADDRESS|VARIABLE == CONSTANT EXPRESSION
1134
1135 This works in native GDB running on Linux kernels with the extended ptrace
1136 interface mentioned above.
1137
bfbf3774 1138*** Changes in GDB 7.1
abc7453d 1139
4eef138c
TT
1140* C++ Improvements
1141
1142 ** Namespace Support
71dee663
SW
1143
1144 GDB now supports importing of namespaces in C++. This enables the
1145 user to inspect variables from imported namespaces. Support for
1146 namepace aliasing has also been added. So, if a namespace is
1147 aliased in the current scope (e.g. namepace C=A; ) the user can
1148 print variables using the alias (e.g. (gdb) print C::x).
1149
4eef138c
TT
1150 ** Bug Fixes
1151
1152 All known bugs relating to the printing of virtual base class were
1153 fixed. It is now possible to call overloaded static methods using a
1154 qualified name.
1155
1156 ** Cast Operators
1157
1158 The C++ cast operators static_cast<>, dynamic_cast<>, const_cast<>,
1159 and reinterpret_cast<> are now handled by the C++ expression parser.
1160
2d1c1221
ME
1161* New targets
1162
1163Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze-*-*
34207b9e 1164Renesas RX rx-*-elf
2d1c1221
ME
1165
1166* New Simulators
1167
1168Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze
34207b9e 1169Renesas RX rx
2d1c1221 1170
6c95b8df
PA
1171* Multi-program debugging.
1172
1173 GDB now has support for multi-program (a.k.a. multi-executable or
1174 multi-exec) debugging. This allows for debugging multiple inferiors
1175 simultaneously each running a different program under the same GDB
1176 session. See "Debugging Multiple Inferiors and Programs" in the
1177 manual for more information. This implied some user visible changes
1178 in the multi-inferior support. For example, "info inferiors" now
1179 lists inferiors that are not running yet or that have exited
1180 already. See also "New commands" and "New options" below.
1181
d5551862
SS
1182* New tracing features
1183
1184 GDB's tracepoint facility now includes several new features:
1185
1186 ** Trace state variables
f61e138d
SS
1187
1188 GDB tracepoints now include support for trace state variables, which
1189 are variables managed by the target agent during a tracing
1190 experiment. They are useful for tracepoints that trigger each
1191 other, so for instance one tracepoint can count hits in a variable,
1192 and then a second tracepoint has a condition that is true when the
1193 count reaches a particular value. Trace state variables share the
1194 $-syntax of GDB convenience variables, and can appear in both
1195 tracepoint actions and condition expressions. Use the "tvariable"
1196 command to create, and "info tvariables" to view; see "Trace State
1197 Variables" in the manual for more detail.
7a697b8d 1198
d5551862 1199 ** Fast tracepoints
7a697b8d
SS
1200
1201 GDB now includes an option for defining fast tracepoints, which
1202 targets may implement more efficiently, such as by installing a jump
1203 into the target agent rather than a trap instruction. The resulting
1204 speedup can be by two orders of magnitude or more, although the
1205 tradeoff is that some program locations on some target architectures
1206 might not allow fast tracepoint installation, for instance if the
1207 instruction to be replaced is shorter than the jump. To request a
1208 fast tracepoint, use the "ftrace" command, with syntax identical to
1209 the regular trace command.
1210
d5551862
SS
1211 ** Disconnected tracing
1212
1213 It is now possible to detach GDB from the target while it is running
1214 a trace experiment, then reconnect later to see how the experiment
1215 is going. In addition, a new variable disconnected-tracing lets you
1216 tell the target agent whether to continue running a trace if the
1217 connection is lost unexpectedly.
1218
00bf0b85
SS
1219 ** Trace files
1220
1221 GDB now has the ability to save the trace buffer into a file, and
1222 then use that file as a target, similarly to you can do with
1223 corefiles. You can select trace frames, print data that was
1224 collected in them, and use tstatus to display the state of the
1225 tracing run at the moment that it was saved. To create a trace
1226 file, use "tsave <filename>", and to use it, do "target tfile
1227 <name>".
4daf5ac0
SS
1228
1229 ** Circular trace buffer
1230
1231 You can ask the target agent to handle the trace buffer as a
1232 circular buffer, discarding the oldest trace frames to make room for
1233 newer ones, by setting circular-trace-buffer to on. This feature may
1234 not be available for all target agents.
1235
21a0512e
PP
1236* Changed commands
1237
1238disassemble
1239 The disassemble command, when invoked with two arguments, now requires
1240 the arguments to be comma-separated.
1241
0fe7935b
DJ
1242info variables
1243 The info variables command now displays variable definitions. Files
1244 which only declare a variable are not shown.
1245
fb2e7cb4
JB
1246source
1247 The source command is now capable of sourcing Python scripts.
1248 This feature is dependent on the debugger being build with Python
1249 support.
1250
1251 Related to this enhancement is also the introduction of a new command
1252 "set script-extension" (see below).
1253
6c95b8df
PA
1254* New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
1255
399cd161
MS
1256record save [<FILENAME>]
1257 Save a file (in core file format) containing the process record
1258 execution log for replay debugging at a later time.
1259
1260record restore <FILENAME>
1261 Restore the process record execution log that was saved at an
1262 earlier time, for replay debugging.
1263
6c95b8df
PA
1264add-inferior [-copies <N>] [-exec <FILENAME>]
1265 Add a new inferior.
1266
1267clone-inferior [-copies <N>] [ID]
1268 Make a new inferior ready to execute the same program another
1269 inferior has loaded.
1270
1271remove-inferior ID
1272 Remove an inferior.
1273
1274maint info program-spaces
1275 List the program spaces loaded into GDB.
1276
9a7071a8
JB
1277set remote interrupt-sequence [Ctrl-C | BREAK | BREAK-g]
1278show remote interrupt-sequence
1279 Allow the user to select one of ^C, a BREAK signal or BREAK-g
1280 as the sequence to the remote target in order to interrupt the execution.
1281 Ctrl-C is a default. Some system prefers BREAK which is high level of
1282 serial line for some certain time. Linux kernel prefers BREAK-g, a.k.a
1283 Magic SysRq g. It is BREAK signal and character 'g'.
1284
1285set remote interrupt-on-connect [on | off]
1286show remote interrupt-on-connect
1287 When interrupt-on-connect is ON, gdb sends interrupt-sequence to
1288 remote target when gdb connects to it. This is needed when you debug
1289 Linux kernel.
1290
1291set remotebreak [on | off]
1292show remotebreak
1293Deprecated. Use "set/show remote interrupt-sequence" instead.
1294
f61e138d
SS
1295tvariable $NAME [ = EXP ]
1296 Create or modify a trace state variable.
1297
1298info tvariables
1299 List trace state variables and their values.
1300
1301delete tvariable $NAME ...
1302 Delete one or more trace state variables.
1303
6da95a67
SS
1304teval EXPR, ...
1305 Evaluate the given expressions without collecting anything into the
1306 trace buffer. (Valid in tracepoint actions only.)
1307
7a697b8d
SS
1308ftrace FN / FILE:LINE / *ADDR
1309 Define a fast tracepoint at the given function, line, or address.
1310
b0f02ee9
JK
1311* New expression syntax
1312
1313 GDB now parses the 0b prefix of binary numbers the same way as GCC does.
1314 GDB now parses 0b101010 identically with 42.
1315
6c95b8df
PA
1316* New options
1317
1318set follow-exec-mode new|same
1319show follow-exec-mode
1320 Control whether GDB reuses the same inferior across an exec call or
1321 creates a new one. This is useful to be able to restart the old
1322 executable after the inferior having done an exec call.
1323
236f1d4d
SS
1324set default-collect EXPR, ...
1325show default-collect
1326 Define a list of expressions to be collected at each tracepoint.
1327 This is a useful way to ensure essential items are not overlooked,
1328 such as registers or a critical global variable.
1329
d5551862
SS
1330set disconnected-tracing
1331show disconnected-tracing
1332 If set to 1, the target is instructed to continue tracing if it
1333 loses its connection to GDB. If 0, the target is to stop tracing
1334 upon disconnection.
1335
4daf5ac0
SS
1336set circular-trace-buffer
1337show circular-trace-buffer
1338 If set to on, the target is instructed to use a circular trace buffer
1339 and discard the oldest trace frames instead of stopping the trace due
1340 to a full trace buffer. If set to off, the trace stops when the buffer
1341 fills up. Some targets may not support this.
1342
fb2e7cb4
JB
1343set script-extension off|soft|strict
1344show script-extension
1345 If set to "off", the debugger does not perform any script language
1346 recognition, and all sourced files are assumed to be GDB scripts.
1347 If set to "soft" (the default), files are sourced according to
1348 filename extension, falling back to GDB scripts if the first
1349 evaluation failed.
1350 If set to "strict", files are sourced according to filename extension.
1351
2b71fc8e
JB
1352set ada trust-PAD-over-XVS on|off
1353show ada trust-PAD-over-XVS
1354 If off, activate a workaround against a bug in the debugging information
1355 generated by the compiler for PAD types (see gcc/exp_dbug.ads in
1356 the GCC sources for more information about the GNAT encoding and
1357 PAD types in particular). It is always safe to set this option to
1358 off, but this introduces a slight performance penalty. The default
1359 is on.
1360
de2e5182
TT
1361* Python API Improvements
1362
1363 ** GDB provides the new class gdb.LazyString. This is useful in
1364 some pretty-printing cases. The new method gdb.Value.lazy_string
1365 provides a simple way to create objects of this type.
1366
1367 ** The fields returned by gdb.Type.fields now have an
1368 `is_base_class' attribute.
1369
1370 ** The new method gdb.Type.range returns the range of an array type.
1371
1372 ** The new method gdb.parse_and_eval can be used to parse and
1373 evaluate an expression.
1374
f61e138d
SS
1375* New remote packets
1376
1377QTDV
1378 Define a trace state variable.
1379
1380qTV
1381 Get the current value of a trace state variable.
1382
d5551862
SS
1383QTDisconnected
1384 Set desired tracing behavior upon disconnection.
1385
4daf5ac0
SS
1386QTBuffer:circular
1387 Set the trace buffer to be linear or circular.
1388
d5551862
SS
1389qTfP, qTsP
1390 Get data about the tracepoints currently in use.
1391
2d483d34
MS
1392* Bug fixes
1393
1394Process record now works correctly with hardware watchpoints.
1395
6e0e5977
JB
1396Multiple bug fixes have been made to the mips-irix port, making it
1397much more reliable. In particular:
1398 - Debugging threaded applications is now possible again. Previously,
1399 GDB would hang while starting the program, or while waiting for
1400 the program to stop at a breakpoint.
1401 - Attaching to a running process no longer hangs.
1402 - An error occurring while loading a core file has been fixed.
1403 - Changing the value of the PC register now works again. This fixes
1404 problems observed when using the "jump" command, or when calling
1405 a function from GDB, or even when assigning a new value to $pc.
1406 - With the "finish" and "return" commands, the return value for functions
1407 returning a small array is now correctly printed.
1408 - It is now possible to break on shared library code which gets executed
1409 during a shared library init phase (code executed while executing
1410 their .init section). Previously, the breakpoint would have no effect.
1411 - GDB is now able to backtrace through the signal handler for
1412 non-threaded programs.
1413
93c26624
JK
1414PIE (Position Independent Executable) programs debugging is now supported.
1415This includes debugging execution of PIC (Position Independent Code) shared
1416libraries although for that, it should be possible to run such libraries as an
1417executable program.
1418
abc7453d 1419*** Changes in GDB 7.0
75feb17d 1420
4efc6507
DE
1421* GDB now has an interface for JIT compilation. Applications that
1422dynamically generate code can create symbol files in memory and register
1423them with GDB. For users, the feature should work transparently, and
1424for JIT developers, the interface is documented in the GDB manual in the
1425"JIT Compilation Interface" chapter.
1426
782b2b07
SS
1427* Tracepoints may now be conditional. The syntax is as for
1428breakpoints; either an "if" clause appended to the "trace" command,
1429or the "condition" command is available. GDB sends the condition to
1430the target for evaluation using the same bytecode format as is used
1431for tracepoint actions.
1432
53a71c06
CR
1433* The disassemble command now supports: an optional /r modifier, print the
1434raw instructions in hex as well as in symbolic form, and an optional /m
1435modifier to print mixed source+assembly.
e6158f16 1436
e7a8dbfb
HZ
1437* Process record and replay
1438
1439 In a architecture environment that supports ``process record and
1440 replay'', ``process record and replay'' target can record a log of
1441 the process execution, and replay it with both forward and reverse
1442 execute commands.
1443
64644d9b
MS
1444* Reverse debugging: GDB now has new commands reverse-continue, reverse-
1445step, reverse-next, reverse-finish, reverse-stepi, reverse-nexti, and
1446set execution-direction {forward|reverse}, for targets that support
1447reverse execution.
1448
b9412953
DD
1449* GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on MIPS/Linux systems. This
1450feature is available with a native GDB running on kernel version
14512.6.28 or later.
1452
6c7a06a3
TT
1453* GDB now has support for multi-byte and wide character sets on the
1454target. Strings whose character type is wchar_t, char16_t, or
1455char32_t are now correctly printed. GDB supports wide- and unicode-
1456literals in C, that is, L'x', L"string", u'x', u"string", U'x', and
1457U"string" syntax. And, GDB allows the "%ls" and "%lc" formats in
1458`printf'. This feature requires iconv to work properly; if your
1459system does not have a working iconv, GDB can use GNU libiconv. See
1460the installation instructions for more information.
1461
f1838a98
UW
1462* GDB now supports automatic retrieval of shared library files from
1463remote targets. To use this feature, specify a system root that begins
1464with the `remote:' prefix, either via the `set sysroot' command or via
1465the `--with-sysroot' configure-time option.
1466
55333a84
DE
1467* "info sharedlibrary" now takes an optional regex of libraries to show,
1468and it now reports if a shared library has no debugging information.
1469
7f6a6314
PM
1470* Commands `set debug-file-directory', `set solib-search-path' and `set args'
1471now complete on file names.
1472
65d12d83
TT
1473* When completing in expressions, gdb will attempt to limit
1474completions to allowable structure or union fields, where appropriate.
1475For instance, consider:
1476
1477 # struct example { int f1; double f2; };
1478 # struct example variable;
1479 (gdb) p variable.
1480
1481If the user types TAB at the end of this command line, the available
1482completions will be "f1" and "f2".
1483
edb3359d
DJ
1484* Inlined functions are now supported. They show up in backtraces, and
1485the "step", "next", and "finish" commands handle them automatically.
1486
2fae03e8
TT
1487* GDB now supports the token-splicing (##) and stringification (#)
1488operators when expanding macros. It also supports variable-arity
1489macros.
1490
47a3467a 1491* GDB now supports inspecting extra signal information, exported by
58d6951d
DJ
1492the new $_siginfo convenience variable. The feature is currently
1493implemented on linux ARM, i386 and amd64.
1494
1495* GDB can now display the VFP floating point registers and NEON vector
1496registers on ARM targets. Both ARM GNU/Linux native GDB and gdbserver
1497can provide these registers (requires Linux 2.6.30 or later). Remote
1498and simulator targets may also provide them.
47a3467a 1499
08388c79
DE
1500* New remote packets
1501
1502qSearch:memory:
1503 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
1504
a6f3e723
SL
1505QStartNoAckMode
1506 Turn off `+'/`-' protocol acknowledgments to permit more efficient
1507 operation over reliable transport links. Use of this packet is
1508 controlled by the `set remote noack-packet' command.
1509
d7713ae0
EZ
1510vKill
1511 Kill the process with the specified process ID. Use this in preference
1512 to `k' when multiprocess protocol extensions are supported.
1513
07e059b5
VP
1514qXfer:osdata:read
1515 Obtains additional operating system information
1516
47a3467a
PA
1517qXfer:siginfo:read
1518qXfer:siginfo:write
1519 Read or write additional signal information.
1520
060871df
PA
1521* Removed remote protocol undocumented extension
1522
1523 An undocumented extension to the remote protocol's `S' stop reply
1524 packet that permited the stub to pass a process id was removed.
1525 Remote servers should use the `T' stop reply packet instead.
1526
c055b101 1527* GDB now supports multiple function calling conventions according to the
a0ef4274 1528DWARF-2 DW_AT_calling_convention function attribute.
c055b101
CV
1529
1530* The SH target utilizes the aforementioned change to distinguish between gcc
a0ef4274
DJ
1531and Renesas calling convention. It also adds the new CLI commands
1532`set/show sh calling-convention'.
c055b101 1533
31fffb02
CS
1534* GDB can now read compressed debug sections, as produced by GNU gold
1535with the --compress-debug-sections=zlib flag.
1536
88d8a8e0
JB
1537* 64-bit core files are now supported on AIX.
1538
7f99b190
JB
1539* Thread switching is now supported on Tru64.
1540
ccd213ac
DJ
1541* Watchpoints can now be set on unreadable memory locations, e.g. addresses
1542which will be allocated using malloc later in program execution.
1543
1fddbabb 1544* The qXfer:libraries:read remote procotol packet now allows passing a
31fffb02 1545list of section offsets.
1fddbabb 1546
a0ef4274
DJ
1547* On GNU/Linux, GDB can now attach to stopped processes. Several race
1548conditions handling signals delivered during attach or thread creation
1549have also been fixed.
1550
bfb8797a 1551* GDB now supports the use of DWARF boolean types for Ada's type Boolean.
158c7665
PH
1552From the user's standpoint, all unqualified instances of True and False
1553are treated as the standard definitions, regardless of context.
bfb8797a 1554
71c25dea
TT
1555* GDB now parses C++ symbol and type names more flexibly. For
1556example, given:
1557
1558 template<typename T> class C { };
1559 C<char const *> c;
1560
1561GDB will now correctly handle all of:
1562
1563 ptype C<char const *>
1564 ptype C<char const*>
1565 ptype C<const char *>
1566 ptype C<const char*>
1567
ccd213ac
DJ
1568* New features in the GDB remote stub, gdbserver
1569
1570 - The "--wrapper" command-line argument tells gdbserver to use a
1571 wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
1572
7ae0e2a2
UW
1573 - On PowerPC and S/390 targets, it is now possible to use a single
1574 gdbserver executable to debug both 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
1575 (This requires gdbserver itself to be built as a 64-bit executable.)
1576
a6f3e723
SL
1577 - gdbserver uses the new noack protocol mode for TCP connections to
1578 reduce communications latency, if also supported and enabled in GDB.
1579
da8bd9a3
DJ
1580 - Support for the sparc64-linux-gnu target is now included in
1581 gdbserver.
1582
d70e31dd
DE
1583 - The amd64-linux build of gdbserver now supports debugging both
1584 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
1585
1586 - The i386-linux, amd64-linux, and i386-win32 builds of gdbserver
1587 now support hardware watchpoints, and will use them automatically
1588 as appropriate.
1589
d57a3c85
TJB
1590* Python scripting
1591
1592 GDB now has support for scripting using Python. Whether this is
1593 available is determined at configure time.
1594
d8906c6f
TJB
1595 New GDB commands can now be written in Python.
1596
aadc346a
JB
1597* Ada tasking support
1598
1599 Ada tasks can now be inspected in GDB. The following commands have
1600 been introduced:
1601
1602 info tasks
1603 Print the list of Ada tasks.
1604 info task N
1605 Print detailed information about task number N.
1606 task
1607 Print the task number of the current task.
1608 task N
1609 Switch the context of debugging to task number N.
1610
adb483fe
DJ
1611* Support for user-defined prefixed commands. The "define" command can
1612add new commands to existing prefixes, e.g. "target".
1613
2277426b
PA
1614* Multi-inferior, multi-process debugging.
1615
1616 GDB now has generalized support for multi-inferior debugging. See
1617 "Debugging Multiple Inferiors" in the manual for more information.
1618 Although availability still depends on target support, the command
1619 set is more uniform now. The GNU/Linux specific multi-forks support
1620 has been migrated to this new framework. This implied some user
1621 visible changes; see "New commands" and also "Removed commands"
1622 below.
1623
08d16641
PA
1624* Target descriptions can now describe the target OS ABI. See the
1625"Target Description Format" section in the user manual for more
1626information.
1627
e35359c5
UW
1628* Target descriptions can now describe "compatible" architectures
1629to indicate that the target can execute applications for a different
1630architecture in addition to those for the main target architecture.
1631See the "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for
1632more information.
1633
85e747d2
UW
1634* Multi-architecture debugging.
1635
1636 GDB now includes general supports for debugging applications on
1637 hybrid systems that use more than one single processor architecture
1638 at the same time. Each such hybrid architecture still requires
1639 specific support to be added. The only hybrid architecture supported
1640 in this version of GDB is the Cell Broadband Engine.
1641
1642* GDB now supports integrated debugging of Cell/B.E. applications that
1643use both the PPU and SPU architectures. To enable support for hybrid
1644Cell/B.E. debugging, you need to configure GDB to support both the
1645powerpc-linux or powerpc64-linux and the spu-elf targets, using the
1646--enable-targets configure option.
1647
11ade57a
PA
1648* Non-stop mode debugging.
1649
1650 For some targets, GDB now supports an optional mode of operation in
1651 which you can examine stopped threads while other threads continue
1652 to execute freely. This is referred to as non-stop mode, with the
1653 old mode referred to as all-stop mode. See the "Non-Stop Mode"
1654 section in the user manual for more information.
1655
1656 To be able to support remote non-stop debugging, a remote stub needs
1657 to implement the non-stop mode remote protocol extensions, as
1658 described in the "Remote Non-Stop" section of the user manual. The
1659 GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been adjusted to support these
1660 extensions on linux targets.
1661
d7713ae0 1662* New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
75feb17d 1663
a96d9b2e
SDJ
1664catch syscall [NAME(S) | NUMBER(S)]
1665 Catch system calls. Arguments, which should be names of system
1666 calls or their numbers, mean catch only those syscalls. Without
1667 arguments, every syscall will be caught. When the inferior issues
1668 any of the specified syscalls, GDB will stop and announce the system
1669 call, both when it is called and when its call returns. This
1670 feature is currently available with a native GDB running on the
1671 Linux Kernel, under the following architectures: x86, x86_64,
1672 PowerPC and PowerPC64.
1673
08388c79
DE
1674find [/size-char] [/max-count] start-address, end-address|+search-space-size,
1675 val1 [, val2, ...]
1676 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
1677
d57a3c85
TJB
1678maint set python print-stack
1679maint show python print-stack
1680 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Python script.
1681
1682python [CODE]
1683 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Python interpreter.
1684
d7713ae0
EZ
1685macro define
1686macro list
1687macro undef
1688 These allow macros to be defined, undefined, and listed
1689 interactively.
1690
1691info os processes
1692 Show operating system information about processes.
1693
2277426b
PA
1694info inferiors
1695 List the inferiors currently under GDB's control.
1696
1697inferior NUM
1698 Switch focus to inferior number NUM.
1699
1700detach inferior NUM
1701 Detach from inferior number NUM.
1702
1703kill inferior NUM
1704 Kill inferior number NUM.
1705
d7713ae0
EZ
1706* New options
1707
3285f3fe
UW
1708set spu stop-on-load
1709show spu stop-on-load
1710 Control whether to stop for new SPE threads during Cell/B.E. debugging.
1711
ff1a52c6
UW
1712set spu auto-flush-cache
1713show spu auto-flush-cache
1714 Control whether to automatically flush the software-managed cache
1715 during Cell/B.E. debugging.
1716
d7713ae0
EZ
1717set sh calling-convention
1718show sh calling-convention
1719 Control the calling convention used when calling SH target functions.
1720
e0a3ce09 1721set debug timestamp
75feb17d 1722show debug timestamp
d7713ae0
EZ
1723 Control display of timestamps with GDB debugging output.
1724
1725set disassemble-next-line
1726show disassemble-next-line
1727 Control display of disassembled source lines or instructions when
1728 the debuggee stops.
1729
1730set remote noack-packet
1731show remote noack-packet
1732 Set/show the use of remote protocol QStartNoAckMode packet. See above
1733 under "New remote packets."
1734
1735set remote query-attached-packet
1736show remote query-attached-packet
1737 Control use of remote protocol `qAttached' (query-attached) packet.
1738
1739set remote read-siginfo-object
1740show remote read-siginfo-object
1741 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:read' (read-siginfo-object)
1742 packet.
1743
1744set remote write-siginfo-object
1745show remote write-siginfo-object
1746 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:write' (write-siginfo-object)
1747 packet.
1748
40ab02ce
MS
1749set remote reverse-continue
1750show remote reverse-continue
1751 Control use of remote protocol 'bc' (reverse-continue) packet.
1752
1753set remote reverse-step
1754show remote reverse-step
1755 Control use of remote protocol 'bs' (reverse-step) packet.
1756
d7713ae0
EZ
1757set displaced-stepping
1758show displaced-stepping
1759 Control displaced stepping mode. Displaced stepping is a way to
1760 single-step over breakpoints without removing them from the debuggee.
1761 Also known as "out-of-line single-stepping".
1762
1763set debug displaced
1764show debug displaced
1765 Control display of debugging info for displaced stepping.
1766
1767maint set internal-error
1768maint show internal-error
1769 Control what GDB does when an internal error is detected.
1770
1771maint set internal-warning
1772maint show internal-warning
1773 Control what GDB does when an internal warning is detected.
75feb17d 1774
ccd213ac
DJ
1775set exec-wrapper
1776show exec-wrapper
1777unset exec-wrapper
1778 Use a wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
fa4727a6 1779
aad4b048
JB
1780set multiple-symbols (all|ask|cancel)
1781show multiple-symbols
1782 The value of this variable can be changed to adjust the debugger behavior
1783 when an expression or a breakpoint location contains an ambiguous symbol
1784 name (an overloaded function name, for instance).
1785
74960c60
VP
1786set breakpoint always-inserted
1787show breakpoint always-inserted
1788 Keep breakpoints always inserted in the target, as opposed to inserting
1789 them when resuming the target, and removing them when the target stops.
1790 This option can improve debugger performance on slow remote targets.
1791
0428b8f5
DJ
1792set arm fallback-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
1793show arm fallback-mode
1794set arm force-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
1795show arm force-mode
1796 These commands control how ARM GDB determines whether instructions
1797 are ARM or Thumb. The default for both settings is auto, which uses
1798 the current CPSR value for instructions without symbols; previous
1799 versions of GDB behaved as if "set arm fallback-mode arm".
1800
10568435
JK
1801set disable-randomization
1802show disable-randomization
1803 Standalone programs run with the virtual address space randomization enabled
1804 by default on some platforms. This option keeps the addresses stable across
1805 multiple debugging sessions.
1806
d7713ae0
EZ
1807set non-stop
1808show non-stop
1809 Control whether other threads are stopped or not when some thread hits
1810 a breakpoint.
1811
b3eb342c 1812set target-async
d7713ae0 1813show target-async
b3eb342c
VP
1814 Requests that asynchronous execution is enabled in the target, if available.
1815 In this case, it's possible to resume target in the background, and interact
1816 with GDB while the target is running. "show target-async" displays the
1817 current state of asynchronous execution of the target.
1818
6c7a06a3
TT
1819set target-wide-charset
1820show target-wide-charset
1821 The target-wide-charset is the name of the character set that GDB
1822 uses when printing characters whose type is wchar_t.
1823
84603566
SL
1824set tcp auto-retry (on|off)
1825show tcp auto-retry
1826set tcp connect-timeout
1827show tcp connect-timeout
1828 These commands allow GDB to retry failed TCP connections to a remote stub
1829 with a specified timeout period; this is useful if the stub is launched
1830 in parallel with GDB but may not be ready to accept connections immediately.
1831
17a37d48
PP
1832set libthread-db-search-path
1833show libthread-db-search-path
1834 Control list of directories which GDB will search for appropriate
1835 libthread_db.
1836
d4db2f36
PA
1837set schedule-multiple (on|off)
1838show schedule-multiple
1839 Allow GDB to resume all threads of all processes or only threads of
1840 the current process.
1841
4e5d721f
DE
1842set stack-cache
1843show stack-cache
1844 Use more aggressive caching for accesses to the stack. This improves
1845 performance of remote debugging (particularly backtraces) without
1846 affecting correctness.
1847
910c5da8
JB
1848set interactive-mode (on|off|auto)
1849show interactive-mode
1850 Control whether GDB runs in interactive mode (on) or not (off).
1851 When in interactive mode, GDB waits for the user to answer all
1852 queries. Otherwise, GDB does not wait and assumes the default
1853 answer. When set to auto (the default), GDB determines which
1854 mode to use based on the stdin settings.
1855
2277426b
PA
1856* Removed commands
1857
1858info forks
1859 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `info
1860 inferiors' command. To list checkpoints, you can still use the
1861 `info checkpoints' command, which was an alias for the `info forks'
1862 command.
1863
1864fork NUM
1865 Replaced by the new `inferior' command. To switch between
1866 checkpoints, you can still use the `restart' command, which was an
1867 alias for the `fork' command.
1868
1869process PID
1870 This is removed, since some targets don't have a notion of
1871 processes. To switch between processes, you can still use the
1872 `inferior' command using GDB's own inferior number.
1873
1874delete fork NUM
1875 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `kill
1876 inferior' command. To delete a checkpoint, you can still use the
1877 `delete checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `delete
1878 fork' command.
1879
1880detach fork NUM
1881 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `detach
1882 inferior' command. To detach a checkpoint, you can still use the
1883 `detach checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `detach
1884 fork' command.
1885
a80b95ba
TG
1886* New native configurations
1887
1888x86/x86_64 Darwin i[34567]86-*-darwin*
1889
b8bfd3ed
JB
1890x86_64 MinGW x86_64-*-mingw*
1891
75a2d5e7
TT
1892* New targets
1893
c28c63d8 1894Lattice Mico32 lm32-*
75a2d5e7 1895x86 DICOS i[34567]86-*-dicos*
4c1d2973 1896x86_64 DICOS x86_64-*-dicos*
5f814c3b 1897S+core 3 score-*-*
75a2d5e7 1898
6de3146c
PA
1899* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports x86 Windows CE
1900 (mingw32ce) debugging.
1901
d5cbbe6e
JB
1902* Removed commands
1903
1904catch load
1905catch unload
1906 These commands were actually not implemented on any target.
1907
75feb17d 1908*** Changes in GDB 6.8
f9ed52be 1909
af5ca30d
NH
1910* New native configurations
1911
1912NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*netbsd*
94a0e877 1913Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
af5ca30d
NH
1914
1915* New targets
1916
1917NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*-netbsd*
94a0e877 1918Xtensa GNU/Lunux xtensa*-*-linux*
af5ca30d 1919
7a404eba
PA
1920* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
1921
1922 When the '-p NUMBER' or '--pid NUMBER' options are used, and
1923 attaching to process NUMBER fails, GDB no longer attempts to open a
1924 core file named NUMBER. Attaching to a program using the -c option
1925 is no longer supported. Instead, use the '-p' or '--pid' options.
1926
430ebac9
PA
1927* GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
1928(mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
1929
fe6fbf8b 1930* Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
8d5f9c6f 1931is resolved.
fe6fbf8b
VP
1932
1933* GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
8d5f9c6f
DJ
1934including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
1935and in inlined functions.
fe6fbf8b 1936
10665d76
JB
1937* GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
1938accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
1939more than one contiguous range of addresses.
1940
7cc46491
DJ
1941* Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
1942
d71340b8
DJ
1943* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
1944registers on PowerPC targets.
1945
523c4513
DJ
1946* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
1947targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
1948
a6b151f1
DJ
1949* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
1950commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
1951
2d717e4f
DJ
1952* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports run and attach in
1953extended-remote mode.
1954
24a836bd 1955* hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
d001be7a
DJ
1956The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
1957error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
1958The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
24a836bd 1959
d0c678e6
UW
1960* GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
1961building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
1962target architectures.
1963
d64a946d
TJB
1964* GDB now supports debugging C and C++ programs which use the
1965Decimal Floating Point extension. In addition, the PowerPC target
1966now has a set of pseudo-registers to inspect decimal float values
1967stored in two consecutive float registers.
1968
ee163bf5
VP
1969* The -break-insert MI command can optionally create pending
1970breakpoints now.
1971
b93b6ca7 1972* Improved support for debugging Ada
d001be7a
DJ
1973Many improvements to the Ada language support have been made. These
1974include:
b93b6ca7
JB
1975 - Better support for Ada2005 interface types
1976 - Improved handling of arrays and slices in general
1977 - Better support for Taft-amendment types
1978 - The '{type} ADDRESS' expression is now allowed on the left hand-side
1979 of an assignment
1980 - Improved command completion in Ada
1981 - Several bug fixes
1982
d001be7a
DJ
1983* GDB on GNU/Linux and HP/UX can now debug through "exec" of a new
1984process.
1985
a6b151f1
DJ
1986* New commands
1987
6d53d0af
JB
1988set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
1989show print frame-arguments
1990 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
1991 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
1992
a6b151f1
DJ
1993remote put
1994remote get
1995remote delete
1996 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
1997
1998* New MI commands
1999
2000-target-file-put
2001-target-file-get
2002-target-file-delete
2003 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
2004
2005* New remote packets
2006
2007vFile:open:
2008vFile:close:
2009vFile:pread:
2010vFile:pwrite:
2011vFile:unlink:
2012 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
d0c678e6 2013
2d717e4f
DJ
2014vAttach
2015 Attach to an existing process on the remote system, in extended-remote
2016 mode.
2017
2018vRun
2019 Run a new process on the remote system, in extended-remote mode.
2020
8d5f9c6f 2021*** Changes in GDB 6.7
6dd09645 2022
19d378fc
MS
2023* Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
2024bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
2025Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
2026
3a40aaa0
UW
2027* When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
2028symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
2029-Bsymbolic linker option.
2030
a6ec25f2
BW
2031* When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
2032recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
2033is not supported.
2034
6dd09645
JB
2035* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
2036frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
2037
c9bb8148
DJ
2038* GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
203932-bit or 64-bit register values.
2040
0d5de010
DJ
2041* Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
2042
23181151
DJ
2043* GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
2044target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
2045a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
2046
ea37ba09
DJ
2047* Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
2048automatically displayed as character or string data.
2049
2050* The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
2051arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
2052as strings.
e1f48ead 2053
123dc839
DJ
2054* Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
2055for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
8d5f9c6f 2056only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
123dc839 2057
05a4558a
DJ
2058* GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
2059iWMMXt coprocessor.
fb1e4ffc 2060
7c963485
PA
2061* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
2062ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
2063has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
2064
b18be20d
DJ
2065* GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
2066
0ca420ce
UW
2067* GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
2068
31d99776
DJ
2069* The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
2070layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
2071segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
2072
a4642986
MR
2073* The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
2074immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
2075
cfa9d6d9
DJ
2076* The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
2077"library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
2078packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
2079where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
2080Windows and SymbianOS).
255e7678
DJ
2081
2082* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
2083(DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
f5db8714
JK
2084
2085* GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
2086according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
cfa9d6d9 2087
c9bb8148
DJ
2088* New commands
2089
23776285
MR
2090set remoteflow
2091show remoteflow
2092 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
2093 when debugging using remote targets.
2094
c9bb8148
DJ
2095set mem inaccessible-by-default
2096show mem inaccessible-by-default
2097 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
2098 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
2099 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
2100 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
2101 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
2102
2103set breakpoint auto-hw
2104show breakpoint auto-hw
2105 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
2106 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
2107 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
2108 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
2109 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
2110 including "next" and "finish".
2111
0e420bd8
JB
2112catch exception
2113catch exception unhandled
2114 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
2115
2116catch assert
2117 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
2118
f822c95b
DJ
2119set sysroot
2120show sysroot
2121 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
2122 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
2123 an alias to "set sysroot".
2124
83cc5c53
UW
2125info spu
2126 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
2127 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
2128 architecture.
2129
bd372731
MK
2130* New native configurations
2131
2132OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
2133
23181151
DJ
2134set tdesc filename
2135unset tdesc filename
2136show tdesc filename
2137 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
2138 not query the target for its built-in description.
2139
c9bb8148
DJ
2140* New targets
2141
54fe9172 2142OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
c9bb8148 2143MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
c077150c 2144Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
c9bb8148 2145
6dd09645
JB
2146* New remote packets
2147
2148QPassSignals:
2149 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
2150 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
2151
23181151
DJ
2152qXfer:features:read:
2153 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
2154 features.
6dd09645 2155
83cc5c53
UW
2156qXfer:spu:read:
2157qXfer:spu:write:
2158 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
2159 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
2160
cfa9d6d9
DJ
2161qXfer:libraries:read:
2162 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
2163 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
2164 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
2165 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
2166
483367ee
DJ
2167* Removed targets
2168
2169Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
2170
d08950c4
UW
2171alpha*-*-osf1*
2172alpha*-*-osf2*
7ce59000 2173d10v-*-*
483367ee
DJ
2174hppa*-*-hiux*
2175i[34567]86-ncr-*
2176i[34567]86-*-dgux*
2177i[34567]86-*-lynxos*
2178i[34567]86-*-netware*
2179i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
2180i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
2181i[34567]86-*-sco*
2182i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
2183i[34567]86-*-sysv4*
2184i[34567]86-*-sysv5*
2185i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
2186i[34567]86-*-unixware*
2187i[34567]86-*-sysv*
2188i[34567]86-*-isc*
2189m68*-cisco*-*
2190m68*-tandem-*
ad527d2e 2191mips*-*-pe
483367ee 2192rs6000-*-lynxos*
ad527d2e 2193sh*-*-pe
483367ee 2194
7ce59000
DJ
2195* Other removed features
2196
2197target abug
2198target cpu32bug
2199target est
2200target rom68k
2201
2202 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
2203
ea35711c
DJ
2204target hms
2205target e7000
2206target sh3
2207target sh3e
2208
2209 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
2210 H8/300.
2211
2212target ocd
2213
2214 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
2215 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
2216 interfaces.
2217
7ce59000
DJ
2218DWARF 1 support
2219
2220 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
2221 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
2222
54d61198
DJ
2223Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
2224
2225 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
2226 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
2227 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
2228 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
2229
ea35711c
DJ
2230MIPS ".pdr" sections
2231
2232 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
2233 in debugging information.
2234
2235Scheme support
2236
2237 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
2238 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
2239
1a69e1e4
DJ
2240set mips stack-arg-size
2241set mips saved-gpreg-size
2242
2243 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
2244
6dd09645 2245*** Changes in GDB 6.6
e374b601 2246
ca3bf3bd
DJ
2247* New targets
2248
2249Xtensa xtensa-elf
9c309e77 2250Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
ca3bf3bd 2251
6aec2e11
DJ
2252* GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
2253(mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
2254running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
2255
2256* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
2257Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
2258supported.
2259
17218d91
DJ
2260* The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
2261broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
2262
9ebce043
DJ
2263* The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
2264stub provides the required support.
2265
7d3d3ece
DJ
2266* Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
2267longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
2268
4f8253f3
JB
2269* New commands
2270
2271set substitute-path
2272unset substitute-path
2273show substitute-path
2274 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
2275 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
2276 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
2277 between compilation and debugging.
2278
9fa66fd7
AS
2279set trace-commands
2280show trace-commands
2281 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
2282 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
2283 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
2284
1f5befc1
DJ
2285* REMOVED features
2286
2287The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
2288
2ec3381a
DJ
2289Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
2290an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
2291
3d00d119
DJ
2292The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
2293
be2a5f71
DJ
2294* New remote packets
2295
2296qSupported:
2297 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
2298 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
2299 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
2300 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
2301 target.
2302
0876f84a
DJ
2303qXfer:auxv:read:
2304 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
2305 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
2306
9ebce043
DJ
2307qXfer:memory-map:read:
2308 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
2309 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
2310
2311vFlashErase:
2312vFlashWrite:
2313vFlashDone:
2314 Erase and program a flash memory device.
2315
0876f84a
DJ
2316* Removed remote packets
2317
2318qPart:auxv:read:
2319 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
2320 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
2321
e374b601 2322*** Changes in GDB 6.5
53e5f3cf 2323
96309189
MS
2324* New targets
2325
2326Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
2327
2328Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
2329
53e5f3cf
AS
2330* New commands
2331
2332init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
2333 only if it doesn't already have a value.
2334
ac264b3b
MS
2335The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
2336
2337checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
2338
2339restart <n> Return the program state to a
2340 previously saved state.
2341
2342info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
2343
2344delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
2345
2346set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
2347 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
2348
2349info forks List forks of the user program that
2350 are available to be debugged.
2351
2352fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
2353 forks of the user program that are
2354 available to be debugged.
2355
2356delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
2357 that are available to be debugged (and
2358 kill the forked process).
2359
2360detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
2361 that are available to be debugged (and
2362 allow the process to continue).
2363
3950dc3f
NS
2364* New architecture
2365
2366Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
2367
0ea3f30e
DJ
2368* Improved Windows host support
2369
2370GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
2371native console support, and remote communications using either
2372network sockets or serial ports.
2373
f79daebb
GM
2374* Improved Modula-2 language support
2375
2376GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
2377basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
2378pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
2379printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
2380written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
2381GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
2382
acab6ab2
MM
2383* REMOVED features
2384
2385The ARM rdi-share module.
2386
f4267320
DJ
2387The Netware NLM debug server.
2388
53e5f3cf 2389*** Changes in GDB 6.4
156a53ca 2390
e0ecbda1
MK
2391* New native configurations
2392
02a677ac 2393OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
e0ecbda1
MK
2394OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
2395
d64a6579
KB
2396* New targets
2397
2398Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
2399
b33a6190
AS
2400* New command line options
2401
2402--batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
2403--return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
2404 the child (debugged) program exited with.
2405--eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
2406 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
2407 specified multiple times and in conjunction
2408 with the --command (-x) option.
2409
11dced61
AC
2410* Deprecated commands removed
2411
2412The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
2413removed:
2414
2415 Command Replacement
2416 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
2417 othernames set arm disassembler
2418 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
2419 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
2420 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
2421 regs info registers
2422
6fe85783
MK
2423* New BSD user-level threads support
2424
2425It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
2426library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
2427configurations are:
2428
2429FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
2430FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
2431OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
2432
2433Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
2434are not yet supported.
2435
5260ca71
MS
2436* New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
2437(Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
2438
e84ecc99
AC
2439* REMOVED configurations and files
2440
2441VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
9445aa30 2442Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
9445aa30 2443National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
156a53ca 2444
31e35378
JB
2445* New "set print array-indexes" command
2446
2447After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
2448when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
2449behavior.
2450
e85e5c83
MK
2451* VAX floating point support
2452
2453GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
2454
d91e9901
AS
2455* User-defined command support
2456
2457In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
2458to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
2459section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
2460
f2cb65ca
MC
2461*** Changes in GDB 6.3:
2462
f47b1503
AS
2463* New command line option
2464
2465GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
2466debugging.
2467
f2cb65ca
MC
2468* GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
2469
2470GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
2471information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
2472by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
2473proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
2474to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
860660cb 2475
d08c0230
AC
2476* Internationalization
2477
2478When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
2479internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
2480continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
2481
117ea3cf
PH
2482* Ada
2483
2484Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
2485implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
2486into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
2487
d08c0230
AC
2488* New native configurations
2489
2490GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
2491
2492* Remote 'p' packet
2493
2494GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
2495packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
2496
2497* END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
2498
2499GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
2500The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
2501features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
2502i386 application).
2503
2504GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
2505compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
2506continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
2507configurations:
2508
2509hppa-*-hpux
2510ia64-*-aix
2511mips-*-irix*
2512*-*-lynx
2513mips-*-linux-gnu
2514sds protocol
2515xdr protocol
2516powerpc bdm protocol
2517
2518Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
2519made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
2520
2521* OBSOLETE configurations and files
2522
2523Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2524been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2525configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2526permanently REMOVED.
2527
2528h8300-*-*
2529mcore-*-*
2530mn10300-*-*
2531ns32k-*-*
2532sh64-*-*
2533v850-*-*
2534
ebb7c577
AC
2535*** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
2536
2537* MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
2538
2539When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
2540heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
2541been fixed.
2542
2543* MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
2544
2545When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
2546fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
2547IRIX long double values).
2548
2549* VAX and "next"
2550
2551A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
2552command. This problem has been fixed.
2553
860660cb 2554*** Changes in GDB 6.2:
faae5abe 2555
0dea2468
AC
2556* Fix for ``many threads''
2557
2558On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
2559rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
2560error message:
2561
2562 ptrace: No such process.
2563 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
2564
2565This problem has been fixed.
2566
2c07db7a
AC
2567* "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
2568
2569Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
2570GDB to dump core).
2571
c23968a2
JB
2572* New ``start'' command.
2573
2574This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
2575
71009278
MK
2576* New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
2577
2578Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
2579live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
2580platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
2581
2582FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
2583FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
2584NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
2585NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
2586NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
2587OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
2588OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
2589OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
2590OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
2591
3c0b7db2
AC
2592* Signal trampoline code overhauled
2593
2594Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
2595These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
2596of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
2597call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
2598signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
2599
73cc75f3
AC
2600Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
2601features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
2602include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
3c0b7db2 2603
7243600a
BF
2604* Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
2605
6f606e1c
MK
2606* New native configurations
2607
97dc871c 2608GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
0e56aeaf 2609OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
bf2ca189
MK
2610OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
2611OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
d195bc9f 2612OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 2613NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
9f076e7a 2614OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 2615
a1b461bf
AC
2616* END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
2617
2618GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
2619The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
2620including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
2621migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
2622compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
2623work, was also included.
2624
2625GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
2626module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
2627
2628h8300-*-*
2629mcore-*-*
2630mn10300-*-*
2631ns32k-*-*
2632sh64-*-*
2633v850-*-*
2634xstormy16-*-*
2635
2636Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
2637made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
2638
3c7012f5
AC
2639* REMOVED configurations and files
2640
2641Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
2642Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
2643Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
2644Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
2645Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
2646AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
2647Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
2648decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
2649riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
2650sonymips mips-sony-*
2651sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
2652
e5fe55f7
AC
2653*** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
2654
2655* TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
2656
2657The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
2658GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
2659command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
2660program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
2661with GDB".
2662
2663* Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
2664
2665Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
2666libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
2667cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
2668GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
2669shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
2670the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
2671are created.
2672
2673Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
2674
2675* Fixed ISO-C build problems
2676
2677The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
2678non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
2679compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
2680
2681* Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
2682
2683Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
2684wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
2685
2686* Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
2687
2688The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
2689permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
2690systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
2691
2692* Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
2693
2694Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
2695has been updated to use constant array sizes.
2696
2697* Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
2698
2699GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
2700its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
2701panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
2702
2703* Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
2704
2705When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
2706by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
2707not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
2708
faae5abe 2709*** Changes in GDB 6.1:
f2c06f52 2710
9175c9a3
MC
2711* Removed --with-mmalloc
2712
2713Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
2714conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
2715
3cc87ec0
MK
2716* Changes in AMD64 configurations
2717
2718The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
2719the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
2720and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
2721you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
2722
f0424ef6
MK
2723* Revised SPARC target
2724
2725The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
2726FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
03cebad2
MK
2727support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
2728from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
2729(Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
f0424ef6 2730
59659be2
ILT
2731* New C++ demangler
2732
2733GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
2734names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
2735with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
2736programs.
2737
9e08b29b
DJ
2738* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
2739
2740GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
2741arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
2742encountered these.
2743
8dfe8985
DC
2744* C++ nested types and namespaces
2745
2746GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
2747improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
2748is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
2749Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
2750namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
2751"Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
2752frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
2753if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
2754GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
2755
cced5e27
MK
2756* New native configurations
2757
2758NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
27d1e716 2759OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
2031c21a 2760OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
f2cab569
MK
2761OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
2762OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
cced5e27 2763
b4b4b794
KI
2764* New debugging protocols
2765
2766M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
2767
7989c619
AC
2768* "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
2769
2770The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
2771and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
2772tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
2773
5994185b
AC
2774* OBSOLETE configurations and files
2775
2776Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2777been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2778configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2779permanently REMOVED.
2780
2781Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
2782Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
2783Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
2784Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
2785Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
2786AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
2787Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
0748d941
AC
2788decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
2789riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
2790sonymips mips-sony-*
2791sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
5994185b 2792
0ddabb4c
AC
2793* REMOVED configurations and files
2794
2795SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
2796SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
4a8269c0
AC
2797Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
2798Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
2799H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
2800HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
2801HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
2802HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
2803PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
cf7c5c23 2804386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
4a8269c0
AC
2805Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
2806 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
2807 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
f0424ef6
MK
2808SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
2809SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
4a8269c0
AC
2810Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2811Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
0ddabb4c 2812
c7f1390e
DJ
2813*** Changes in GDB 6.0:
2814
1fe43d45
AC
2815* Objective-C
2816
2817Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
2818integrated into GDB.
2819
e6beb428
AC
2820* New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
2821
2822DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
2823information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
2824By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
2825backtraces.
2826
2827The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
2828have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
2829DWARF 2 CFI support.
2830
2831* Hosted file I/O.
2832
2833GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
2834file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
2835remote protocol documentation for details.
2836
2837* All targets using the new architecture framework.
2838
2839All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
2840architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
2841to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
2842ppc32 on ppc64).
2843
2844* GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
2845
2846GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
2847per-thread variables.
2848
2849* GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
2850
2851GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
2852GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
2853
2854* Separate debug info.
2855
2856GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
2857automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
2858of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
2859system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
2860and optional debug files.
2861
2862* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
2863
2864DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
2865describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
2866debugger.
2867
2868GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
2869for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
2870
2871* Java
2872
2873A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
2874Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
2875considered "useable".
2876
85f8f974
DJ
2877* GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
2878
2879The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
2880commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
2881kernel.
2882
0fac0b41
DJ
2883* GDB supports logging output to a file
2884
2885There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
2886used to capture GDB's output to a file.
f2c06f52 2887
6ad8ae5c
DJ
2888* The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
2889
2890The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
2891disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
2892command.
2893
e286caf2 2894* d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
5f601589
AC
2895
2896The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
2897registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
2898
d28f9cdf
DJ
2899* Profiling support
2900
2901A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
2902be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
2903session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
2904"--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
2905data, for more informative profiling results.
2906
da0f9dcd
AC
2907* Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
2908
2909The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
2910option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
b68767c1 2911"mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
da0f9dcd
AC
2912
2913Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
2914removed.
2915
fb9b6b35
JJ
2916Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
2917Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
2918Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
2919 in a subsequent -var-update.
2920
954a4db8
MK
2921* New native configurations.
2922
2923FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
2924
6760f9e6
JB
2925* Multi-arched targets.
2926
b4263afa 2927HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
85a453d5 2928Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
6760f9e6 2929
1b831c93
AC
2930* OBSOLETE configurations and files
2931
2932Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2933been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2934configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2935permanently REMOVED.
2936
8b0e5691 2937Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
67f16606 2938Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
fd2299bd 2939H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
56056df7
AC
2940HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
2941HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
2942HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
78c43945 2943PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
2fbce691
AC
2944Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
2945 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
2946 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
f81824a9
AC
2947Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2948Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
fd2299bd 2949
5835abe7
NC
2950* REMOVED configurations and files
2951
2952V850EA ISA
1b831c93
AC
2953Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
2954IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
2955i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
2956i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
2957i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
2958HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
2959 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
2960 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
2961Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
2962Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
2963Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
2964OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
2965I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
5835abe7 2966
a094c6fb
AC
2967* MIPS $fp behavior changed
2968
2969The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
2970the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
2971context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
2972address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
2973The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
2974
299ffc64 2975*** Changes in GDB 5.3:
37057839 2976
46248966
AC
2977* GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
2978
2979When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
2980`/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
2981in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
2982library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
2983shared libs like mad''.
2984
b9d14705 2985* ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
6da02953 2986
b9d14705
DJ
2987Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
2988the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
2989arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
2990powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
6da02953 2991
e0e9281e
JB
2992* GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
2993
2994GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
2995and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
2996they expand.
2997
dd73b9bb
AC
2998The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
2999invocations in expression, and shows the result.
3000
3001The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
3002macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
3003
e0e9281e
JB
3004Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
3005information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
3006your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
3007information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
3008
2250ee0c
CV
3009* Multi-arched targets.
3010
6e3ba3b8
JT
3011DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
3012DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
2250ee0c 3013NEC V850 v850-*-*
6e3ba3b8 3014National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
a1789893
GS
3015Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
3016Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
2250ee0c 3017
cd9bfe15 3018* New targets.
e33ce519 3019
456f8b9d
DB
3020Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
3021
e33ce519 3022
da8ca43d
JT
3023* New native configurations
3024
3025Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
029923d4 3026SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
45888261 3027MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
9ce5c36a 3028UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
da8ca43d 3029
cd9bfe15
AC
3030* OBSOLETE configurations and files
3031
3032Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
3033been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
3034configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
3035permanently REMOVED.
3036
92eb23c5 3037Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
a99a9e1b 3038OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1c7cc583 3039IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
7a3085c1 3040Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
7fb623f7 3041Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
eb4c54a2 3042Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
d8ee244c
MK
3043i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
3044i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
3045i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
822e978b
AC
3046HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
3047 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
3048 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
4d210288 3049I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
92eb23c5 3050
db034ac5
AC
3051* OBSOLETE languages
3052
3053CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
3054
cd9bfe15
AC
3055* REMOVED configurations and files
3056
3057AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
3058A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
3059AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
3060AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
3061AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
3062
3063testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
3064
20f01a46
DH
3065* New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
3066
3067This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
3068commands. The default is 1024.
3069
a5941fbf
MK
3070* Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
3071
3072Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
3073
89743e04
MS
3074* New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
3075
3076These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
3077to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
3078from a file into memory (restore).
37057839 3079
9fb14e79
JB
3080* Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
3081
3082The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
3083including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
3084of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
3085
2037aebb
AC
3086*** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
3087
3088* New targets.
3089
3090Atmel AVR avr*-*-*
3091
3092* Bug fixes
3093
3094gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
3095mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
3096Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
3097
3098gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
3099dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
3100Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
3101
3102Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
3103Surprisingly enough, it works now.
3104By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
3105
3106i386 hardware watchpoint support:
3107avoid misses on second run for some targets.
3108By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
3109
37057839 3110*** Changes in GDB 5.2:
eb7cedd9 3111
1a703748
MS
3112* New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
3113
3114This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
3115really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
3116In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
3117target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
3118This can be a significant performance improvement on some
3119(notably embedded) targets.
3120
cefd4ef5
MS
3121* New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
3122
55241689
AC
3123This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
3124process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
3125GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
3126hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
cefd4ef5 3127
352ed7b4
MS
3128* New command line option
3129
3130GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
3131
3132* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
3133
3134There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
3135command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
3136a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
3137be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
3138open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
3139issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
3140a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
3141it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
3142GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
3143is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
3144
fe419ffc
RE
3145* Changes in ARM configurations.
3146
3147Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
3148configuration is fully multi-arch.
3149
eb7cedd9
MK
3150* New native configurations
3151
fe419ffc 3152ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
eb7cedd9 3153x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
55241689 3154AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
768f0842 3155Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
eb7cedd9 3156
c9f63e6b
CV
3157* New targets
3158
3159Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
3160
9b4ff276
AC
3161* OBSOLETE configurations and files
3162
3163Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
3164been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
3165configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
3166permanently REMOVED.
3167
3168AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
3169A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
3170AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
3171AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
3172AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
3173
b4ceaee6 3174testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
9b4ff276 3175
e2caac18
AC
3176* REMOVED configurations and files
3177
3178TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
7bc65f05 3179WDC 65816 w65-*-*
7768dd6c
AC
3180PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
3181PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
3182PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
5e734e1f 3183Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1406caf7
AC
3184Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
3185 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
7e24f0b1 3186SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
9b567150 3187Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
3680c638
AC
3188Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
3189ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
a752853e 3190Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
e2caac18 3191
c2a727fa
TT
3192* Changes to command line processing
3193
3194The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
3195for the inferior from gdb's command line.
3196
467d8519
TT
3197* Changes to key bindings
3198
3199There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
3200
7072a954
AC
3201*** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
3202
3203Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
3204
3205Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
3206corrupted.
3207
3208Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
3209
3210Numerous documentation fixes.
3211
3212Numerous testsuite fixes.
3213
34f47bc4 3214*** Changes in GDB 5.1:
139760b7
MK
3215
3216* New native configurations
3217
3218Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
3219x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
55241689 3220MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
e23194cb
EZ
3221MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
3222ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
55241689 3223s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
139760b7 3224
bf64bfd6
AC
3225* New targets
3226
def90278 3227Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
24be5c34 3228CRIS cris-axis
55241689 3229UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
def90278 3230
17e78a56 3231* OBSOLETE configurations and files
bf64bfd6
AC
3232
3233x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
9b9c068d 3234Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
bb19ff3b
AC
3235Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
3236 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
76f4ea53
AC
3237TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
3238WDC 65816 w65-*-*
4a1968f4 3239Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1b2b2c16
AC
3240PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
3241PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
3242PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
24f89b68 3243SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
514e603d
AC
3244Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
3245ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
d036b4d9 3246Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
bf64bfd6 3247
17e78a56
AC
3248stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
3249kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
3250
7fcca85b
AC
3251Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
3252been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
3253configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
3254permanently REMOVED.
3255
a196c81c 3256* REMOVED configurations and files
7fcca85b
AC
3257
3258Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
3259Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
3260Pyramid pyramid-*-*
3261ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
3262Tahoe tahoe-*-*
a196c81c 3263ser-ocd.c *-*-*
bf64bfd6 3264
6d6b80e5 3265* GDB has been converted to ISO C.
e23194cb 3266
6d6b80e5 3267GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
e23194cb
EZ
3268sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
3269present.
3270
bf64bfd6
AC
3271* Other news:
3272
e23194cb
EZ
3273* "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
3274
3275* The MI enabled by default.
3276
3277The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
3278revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
3279engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
3280using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
3281which is now deprecated.
3282
3283* Support for debugging Pascal programs.
3284
3285GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
3286main features are supported:
3287
3288 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
3289
3290 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
3291 extension;
3292
3293 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
3294
3295 - a Pascal expression parser.
3296
3297However, some important features are not yet supported.
3298
3299 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
3300
3301 - there are some problems with boolean types;
3302
3303 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
3304 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
3305
3306 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
3307
3308 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
3309
3310* Changes in completion.
3311
3312Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
3313to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
3314users expect at the shell prompt.
3315
3316Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
3317`breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
3318program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
3319files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
3320be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
3321considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
3322name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
3323
3324`set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
3325
3326* New platform-independent commands:
3327
3328It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
3329hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
3330documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
3331
3332* Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
3333
d7275149
MK
3334Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
3335revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
3336many threads as your system allows you to have.
3337
e23194cb
EZ
3338Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
3339
d7275149
MK
3340Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
3341multi-threaded programs though.
e23194cb
EZ
3342
3343* Changes in MIPS configurations.
bf64bfd6
AC
3344
3345Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
3346
e23194cb
EZ
3347GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
3348debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
3349supported.)
3350
3351* Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
3352
3353Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
3354breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
3355implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
3356put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
3357and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
3358registers.
3359
3360The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
3361debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
3362watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
3363
3364* Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
3365
3366New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
3367the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
3368
3369New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
3370display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
3371IDT.
3372
3373New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
3374from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
3375New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
3376a given linear address.
3377
3378GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
3379program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
3380which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
3381
3382DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
3383
6c56c069
EZ
3384It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
3385
e23194cb
EZ
3386* Changes in documentation.
3387
3388All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
3389Documentation License.
3390
3391Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
3392manual.
3393
3394TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
3395
3396Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
3397manual.
3398
3399The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
3400documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
3401hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
3402
5d6640b1
AC
3403* GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
3404
3405The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
3406``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
3407contents of this file.
3408
1a1d8446
AC
3409* gdba.el deleted
3410
3411GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
139760b7 3412
9debab2f 3413*** Changes in GDB 5.0:
7a292a7a 3414
c63ce875
EZ
3415* Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
3416
3417Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
3418programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
3419displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
3420greater level of detail.
3421
3422* Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
3423
3424It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
3425bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
3426on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
3427written.
3428
3429* Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
3430
3431The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
3432necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
3433machines ``out of the box''.
3434
3435The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
3436possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
3437signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
3438would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
3439interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
3440
3441It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
3442standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
3443even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
3444and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
3445terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
3446
3447The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
3448enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
3449also works.
3450
3451DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
3452GDB.
3453
3454It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
3455directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
3456times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
3457breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
3458
ed9a39eb
JM
3459* New native configurations
3460
3461ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
afc05dd4 3462PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
ed9a39eb 3463
7a292a7a
SS
3464* New targets
3465
96baa820 3466Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
adf40b2e
JM
3467x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
3468PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
7a292a7a
SS
3469TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
3470
085dd6e6
JM
3471* OBSOLETE configurations
3472
3473Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
3474Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
9846de1b 3475Pyramid pyramid-*-*
ed9a39eb 3476ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
104c1213 3477Tahoe tahoe-*-*
7a292a7a 3478
9debab2f
AC
3479Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
3480but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
3481these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
3482be permanently REMOVED.
3483
5330533d
SS
3484* Gould support removed
3485
3486Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
3487
bc9e5bbf
AC
3488* New features for SVR4
3489
3490On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
3491without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
3492load symbols from the running process's executable file.
3493
3494* Many C++ enhancements
3495
3496C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
3497in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
3498
adf40b2e
JM
3499* Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
3500
3501A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
3502sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
3503with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
3504``|<program> <args>'' vis:
3505
3506 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
3507 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
3508
43e526b9
JM
3509* MIPS 64 remote protocol
3510
3511A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
3512expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
3513instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
3514
3515The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
3516added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
3517
96baa820
JM
3518* ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
3519
3520The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
3521``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
3522include ``set remote P-packet''.
3523
11cf8741
JM
3524* Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
3525
3526The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
3527accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
3528``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
3529
7876dd43
DB
3530* ``apropos'' command added.
3531
3532The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
3533documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
3534try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
3535
bc9e5bbf
AC
3536* New MI interface
3537
3538A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
3539interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
7162c0ca
EZ
3540process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
3541"GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
3542enabled by configuring with:
bc9e5bbf
AC
3543
3544 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
3545
c906108c
SS
3546*** Changes in GDB-4.18:
3547
3548* New native configurations
3549
3550HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
3551HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
55241689 3552M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
c906108c
SS
3553
3554* New targets
3555
3556Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
3557Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
3558Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
3559
3560* OBSOLETE configurations
3561
3562Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
3563
3564Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
3565but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
3566these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
3567be permanently REMOVED.
3568
3569* ANSI/ISO C
3570
3571As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
3572buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
3573containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
3574use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
3575available. If this is not true, please report the affected
3576configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
3577information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
3578already.
3579
3580* Readline 2.2
3581
3582GDB now uses readline 2.2.
3583
3584* set extension-language
3585
3586You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
3587languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
3588you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
3589 set extension-language .c c++
3590The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
3591and their associated languages.
3592
3593* Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
3594
3595When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
3596you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
3597PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
3598
3599 set processor NAME
3600
3601sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
3602following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
3603
3604 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
3605 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
3606 403 IBM PowerPC 403
3607 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
3608 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
3609 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
3610 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
3611 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
3612 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
3613 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
3614 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
3615
3616At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
3617special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
3618registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
3619only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
3620
3621* HP-UX support
3622
3623Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
3624more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
3625library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
3626support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
3627for xdb and dbx commands.
3628
3629* Catchpoints
3630
3631HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
3632generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
3633to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
3634
3635This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
3636argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
3637output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
3638
3639* Debugging across forks
3640
3641On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
3642in the inferior.
3643
3644* TUI
3645
3646HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
3647it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
3648configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
3649
3650* GDB remote protocol additions
3651
3652A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
3653Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
3654fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
3655allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
3656
3657For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
3658full 64-bit address. The command
3659
3660 set remoteaddresssize 32
3661
3662can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
3663the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
3664will be discarded.
3665
3666In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
3667command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
3668
3669 maint packet heythere
3670
3671sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
3672disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
3673time.
3674
3675The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
3676target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
3677downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
3678
3679* Tracing can collect general expressions
3680
3681You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
3682further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
3683doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
3684
3685* mask-address variable for Mips
3686
3687For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
3688a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
3689of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
3690
3691* Higher serial baud rates
3692
3693GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
3694230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
3695to achieve all of these rates.)
3696
3697* i960 simulator
3698
3699The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
3700builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
3701
3702
3703*** Changes in GDB-4.17:
3704
3705* New native configurations
3706
3707Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
3708Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
3709Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
3710PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
3711PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
3712Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
3713Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
3714
3715* New targets
3716
3717Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
3718Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
3719Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
3720Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
3721MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
3722MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
3723MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
3724Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
3725Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
3726Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
3727NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
3728
3729* New debugging protocols
3730
3731ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
3732M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
3733DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
3734PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
3735PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
3736Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
3737
3738* DWARF 2
3739
3740All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
3741format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
3742information.
3743
3744* Java frontend
3745
3746GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
3747only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
3748
3749* solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
3750
3751For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
3752loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
3753locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
3754
3755* Live range splitting
3756
3757GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
3758range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
3759more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
3760
3761* Hurd support
3762
3763GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
3764updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
3765
3766* ARM Thumb support
3767
3768GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
3769instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
3770instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
3771accordingly.
3772
3773* MIPS16 support
3774
3775GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
3776instruction set.
3777
3778* Overlay support
3779
3780GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
3781linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
3782will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
3783control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
3784additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
3785in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
3786
3787* info symbol
3788
3789The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
3790the symbol at the specified address.
3791
3792* Trace support
3793
3794The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
3795asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
3796extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
3797includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
3798file tracepoint.c for more details.
3799
3800* MIPS simulator
3801
3802Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
3803by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
3804of most MIPS variants.
3805
3806* Sparc simulator
3807
3808Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
3809by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
3810Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
3811
3812* set architecture
3813
3814For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
3815basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
3816architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
3817the possible architectures.
3818
3819*** Changes in GDB-4.16:
3820
3821* New native configurations
3822
3823Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
3824M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
3825PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
3826PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
3827PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
3828RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
3829
3830* New targets
3831
3832ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
3833I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
3834MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
3835MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
3836PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
3837Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
3838Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
3839
3840* PowerPC simulator
3841
3842The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
3843contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
3844PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
3845basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
3846performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
3847
3848* Solaris 2.5
3849
3850GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
3851
3852* Windows 95/NT native
3853
3854GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
3855To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
3856which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
3857Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
3858ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
3859
3860* dont-repeat command
3861
3862If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
3863command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
3864useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
3865extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
3866
3867* Send break instead of ^C
3868
3869The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
3870rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
3871GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
3872
3873* Remote protocol timeout
3874
3875The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
3876that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
3877to read from the target. The default value is 2.
3878
3879* Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
3880
3881By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
3882loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
3883stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
3884when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
3885in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
3886
3887Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
3888/usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
3889automatically on hpux10.
3890
3891* Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
3892
3893Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
3894
3895* Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
3896
3897When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
3898may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
3899the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
3900every character. The default value is 1050.
3901
3902* Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
3903
3904If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
3905a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
3906replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
3907details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
3908remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
3909to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
3910
3911* Speedups for remote debugging
3912
3913GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
3914the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
3915and more efficient S-record downloading.
3916
3917* Memory use reductions and statistics collection
3918
3919GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
3920Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
3921
3922*** Changes in GDB-4.15:
3923
3924* Psymtabs for XCOFF
3925
3926The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
3927can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
3928
3929* Remote targets use caching
3930
3931Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
3932remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
3933it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
3934debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
3935off' turns the the data cache off.
3936
3937* Remote targets may have threads
3938
3939The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
3940in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
3941gdb/remote.c for details.
3942
3943* NetROM support
3944
3945If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
3946support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
3947acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
3948write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
3949support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
3950another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
3951sequence is something like
3952
3953 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
3954 load <prog>
3955 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
3956
3957* Macintosh host
3958
3959GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
3960may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
3961it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
3962available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
3963device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
3964directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
3965scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
3966mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
3967
3968* Autoconf
3969
3970GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
3971but does simplify configuration and building.
3972
3973* hpux10
3974
3975GDB now supports hpux10.
3976
3977*** Changes in GDB-4.14:
3978
3979* New native configurations
3980
3981x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
3982x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
3983NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
3984Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
3985
3986* New targets
3987
3988A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
3989HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
3990CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
3991PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
3992WDC 65816 w65-*-*
3993
3994* Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
3995
3996GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
3997possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
3998filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
3999the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
4000if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
4001
4002* Arguments to user-defined commands
4003
4004User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
4005Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
4006trivial example:
4007define adder
4008 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
4009
4010To execute the command use:
4011adder 1 2 3
4012
4013Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
4014Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
4015use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
4016
4017* New `if' and `while' commands
4018
4019This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
4020commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
4021expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
4022execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
4023terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
4024`else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
4025if the expression is zero.
4026
4027* Fortran source language mode
4028
4029GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
4030Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
4031variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
4032with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
4033Fortran compilers.
4034
4035* Better HPUX support
4036
4037Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
4038running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
4039processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
4040for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
4041that behavior do the following before running the program:
4042
4043 adb -w a.out
4044 __dld_flags?W 0x5
4045 control-d
4046
4047This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
4048To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
4049
4050 adb -w a.out
4051 __dld_flags?W 0x4
4052 control-d
4053
4054You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
4055the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
4056external linkage.
4057
4058GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
4059HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
4060
4061* Target byte order now dynamically selectable
4062
4063You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
4064commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
4065current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
4066"set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
4067associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
4068configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
4069
4070* New DOS host serial code
4071
4072This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
4073no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
4074a PC's serial port.
4075
4076*** Changes in GDB-4.13:
4077
4078* New "complete" command
4079
4080This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
4081were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
4082
4083* Trailing space optional in prompt
4084
4085"set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
4086allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
4087
4088* Breakpoint hit counts
4089
4090"info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
4091has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
4092can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
4093to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
4094less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
4095that breakpoint.
4096
4097* Ability to stop printing at NULL character
4098
4099"set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
4100an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
4101arrays actually contain only short strings.
4102
4103* Shared library breakpoints
4104
4105In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
4106breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
4107
4108* Hardware watchpoints
4109
4110There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
4111targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
4112
55241689 4113Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
c906108c
SS
4114
4115* Annotations
4116
4117Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
4118and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
4119
4120* Improved Irix 5 support
4121
4122GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
4123
4124* Improved HPPA support
4125
4126GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
4127
4128* New native configurations
4129
4130Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
4131HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
4132Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
4133RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
4134
4135* New targets
4136
4137OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
4138MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
4139Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
4140
4141* Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
4142
4143There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
4144This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
4145
4146* Fixes
4147
4148As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
4149and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
4150
4151*** Changes in GDB-4.12:
4152
4153* Irix 5 is now supported
4154
4155* HPPA support
4156
4157GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
4158to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
4159GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
4160of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
4161can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
4162
4163
4164*** Changes in GDB-4.11:
4165
4166* User visible changes:
4167
4168* Remote Debugging
4169
4170The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
4171target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
4172debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
4173integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
4174debugging info for the mips target).
4175
4176* DEC Alpha native support
4177
4178GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
4179debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
4180work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
4181Alpha-specific notes.
4182
4183* Preliminary thread implementation
4184
4185GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
4186
4187* LynxOS native and target support for 386
4188
4189This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
4190to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
4191for details).
4192
4193* Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
4194
4195This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
4196mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
4197call methods, ...etc.
4198
4199*** Changes in GDB-4.10:
4200
4201 * User visible changes:
4202
4203Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
4204supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
4205other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
4206somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
4207
4208Filename completion now works.
4209
4210When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
4211arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
4212addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
4213
4214All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
4215vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
4216should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
4217your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
4218to be on the far side of a thin network line.
4219
4220 * DEC alpha support
4221
4222This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
4223cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
4224
4225
4226*** Changes in GDB-4.9:
4227
4228 * Testsuite
4229
4230This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
4231The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
4232via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
4233
4234 * C++ demangling
4235
4236'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
4237emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
4238Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
4239disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
4240use gdb with AT&T cfront.
4241
4242 * Simulators
4243
4244GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
4245So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
4246Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
4247
4248 * New targets supported
4249
4250H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
4251H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
4252SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
4253Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
4254IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
4255
4256Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
4257version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
4258GO32 memory extender.
4259
4260 * New remote protocols
4261
4262MIPS remote debugging protocol.
4263
4264 * New source languages supported
4265
4266This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
4267used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
4268into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
4269
4270
4271*** Changes in GDB-4.8:
4272
4273 * HP Precision Architecture supported
4274
4275GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
4276version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
4277University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
4278compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
4279format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
4280(as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
4281
4282Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
4283
4284 * Faster and better demangling
4285
4286We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
4287demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
4288character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
4289only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
4290This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
4291increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
4292symbol lookups.
4293
4294`Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
4295from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
4296compiler does not actually implement.
4297
4298 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
4299
4300In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
4301inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
4302recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
4303very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
4304The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
4305circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
4306fix.
4307
4308The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
4309release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
4310
4311 * Improved configure script
4312
4313The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
4314you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
4315host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
4316done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
4317
4318We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
4319version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
4320`--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
4321The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
4322only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
4323We hope to make this the default in a future release.
4324
4325 * Documentation improvements
4326
4327There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
4328produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
4329before submitting changes.
4330
4331The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
4332M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
4333`info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
4334you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
4335a future texinfo-X.Y release.
4336
4337*NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
4338We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
4339been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
4340or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
4341`texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
4342around this problem.
4343
4344 * New features
4345
4346GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
4347the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
4348`print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
4349the target program.
4350
4351The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
4352how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
4353
4354 * New native hosts supported
4355
4356HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
4357386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
4358
4359 * New targets supported
4360
4361AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
4362
4363 * New file formats supported
4364
4365BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
4366HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
4367
4368 * Major bug fixes
4369
4370Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
4371
4372We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
4373printf_filtered("%s") problems.
4374
4375We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
4376for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
4377release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
4378
4379You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
4380will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
4381
4382We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
4383for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
4384especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
4385libraries.
4386
4387The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
4388information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
4389command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
4390any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
4391when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
4392
4393 * Internal improvements
4394
4395GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
4396debugging of multiple languages in the future.
4397
4398GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
4399Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
4400symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
4401contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
4402shared code that handles any of them.
4403
4404 * New command line options
4405
4406We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
4407
4408 * Mmalloc licensing
4409
4410The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
4411General Public License.
4412
4413*** Changes in GDB-4.7:
4414
4415 * Host/native/target split
4416
4417GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
4418hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
4419target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
4420local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
4421ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
4422
4423The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
4424GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
4425is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
4426code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
4427any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
4428built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
4429handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
4430
4431GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
4432It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
4433plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
4434
4435 * New hosts supported
4436
4437HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
4438386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
4439386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
4440
4441 * New targets supported
4442
4443Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
444468030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
4445
4446 * New native hosts supported
4447
4448386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
4449 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
4450386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
4451
4452 * New file formats supported
4453
4454BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
4455supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
4456format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
4457
4458 * New commands
4459
4460`show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
4461`show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
4462These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
4463
4464`info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
4465
4466You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
4467scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
4468prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
4469executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
4470
4471 * C++ improvements
4472
4473We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
4474info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
4475symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
4476
4477Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
4478
4479 * Major bug fixes
4480
4481The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
4482fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
4483by the compiler.
4484
4485We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
4486support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
4487
4488John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
4489slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
4490that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
4491purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
4492the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
4493mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
4494
4495Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
4496about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
4497completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
4498we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
4499
4500 * AMD 29k support
4501
4502A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
4503specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
4504calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
4505usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
4506in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
4507
4508We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
4509Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
4510of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
4511resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
4512
4513 * Remote interfaces
4514
4515We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
4516with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
4517message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
4518This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
4519needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
4520breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
4521each instruction being stepped through.
4522
4523The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
4524registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
4525
4526There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
4527find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
4528Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
4529processor with a serial port.
4530
4531 * Configuration
4532
4533Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
4534`table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
4535supported, and what files each one uses.
4536
4537 * Library changes
4538
4539There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
4540disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
4541Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
4542disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
4543
4544The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
4545Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
4546can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
4547grants all the rights from the General Public License.
4548
4549 * Documentation
4550
4551The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
4552reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
4553as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
4554encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
4555system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
4556bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
4557
4558And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
4559
4560
4561*** Changes in GDB-4.6:
4562
4563 * Better support for C++ function names
4564
4565GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
4566names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
4567(using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
4568single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
4569Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
4570
4571GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
4572the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
4573You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
4574lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
4575for the list of formats.
4576
4577 * G++ symbol mangling problem
4578
4579Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
4580C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
4581directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
4582can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
4583usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
4584about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
4585this problem.)
4586
4587 * New 'maintenance' command
4588
4589All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
4590the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
4591can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
4592
4593 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
4594 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
4595 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
4596 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
4597 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
4598 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
4599
4600The following commands are new:
4601
4602 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
4603 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
4604 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
4605
4606 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
4607
4608We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
4609(e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
4610be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
4611read after argv processing.
4612
4613 * New hosts supported
4614
4615Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
4616
55241689 4617GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
c906108c
SS
4618
4619We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
4620is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
4621for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
4622masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
4623fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
4624It costs extra.
4625
4626 * New targets supported
4627
4628Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
4629
4630 * More smarts about finding #include files
4631
4632GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
4633all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
4634greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
4635especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
4636the one that contains your sources.
4637
4638We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
4639breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
4640try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
4641
4642 * Interesting infernals change
4643
4644GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
4645section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
4646target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
4647stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
4648
4649 * Bug fixes (of course!)
4650
4651There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
4652 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
4653 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
4654
4655See the ChangeLog for details.
4656
4657*** Changes in GDB-4.5:
4658
4659 * New machines supported (host and target)
4660
4661IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
4662
4663SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
4664
4665 * New malloc package
4666
4667GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
4668Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
4669capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
4670This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
4671pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
4672more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
4673
4674 * info proc
4675
4676The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
4677'help info proc' for details.
4678
4679 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
4680
4681The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
4682Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
4683possible.
4684
4685 * File name changes for MS-DOS
4686
4687Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
4688support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
4689conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
4690environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
4691that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
4692in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
4693
4694 * Cross byte order fixes
4695
4696Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
4697targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
4698
4699 * New -mapped and -readnow options
4700
4701If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
4702system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
4703`symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
4704program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
4705called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
4706Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
4707and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
4708the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
4709option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
4710starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
4711
4712You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
4713the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
4714information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
4715slower, but makes future operations faster.
4716
4717The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
4718build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
4719A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
4720use is:
4721
4722 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
4723
4724The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
4725It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
4726shared across multiple host platforms.
4727
4728 * longjmp() handling
4729
4730GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
4731siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
4732all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
4733platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
4734
4735 * Solaris 2.0
4736
4737Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
4738this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
4739reading symbols.
4740
4741 * Bug fixes
4742
4743As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
4744People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
4745crashes and trashed symbol tables.
4746
4747*** Changes in GDB-4.4:
4748
4749 * New machines supported (host and target)
4750
4751SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
4752 (except core files)
4753BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
4754Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
4755
4756 * New machines supported (target)
4757
4758AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
4759
4760 * C++ support
4761
4762GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
4763The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
4764per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
4765
4766GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
4767`ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
4768extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
4769good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
4770will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
4771released.
4772
4773 * New features for SVR4
4774
4775GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
4776shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
4777only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
4778
4779The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
4780on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
4781it prints the address mappings of the process.
4782
4783If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
4784bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
4785
4786 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
4787
4788Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
4789now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
4790skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
4791make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
4792same code linked statically.
4793
4794 * New Getopt
4795
4796GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
4797version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
4798continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
4799Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
4800added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
4801future by other options that begin with the same letter.
4802
4803 * Bugs fixed
4804
4805The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
4806Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
4807See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
4808
4809
4810*** Changes in GDB-4.3:
4811
4812 * New machines supported (host and target)
4813
4814Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
4815NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
4816Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
4817
4818 * Almost SCO Unix support
4819
4820We had hoped to support:
4821SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
4822(except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
4823that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
4824about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
4825
4826 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
4827
4828GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
4829debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
4830is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
4831send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
4832reqired (if any).
4833
4834 * New Readline
4835
4836GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
4837is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
4838required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
4839
4840 * Bugs fixed
4841
4842The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
4843Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
4844See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
4845
4846 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
4847
4848GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
4849supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
4850symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
4851
4852Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
4853mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
4854debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
4855mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
4856version 2.
4857
4858Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
4859really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
4860line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
4861variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
4862situation somewhat.
4863
4864When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
4865However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
4866methods.
4867
4868We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
4869DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
4870encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
4871
4872
4873*** Changes in GDB-4.2:
4874
4875 * Improved configuration
4876
4877Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
4878Porting BFD is simpler.
4879
4880 * Stepping improved
4881
4882The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
4883of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
4884in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
4885function that has debugging information is called within the line.
4886
4887 * Bug fixing
4888
4889Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
4890
4891 * New host supported (not target)
4892
4893Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
4894
4895
4896*** Changes in GDB-4.1:
4897
4898 * Multiple source language support
4899
4900GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
4901It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
4902and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
4903language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
4904You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
4905`set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
4906
4907 * GDB and Modula-2
4908
4909GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
4910currently under development at the State University of New York at
4911Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
4912continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
4913
4914Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
4915debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
4916symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
4917
4918There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
4919in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
4920
4921 * set write on/off
4922
4923GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
4924a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
4925the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
4926by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
4927effect immediately.
4928
4929 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
4930
4931When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
4932shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
4933The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
4934examining core files.
4935
4936 * set listsize
4937
4938You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
4939The default is 10.
4940
4941 * New machines supported (host and target)
4942
4943SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
4944Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
4945Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
4946
4947 * New hosts supported (not targets)
4948
4949IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
4950
4951 * New targets supported (not hosts)
4952
4953AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
4954AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
4955Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
4956
4957 * New remote interfaces
4958
4959AMD 29000 Adapt
4960AMD 29000 Minimon
4961
4962
4963*** Changes in GDB-4.0:
4964
4965 * New Facilities
4966
4967Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
4968
4969Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
4970target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
4971is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
4972remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
4973remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
4974also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
4975using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
4976stub on the target system.
4977
4978New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
4979
4980GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
4981library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
4982object file types such as a.out and coff.
4983
4984There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
4985refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
4986
4987
4988 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
4989
4990All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
4991by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
4992
4993For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
4994``Show prompt'' produces the response:
4995Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
4996
4997What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
4998print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
4999will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
5000all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
5001
5002confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
5003 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
5004 it is already running. Default is ON.
5005
5006editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
5007 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
5008 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
5009 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
5010 Default is ON.
5011
5012history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
5013 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
5014 or the value of the environment variable
5015 GDBHISTFILE.
5016
5017history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
5018 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
5019 HISTSIZE.
5020
5021history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
5022 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
5023 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
5024
5025history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
5026 history expansion will be performed on
5027 command line input. The default is OFF.
5028
5029radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
5030 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
5031 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
5032
5033height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
5034 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
5035 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
5036 variable TERM.
5037
5038width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
5039 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
5040 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
5041 variable TERM.
5042
5043Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
5044``set width'' instead.
5045
5046print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
5047 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
5048 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
5049 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
5050
5051print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
5052 is OFF.
5053
5054print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
5055 "raw" form if off.
5056
5057print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
5058 like instructions.
5059
5060print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
5061
5062
5063 * Support for Epoch Environment.
5064
5065The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
5066new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
5067are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
5068window.
5069
5070
5071 * Support for Shared Libraries
5072
5073GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
5074Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
5075before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
5076happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
5077At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
5078from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
5079shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
5080It can be abbreviated ``share''.
5081
5082sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
5083 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
5084 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
5085
5086info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
5087
5088
5089 * Watchpoints
5090
5091A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
5092expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
5093tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
5094quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
5095problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
5096more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
5097
5098watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
5099
5100info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
5101
5102delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
5103disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
5104enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
5105
5106
5107 * C++ multiple inheritance
5108
5109When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
5110for C++ programs.
5111
5112 * C++ exception handling
5113
5114Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
5115ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
5116the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
5117handler's context).
5118
5119catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
5120 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
5121 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
5122
5123info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
5124 current stack frame.
5125
5126
5127 * Minor command changes
5128
5129The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
5130command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
5131is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
5132
5133The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
5134at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
5135frames without printing.
5136
5137 * New directory command
5138
5139'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
5140The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
5141about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
5142with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
5143find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
5144
5145 * Configuring GDB for compilation
5146
5147For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
5148for more details.
5149
5150GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
5151two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
5152Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
5153where the program that you are debugging will run.
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