gdb
[deliverable/binutils-gdb.git] / gdb / NEWS
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1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
3
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4*** Changes since GDB 7.2
5
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6* Python scripting
7
8 ** GDB values in Python are now callable if the value represents a
9 function. For example, if 'some_value' represents a function that
10 takes two integer parameters and returns a value, you can call
11 that function like so:
12
13 result = some_value (10,20)
14
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15 ** Module gdb.types has been added.
16 It contains a collection of utilities for working with gdb.Types objects:
17 get_basic_type, has_field, make_enum_dict.
18
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19* C++ Improvements:
20
21 ** GDB now puts template parameters in scope when debugging in an
22 instantiation. For example, if you have:
23
24 template<int X> int func (void) { return X; }
25
26 then if you step into func<5>, "print X" will show "5". This
27 feature requires proper debuginfo support from the compiler; it
28 was added to GCC 4.5.
29
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30* GDB now has some support for using labels in the program's source in
31 linespecs. For instance, you can use "advance label" to continue
32 execution to a label.
33
34* GDB now has support for reading and writing a new .gdb_index
35 section. This section holds a fast index of DWARF debugging
36 information and can be used to greatly speed up GDB startup and
37 operation. See the documentation for `save gdb-index' for details.
38
b56df873 39* The "watch" command now accepts an optional "-location" argument.
14c0d4e1 40 When used, this causes GDB to watch the memory referred to by the
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41 expression. Such a watchpoint is never deleted due to it going out
42 of scope.
43
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44* GDB now supports thread debugging of core dumps on GNU/Linux.
45
46 GDB now activates thread debugging using the libthread_db library
47 when debugging GNU/Linux core dumps, similarly to when debugging
48 live processes. As a result, when debugging a core dump file, GDB
49 is now able to display pthread_t ids of threads. For example, "info
50 threads" shows the same output as when debugging the process when it
51 was live. In earlier releases, you'd see something like this:
52
53 (gdb) info threads
54 * 1 LWP 6780 main () at main.c:10
55
56 While now you see this:
57
58 (gdb) info threads
59 * 1 Thread 0x7f0f5712a700 (LWP 6780) main () at main.c:10
60
61 It is also now possible to inspect TLS variables when debugging core
62 dumps.
63
64 When debugging a core dump generated on a machine other than the one
65 used to run GDB, you may need to point GDB at the correct
66 libthread_db library with the "set libthread-db-search-path"
67 command. See the user manual for more details on this command.
68
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69* New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
70
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71 ** GDBserver is now supported on PowerPC LynxOS (versions 4.x and 5.x),
72 and i686 LynxOS (version 5.x).
248c9dbc 73
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74* Ada task switching is now supported on sparc-elf targets when
75 debugging a program using the Ravenscar Profile. For more information,
76 see the "Tasking Support when using the Ravenscar Profile" section
77 in the GDB user manual.
78
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79* Guile support was removed.
80
76b8507d 81*** Changes in GDB 7.2
bfbf3774 82
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83* Shared library support for remote targets by default
84
85 When GDB is configured for a generic, non-OS specific target, like
86 for example, --target=arm-eabi or one of the many *-*-elf targets,
87 GDB now queries remote stubs for loaded shared libraries using the
88 `qXfer:libraries:read' packet. Previously, shared library support
89 was always disabled for such configurations.
90
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91* C++ Improvements:
92
93 ** Argument Dependent Lookup (ADL)
94
95 In C++ ADL lookup directs function search to the namespaces of its
96 arguments even if the namespace has not been imported.
97 For example:
98 namespace A
99 {
100 class B { };
101 void foo (B) { }
102 }
103 ...
104 A::B b
105 foo(b)
106 Here the compiler will search for `foo' in the namespace of 'b'
107 and find A::foo. GDB now supports this. This construct is commonly
108 used in the Standard Template Library for operators.
109
110 ** Improved User Defined Operator Support
111
112 In addition to member operators, GDB now supports lookup of operators
113 defined in a namespace and imported with a `using' directive, operators
114 defined in the global scope, operators imported implicitly from an
115 anonymous namespace, and the ADL operators mentioned in the previous
116 entry.
117 GDB now also supports proper overload resolution for all the previously
118 mentioned flavors of operators.
119
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120 ** static const class members
121
122 Printing of static const class members that are initialized in the
123 class definition has been fixed.
124
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125* Windows Thread Information Block access.
126
127 On Windows targets, GDB now supports displaying the Windows Thread
128 Information Block (TIB) structure. This structure is visible either
129 by using the new command `info w32 thread-information-block' or, by
130 dereferencing the new convenience variable named `$_tlb', a
131 thread-specific pointer to the TIB. This feature is also supported
132 when remote debugging using GDBserver.
133
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134* Static tracepoints
135
136 Static tracepoints are calls in the user program into a tracing
137 library. One such library is a port of the LTTng kernel tracer to
138 userspace --- UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer, http://lttng.org/ust).
139 When debugging with GDBserver, GDB now supports combining the GDB
140 tracepoint machinery with such libraries. For example: the user can
141 use GDB to probe a static tracepoint marker (a call from the user
142 program into the tracing library) with the new "strace" command (see
143 "New commands" below). This creates a "static tracepoint" in the
144 breakpoint list, that can be manipulated with the same feature set
145 as fast and regular tracepoints. E.g., collect registers, local and
146 global variables, collect trace state variables, and define
147 tracepoint conditions. In addition, the user can collect extra
148 static tracepoint marker specific data, by collecting the new
149 $_sdata internal variable. When analyzing the trace buffer, you can
150 inspect $_sdata like any other variable available to GDB. For more
151 information, see the "Tracepoints" chapter in GDB user manual. New
152 remote packets have been defined to support static tracepoints, see
153 the "New remote packets" section below.
154
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155* Better reconstruction of tracepoints after disconnected tracing
156
157 GDB will attempt to download the original source form of tracepoint
158 definitions when starting a trace run, and then will upload these
159 upon reconnection to the target, resulting in a more accurate
160 reconstruction of the tracepoints that are in use on the target.
161
162* Observer mode
163
164 You can now exercise direct control over the ways that GDB can
165 affect your program. For instance, you can disallow the setting of
166 breakpoints, so that the program can run continuously (assuming
167 non-stop mode). In addition, the "observer" variable is available
168 to switch all of the different controls; in observer mode, GDB
169 cannot affect the target's behavior at all, which is useful for
170 tasks like diagnosing live systems in the field.
171
172* The new convenience variable $_thread holds the number of the
173 current thread.
174
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175* New remote packets
176
177qGetTIBAddr
178
179 Return the address of the Windows Thread Information Block of a given thread.
180
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181qRelocInsn
182
183 In response to several of the tracepoint packets, the target may now
184 also respond with a number of intermediate `qRelocInsn' request
185 packets before the final result packet, to have GDB handle
186 relocating an instruction to execute at a different address. This
187 is particularly useful for stubs that support fast tracepoints. GDB
188 reports support for this feature in the qSupported packet.
189
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190qTfSTM, qTsSTM
191
192 List static tracepoint markers in the target program.
193
194qTSTMat
195
196 List static tracepoint markers at a given address in the target
197 program.
198
199qXfer:statictrace:read
200
201 Read the static trace data collected (by a `collect $_sdata'
202 tracepoint action). The remote stub reports support for this packet
203 to gdb's qSupported query.
204
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205QAllow
206
207 Send the current settings of GDB's permission flags.
208
209QTDPsrc
210
211 Send part of the source (textual) form of a tracepoint definition,
212 which includes location, conditional, and action list.
213
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214* The source command now accepts a -s option to force searching for the
215 script in the source search path even if the script name specifies
216 a directory.
217
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218* New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
219
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220 - GDBserver now support tracepoints (including fast tracepoints, and
221 static tracepoints). The feature is currently supported by the
222 i386-linux and amd64-linux builds. See the "Tracepoints support
223 in gdbserver" section in the manual for more information.
224
225 GDBserver JIT compiles the tracepoint's conditional agent
226 expression bytecode into native code whenever possible for low
227 overhead dynamic tracepoints conditionals. For such tracepoints,
228 an expression that examines program state is evaluated when the
229 tracepoint is reached, in order to determine whether to capture
230 trace data. If the condition is simple and false, processing the
231 tracepoint finishes very quickly and no data is gathered.
232
233 GDBserver interfaces with the UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer) library
234 for static tracepoints support.
d337e9f0 235
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236 - GDBserver now supports x86_64 Windows 64-bit debugging.
237
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238* GDB now sends xmlRegisters= in qSupported packet to indicate that
239 it understands register description.
240
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241* The --batch flag now disables pagination and queries.
242
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243* X86 general purpose registers
244
245 GDB now supports reading/writing byte, word and double-word x86
246 general purpose registers directly. This means you can use, say,
247 $ah or $ax to refer, respectively, to the byte register AH and
248 16-bit word register AX that are actually portions of the 32-bit
249 register EAX or 64-bit register RAX.
250
95a42b64 251* The `commands' command now accepts a range of breakpoints to modify.
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252 A plain `commands' following a command that creates multiple
253 breakpoints affects all the breakpoints set by that command. This
254 applies to breakpoints set by `rbreak', and also applies when a
255 single `break' command creates multiple breakpoints (e.g.,
256 breakpoints on overloaded c++ functions).
95a42b64 257
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258* The `rbreak' command now accepts a filename specification as part of
259 its argument, limiting the functions selected by the regex to those
260 in the specified file.
261
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262* Support for remote debugging Windows and SymbianOS shared libraries
263 from Unix hosts has been improved. Non Windows GDB builds now can
264 understand target reported file names that follow MS-DOS based file
265 system semantics, such as file names that include drive letters and
266 use the backslash character as directory separator. This makes it
267 possible to transparently use the "set sysroot" and "set
268 solib-search-path" on Unix hosts to point as host copies of the
269 target's shared libraries. See the new command "set
270 target-file-system-kind" described below, and the "Commands to
271 specify files" section in the user manual for more information.
272
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273* New commands
274
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275eval template, expressions...
276 Convert the values of one or more expressions under the control
277 of the string template to a command line, and call it.
278
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279set target-file-system-kind unix|dos-based|auto
280show target-file-system-kind
281 Set or show the assumed file system kind for target reported file
282 names.
283
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284save breakpoints <filename>
285 Save all current breakpoint definitions to a file suitable for use
286 in a later debugging session. To read the saved breakpoint
287 definitions, use the `source' command.
288
289`save tracepoints' is a new alias for `save-tracepoints'. The latter
290is now deprecated.
291
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292info static-tracepoint-markers
293 Display information about static tracepoint markers in the target.
294
295strace FN | FILE:LINE | *ADDR | -m MARKER_ID
296 Define a static tracepoint by probing a marker at the given
297 function, line, address, or marker ID.
298
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299set observer on|off
300show observer
301 Enable and disable observer mode.
302
303set may-write-registers on|off
304set may-write-memory on|off
305set may-insert-breakpoints on|off
306set may-insert-tracepoints on|off
307set may-insert-fast-tracepoints on|off
308set may-interrupt on|off
309 Set individual permissions for GDB effects on the target. Note that
310 some of these settings can have undesirable or surprising
311 consequences, particularly when changed in the middle of a session.
312 For instance, disabling the writing of memory can prevent
313 breakpoints from being inserted, cause single-stepping to fail, or
314 even crash your program, if you disable after breakpoints have been
315 inserted. However, GDB should not crash.
316
317set record memory-query on|off
318show record memory-query
319 Control whether to stop the inferior if memory changes caused
320 by an instruction cannot be recorded.
321
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322* Changed commands
323
324disassemble
325 The disassemble command now supports "start,+length" form of two arguments.
326
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327* Python scripting
328
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329** GDB now provides a new directory location, called the python directory,
330 where Python scripts written for GDB can be installed. The location
331 of that directory is <data-directory>/python, where <data-directory>
332 is the GDB data directory. For more details, see section `Scripting
333 GDB using Python' in the manual.
334
adc36818 335** The GDB Python API now has access to breakpoints, symbols, symbol
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336 tables, program spaces, inferiors, threads and frame's code blocks.
337 Additionally, GDB Parameters can now be created from the API, and
338 manipulated via set/show in the CLI.
f870a310 339
fa33c3cd 340** New functions gdb.target_charset, gdb.target_wide_charset,
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341 gdb.progspaces, gdb.current_progspace, and gdb.string_to_argv.
342
343** New exception gdb.GdbError.
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344
345** Pretty-printers are now also looked up in the current program space.
f3e9a817 346
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347** Pretty-printers can now be individually enabled and disabled.
348
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349** GDB now looks for names of Python scripts to auto-load in a
350 special section named `.debug_gdb_scripts', in addition to looking
351 for a OBJFILE-gdb.py script when OBJFILE is read by the debugger.
352
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353* Tracepoint actions were unified with breakpoint commands. In particular,
354there are no longer differences in "info break" output for breakpoints and
355tracepoints and the "commands" command can be used for both tracepoints and
356regular breakpoints.
357
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358* New targets
359
360ARM Symbian arm*-*-symbianelf*
361
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362* D language support.
363 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the D programming
364 language.
365
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366* GDB now supports the extended ptrace interface for PowerPC which is
367 available since Linux kernel version 2.6.34. This automatically enables
368 any hardware breakpoints and additional hardware watchpoints available in
369 the processor. The old ptrace interface exposes just one hardware
370 watchpoint and no hardware breakpoints.
371
372* GDB is now able to use the Data Value Compare (DVC) register available on
373 embedded PowerPC processors to implement in hardware simple watchpoint
374 conditions of the form:
375
376 watch ADDRESS|VARIABLE if ADDRESS|VARIABLE == CONSTANT EXPRESSION
377
378 This works in native GDB running on Linux kernels with the extended ptrace
379 interface mentioned above.
380
bfbf3774 381*** Changes in GDB 7.1
abc7453d 382
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383* C++ Improvements
384
385 ** Namespace Support
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386
387 GDB now supports importing of namespaces in C++. This enables the
388 user to inspect variables from imported namespaces. Support for
389 namepace aliasing has also been added. So, if a namespace is
390 aliased in the current scope (e.g. namepace C=A; ) the user can
391 print variables using the alias (e.g. (gdb) print C::x).
392
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393 ** Bug Fixes
394
395 All known bugs relating to the printing of virtual base class were
396 fixed. It is now possible to call overloaded static methods using a
397 qualified name.
398
399 ** Cast Operators
400
401 The C++ cast operators static_cast<>, dynamic_cast<>, const_cast<>,
402 and reinterpret_cast<> are now handled by the C++ expression parser.
403
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404* New targets
405
406Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze-*-*
34207b9e 407Renesas RX rx-*-elf
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408
409* New Simulators
410
411Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze
34207b9e 412Renesas RX rx
2d1c1221 413
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414* Multi-program debugging.
415
416 GDB now has support for multi-program (a.k.a. multi-executable or
417 multi-exec) debugging. This allows for debugging multiple inferiors
418 simultaneously each running a different program under the same GDB
419 session. See "Debugging Multiple Inferiors and Programs" in the
420 manual for more information. This implied some user visible changes
421 in the multi-inferior support. For example, "info inferiors" now
422 lists inferiors that are not running yet or that have exited
423 already. See also "New commands" and "New options" below.
424
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425* New tracing features
426
427 GDB's tracepoint facility now includes several new features:
428
429 ** Trace state variables
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430
431 GDB tracepoints now include support for trace state variables, which
432 are variables managed by the target agent during a tracing
433 experiment. They are useful for tracepoints that trigger each
434 other, so for instance one tracepoint can count hits in a variable,
435 and then a second tracepoint has a condition that is true when the
436 count reaches a particular value. Trace state variables share the
437 $-syntax of GDB convenience variables, and can appear in both
438 tracepoint actions and condition expressions. Use the "tvariable"
439 command to create, and "info tvariables" to view; see "Trace State
440 Variables" in the manual for more detail.
7a697b8d 441
d5551862 442 ** Fast tracepoints
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443
444 GDB now includes an option for defining fast tracepoints, which
445 targets may implement more efficiently, such as by installing a jump
446 into the target agent rather than a trap instruction. The resulting
447 speedup can be by two orders of magnitude or more, although the
448 tradeoff is that some program locations on some target architectures
449 might not allow fast tracepoint installation, for instance if the
450 instruction to be replaced is shorter than the jump. To request a
451 fast tracepoint, use the "ftrace" command, with syntax identical to
452 the regular trace command.
453
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454 ** Disconnected tracing
455
456 It is now possible to detach GDB from the target while it is running
457 a trace experiment, then reconnect later to see how the experiment
458 is going. In addition, a new variable disconnected-tracing lets you
459 tell the target agent whether to continue running a trace if the
460 connection is lost unexpectedly.
461
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462 ** Trace files
463
464 GDB now has the ability to save the trace buffer into a file, and
465 then use that file as a target, similarly to you can do with
466 corefiles. You can select trace frames, print data that was
467 collected in them, and use tstatus to display the state of the
468 tracing run at the moment that it was saved. To create a trace
469 file, use "tsave <filename>", and to use it, do "target tfile
470 <name>".
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471
472 ** Circular trace buffer
473
474 You can ask the target agent to handle the trace buffer as a
475 circular buffer, discarding the oldest trace frames to make room for
476 newer ones, by setting circular-trace-buffer to on. This feature may
477 not be available for all target agents.
478
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479* Changed commands
480
481disassemble
482 The disassemble command, when invoked with two arguments, now requires
483 the arguments to be comma-separated.
484
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485info variables
486 The info variables command now displays variable definitions. Files
487 which only declare a variable are not shown.
488
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489source
490 The source command is now capable of sourcing Python scripts.
491 This feature is dependent on the debugger being build with Python
492 support.
493
494 Related to this enhancement is also the introduction of a new command
495 "set script-extension" (see below).
496
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497* New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
498
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499record save [<FILENAME>]
500 Save a file (in core file format) containing the process record
501 execution log for replay debugging at a later time.
502
503record restore <FILENAME>
504 Restore the process record execution log that was saved at an
505 earlier time, for replay debugging.
506
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507add-inferior [-copies <N>] [-exec <FILENAME>]
508 Add a new inferior.
509
510clone-inferior [-copies <N>] [ID]
511 Make a new inferior ready to execute the same program another
512 inferior has loaded.
513
514remove-inferior ID
515 Remove an inferior.
516
517maint info program-spaces
518 List the program spaces loaded into GDB.
519
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520set remote interrupt-sequence [Ctrl-C | BREAK | BREAK-g]
521show remote interrupt-sequence
522 Allow the user to select one of ^C, a BREAK signal or BREAK-g
523 as the sequence to the remote target in order to interrupt the execution.
524 Ctrl-C is a default. Some system prefers BREAK which is high level of
525 serial line for some certain time. Linux kernel prefers BREAK-g, a.k.a
526 Magic SysRq g. It is BREAK signal and character 'g'.
527
528set remote interrupt-on-connect [on | off]
529show remote interrupt-on-connect
530 When interrupt-on-connect is ON, gdb sends interrupt-sequence to
531 remote target when gdb connects to it. This is needed when you debug
532 Linux kernel.
533
534set remotebreak [on | off]
535show remotebreak
536Deprecated. Use "set/show remote interrupt-sequence" instead.
537
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538tvariable $NAME [ = EXP ]
539 Create or modify a trace state variable.
540
541info tvariables
542 List trace state variables and their values.
543
544delete tvariable $NAME ...
545 Delete one or more trace state variables.
546
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547teval EXPR, ...
548 Evaluate the given expressions without collecting anything into the
549 trace buffer. (Valid in tracepoint actions only.)
550
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551ftrace FN / FILE:LINE / *ADDR
552 Define a fast tracepoint at the given function, line, or address.
553
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554* New expression syntax
555
556 GDB now parses the 0b prefix of binary numbers the same way as GCC does.
557 GDB now parses 0b101010 identically with 42.
558
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559* New options
560
561set follow-exec-mode new|same
562show follow-exec-mode
563 Control whether GDB reuses the same inferior across an exec call or
564 creates a new one. This is useful to be able to restart the old
565 executable after the inferior having done an exec call.
566
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567set default-collect EXPR, ...
568show default-collect
569 Define a list of expressions to be collected at each tracepoint.
570 This is a useful way to ensure essential items are not overlooked,
571 such as registers or a critical global variable.
572
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573set disconnected-tracing
574show disconnected-tracing
575 If set to 1, the target is instructed to continue tracing if it
576 loses its connection to GDB. If 0, the target is to stop tracing
577 upon disconnection.
578
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579set circular-trace-buffer
580show circular-trace-buffer
581 If set to on, the target is instructed to use a circular trace buffer
582 and discard the oldest trace frames instead of stopping the trace due
583 to a full trace buffer. If set to off, the trace stops when the buffer
584 fills up. Some targets may not support this.
585
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586set script-extension off|soft|strict
587show script-extension
588 If set to "off", the debugger does not perform any script language
589 recognition, and all sourced files are assumed to be GDB scripts.
590 If set to "soft" (the default), files are sourced according to
591 filename extension, falling back to GDB scripts if the first
592 evaluation failed.
593 If set to "strict", files are sourced according to filename extension.
594
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595set ada trust-PAD-over-XVS on|off
596show ada trust-PAD-over-XVS
597 If off, activate a workaround against a bug in the debugging information
598 generated by the compiler for PAD types (see gcc/exp_dbug.ads in
599 the GCC sources for more information about the GNAT encoding and
600 PAD types in particular). It is always safe to set this option to
601 off, but this introduces a slight performance penalty. The default
602 is on.
603
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604* Python API Improvements
605
606 ** GDB provides the new class gdb.LazyString. This is useful in
607 some pretty-printing cases. The new method gdb.Value.lazy_string
608 provides a simple way to create objects of this type.
609
610 ** The fields returned by gdb.Type.fields now have an
611 `is_base_class' attribute.
612
613 ** The new method gdb.Type.range returns the range of an array type.
614
615 ** The new method gdb.parse_and_eval can be used to parse and
616 evaluate an expression.
617
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618* New remote packets
619
620QTDV
621 Define a trace state variable.
622
623qTV
624 Get the current value of a trace state variable.
625
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626QTDisconnected
627 Set desired tracing behavior upon disconnection.
628
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629QTBuffer:circular
630 Set the trace buffer to be linear or circular.
631
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632qTfP, qTsP
633 Get data about the tracepoints currently in use.
634
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635* Bug fixes
636
637Process record now works correctly with hardware watchpoints.
638
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639Multiple bug fixes have been made to the mips-irix port, making it
640much more reliable. In particular:
641 - Debugging threaded applications is now possible again. Previously,
642 GDB would hang while starting the program, or while waiting for
643 the program to stop at a breakpoint.
644 - Attaching to a running process no longer hangs.
645 - An error occurring while loading a core file has been fixed.
646 - Changing the value of the PC register now works again. This fixes
647 problems observed when using the "jump" command, or when calling
648 a function from GDB, or even when assigning a new value to $pc.
649 - With the "finish" and "return" commands, the return value for functions
650 returning a small array is now correctly printed.
651 - It is now possible to break on shared library code which gets executed
652 during a shared library init phase (code executed while executing
653 their .init section). Previously, the breakpoint would have no effect.
654 - GDB is now able to backtrace through the signal handler for
655 non-threaded programs.
656
93c26624
JK
657PIE (Position Independent Executable) programs debugging is now supported.
658This includes debugging execution of PIC (Position Independent Code) shared
659libraries although for that, it should be possible to run such libraries as an
660executable program.
661
abc7453d 662*** Changes in GDB 7.0
75feb17d 663
4efc6507
DE
664* GDB now has an interface for JIT compilation. Applications that
665dynamically generate code can create symbol files in memory and register
666them with GDB. For users, the feature should work transparently, and
667for JIT developers, the interface is documented in the GDB manual in the
668"JIT Compilation Interface" chapter.
669
782b2b07
SS
670* Tracepoints may now be conditional. The syntax is as for
671breakpoints; either an "if" clause appended to the "trace" command,
672or the "condition" command is available. GDB sends the condition to
673the target for evaluation using the same bytecode format as is used
674for tracepoint actions.
675
53a71c06
CR
676* The disassemble command now supports: an optional /r modifier, print the
677raw instructions in hex as well as in symbolic form, and an optional /m
678modifier to print mixed source+assembly.
e6158f16 679
e7a8dbfb
HZ
680* Process record and replay
681
682 In a architecture environment that supports ``process record and
683 replay'', ``process record and replay'' target can record a log of
684 the process execution, and replay it with both forward and reverse
685 execute commands.
686
64644d9b
MS
687* Reverse debugging: GDB now has new commands reverse-continue, reverse-
688step, reverse-next, reverse-finish, reverse-stepi, reverse-nexti, and
689set execution-direction {forward|reverse}, for targets that support
690reverse execution.
691
b9412953
DD
692* GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on MIPS/Linux systems. This
693feature is available with a native GDB running on kernel version
6942.6.28 or later.
695
6c7a06a3
TT
696* GDB now has support for multi-byte and wide character sets on the
697target. Strings whose character type is wchar_t, char16_t, or
698char32_t are now correctly printed. GDB supports wide- and unicode-
699literals in C, that is, L'x', L"string", u'x', u"string", U'x', and
700U"string" syntax. And, GDB allows the "%ls" and "%lc" formats in
701`printf'. This feature requires iconv to work properly; if your
702system does not have a working iconv, GDB can use GNU libiconv. See
703the installation instructions for more information.
704
f1838a98
UW
705* GDB now supports automatic retrieval of shared library files from
706remote targets. To use this feature, specify a system root that begins
707with the `remote:' prefix, either via the `set sysroot' command or via
708the `--with-sysroot' configure-time option.
709
55333a84
DE
710* "info sharedlibrary" now takes an optional regex of libraries to show,
711and it now reports if a shared library has no debugging information.
712
7f6a6314
PM
713* Commands `set debug-file-directory', `set solib-search-path' and `set args'
714now complete on file names.
715
65d12d83
TT
716* When completing in expressions, gdb will attempt to limit
717completions to allowable structure or union fields, where appropriate.
718For instance, consider:
719
720 # struct example { int f1; double f2; };
721 # struct example variable;
722 (gdb) p variable.
723
724If the user types TAB at the end of this command line, the available
725completions will be "f1" and "f2".
726
edb3359d
DJ
727* Inlined functions are now supported. They show up in backtraces, and
728the "step", "next", and "finish" commands handle them automatically.
729
2fae03e8
TT
730* GDB now supports the token-splicing (##) and stringification (#)
731operators when expanding macros. It also supports variable-arity
732macros.
733
47a3467a 734* GDB now supports inspecting extra signal information, exported by
58d6951d
DJ
735the new $_siginfo convenience variable. The feature is currently
736implemented on linux ARM, i386 and amd64.
737
738* GDB can now display the VFP floating point registers and NEON vector
739registers on ARM targets. Both ARM GNU/Linux native GDB and gdbserver
740can provide these registers (requires Linux 2.6.30 or later). Remote
741and simulator targets may also provide them.
47a3467a 742
08388c79
DE
743* New remote packets
744
745qSearch:memory:
746 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
747
a6f3e723
SL
748QStartNoAckMode
749 Turn off `+'/`-' protocol acknowledgments to permit more efficient
750 operation over reliable transport links. Use of this packet is
751 controlled by the `set remote noack-packet' command.
752
d7713ae0
EZ
753vKill
754 Kill the process with the specified process ID. Use this in preference
755 to `k' when multiprocess protocol extensions are supported.
756
07e059b5
VP
757qXfer:osdata:read
758 Obtains additional operating system information
759
47a3467a
PA
760qXfer:siginfo:read
761qXfer:siginfo:write
762 Read or write additional signal information.
763
060871df
PA
764* Removed remote protocol undocumented extension
765
766 An undocumented extension to the remote protocol's `S' stop reply
767 packet that permited the stub to pass a process id was removed.
768 Remote servers should use the `T' stop reply packet instead.
769
c055b101 770* GDB now supports multiple function calling conventions according to the
a0ef4274 771DWARF-2 DW_AT_calling_convention function attribute.
c055b101
CV
772
773* The SH target utilizes the aforementioned change to distinguish between gcc
a0ef4274
DJ
774and Renesas calling convention. It also adds the new CLI commands
775`set/show sh calling-convention'.
c055b101 776
31fffb02
CS
777* GDB can now read compressed debug sections, as produced by GNU gold
778with the --compress-debug-sections=zlib flag.
779
88d8a8e0
JB
780* 64-bit core files are now supported on AIX.
781
7f99b190
JB
782* Thread switching is now supported on Tru64.
783
ccd213ac
DJ
784* Watchpoints can now be set on unreadable memory locations, e.g. addresses
785which will be allocated using malloc later in program execution.
786
1fddbabb 787* The qXfer:libraries:read remote procotol packet now allows passing a
31fffb02 788list of section offsets.
1fddbabb 789
a0ef4274
DJ
790* On GNU/Linux, GDB can now attach to stopped processes. Several race
791conditions handling signals delivered during attach or thread creation
792have also been fixed.
793
bfb8797a 794* GDB now supports the use of DWARF boolean types for Ada's type Boolean.
158c7665
PH
795From the user's standpoint, all unqualified instances of True and False
796are treated as the standard definitions, regardless of context.
bfb8797a 797
71c25dea
TT
798* GDB now parses C++ symbol and type names more flexibly. For
799example, given:
800
801 template<typename T> class C { };
802 C<char const *> c;
803
804GDB will now correctly handle all of:
805
806 ptype C<char const *>
807 ptype C<char const*>
808 ptype C<const char *>
809 ptype C<const char*>
810
ccd213ac
DJ
811* New features in the GDB remote stub, gdbserver
812
813 - The "--wrapper" command-line argument tells gdbserver to use a
814 wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
815
7ae0e2a2
UW
816 - On PowerPC and S/390 targets, it is now possible to use a single
817 gdbserver executable to debug both 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
818 (This requires gdbserver itself to be built as a 64-bit executable.)
819
a6f3e723
SL
820 - gdbserver uses the new noack protocol mode for TCP connections to
821 reduce communications latency, if also supported and enabled in GDB.
822
da8bd9a3
DJ
823 - Support for the sparc64-linux-gnu target is now included in
824 gdbserver.
825
d70e31dd
DE
826 - The amd64-linux build of gdbserver now supports debugging both
827 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
828
829 - The i386-linux, amd64-linux, and i386-win32 builds of gdbserver
830 now support hardware watchpoints, and will use them automatically
831 as appropriate.
832
d57a3c85
TJB
833* Python scripting
834
835 GDB now has support for scripting using Python. Whether this is
836 available is determined at configure time.
837
d8906c6f
TJB
838 New GDB commands can now be written in Python.
839
aadc346a
JB
840* Ada tasking support
841
842 Ada tasks can now be inspected in GDB. The following commands have
843 been introduced:
844
845 info tasks
846 Print the list of Ada tasks.
847 info task N
848 Print detailed information about task number N.
849 task
850 Print the task number of the current task.
851 task N
852 Switch the context of debugging to task number N.
853
adb483fe
DJ
854* Support for user-defined prefixed commands. The "define" command can
855add new commands to existing prefixes, e.g. "target".
856
2277426b
PA
857* Multi-inferior, multi-process debugging.
858
859 GDB now has generalized support for multi-inferior debugging. See
860 "Debugging Multiple Inferiors" in the manual for more information.
861 Although availability still depends on target support, the command
862 set is more uniform now. The GNU/Linux specific multi-forks support
863 has been migrated to this new framework. This implied some user
864 visible changes; see "New commands" and also "Removed commands"
865 below.
866
08d16641
PA
867* Target descriptions can now describe the target OS ABI. See the
868"Target Description Format" section in the user manual for more
869information.
870
e35359c5
UW
871* Target descriptions can now describe "compatible" architectures
872to indicate that the target can execute applications for a different
873architecture in addition to those for the main target architecture.
874See the "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for
875more information.
876
85e747d2
UW
877* Multi-architecture debugging.
878
879 GDB now includes general supports for debugging applications on
880 hybrid systems that use more than one single processor architecture
881 at the same time. Each such hybrid architecture still requires
882 specific support to be added. The only hybrid architecture supported
883 in this version of GDB is the Cell Broadband Engine.
884
885* GDB now supports integrated debugging of Cell/B.E. applications that
886use both the PPU and SPU architectures. To enable support for hybrid
887Cell/B.E. debugging, you need to configure GDB to support both the
888powerpc-linux or powerpc64-linux and the spu-elf targets, using the
889--enable-targets configure option.
890
11ade57a
PA
891* Non-stop mode debugging.
892
893 For some targets, GDB now supports an optional mode of operation in
894 which you can examine stopped threads while other threads continue
895 to execute freely. This is referred to as non-stop mode, with the
896 old mode referred to as all-stop mode. See the "Non-Stop Mode"
897 section in the user manual for more information.
898
899 To be able to support remote non-stop debugging, a remote stub needs
900 to implement the non-stop mode remote protocol extensions, as
901 described in the "Remote Non-Stop" section of the user manual. The
902 GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been adjusted to support these
903 extensions on linux targets.
904
d7713ae0 905* New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
75feb17d 906
a96d9b2e
SDJ
907catch syscall [NAME(S) | NUMBER(S)]
908 Catch system calls. Arguments, which should be names of system
909 calls or their numbers, mean catch only those syscalls. Without
910 arguments, every syscall will be caught. When the inferior issues
911 any of the specified syscalls, GDB will stop and announce the system
912 call, both when it is called and when its call returns. This
913 feature is currently available with a native GDB running on the
914 Linux Kernel, under the following architectures: x86, x86_64,
915 PowerPC and PowerPC64.
916
08388c79
DE
917find [/size-char] [/max-count] start-address, end-address|+search-space-size,
918 val1 [, val2, ...]
919 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
920
d57a3c85
TJB
921maint set python print-stack
922maint show python print-stack
923 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Python script.
924
925python [CODE]
926 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Python interpreter.
927
d7713ae0
EZ
928macro define
929macro list
930macro undef
931 These allow macros to be defined, undefined, and listed
932 interactively.
933
934info os processes
935 Show operating system information about processes.
936
2277426b
PA
937info inferiors
938 List the inferiors currently under GDB's control.
939
940inferior NUM
941 Switch focus to inferior number NUM.
942
943detach inferior NUM
944 Detach from inferior number NUM.
945
946kill inferior NUM
947 Kill inferior number NUM.
948
d7713ae0
EZ
949* New options
950
3285f3fe
UW
951set spu stop-on-load
952show spu stop-on-load
953 Control whether to stop for new SPE threads during Cell/B.E. debugging.
954
ff1a52c6
UW
955set spu auto-flush-cache
956show spu auto-flush-cache
957 Control whether to automatically flush the software-managed cache
958 during Cell/B.E. debugging.
959
d7713ae0
EZ
960set sh calling-convention
961show sh calling-convention
962 Control the calling convention used when calling SH target functions.
963
e0a3ce09 964set debug timestamp
75feb17d 965show debug timestamp
d7713ae0
EZ
966 Control display of timestamps with GDB debugging output.
967
968set disassemble-next-line
969show disassemble-next-line
970 Control display of disassembled source lines or instructions when
971 the debuggee stops.
972
973set remote noack-packet
974show remote noack-packet
975 Set/show the use of remote protocol QStartNoAckMode packet. See above
976 under "New remote packets."
977
978set remote query-attached-packet
979show remote query-attached-packet
980 Control use of remote protocol `qAttached' (query-attached) packet.
981
982set remote read-siginfo-object
983show remote read-siginfo-object
984 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:read' (read-siginfo-object)
985 packet.
986
987set remote write-siginfo-object
988show remote write-siginfo-object
989 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:write' (write-siginfo-object)
990 packet.
991
40ab02ce
MS
992set remote reverse-continue
993show remote reverse-continue
994 Control use of remote protocol 'bc' (reverse-continue) packet.
995
996set remote reverse-step
997show remote reverse-step
998 Control use of remote protocol 'bs' (reverse-step) packet.
999
d7713ae0
EZ
1000set displaced-stepping
1001show displaced-stepping
1002 Control displaced stepping mode. Displaced stepping is a way to
1003 single-step over breakpoints without removing them from the debuggee.
1004 Also known as "out-of-line single-stepping".
1005
1006set debug displaced
1007show debug displaced
1008 Control display of debugging info for displaced stepping.
1009
1010maint set internal-error
1011maint show internal-error
1012 Control what GDB does when an internal error is detected.
1013
1014maint set internal-warning
1015maint show internal-warning
1016 Control what GDB does when an internal warning is detected.
75feb17d 1017
ccd213ac
DJ
1018set exec-wrapper
1019show exec-wrapper
1020unset exec-wrapper
1021 Use a wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
fa4727a6 1022
aad4b048
JB
1023set multiple-symbols (all|ask|cancel)
1024show multiple-symbols
1025 The value of this variable can be changed to adjust the debugger behavior
1026 when an expression or a breakpoint location contains an ambiguous symbol
1027 name (an overloaded function name, for instance).
1028
74960c60
VP
1029set breakpoint always-inserted
1030show breakpoint always-inserted
1031 Keep breakpoints always inserted in the target, as opposed to inserting
1032 them when resuming the target, and removing them when the target stops.
1033 This option can improve debugger performance on slow remote targets.
1034
0428b8f5
DJ
1035set arm fallback-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
1036show arm fallback-mode
1037set arm force-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
1038show arm force-mode
1039 These commands control how ARM GDB determines whether instructions
1040 are ARM or Thumb. The default for both settings is auto, which uses
1041 the current CPSR value for instructions without symbols; previous
1042 versions of GDB behaved as if "set arm fallback-mode arm".
1043
10568435
JK
1044set disable-randomization
1045show disable-randomization
1046 Standalone programs run with the virtual address space randomization enabled
1047 by default on some platforms. This option keeps the addresses stable across
1048 multiple debugging sessions.
1049
d7713ae0
EZ
1050set non-stop
1051show non-stop
1052 Control whether other threads are stopped or not when some thread hits
1053 a breakpoint.
1054
b3eb342c 1055set target-async
d7713ae0 1056show target-async
b3eb342c
VP
1057 Requests that asynchronous execution is enabled in the target, if available.
1058 In this case, it's possible to resume target in the background, and interact
1059 with GDB while the target is running. "show target-async" displays the
1060 current state of asynchronous execution of the target.
1061
6c7a06a3
TT
1062set target-wide-charset
1063show target-wide-charset
1064 The target-wide-charset is the name of the character set that GDB
1065 uses when printing characters whose type is wchar_t.
1066
84603566
SL
1067set tcp auto-retry (on|off)
1068show tcp auto-retry
1069set tcp connect-timeout
1070show tcp connect-timeout
1071 These commands allow GDB to retry failed TCP connections to a remote stub
1072 with a specified timeout period; this is useful if the stub is launched
1073 in parallel with GDB but may not be ready to accept connections immediately.
1074
17a37d48
PP
1075set libthread-db-search-path
1076show libthread-db-search-path
1077 Control list of directories which GDB will search for appropriate
1078 libthread_db.
1079
d4db2f36
PA
1080set schedule-multiple (on|off)
1081show schedule-multiple
1082 Allow GDB to resume all threads of all processes or only threads of
1083 the current process.
1084
4e5d721f
DE
1085set stack-cache
1086show stack-cache
1087 Use more aggressive caching for accesses to the stack. This improves
1088 performance of remote debugging (particularly backtraces) without
1089 affecting correctness.
1090
910c5da8
JB
1091set interactive-mode (on|off|auto)
1092show interactive-mode
1093 Control whether GDB runs in interactive mode (on) or not (off).
1094 When in interactive mode, GDB waits for the user to answer all
1095 queries. Otherwise, GDB does not wait and assumes the default
1096 answer. When set to auto (the default), GDB determines which
1097 mode to use based on the stdin settings.
1098
2277426b
PA
1099* Removed commands
1100
1101info forks
1102 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `info
1103 inferiors' command. To list checkpoints, you can still use the
1104 `info checkpoints' command, which was an alias for the `info forks'
1105 command.
1106
1107fork NUM
1108 Replaced by the new `inferior' command. To switch between
1109 checkpoints, you can still use the `restart' command, which was an
1110 alias for the `fork' command.
1111
1112process PID
1113 This is removed, since some targets don't have a notion of
1114 processes. To switch between processes, you can still use the
1115 `inferior' command using GDB's own inferior number.
1116
1117delete fork NUM
1118 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `kill
1119 inferior' command. To delete a checkpoint, you can still use the
1120 `delete checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `delete
1121 fork' command.
1122
1123detach fork NUM
1124 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `detach
1125 inferior' command. To detach a checkpoint, you can still use the
1126 `detach checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `detach
1127 fork' command.
1128
a80b95ba
TG
1129* New native configurations
1130
1131x86/x86_64 Darwin i[34567]86-*-darwin*
1132
b8bfd3ed
JB
1133x86_64 MinGW x86_64-*-mingw*
1134
75a2d5e7
TT
1135* New targets
1136
c28c63d8 1137Lattice Mico32 lm32-*
75a2d5e7 1138x86 DICOS i[34567]86-*-dicos*
4c1d2973 1139x86_64 DICOS x86_64-*-dicos*
5f814c3b 1140S+core 3 score-*-*
75a2d5e7 1141
6de3146c
PA
1142* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports x86 Windows CE
1143 (mingw32ce) debugging.
1144
d5cbbe6e
JB
1145* Removed commands
1146
1147catch load
1148catch unload
1149 These commands were actually not implemented on any target.
1150
75feb17d 1151*** Changes in GDB 6.8
f9ed52be 1152
af5ca30d
NH
1153* New native configurations
1154
1155NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*netbsd*
94a0e877 1156Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
af5ca30d
NH
1157
1158* New targets
1159
1160NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*-netbsd*
94a0e877 1161Xtensa GNU/Lunux xtensa*-*-linux*
af5ca30d 1162
7a404eba
PA
1163* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
1164
1165 When the '-p NUMBER' or '--pid NUMBER' options are used, and
1166 attaching to process NUMBER fails, GDB no longer attempts to open a
1167 core file named NUMBER. Attaching to a program using the -c option
1168 is no longer supported. Instead, use the '-p' or '--pid' options.
1169
430ebac9
PA
1170* GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
1171(mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
1172
fe6fbf8b 1173* Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
8d5f9c6f 1174is resolved.
fe6fbf8b
VP
1175
1176* GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
8d5f9c6f
DJ
1177including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
1178and in inlined functions.
fe6fbf8b 1179
10665d76
JB
1180* GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
1181accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
1182more than one contiguous range of addresses.
1183
7cc46491
DJ
1184* Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
1185
d71340b8
DJ
1186* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
1187registers on PowerPC targets.
1188
523c4513
DJ
1189* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
1190targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
1191
a6b151f1
DJ
1192* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
1193commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
1194
2d717e4f
DJ
1195* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports run and attach in
1196extended-remote mode.
1197
24a836bd 1198* hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
d001be7a
DJ
1199The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
1200error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
1201The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
24a836bd 1202
d0c678e6
UW
1203* GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
1204building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
1205target architectures.
1206
d64a946d
TJB
1207* GDB now supports debugging C and C++ programs which use the
1208Decimal Floating Point extension. In addition, the PowerPC target
1209now has a set of pseudo-registers to inspect decimal float values
1210stored in two consecutive float registers.
1211
ee163bf5
VP
1212* The -break-insert MI command can optionally create pending
1213breakpoints now.
1214
b93b6ca7 1215* Improved support for debugging Ada
d001be7a
DJ
1216Many improvements to the Ada language support have been made. These
1217include:
b93b6ca7
JB
1218 - Better support for Ada2005 interface types
1219 - Improved handling of arrays and slices in general
1220 - Better support for Taft-amendment types
1221 - The '{type} ADDRESS' expression is now allowed on the left hand-side
1222 of an assignment
1223 - Improved command completion in Ada
1224 - Several bug fixes
1225
d001be7a
DJ
1226* GDB on GNU/Linux and HP/UX can now debug through "exec" of a new
1227process.
1228
a6b151f1
DJ
1229* New commands
1230
6d53d0af
JB
1231set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
1232show print frame-arguments
1233 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
1234 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
1235
a6b151f1
DJ
1236remote put
1237remote get
1238remote delete
1239 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
1240
1241* New MI commands
1242
1243-target-file-put
1244-target-file-get
1245-target-file-delete
1246 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
1247
1248* New remote packets
1249
1250vFile:open:
1251vFile:close:
1252vFile:pread:
1253vFile:pwrite:
1254vFile:unlink:
1255 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
d0c678e6 1256
2d717e4f
DJ
1257vAttach
1258 Attach to an existing process on the remote system, in extended-remote
1259 mode.
1260
1261vRun
1262 Run a new process on the remote system, in extended-remote mode.
1263
8d5f9c6f 1264*** Changes in GDB 6.7
6dd09645 1265
19d378fc
MS
1266* Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
1267bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
1268Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
1269
3a40aaa0
UW
1270* When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
1271symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
1272-Bsymbolic linker option.
1273
a6ec25f2
BW
1274* When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
1275recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
1276is not supported.
1277
6dd09645
JB
1278* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
1279frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
1280
c9bb8148
DJ
1281* GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
128232-bit or 64-bit register values.
1283
0d5de010
DJ
1284* Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
1285
23181151
DJ
1286* GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
1287target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
1288a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
1289
ea37ba09
DJ
1290* Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
1291automatically displayed as character or string data.
1292
1293* The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
1294arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
1295as strings.
e1f48ead 1296
123dc839
DJ
1297* Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
1298for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
8d5f9c6f 1299only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
123dc839 1300
05a4558a
DJ
1301* GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
1302iWMMXt coprocessor.
fb1e4ffc 1303
7c963485
PA
1304* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
1305ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
1306has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
1307
b18be20d
DJ
1308* GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
1309
0ca420ce
UW
1310* GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
1311
31d99776
DJ
1312* The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
1313layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
1314segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
1315
a4642986
MR
1316* The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
1317immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
1318
cfa9d6d9
DJ
1319* The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
1320"library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
1321packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
1322where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
1323Windows and SymbianOS).
255e7678
DJ
1324
1325* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
1326(DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
f5db8714
JK
1327
1328* GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
1329according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
cfa9d6d9 1330
c9bb8148
DJ
1331* New commands
1332
23776285
MR
1333set remoteflow
1334show remoteflow
1335 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
1336 when debugging using remote targets.
1337
c9bb8148
DJ
1338set mem inaccessible-by-default
1339show mem inaccessible-by-default
1340 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
1341 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
1342 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
1343 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
1344 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
1345
1346set breakpoint auto-hw
1347show breakpoint auto-hw
1348 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
1349 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
1350 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
1351 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
1352 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
1353 including "next" and "finish".
1354
0e420bd8
JB
1355catch exception
1356catch exception unhandled
1357 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
1358
1359catch assert
1360 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
1361
f822c95b
DJ
1362set sysroot
1363show sysroot
1364 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
1365 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
1366 an alias to "set sysroot".
1367
83cc5c53
UW
1368info spu
1369 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
1370 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
1371 architecture.
1372
bd372731
MK
1373* New native configurations
1374
1375OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
1376
23181151
DJ
1377set tdesc filename
1378unset tdesc filename
1379show tdesc filename
1380 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
1381 not query the target for its built-in description.
1382
c9bb8148
DJ
1383* New targets
1384
54fe9172 1385OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
c9bb8148 1386MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
c077150c 1387Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
c9bb8148 1388
6dd09645
JB
1389* New remote packets
1390
1391QPassSignals:
1392 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
1393 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
1394
23181151
DJ
1395qXfer:features:read:
1396 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
1397 features.
6dd09645 1398
83cc5c53
UW
1399qXfer:spu:read:
1400qXfer:spu:write:
1401 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
1402 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
1403
cfa9d6d9
DJ
1404qXfer:libraries:read:
1405 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
1406 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
1407 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
1408 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
1409
483367ee
DJ
1410* Removed targets
1411
1412Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
1413
d08950c4
UW
1414alpha*-*-osf1*
1415alpha*-*-osf2*
7ce59000 1416d10v-*-*
483367ee
DJ
1417hppa*-*-hiux*
1418i[34567]86-ncr-*
1419i[34567]86-*-dgux*
1420i[34567]86-*-lynxos*
1421i[34567]86-*-netware*
1422i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
1423i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
1424i[34567]86-*-sco*
1425i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
1426i[34567]86-*-sysv4*
1427i[34567]86-*-sysv5*
1428i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
1429i[34567]86-*-unixware*
1430i[34567]86-*-sysv*
1431i[34567]86-*-isc*
1432m68*-cisco*-*
1433m68*-tandem-*
ad527d2e 1434mips*-*-pe
483367ee 1435rs6000-*-lynxos*
ad527d2e 1436sh*-*-pe
483367ee 1437
7ce59000
DJ
1438* Other removed features
1439
1440target abug
1441target cpu32bug
1442target est
1443target rom68k
1444
1445 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
1446
ea35711c
DJ
1447target hms
1448target e7000
1449target sh3
1450target sh3e
1451
1452 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
1453 H8/300.
1454
1455target ocd
1456
1457 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
1458 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
1459 interfaces.
1460
7ce59000
DJ
1461DWARF 1 support
1462
1463 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
1464 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
1465
54d61198
DJ
1466Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
1467
1468 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
1469 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
1470 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
1471 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
1472
ea35711c
DJ
1473MIPS ".pdr" sections
1474
1475 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
1476 in debugging information.
1477
1478Scheme support
1479
1480 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
1481 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
1482
1a69e1e4
DJ
1483set mips stack-arg-size
1484set mips saved-gpreg-size
1485
1486 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
1487
6dd09645 1488*** Changes in GDB 6.6
e374b601 1489
ca3bf3bd
DJ
1490* New targets
1491
1492Xtensa xtensa-elf
9c309e77 1493Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
ca3bf3bd 1494
6aec2e11
DJ
1495* GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
1496(mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
1497running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
1498
1499* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
1500Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
1501supported.
1502
17218d91
DJ
1503* The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
1504broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
1505
9ebce043
DJ
1506* The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
1507stub provides the required support.
1508
7d3d3ece
DJ
1509* Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
1510longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
1511
4f8253f3
JB
1512* New commands
1513
1514set substitute-path
1515unset substitute-path
1516show substitute-path
1517 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
1518 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
1519 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
1520 between compilation and debugging.
1521
9fa66fd7
AS
1522set trace-commands
1523show trace-commands
1524 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
1525 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
1526 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
1527
1f5befc1
DJ
1528* REMOVED features
1529
1530The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
1531
2ec3381a
DJ
1532Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
1533an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
1534
3d00d119
DJ
1535The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
1536
be2a5f71
DJ
1537* New remote packets
1538
1539qSupported:
1540 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
1541 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
1542 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
1543 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
1544 target.
1545
0876f84a
DJ
1546qXfer:auxv:read:
1547 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
1548 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
1549
9ebce043
DJ
1550qXfer:memory-map:read:
1551 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
1552 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
1553
1554vFlashErase:
1555vFlashWrite:
1556vFlashDone:
1557 Erase and program a flash memory device.
1558
0876f84a
DJ
1559* Removed remote packets
1560
1561qPart:auxv:read:
1562 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
1563 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
1564
e374b601 1565*** Changes in GDB 6.5
53e5f3cf 1566
96309189
MS
1567* New targets
1568
1569Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
1570
1571Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
1572
53e5f3cf
AS
1573* New commands
1574
1575init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
1576 only if it doesn't already have a value.
1577
ac264b3b
MS
1578The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
1579
1580checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
1581
1582restart <n> Return the program state to a
1583 previously saved state.
1584
1585info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
1586
1587delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
1588
1589set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
1590 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
1591
1592info forks List forks of the user program that
1593 are available to be debugged.
1594
1595fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
1596 forks of the user program that are
1597 available to be debugged.
1598
1599delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
1600 that are available to be debugged (and
1601 kill the forked process).
1602
1603detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
1604 that are available to be debugged (and
1605 allow the process to continue).
1606
3950dc3f
NS
1607* New architecture
1608
1609Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
1610
0ea3f30e
DJ
1611* Improved Windows host support
1612
1613GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
1614native console support, and remote communications using either
1615network sockets or serial ports.
1616
f79daebb
GM
1617* Improved Modula-2 language support
1618
1619GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
1620basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
1621pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
1622printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
1623written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
1624GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
1625
acab6ab2
MM
1626* REMOVED features
1627
1628The ARM rdi-share module.
1629
f4267320
DJ
1630The Netware NLM debug server.
1631
53e5f3cf 1632*** Changes in GDB 6.4
156a53ca 1633
e0ecbda1
MK
1634* New native configurations
1635
02a677ac 1636OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
e0ecbda1
MK
1637OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
1638
d64a6579
KB
1639* New targets
1640
1641Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
1642
b33a6190
AS
1643* New command line options
1644
1645--batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
1646--return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
1647 the child (debugged) program exited with.
1648--eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
1649 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
1650 specified multiple times and in conjunction
1651 with the --command (-x) option.
1652
11dced61
AC
1653* Deprecated commands removed
1654
1655The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
1656removed:
1657
1658 Command Replacement
1659 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
1660 othernames set arm disassembler
1661 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
1662 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
1663 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
1664 regs info registers
1665
6fe85783
MK
1666* New BSD user-level threads support
1667
1668It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
1669library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
1670configurations are:
1671
1672FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
1673FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
1674OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
1675
1676Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
1677are not yet supported.
1678
5260ca71
MS
1679* New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
1680(Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
1681
e84ecc99
AC
1682* REMOVED configurations and files
1683
1684VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
9445aa30 1685Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
9445aa30 1686National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
156a53ca 1687
31e35378
JB
1688* New "set print array-indexes" command
1689
1690After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
1691when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
1692behavior.
1693
e85e5c83
MK
1694* VAX floating point support
1695
1696GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
1697
d91e9901
AS
1698* User-defined command support
1699
1700In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
1701to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
1702section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
1703
f2cb65ca
MC
1704*** Changes in GDB 6.3:
1705
f47b1503
AS
1706* New command line option
1707
1708GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
1709debugging.
1710
f2cb65ca
MC
1711* GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
1712
1713GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
1714information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
1715by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
1716proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
1717to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
860660cb 1718
d08c0230
AC
1719* Internationalization
1720
1721When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
1722internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
1723continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
1724
117ea3cf
PH
1725* Ada
1726
1727Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
1728implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
1729into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
1730
d08c0230
AC
1731* New native configurations
1732
1733GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
1734
1735* Remote 'p' packet
1736
1737GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
1738packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
1739
1740* END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
1741
1742GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
1743The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
1744features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
1745i386 application).
1746
1747GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
1748compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
1749continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
1750configurations:
1751
1752hppa-*-hpux
1753ia64-*-aix
1754mips-*-irix*
1755*-*-lynx
1756mips-*-linux-gnu
1757sds protocol
1758xdr protocol
1759powerpc bdm protocol
1760
1761Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
1762made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
1763
1764* OBSOLETE configurations and files
1765
1766Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1767been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1768configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1769permanently REMOVED.
1770
1771h8300-*-*
1772mcore-*-*
1773mn10300-*-*
1774ns32k-*-*
1775sh64-*-*
1776v850-*-*
1777
ebb7c577
AC
1778*** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
1779
1780* MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
1781
1782When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
1783heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
1784been fixed.
1785
1786* MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
1787
1788When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
1789fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
1790IRIX long double values).
1791
1792* VAX and "next"
1793
1794A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
1795command. This problem has been fixed.
1796
860660cb 1797*** Changes in GDB 6.2:
faae5abe 1798
0dea2468
AC
1799* Fix for ``many threads''
1800
1801On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
1802rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
1803error message:
1804
1805 ptrace: No such process.
1806 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
1807
1808This problem has been fixed.
1809
2c07db7a
AC
1810* "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
1811
1812Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
1813GDB to dump core).
1814
c23968a2
JB
1815* New ``start'' command.
1816
1817This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
1818
71009278
MK
1819* New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
1820
1821Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
1822live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
1823platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
1824
1825FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
1826FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
1827NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
1828NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
1829NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
1830OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
1831OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
1832OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
1833OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
1834
3c0b7db2
AC
1835* Signal trampoline code overhauled
1836
1837Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
1838These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
1839of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
1840call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
1841signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
1842
73cc75f3
AC
1843Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
1844features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
1845include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
3c0b7db2 1846
7243600a
BF
1847* Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
1848
6f606e1c
MK
1849* New native configurations
1850
97dc871c 1851GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
0e56aeaf 1852OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
bf2ca189
MK
1853OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
1854OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
d195bc9f 1855OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 1856NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
9f076e7a 1857OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 1858
a1b461bf
AC
1859* END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
1860
1861GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
1862The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
1863including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
1864migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
1865compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
1866work, was also included.
1867
1868GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
1869module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
1870
1871h8300-*-*
1872mcore-*-*
1873mn10300-*-*
1874ns32k-*-*
1875sh64-*-*
1876v850-*-*
1877xstormy16-*-*
1878
1879Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
1880made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
1881
3c7012f5
AC
1882* REMOVED configurations and files
1883
1884Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
1885Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
1886Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
1887Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
1888Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
1889AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
1890Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
1891decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
1892riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
1893sonymips mips-sony-*
1894sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
1895
e5fe55f7
AC
1896*** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
1897
1898* TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
1899
1900The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
1901GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
1902command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
1903program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
1904with GDB".
1905
1906* Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
1907
1908Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
1909libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
1910cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
1911GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
1912shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
1913the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
1914are created.
1915
1916Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
1917
1918* Fixed ISO-C build problems
1919
1920The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
1921non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
1922compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
1923
1924* Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
1925
1926Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
1927wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
1928
1929* Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
1930
1931The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
1932permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
1933systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
1934
1935* Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
1936
1937Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
1938has been updated to use constant array sizes.
1939
1940* Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
1941
1942GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
1943its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
1944panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
1945
1946* Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
1947
1948When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
1949by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
1950not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
1951
faae5abe 1952*** Changes in GDB 6.1:
f2c06f52 1953
9175c9a3
MC
1954* Removed --with-mmalloc
1955
1956Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
1957conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
1958
3cc87ec0
MK
1959* Changes in AMD64 configurations
1960
1961The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
1962the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
1963and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
1964you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
1965
f0424ef6
MK
1966* Revised SPARC target
1967
1968The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
1969FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
03cebad2
MK
1970support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
1971from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
1972(Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
f0424ef6 1973
59659be2
ILT
1974* New C++ demangler
1975
1976GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
1977names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
1978with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
1979programs.
1980
9e08b29b
DJ
1981* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
1982
1983GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
1984arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
1985encountered these.
1986
8dfe8985
DC
1987* C++ nested types and namespaces
1988
1989GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
1990improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
1991is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
1992Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
1993namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
1994"Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
1995frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
1996if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
1997GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
1998
cced5e27
MK
1999* New native configurations
2000
2001NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
27d1e716 2002OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
2031c21a 2003OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
f2cab569
MK
2004OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
2005OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
cced5e27 2006
b4b4b794
KI
2007* New debugging protocols
2008
2009M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
2010
7989c619
AC
2011* "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
2012
2013The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
2014and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
2015tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
2016
5994185b
AC
2017* OBSOLETE configurations and files
2018
2019Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2020been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2021configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2022permanently REMOVED.
2023
2024Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
2025Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
2026Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
2027Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
2028Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
2029AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
2030Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
0748d941
AC
2031decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
2032riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
2033sonymips mips-sony-*
2034sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
5994185b 2035
0ddabb4c
AC
2036* REMOVED configurations and files
2037
2038SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
2039SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
4a8269c0
AC
2040Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
2041Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
2042H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
2043HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
2044HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
2045HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
2046PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
cf7c5c23 2047386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
4a8269c0
AC
2048Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
2049 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
2050 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
f0424ef6
MK
2051SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
2052SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
4a8269c0
AC
2053Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2054Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
0ddabb4c 2055
c7f1390e
DJ
2056*** Changes in GDB 6.0:
2057
1fe43d45
AC
2058* Objective-C
2059
2060Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
2061integrated into GDB.
2062
e6beb428
AC
2063* New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
2064
2065DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
2066information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
2067By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
2068backtraces.
2069
2070The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
2071have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
2072DWARF 2 CFI support.
2073
2074* Hosted file I/O.
2075
2076GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
2077file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
2078remote protocol documentation for details.
2079
2080* All targets using the new architecture framework.
2081
2082All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
2083architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
2084to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
2085ppc32 on ppc64).
2086
2087* GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
2088
2089GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
2090per-thread variables.
2091
2092* GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
2093
2094GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
2095GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
2096
2097* Separate debug info.
2098
2099GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
2100automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
2101of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
2102system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
2103and optional debug files.
2104
2105* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
2106
2107DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
2108describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
2109debugger.
2110
2111GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
2112for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
2113
2114* Java
2115
2116A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
2117Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
2118considered "useable".
2119
85f8f974
DJ
2120* GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
2121
2122The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
2123commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
2124kernel.
2125
0fac0b41
DJ
2126* GDB supports logging output to a file
2127
2128There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
2129used to capture GDB's output to a file.
f2c06f52 2130
6ad8ae5c
DJ
2131* The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
2132
2133The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
2134disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
2135command.
2136
e286caf2 2137* d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
5f601589
AC
2138
2139The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
2140registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
2141
d28f9cdf
DJ
2142* Profiling support
2143
2144A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
2145be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
2146session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
2147"--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
2148data, for more informative profiling results.
2149
da0f9dcd
AC
2150* Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
2151
2152The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
2153option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
b68767c1 2154"mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
da0f9dcd
AC
2155
2156Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
2157removed.
2158
fb9b6b35
JJ
2159Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
2160Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
2161Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
2162 in a subsequent -var-update.
2163
954a4db8
MK
2164* New native configurations.
2165
2166FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
2167
6760f9e6
JB
2168* Multi-arched targets.
2169
b4263afa 2170HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
85a453d5 2171Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
6760f9e6 2172
1b831c93
AC
2173* OBSOLETE configurations and files
2174
2175Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2176been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2177configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2178permanently REMOVED.
2179
8b0e5691 2180Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
67f16606 2181Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
fd2299bd 2182H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
56056df7
AC
2183HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
2184HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
2185HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
78c43945 2186PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
2fbce691
AC
2187Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
2188 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
2189 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
f81824a9
AC
2190Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2191Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
fd2299bd 2192
5835abe7
NC
2193* REMOVED configurations and files
2194
2195V850EA ISA
1b831c93
AC
2196Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
2197IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
2198i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
2199i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
2200i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
2201HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
2202 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
2203 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
2204Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
2205Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
2206Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
2207OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
2208I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
5835abe7 2209
a094c6fb
AC
2210* MIPS $fp behavior changed
2211
2212The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
2213the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
2214context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
2215address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
2216The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
2217
299ffc64 2218*** Changes in GDB 5.3:
37057839 2219
46248966
AC
2220* GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
2221
2222When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
2223`/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
2224in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
2225library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
2226shared libs like mad''.
2227
b9d14705 2228* ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
6da02953 2229
b9d14705
DJ
2230Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
2231the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
2232arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
2233powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
6da02953 2234
e0e9281e
JB
2235* GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
2236
2237GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
2238and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
2239they expand.
2240
dd73b9bb
AC
2241The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
2242invocations in expression, and shows the result.
2243
2244The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
2245macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
2246
e0e9281e
JB
2247Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
2248information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
2249your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
2250information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
2251
2250ee0c
CV
2252* Multi-arched targets.
2253
6e3ba3b8
JT
2254DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
2255DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
2250ee0c 2256NEC V850 v850-*-*
6e3ba3b8 2257National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
a1789893
GS
2258Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
2259Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
2250ee0c 2260
cd9bfe15 2261* New targets.
e33ce519 2262
456f8b9d
DB
2263Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
2264
e33ce519 2265
da8ca43d
JT
2266* New native configurations
2267
2268Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
029923d4 2269SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
45888261 2270MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
9ce5c36a 2271UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
da8ca43d 2272
cd9bfe15
AC
2273* OBSOLETE configurations and files
2274
2275Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2276been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2277configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2278permanently REMOVED.
2279
92eb23c5 2280Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
a99a9e1b 2281OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1c7cc583 2282IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
7a3085c1 2283Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
7fb623f7 2284Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
eb4c54a2 2285Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
d8ee244c
MK
2286i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
2287i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
2288i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
822e978b
AC
2289HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
2290 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
2291 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
4d210288 2292I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
92eb23c5 2293
db034ac5
AC
2294* OBSOLETE languages
2295
2296CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
2297
cd9bfe15
AC
2298* REMOVED configurations and files
2299
2300AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
2301A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
2302AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2303AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2304AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2305
2306testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
2307
20f01a46
DH
2308* New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
2309
2310This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
2311commands. The default is 1024.
2312
a5941fbf
MK
2313* Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
2314
2315Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
2316
89743e04
MS
2317* New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
2318
2319These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
2320to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
2321from a file into memory (restore).
37057839 2322
9fb14e79
JB
2323* Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
2324
2325The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
2326including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
2327of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
2328
2037aebb
AC
2329*** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
2330
2331* New targets.
2332
2333Atmel AVR avr*-*-*
2334
2335* Bug fixes
2336
2337gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
2338mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
2339Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
2340
2341gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
2342dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
2343Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
2344
2345Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
2346Surprisingly enough, it works now.
2347By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
2348
2349i386 hardware watchpoint support:
2350avoid misses on second run for some targets.
2351By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
2352
37057839 2353*** Changes in GDB 5.2:
eb7cedd9 2354
1a703748
MS
2355* New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
2356
2357This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
2358really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
2359In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
2360target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
2361This can be a significant performance improvement on some
2362(notably embedded) targets.
2363
cefd4ef5
MS
2364* New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
2365
55241689
AC
2366This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
2367process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
2368GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
2369hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
cefd4ef5 2370
352ed7b4
MS
2371* New command line option
2372
2373GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
2374
2375* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
2376
2377There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
2378command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
2379a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
2380be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
2381open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
2382issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
2383a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
2384it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
2385GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
2386is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
2387
fe419ffc
RE
2388* Changes in ARM configurations.
2389
2390Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
2391configuration is fully multi-arch.
2392
eb7cedd9
MK
2393* New native configurations
2394
fe419ffc 2395ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
eb7cedd9 2396x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
55241689 2397AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
768f0842 2398Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
eb7cedd9 2399
c9f63e6b
CV
2400* New targets
2401
2402Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
2403
9b4ff276
AC
2404* OBSOLETE configurations and files
2405
2406Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2407been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2408configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2409permanently REMOVED.
2410
2411AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
2412A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
2413AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2414AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2415AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2416
b4ceaee6 2417testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
9b4ff276 2418
e2caac18
AC
2419* REMOVED configurations and files
2420
2421TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
7bc65f05 2422WDC 65816 w65-*-*
7768dd6c
AC
2423PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
2424PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
2425PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
5e734e1f 2426Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1406caf7
AC
2427Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
2428 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
7e24f0b1 2429SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
9b567150 2430Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
3680c638
AC
2431Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
2432ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
a752853e 2433Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
e2caac18 2434
c2a727fa
TT
2435* Changes to command line processing
2436
2437The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
2438for the inferior from gdb's command line.
2439
467d8519
TT
2440* Changes to key bindings
2441
2442There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
2443
7072a954
AC
2444*** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
2445
2446Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
2447
2448Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
2449corrupted.
2450
2451Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
2452
2453Numerous documentation fixes.
2454
2455Numerous testsuite fixes.
2456
34f47bc4 2457*** Changes in GDB 5.1:
139760b7
MK
2458
2459* New native configurations
2460
2461Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
2462x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
55241689 2463MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
e23194cb
EZ
2464MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
2465ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
55241689 2466s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
139760b7 2467
bf64bfd6
AC
2468* New targets
2469
def90278 2470Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
24be5c34 2471CRIS cris-axis
55241689 2472UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
def90278 2473
17e78a56 2474* OBSOLETE configurations and files
bf64bfd6
AC
2475
2476x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
9b9c068d 2477Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
bb19ff3b
AC
2478Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
2479 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
76f4ea53
AC
2480TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
2481WDC 65816 w65-*-*
4a1968f4 2482Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1b2b2c16
AC
2483PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
2484PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
2485PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
24f89b68 2486SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
514e603d
AC
2487Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
2488ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
d036b4d9 2489Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
bf64bfd6 2490
17e78a56
AC
2491stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
2492kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
2493
7fcca85b
AC
2494Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2495been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2496configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2497permanently REMOVED.
2498
a196c81c 2499* REMOVED configurations and files
7fcca85b
AC
2500
2501Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
2502Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
2503Pyramid pyramid-*-*
2504ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
2505Tahoe tahoe-*-*
a196c81c 2506ser-ocd.c *-*-*
bf64bfd6 2507
6d6b80e5 2508* GDB has been converted to ISO C.
e23194cb 2509
6d6b80e5 2510GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
e23194cb
EZ
2511sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
2512present.
2513
bf64bfd6
AC
2514* Other news:
2515
e23194cb
EZ
2516* "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
2517
2518* The MI enabled by default.
2519
2520The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
2521revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
2522engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
2523using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
2524which is now deprecated.
2525
2526* Support for debugging Pascal programs.
2527
2528GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
2529main features are supported:
2530
2531 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
2532
2533 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
2534 extension;
2535
2536 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
2537
2538 - a Pascal expression parser.
2539
2540However, some important features are not yet supported.
2541
2542 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
2543
2544 - there are some problems with boolean types;
2545
2546 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
2547 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
2548
2549 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
2550
2551 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
2552
2553* Changes in completion.
2554
2555Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
2556to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
2557users expect at the shell prompt.
2558
2559Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
2560`breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
2561program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
2562files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
2563be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
2564considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
2565name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
2566
2567`set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
2568
2569* New platform-independent commands:
2570
2571It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
2572hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
2573documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
2574
2575* Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
2576
d7275149
MK
2577Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
2578revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
2579many threads as your system allows you to have.
2580
e23194cb
EZ
2581Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
2582
d7275149
MK
2583Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
2584multi-threaded programs though.
e23194cb
EZ
2585
2586* Changes in MIPS configurations.
bf64bfd6
AC
2587
2588Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
2589
e23194cb
EZ
2590GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
2591debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
2592supported.)
2593
2594* Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
2595
2596Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
2597breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
2598implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
2599put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
2600and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
2601registers.
2602
2603The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
2604debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
2605watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
2606
2607* Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
2608
2609New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
2610the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
2611
2612New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
2613display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
2614IDT.
2615
2616New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
2617from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
2618New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
2619a given linear address.
2620
2621GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
2622program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
2623which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
2624
2625DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
2626
6c56c069
EZ
2627It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
2628
e23194cb
EZ
2629* Changes in documentation.
2630
2631All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
2632Documentation License.
2633
2634Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
2635manual.
2636
2637TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
2638
2639Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
2640manual.
2641
2642The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
2643documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
2644hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
2645
5d6640b1
AC
2646* GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
2647
2648The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
2649``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
2650contents of this file.
2651
1a1d8446
AC
2652* gdba.el deleted
2653
2654GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
139760b7 2655
9debab2f 2656*** Changes in GDB 5.0:
7a292a7a 2657
c63ce875
EZ
2658* Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
2659
2660Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
2661programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
2662displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
2663greater level of detail.
2664
2665* Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
2666
2667It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
2668bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
2669on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
2670written.
2671
2672* Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
2673
2674The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
2675necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
2676machines ``out of the box''.
2677
2678The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
2679possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
2680signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
2681would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
2682interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
2683
2684It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
2685standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
2686even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
2687and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
2688terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
2689
2690The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
2691enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
2692also works.
2693
2694DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
2695GDB.
2696
2697It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
2698directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
2699times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
2700breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
2701
ed9a39eb
JM
2702* New native configurations
2703
2704ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
afc05dd4 2705PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
ed9a39eb 2706
7a292a7a
SS
2707* New targets
2708
96baa820 2709Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
adf40b2e
JM
2710x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
2711PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
7a292a7a
SS
2712TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
2713
085dd6e6
JM
2714* OBSOLETE configurations
2715
2716Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
2717Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
9846de1b 2718Pyramid pyramid-*-*
ed9a39eb 2719ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
104c1213 2720Tahoe tahoe-*-*
7a292a7a 2721
9debab2f
AC
2722Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
2723but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
2724these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
2725be permanently REMOVED.
2726
5330533d
SS
2727* Gould support removed
2728
2729Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
2730
bc9e5bbf
AC
2731* New features for SVR4
2732
2733On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
2734without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
2735load symbols from the running process's executable file.
2736
2737* Many C++ enhancements
2738
2739C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
2740in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
2741
adf40b2e
JM
2742* Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
2743
2744A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
2745sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
2746with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
2747``|<program> <args>'' vis:
2748
2749 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
2750 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
2751
43e526b9
JM
2752* MIPS 64 remote protocol
2753
2754A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
2755expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
2756instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
2757
2758The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
2759added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
2760
96baa820
JM
2761* ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
2762
2763The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
2764``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
2765include ``set remote P-packet''.
2766
11cf8741
JM
2767* Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
2768
2769The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
2770accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
2771``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
2772
7876dd43
DB
2773* ``apropos'' command added.
2774
2775The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
2776documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
2777try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
2778
bc9e5bbf
AC
2779* New MI interface
2780
2781A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
2782interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
7162c0ca
EZ
2783process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
2784"GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
2785enabled by configuring with:
bc9e5bbf
AC
2786
2787 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
2788
c906108c
SS
2789*** Changes in GDB-4.18:
2790
2791* New native configurations
2792
2793HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
2794HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
55241689 2795M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
c906108c
SS
2796
2797* New targets
2798
2799Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
2800Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
2801Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
2802
2803* OBSOLETE configurations
2804
2805Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
2806
2807Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
2808but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
2809these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
2810be permanently REMOVED.
2811
2812* ANSI/ISO C
2813
2814As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
2815buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
2816containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
2817use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
2818available. If this is not true, please report the affected
2819configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
2820information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
2821already.
2822
2823* Readline 2.2
2824
2825GDB now uses readline 2.2.
2826
2827* set extension-language
2828
2829You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
2830languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
2831you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
2832 set extension-language .c c++
2833The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
2834and their associated languages.
2835
2836* Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
2837
2838When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
2839you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
2840PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
2841
2842 set processor NAME
2843
2844sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
2845following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
2846
2847 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
2848 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
2849 403 IBM PowerPC 403
2850 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
2851 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
2852 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
2853 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
2854 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
2855 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
2856 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
2857 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
2858
2859At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
2860special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
2861registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
2862only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
2863
2864* HP-UX support
2865
2866Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
2867more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
2868library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
2869support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
2870for xdb and dbx commands.
2871
2872* Catchpoints
2873
2874HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
2875generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
2876to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
2877
2878This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
2879argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
2880output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
2881
2882* Debugging across forks
2883
2884On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
2885in the inferior.
2886
2887* TUI
2888
2889HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
2890it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
2891configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
2892
2893* GDB remote protocol additions
2894
2895A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
2896Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
2897fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
2898allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
2899
2900For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
2901full 64-bit address. The command
2902
2903 set remoteaddresssize 32
2904
2905can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
2906the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
2907will be discarded.
2908
2909In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
2910command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
2911
2912 maint packet heythere
2913
2914sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
2915disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
2916time.
2917
2918The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
2919target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
2920downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
2921
2922* Tracing can collect general expressions
2923
2924You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
2925further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
2926doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
2927
2928* mask-address variable for Mips
2929
2930For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
2931a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
2932of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
2933
2934* Higher serial baud rates
2935
2936GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
2937230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
2938to achieve all of these rates.)
2939
2940* i960 simulator
2941
2942The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
2943builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
2944
2945
2946*** Changes in GDB-4.17:
2947
2948* New native configurations
2949
2950Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
2951Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
2952Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
2953PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
2954PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
2955Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
2956Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
2957
2958* New targets
2959
2960Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
2961Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
2962Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
2963Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
2964MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
2965MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
2966MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
2967Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
2968Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
2969Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2970NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
2971
2972* New debugging protocols
2973
2974ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
2975M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
2976DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
2977PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
2978PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
2979Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
2980
2981* DWARF 2
2982
2983All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
2984format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
2985information.
2986
2987* Java frontend
2988
2989GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
2990only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
2991
2992* solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
2993
2994For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
2995loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
2996locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
2997
2998* Live range splitting
2999
3000GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
3001range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
3002more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
3003
3004* Hurd support
3005
3006GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
3007updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
3008
3009* ARM Thumb support
3010
3011GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
3012instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
3013instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
3014accordingly.
3015
3016* MIPS16 support
3017
3018GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
3019instruction set.
3020
3021* Overlay support
3022
3023GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
3024linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
3025will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
3026control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
3027additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
3028in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
3029
3030* info symbol
3031
3032The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
3033the symbol at the specified address.
3034
3035* Trace support
3036
3037The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
3038asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
3039extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
3040includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
3041file tracepoint.c for more details.
3042
3043* MIPS simulator
3044
3045Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
3046by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
3047of most MIPS variants.
3048
3049* Sparc simulator
3050
3051Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
3052by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
3053Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
3054
3055* set architecture
3056
3057For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
3058basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
3059architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
3060the possible architectures.
3061
3062*** Changes in GDB-4.16:
3063
3064* New native configurations
3065
3066Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
3067M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
3068PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
3069PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
3070PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
3071RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
3072
3073* New targets
3074
3075ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
3076I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
3077MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
3078MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
3079PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
3080Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
3081Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
3082
3083* PowerPC simulator
3084
3085The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
3086contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
3087PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
3088basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
3089performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
3090
3091* Solaris 2.5
3092
3093GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
3094
3095* Windows 95/NT native
3096
3097GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
3098To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
3099which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
3100Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
3101ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
3102
3103* dont-repeat command
3104
3105If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
3106command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
3107useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
3108extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
3109
3110* Send break instead of ^C
3111
3112The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
3113rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
3114GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
3115
3116* Remote protocol timeout
3117
3118The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
3119that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
3120to read from the target. The default value is 2.
3121
3122* Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
3123
3124By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
3125loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
3126stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
3127when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
3128in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
3129
3130Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
3131/usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
3132automatically on hpux10.
3133
3134* Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
3135
3136Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
3137
3138* Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
3139
3140When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
3141may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
3142the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
3143every character. The default value is 1050.
3144
3145* Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
3146
3147If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
3148a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
3149replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
3150details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
3151remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
3152to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
3153
3154* Speedups for remote debugging
3155
3156GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
3157the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
3158and more efficient S-record downloading.
3159
3160* Memory use reductions and statistics collection
3161
3162GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
3163Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
3164
3165*** Changes in GDB-4.15:
3166
3167* Psymtabs for XCOFF
3168
3169The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
3170can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
3171
3172* Remote targets use caching
3173
3174Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
3175remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
3176it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
3177debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
3178off' turns the the data cache off.
3179
3180* Remote targets may have threads
3181
3182The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
3183in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
3184gdb/remote.c for details.
3185
3186* NetROM support
3187
3188If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
3189support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
3190acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
3191write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
3192support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
3193another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
3194sequence is something like
3195
3196 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
3197 load <prog>
3198 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
3199
3200* Macintosh host
3201
3202GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
3203may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
3204it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
3205available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
3206device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
3207directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
3208scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
3209mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
3210
3211* Autoconf
3212
3213GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
3214but does simplify configuration and building.
3215
3216* hpux10
3217
3218GDB now supports hpux10.
3219
3220*** Changes in GDB-4.14:
3221
3222* New native configurations
3223
3224x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
3225x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
3226NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
3227Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
3228
3229* New targets
3230
3231A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
3232HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
3233CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
3234PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
3235WDC 65816 w65-*-*
3236
3237* Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
3238
3239GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
3240possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
3241filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
3242the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
3243if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
3244
3245* Arguments to user-defined commands
3246
3247User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
3248Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
3249trivial example:
3250define adder
3251 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
3252
3253To execute the command use:
3254adder 1 2 3
3255
3256Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
3257Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
3258use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
3259
3260* New `if' and `while' commands
3261
3262This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
3263commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
3264expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
3265execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
3266terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
3267`else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
3268if the expression is zero.
3269
3270* Fortran source language mode
3271
3272GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
3273Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
3274variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
3275with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
3276Fortran compilers.
3277
3278* Better HPUX support
3279
3280Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
3281running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
3282processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
3283for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
3284that behavior do the following before running the program:
3285
3286 adb -w a.out
3287 __dld_flags?W 0x5
3288 control-d
3289
3290This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
3291To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
3292
3293 adb -w a.out
3294 __dld_flags?W 0x4
3295 control-d
3296
3297You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
3298the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
3299external linkage.
3300
3301GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
3302HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
3303
3304* Target byte order now dynamically selectable
3305
3306You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
3307commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
3308current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
3309"set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
3310associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
3311configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
3312
3313* New DOS host serial code
3314
3315This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
3316no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
3317a PC's serial port.
3318
3319*** Changes in GDB-4.13:
3320
3321* New "complete" command
3322
3323This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
3324were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
3325
3326* Trailing space optional in prompt
3327
3328"set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
3329allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
3330
3331* Breakpoint hit counts
3332
3333"info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
3334has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
3335can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
3336to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
3337less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
3338that breakpoint.
3339
3340* Ability to stop printing at NULL character
3341
3342"set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
3343an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
3344arrays actually contain only short strings.
3345
3346* Shared library breakpoints
3347
3348In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
3349breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
3350
3351* Hardware watchpoints
3352
3353There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
3354targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
3355
55241689 3356Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
c906108c
SS
3357
3358* Annotations
3359
3360Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
3361and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
3362
3363* Improved Irix 5 support
3364
3365GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
3366
3367* Improved HPPA support
3368
3369GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
3370
3371* New native configurations
3372
3373Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
3374HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
3375Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
3376RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
3377
3378* New targets
3379
3380OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
3381MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
3382Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
3383
3384* Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
3385
3386There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
3387This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
3388
3389* Fixes
3390
3391As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
3392and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
3393
3394*** Changes in GDB-4.12:
3395
3396* Irix 5 is now supported
3397
3398* HPPA support
3399
3400GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
3401to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
3402GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
3403of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
3404can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
3405
3406
3407*** Changes in GDB-4.11:
3408
3409* User visible changes:
3410
3411* Remote Debugging
3412
3413The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
3414target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
3415debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
3416integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
3417debugging info for the mips target).
3418
3419* DEC Alpha native support
3420
3421GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
3422debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
3423work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
3424Alpha-specific notes.
3425
3426* Preliminary thread implementation
3427
3428GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
3429
3430* LynxOS native and target support for 386
3431
3432This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
3433to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
3434for details).
3435
3436* Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
3437
3438This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
3439mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
3440call methods, ...etc.
3441
3442*** Changes in GDB-4.10:
3443
3444 * User visible changes:
3445
3446Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
3447supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
3448other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
3449somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
3450
3451Filename completion now works.
3452
3453When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
3454arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
3455addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
3456
3457All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
3458vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
3459should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
3460your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
3461to be on the far side of a thin network line.
3462
3463 * DEC alpha support
3464
3465This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
3466cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
3467
3468
3469*** Changes in GDB-4.9:
3470
3471 * Testsuite
3472
3473This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
3474The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
3475via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
3476
3477 * C++ demangling
3478
3479'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
3480emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
3481Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
3482disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
3483use gdb with AT&T cfront.
3484
3485 * Simulators
3486
3487GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
3488So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
3489Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
3490
3491 * New targets supported
3492
3493H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
3494H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
3495SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
3496Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
3497IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
3498
3499Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
3500version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
3501GO32 memory extender.
3502
3503 * New remote protocols
3504
3505MIPS remote debugging protocol.
3506
3507 * New source languages supported
3508
3509This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
3510used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
3511into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
3512
3513
3514*** Changes in GDB-4.8:
3515
3516 * HP Precision Architecture supported
3517
3518GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
3519version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
3520University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
3521compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
3522format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
3523(as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
3524
3525Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
3526
3527 * Faster and better demangling
3528
3529We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
3530demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
3531character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
3532only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
3533This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
3534increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
3535symbol lookups.
3536
3537`Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
3538from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
3539compiler does not actually implement.
3540
3541 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
3542
3543In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
3544inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
3545recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
3546very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
3547The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
3548circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
3549fix.
3550
3551The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
3552release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
3553
3554 * Improved configure script
3555
3556The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
3557you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
3558host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
3559done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
3560
3561We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
3562version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
3563`--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
3564The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
3565only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
3566We hope to make this the default in a future release.
3567
3568 * Documentation improvements
3569
3570There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
3571produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
3572before submitting changes.
3573
3574The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
3575M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
3576`info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
3577you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
3578a future texinfo-X.Y release.
3579
3580*NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
3581We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
3582been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
3583or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
3584`texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
3585around this problem.
3586
3587 * New features
3588
3589GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
3590the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
3591`print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
3592the target program.
3593
3594The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
3595how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
3596
3597 * New native hosts supported
3598
3599HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
3600386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
3601
3602 * New targets supported
3603
3604AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
3605
3606 * New file formats supported
3607
3608BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
3609HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
3610
3611 * Major bug fixes
3612
3613Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
3614
3615We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
3616printf_filtered("%s") problems.
3617
3618We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
3619for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
3620release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
3621
3622You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
3623will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
3624
3625We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
3626for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
3627especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
3628libraries.
3629
3630The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
3631information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
3632command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
3633any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
3634when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
3635
3636 * Internal improvements
3637
3638GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
3639debugging of multiple languages in the future.
3640
3641GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
3642Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
3643symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
3644contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
3645shared code that handles any of them.
3646
3647 * New command line options
3648
3649We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
3650
3651 * Mmalloc licensing
3652
3653The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
3654General Public License.
3655
3656*** Changes in GDB-4.7:
3657
3658 * Host/native/target split
3659
3660GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
3661hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
3662target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
3663local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
3664ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
3665
3666The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
3667GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
3668is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
3669code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
3670any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
3671built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
3672handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
3673
3674GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
3675It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
3676plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
3677
3678 * New hosts supported
3679
3680HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
3681386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
3682386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
3683
3684 * New targets supported
3685
3686Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
368768030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
3688
3689 * New native hosts supported
3690
3691386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
3692 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
3693386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
3694
3695 * New file formats supported
3696
3697BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
3698supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
3699format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
3700
3701 * New commands
3702
3703`show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
3704`show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
3705These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
3706
3707`info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
3708
3709You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
3710scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
3711prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
3712executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
3713
3714 * C++ improvements
3715
3716We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
3717info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
3718symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
3719
3720Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
3721
3722 * Major bug fixes
3723
3724The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
3725fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
3726by the compiler.
3727
3728We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
3729support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
3730
3731John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
3732slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
3733that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
3734purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
3735the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
3736mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
3737
3738Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
3739about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
3740completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
3741we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
3742
3743 * AMD 29k support
3744
3745A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
3746specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
3747calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
3748usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
3749in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
3750
3751We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
3752Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
3753of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
3754resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
3755
3756 * Remote interfaces
3757
3758We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
3759with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
3760message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
3761This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
3762needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
3763breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
3764each instruction being stepped through.
3765
3766The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
3767registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
3768
3769There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
3770find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
3771Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
3772processor with a serial port.
3773
3774 * Configuration
3775
3776Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
3777`table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
3778supported, and what files each one uses.
3779
3780 * Library changes
3781
3782There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
3783disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
3784Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
3785disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
3786
3787The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
3788Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
3789can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
3790grants all the rights from the General Public License.
3791
3792 * Documentation
3793
3794The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
3795reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
3796as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
3797encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
3798system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
3799bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
3800
3801And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
3802
3803
3804*** Changes in GDB-4.6:
3805
3806 * Better support for C++ function names
3807
3808GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
3809names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
3810(using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
3811single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
3812Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
3813
3814GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
3815the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
3816You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
3817lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
3818for the list of formats.
3819
3820 * G++ symbol mangling problem
3821
3822Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
3823C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
3824directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
3825can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
3826usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
3827about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
3828this problem.)
3829
3830 * New 'maintenance' command
3831
3832All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
3833the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
3834can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
3835
3836 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
3837 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
3838 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
3839 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
3840 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
3841 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
3842
3843The following commands are new:
3844
3845 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
3846 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
3847 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
3848
3849 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
3850
3851We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
3852(e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
3853be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
3854read after argv processing.
3855
3856 * New hosts supported
3857
3858Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
3859
55241689 3860GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
c906108c
SS
3861
3862We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
3863is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
3864for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
3865masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
3866fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
3867It costs extra.
3868
3869 * New targets supported
3870
3871Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
3872
3873 * More smarts about finding #include files
3874
3875GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
3876all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
3877greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
3878especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
3879the one that contains your sources.
3880
3881We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
3882breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
3883try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
3884
3885 * Interesting infernals change
3886
3887GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
3888section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
3889target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
3890stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
3891
3892 * Bug fixes (of course!)
3893
3894There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
3895 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
3896 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
3897
3898See the ChangeLog for details.
3899
3900*** Changes in GDB-4.5:
3901
3902 * New machines supported (host and target)
3903
3904IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
3905
3906SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
3907
3908 * New malloc package
3909
3910GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
3911Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
3912capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
3913This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
3914pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
3915more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
3916
3917 * info proc
3918
3919The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
3920'help info proc' for details.
3921
3922 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
3923
3924The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
3925Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
3926possible.
3927
3928 * File name changes for MS-DOS
3929
3930Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
3931support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
3932conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
3933environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
3934that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
3935in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
3936
3937 * Cross byte order fixes
3938
3939Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
3940targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
3941
3942 * New -mapped and -readnow options
3943
3944If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
3945system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
3946`symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
3947program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
3948called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
3949Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
3950and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
3951the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
3952option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
3953starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
3954
3955You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
3956the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
3957information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
3958slower, but makes future operations faster.
3959
3960The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
3961build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
3962A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
3963use is:
3964
3965 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
3966
3967The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
3968It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
3969shared across multiple host platforms.
3970
3971 * longjmp() handling
3972
3973GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
3974siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
3975all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
3976platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
3977
3978 * Solaris 2.0
3979
3980Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
3981this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
3982reading symbols.
3983
3984 * Bug fixes
3985
3986As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
3987People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
3988crashes and trashed symbol tables.
3989
3990*** Changes in GDB-4.4:
3991
3992 * New machines supported (host and target)
3993
3994SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
3995 (except core files)
3996BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
3997Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
3998
3999 * New machines supported (target)
4000
4001AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
4002
4003 * C++ support
4004
4005GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
4006The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
4007per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
4008
4009GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
4010`ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
4011extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
4012good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
4013will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
4014released.
4015
4016 * New features for SVR4
4017
4018GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
4019shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
4020only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
4021
4022The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
4023on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
4024it prints the address mappings of the process.
4025
4026If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
4027bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
4028
4029 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
4030
4031Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
4032now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
4033skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
4034make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
4035same code linked statically.
4036
4037 * New Getopt
4038
4039GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
4040version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
4041continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
4042Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
4043added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
4044future by other options that begin with the same letter.
4045
4046 * Bugs fixed
4047
4048The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
4049Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
4050See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
4051
4052
4053*** Changes in GDB-4.3:
4054
4055 * New machines supported (host and target)
4056
4057Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
4058NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
4059Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
4060
4061 * Almost SCO Unix support
4062
4063We had hoped to support:
4064SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
4065(except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
4066that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
4067about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
4068
4069 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
4070
4071GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
4072debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
4073is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
4074send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
4075reqired (if any).
4076
4077 * New Readline
4078
4079GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
4080is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
4081required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
4082
4083 * Bugs fixed
4084
4085The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
4086Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
4087See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
4088
4089 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
4090
4091GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
4092supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
4093symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
4094
4095Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
4096mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
4097debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
4098mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
4099version 2.
4100
4101Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
4102really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
4103line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
4104variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
4105situation somewhat.
4106
4107When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
4108However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
4109methods.
4110
4111We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
4112DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
4113encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
4114
4115
4116*** Changes in GDB-4.2:
4117
4118 * Improved configuration
4119
4120Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
4121Porting BFD is simpler.
4122
4123 * Stepping improved
4124
4125The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
4126of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
4127in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
4128function that has debugging information is called within the line.
4129
4130 * Bug fixing
4131
4132Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
4133
4134 * New host supported (not target)
4135
4136Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
4137
4138
4139*** Changes in GDB-4.1:
4140
4141 * Multiple source language support
4142
4143GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
4144It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
4145and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
4146language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
4147You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
4148`set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
4149
4150 * GDB and Modula-2
4151
4152GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
4153currently under development at the State University of New York at
4154Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
4155continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
4156
4157Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
4158debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
4159symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
4160
4161There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
4162in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
4163
4164 * set write on/off
4165
4166GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
4167a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
4168the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
4169by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
4170effect immediately.
4171
4172 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
4173
4174When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
4175shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
4176The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
4177examining core files.
4178
4179 * set listsize
4180
4181You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
4182The default is 10.
4183
4184 * New machines supported (host and target)
4185
4186SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
4187Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
4188Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
4189
4190 * New hosts supported (not targets)
4191
4192IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
4193
4194 * New targets supported (not hosts)
4195
4196AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
4197AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
4198Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
4199
4200 * New remote interfaces
4201
4202AMD 29000 Adapt
4203AMD 29000 Minimon
4204
4205
4206*** Changes in GDB-4.0:
4207
4208 * New Facilities
4209
4210Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
4211
4212Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
4213target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
4214is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
4215remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
4216remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
4217also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
4218using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
4219stub on the target system.
4220
4221New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
4222
4223GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
4224library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
4225object file types such as a.out and coff.
4226
4227There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
4228refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
4229
4230
4231 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
4232
4233All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
4234by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
4235
4236For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
4237``Show prompt'' produces the response:
4238Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
4239
4240What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
4241print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
4242will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
4243all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
4244
4245confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
4246 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
4247 it is already running. Default is ON.
4248
4249editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
4250 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
4251 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
4252 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
4253 Default is ON.
4254
4255history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
4256 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
4257 or the value of the environment variable
4258 GDBHISTFILE.
4259
4260history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
4261 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
4262 HISTSIZE.
4263
4264history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
4265 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
4266 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
4267
4268history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
4269 history expansion will be performed on
4270 command line input. The default is OFF.
4271
4272radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
4273 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
4274 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
4275
4276height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
4277 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
4278 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
4279 variable TERM.
4280
4281width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
4282 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
4283 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
4284 variable TERM.
4285
4286Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
4287``set width'' instead.
4288
4289print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
4290 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
4291 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
4292 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
4293
4294print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
4295 is OFF.
4296
4297print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
4298 "raw" form if off.
4299
4300print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
4301 like instructions.
4302
4303print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
4304
4305
4306 * Support for Epoch Environment.
4307
4308The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
4309new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
4310are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
4311window.
4312
4313
4314 * Support for Shared Libraries
4315
4316GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
4317Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
4318before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
4319happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
4320At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
4321from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
4322shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
4323It can be abbreviated ``share''.
4324
4325sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
4326 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
4327 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
4328
4329info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
4330
4331
4332 * Watchpoints
4333
4334A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
4335expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
4336tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
4337quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
4338problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
4339more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
4340
4341watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
4342
4343info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
4344
4345delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
4346disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
4347enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
4348
4349
4350 * C++ multiple inheritance
4351
4352When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
4353for C++ programs.
4354
4355 * C++ exception handling
4356
4357Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
4358ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
4359the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
4360handler's context).
4361
4362catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
4363 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
4364 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
4365
4366info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
4367 current stack frame.
4368
4369
4370 * Minor command changes
4371
4372The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
4373command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
4374is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
4375
4376The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
4377at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
4378frames without printing.
4379
4380 * New directory command
4381
4382'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
4383The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
4384about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
4385with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
4386find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
4387
4388 * Configuring GDB for compilation
4389
4390For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
4391for more details.
4392
4393GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
4394two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
4395Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
4396where the program that you are debugging will run.
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