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1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
3
3b2f13ff 4*** Changes since GDB 7.9
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6* Support for process record-replay and reverse debugging on aarch64*-linux*
7 targets has been added. GDB now supports recording of A64 instruction set
8 including advance SIMD instructions.
9
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10* GDB now honors the content of the file /proc/PID/coredump_filter
11 (PID is the process ID) on GNU/Linux systems. This file can be used
12 to specify the types of memory mappings that will be included in a
13 corefile. For more information, please refer to the manual page of
14 "core(5)". GDB also has a new command: "set use-coredump-filter
15 on|off". It allows to set whether GDB will read the content of the
16 /proc/PID/coredump_filter file when generating a corefile.
3b2f13ff 17
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18* The "info os" command on GNU/Linux can now display information on
19 cpu information :
20 "info os cpus" Listing of all cpus/cores on the system
21
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22* GDB has two new commands: "set serial parity odd|even|none" and
23 "show serial parity". These allows to set or show parity for the
24 remote serial I/O.
25
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26* The "info source" command now displays the producer string if it was
27 present in the debug info. This typically includes the compiler version
28 and may include things like its command line arguments.
29
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30* The "info dll", an alias of the "info sharedlibrary" command,
31 is now available on all platforms.
32
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33* Directory names supplied to the "set sysroot" commands may be
34 prefixed with "target:" to tell GDB to access shared libraries from
35 the target system, be it local or remote. This replaces the prefix
36 "remote:". The default sysroot has been changed from "" to
37 "target:". "remote:" is automatically converted to "target:" for
38 backward compatibility.
39
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40* The system root specified by "set sysroot" will be prepended to the
41 filename of the main executable (if reported to GDB as absolute by
42 the operating system) when starting processes remotely, and when
43 attaching to already-running local or remote processes.
44
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45* GDB now supports automatic location and retrieval of executable
46 files from remote targets. Remote debugging can now be initiated
47 using only a "target remote" or "target extended-remote" command
48 (no "set sysroot" or "file" commands are required). See "New remote
49 packets" below.
50
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51* The "dump" command now supports verilog hex format.
52
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53* GDB now supports the vector ABI on S/390 GNU/Linux targets.
54
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55* On GNU/Linux, GDB and gdbserver are now able to access executable
56 and shared library files without a "set sysroot" command when
57 attaching to processes running in different mount namespaces from
58 the debugger. This makes it possible to attach to processes in
59 containers as simply as "gdb -p PID" or "gdbserver --attach PID".
60 See "New remote packets" below.
61
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62* Guile Scripting
63
64 ** Memory ports can now be unbuffered.
65
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66* Python Scripting
67
68 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "username",
69 which is the name of the objfile as specified by the user,
70 without, for example, resolving symlinks.
d11916aa 71 ** You can now write frame unwinders in Python.
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72 ** gdb.Type objects have a new method "optimized_out",
73 returning optimized out gdb.Value instance of this type.
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74 ** gdb.Value objects have new methods "reference_value" and
75 "const_value" which return a reference to the value and a
76 "const" version of the value respectively.
3a8b707a 77
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78* New commands
79
80maint print symbol-cache
81 Print the contents of the symbol cache.
82
83maint print symbol-cache-statistics
84 Print statistics of symbol cache usage.
85
86maint flush-symbol-cache
87 Flush the contents of the symbol cache.
88
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89record btrace bts
90record bts
91 Start branch trace recording using Branch Trace Store (BTS) format.
92
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93compile print
94 Evaluate expression by using the compiler and print result.
95
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96tui enable
97tui disable
98 Explicit commands for enabling and disabling tui mode.
99
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100show mpx bound
101set mpx bound on i386 and amd64
102 Support for bound table investigation on Intel(R) MPX enabled applications.
103
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104* New options
105
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106set debug dwarf-die
107 Renamed from "set debug dwarf2-die".
108show debug dwarf-die
109 Renamed from "show debug dwarf2-die".
110
111set debug dwarf-read
112 Renamed from "set debug dwarf2-read".
113show debug dwarf-read
114 Renamed from "show debug dwarf2-read".
115
116maint set dwarf always-disassemble
117 Renamed from "maint set dwarf2 always-disassemble".
118maint show dwarf always-disassemble
119 Renamed from "maint show dwarf2 always-disassemble".
120
121maint set dwarf max-cache-age
122 Renamed from "maint set dwarf2 max-cache-age".
123maint show dwarf max-cache-age
124 Renamed from "maint show dwarf2 max-cache-age".
125
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126set debug dwarf-line
127show debug dwarf-line
128 Control display of debugging info regarding DWARF line processing.
129
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130set max-completions
131show max-completions
132 Set the maximum number of candidates to be considered during
133 completion. The default value is 200. This limit allows GDB
134 to avoid generating large completion lists, the computation of
135 which can cause the debugger to become temporarily unresponsive.
136
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137maint set symbol-cache-size
138maint show symbol-cache-size
139 Control the size of the symbol cache.
140
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141set|show record btrace bts buffer-size
142 Set and show the size of the ring buffer used for branch tracing in
143 BTS format.
144 The obtained size may differ from the requested size. Use "info
145 record" to see the obtained buffer size.
146
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147set debug linux-namespaces
148show debug linux-namespaces
149 Control display of debugging info regarding Linux namespaces.
150
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151* The command 'thread apply all' can now support new option '-ascending'
152 to call its specified command for all threads in ascending order.
153
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154* Python/Guile scripting
155
156 ** GDB now supports auto-loading of Python/Guile scripts contained in the
157 special section named `.debug_gdb_scripts'.
158
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159* New remote packets
160
161qXfer:btrace-conf:read
162 Return the branch trace configuration for the current thread.
163
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164Qbtrace-conf:bts:size
165 Set the requested ring buffer size for branch tracing in BTS format.
166
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167swbreak stop reason
168 Indicates a memory breakpoint instruction was executed, irrespective
169 of whether it was GDB that planted the breakpoint or the breakpoint
170 is hardcoded in the program. This is required for correct non-stop
171 mode operation.
172
173hwbreak stop reason
174 Indicates the target stopped for a hardware breakpoint. This is
175 required for correct non-stop mode operation.
176
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177vFile:fstat:
178 Return information about files on the remote system.
179
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180qXfer:exec-file:read
181 Return the full absolute name of the file that was executed to
182 create a process running on the remote system.
183
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184vFile:setfs:
185 Select the filesystem on which vFile: operations with filename
186 arguments will operate. This is required for GDB to be able to
187 access files on remote targets where the remote stub does not
188 share a common filesystem with the inferior(s).
189
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190fork stop reason
191 Indicates that a fork system call was executed.
192
193vfork stop reason
194 Indicates that a vfork system call was executed.
195
196vforkdone stop reason
197 Indicates that a vfork child of the specified process has executed
198 an exec or exit, allowing the vfork parent to resume execution.
199
200fork-events and vfork-events features in qSupported
201 The qSupported packet allows GDB to request support for fork and
202 vfork events using new 'gdbfeatures' fork-events and vfork-events,
203 and the qSupported response can contain the corresponding
204 'stubfeatures'. Set and show commands can be used to display
205 whether these features are enabled.
206
207* Extended-remote fork events
208
209 ** GDB now has support for fork events on extended-remote Linux
210 targets. For targets with Linux kernels 2.5.60 and later, this
211 enables follow-fork-mode and detach-on-fork for both fork and
212 vfork, as well as fork and vfork catchpoints.
213
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214* The info record command now shows the recording format and the
215 branch tracing configuration for the current thread when using
216 the btrace record target.
217 For the BTS format, it shows the ring buffer size.
218
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219* GDB now has support for DTrace USDT (Userland Static Defined
220 Tracing) probes. The supported targets are x86_64-*-linux-gnu.
221
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222* GDB now supports access to vector registers on S/390 GNU/Linux
223 targets.
224
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225* Removed command line options
226
227-xdb HP-UX XDB compatibility mode.
228
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229* Removed targets and native configurations
230
231HP/PA running HP-UX hppa*-*-hpux*
232Itanium running HP-UX ia64-*-hpux*
233
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234*** Changes in GDB 7.9.1
235
236* Python Scripting
237
238 ** Xmethods can now specify a result type.
239
3b2f13ff 240*** Changes in GDB 7.9
919b9a93 241
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242* GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on x86 GNU Hurd.
243
5f3b99cf 244* Python Scripting
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245
246 ** You can now access frame registers from Python scripts.
247 ** New attribute 'producer' for gdb.Symtab objects.
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248 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "progspace",
249 which is the gdb.Progspace object of the containing program space.
a0be3e44 250 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "owner".
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251 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "build_id",
252 which is the build ID generated when the file was built.
86e4ed39 253 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new method "add_separate_debug_file".
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254 ** A new event "gdb.clear_objfiles" has been added, triggered when
255 selecting a new file to debug.
02be9a71 256 ** You can now add attributes to gdb.Objfile and gdb.Progspace objects.
6dddd6a5 257 ** New function gdb.lookup_objfile.
5f3b99cf 258
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259 New events which are triggered when GDB modifies the state of the
260 inferior.
261
262 ** gdb.events.inferior_call_pre: Function call is about to be made.
263 ** gdb.events.inferior_call_post: Function call has just been made.
264 ** gdb.events.memory_changed: A memory location has been altered.
265 ** gdb.events.register_changed: A register has been altered.
266
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267* New Python-based convenience functions:
268
269 ** $_caller_is(name [, number_of_frames])
270 ** $_caller_matches(regexp [, number_of_frames])
271 ** $_any_caller_is(name [, number_of_frames])
272 ** $_any_caller_matches(regexp [, number_of_frames])
273
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274* GDB now supports the compilation and injection of source code into
275 the inferior. GDB will use GCC 5.0 or higher built with libcc1.so
276 to compile the source code to object code, and if successful, inject
277 and execute that code within the current context of the inferior.
278 Currently the C language is supported. The commands used to
279 interface with this new feature are:
280
281 compile code [-raw|-r] [--] [source code]
282 compile file [-raw|-r] filename
283
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284* New commands
285
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286demangle [-l language] [--] name
287 Demangle "name" in the specified language, or the current language
288 if elided. This command is renamed from the "maint demangle" command.
289 The latter is kept as a no-op to avoid "maint demangle" being interpreted
290 as "maint demangler-warning".
291
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292queue-signal signal-name-or-number
293 Queue a signal to be delivered to the thread when it is resumed.
294
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295add-auto-load-scripts-directory directory
296 Add entries to the list of directories from which to load auto-loaded
297 scripts.
298
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299maint print user-registers
300 List all currently available "user" registers.
301
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302compile code [-r|-raw] [--] [source code]
303 Compile, inject, and execute in the inferior the executable object
304 code produced by compiling the provided source code.
305
306compile file [-r|-raw] filename
307 Compile and inject into the inferior the executable object code
308 produced by compiling the source code stored in the filename
309 provided.
310
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311* On resume, GDB now always passes the signal the program had stopped
312 for to the thread the signal was sent to, even if the user changed
313 threads before resuming. Previously GDB would often (but not
314 always) deliver the signal to the thread that happens to be current
315 at resume time.
316
317* Conversely, the "signal" command now consistently delivers the
318 requested signal to the current thread. GDB now asks for
319 confirmation if the program had stopped for a signal and the user
320 switched threads meanwhile.
321
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322* "breakpoint always-inserted" modes "off" and "auto" merged.
323
324 Now, when 'breakpoint always-inserted mode' is set to "off", GDB
325 won't remove breakpoints from the target until all threads stop,
326 even in non-stop mode. The "auto" mode has been removed, and "off"
327 is now the default mode.
328
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329* New options
330
331set debug symbol-lookup
332show debug symbol-lookup
333 Control display of debugging info regarding symbol lookup.
334
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335* MI changes
336
337 ** The -list-thread-groups command outputs an exit-code field for
338 inferiors that have exited.
339
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340* New targets
341
342MIPS SDE mips*-sde*-elf*
343
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344* Removed targets
345
346Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
347
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348Alpha running OSF/1 (or Tru64) alpha*-*-osf*
349SGI Irix-5.x mips-*-irix5*
350SGI Irix-6.x mips-*-irix6*
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351VAX running (4.2 - 4.3 Reno) BSD vax-*-bsd*
352VAX running Ultrix vax-*-ultrix*
3831839c 353
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354* The "dll-symbols" command, and its two aliases ("add-shared-symbol-files"
355 and "assf"), have been removed. Use the "sharedlibrary" command, or
356 its alias "share", instead.
357
919b9a93 358*** Changes in GDB 7.8
e9475ead 359
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360* New command line options
361
362-D data-directory
363 This is an alias for the --data-directory option.
364
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365* GDB supports printing and modifying of variable length automatic arrays
366 as specified in ISO C99.
367
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368* The ARM simulator now supports instruction level tracing
369 with or without disassembly.
b7bba001 370
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371* Guile scripting
372
373 GDB now has support for scripting using Guile. Whether this is
374 available is determined at configure time.
375 Guile version 2.0 or greater is required.
376 Guile version 2.0.9 is well tested, earlier 2.0 versions are not.
377
378* New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
379
380guile [code]
381gu [code]
382 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Guile interpreter.
383
384guile-repl
385gr
386 Start a Guile interactive prompt (or "repl" for "read-eval-print loop").
387
388info auto-load guile-scripts [regexp]
389 Print the list of automatically loaded Guile scripts.
390
391* The source command is now capable of sourcing Guile scripts.
392 This feature is dependent on the debugger being built with Guile support.
393
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394* New options
395
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396set print symbol-loading (off|brief|full)
397show print symbol-loading
398 Control whether to print informational messages when loading symbol
399 information for a file. The default is "full", but when debugging
400 programs with large numbers of shared libraries the amount of output
401 becomes less useful.
402
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403set guile print-stack (none|message|full)
404show guile print-stack
405 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Guile script.
406
407set auto-load guile-scripts (on|off)
408show auto-load guile-scripts
409 Control auto-loading of Guile script files.
410
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411maint ada set ignore-descriptive-types (on|off)
412maint ada show ignore-descriptive-types
413 Control whether the debugger should ignore descriptive types in Ada
414 programs. The default is not to ignore the descriptive types. See
415 the user manual for more details on descriptive types and the intended
416 usage of this option.
417
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418set auto-connect-native-target
419
420 Control whether GDB is allowed to automatically connect to the
421 native target for the run, attach, etc. commands when not connected
422 to any target yet. See also "target native" below.
423
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424set record btrace replay-memory-access (read-only|read-write)
425show record btrace replay-memory-access
426 Control what memory accesses are allowed during replay.
427
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428maint set target-async (on|off)
429maint show target-async
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430 This controls whether GDB targets operate in synchronous or
431 asynchronous mode. Normally the default is asynchronous, if it is
329ea579 432 available; but this can be changed to more easily debug problems
5784b3ca 433 occurring only in synchronous mode.
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434
435set mi-async (on|off)
436show mi-async
437 Control whether MI asynchronous mode is preferred. This supersedes
438 "set target-async" of previous GDB versions.
439
440* "set target-async" is deprecated as a CLI option and is now an alias
441 for "set mi-async" (only puts MI into async mode).
442
443* Background execution commands (e.g., "c&", "s&", etc.) are now
444 possible ``out of the box'' if the target supports them. Previously
445 the user would need to explicitly enable the possibility with the
446 "set target-async on" command.
447
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448* New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
449
450 ** New option --debug-format=option1[,option2,...] allows one to add
451 additional text to each output. At present only timestamps
452 are supported: --debug-format=timestamps.
453 Timestamps can also be turned on with the
454 "monitor set debug-format timestamps" command from GDB.
455
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456* The 'record instruction-history' command now starts counting instructions
457 at one. This also affects the instruction ranges reported by the
458 'record function-call-history' command when given the /i modifier.
459
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460* The command 'record function-call-history' supports a new modifier '/c' to
461 indent the function names based on their call stack depth.
462 The fields for the '/i' and '/l' modifier have been reordered.
463 The source line range is now prefixed with 'at'.
464 The instruction range is now prefixed with 'inst'.
465 Both ranges are now printed as '<from>, <to>' to allow copy&paste to the
466 "record instruction-history" and "list" commands.
467
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468* The ranges given as arguments to the 'record function-call-history' and
469 'record instruction-history' commands are now inclusive.
470
066ce621 471* The btrace record target now supports the 'record goto' command.
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472 For locations inside the execution trace, the back trace is computed
473 based on the information stored in the execution trace.
066ce621 474
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475* The btrace record target supports limited reverse execution and replay.
476 The target does not record data and therefore does not allow reading
477 memory or registers.
478
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479* The "catch syscall" command now works on s390*-linux* targets.
480
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481* The "compare-sections" command is no longer specific to target
482 remote. It now works with all targets.
483
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484* All native targets are now consistently called "native".
485 Consequently, the "target child", "target GNU", "target djgpp",
486 "target procfs" (Solaris/Irix/OSF/AIX) and "target darwin-child"
487 commands have been replaced with "target native". The QNX/NTO port
488 leaves the "procfs" target in place and adds a "native" target for
489 consistency with other ports. The impact on users should be minimal
490 as these commands previously either throwed an error, or were
491 no-ops. The target's name is visible in the output of the following
492 commands: "help target", "info target", "info files", "maint print
493 target-stack".
494
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495* The "target native" command now connects to the native target. This
496 can be used to launch native programs even when "set
497 auto-connect-native-target" is set to off.
498
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499* GDB now supports access to Intel(R) MPX registers on GNU/Linux.
500
501* Support for Intel(R) AVX-512 registers on GNU/Linux.
502 Support displaying and modifying Intel(R) AVX-512 registers
503 $zmm0 - $zmm31 and $k0 - $k7 on GNU/Linux.
504
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505* New remote packets
506
507qXfer:btrace:read's annex
508 The qXfer:btrace:read packet supports a new annex 'delta' to read
509 branch trace incrementally.
510
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511* Python Scripting
512
513 ** Valid Python operations on gdb.Value objects representing
514 structs/classes invoke the corresponding overloaded operators if
515 available.
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516 ** New `Xmethods' feature in the Python API. Xmethods are
517 additional methods or replacements for existing methods of a C++
518 class. This feature is useful for those cases where a method
519 defined in C++ source code could be inlined or optimized out by
520 the compiler, making it unavailable to GDB.
f7bd0f78 521
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522* New targets
523PowerPC64 GNU/Linux little-endian powerpc64le-*-linux*
524
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525* The "dll-symbols" command, and its two aliases ("add-shared-symbol-files"
526 and "assf"), have been deprecated. Use the "sharedlibrary" command, or
527 its alias "share", instead.
528
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529* The commands "set remotebaud" and "show remotebaud" are no longer
530 supported. Use "set serial baud" and "show serial baud" (respectively)
531 instead.
532
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533* MI changes
534
535 ** A new option "-gdb-set mi-async" replaces "-gdb-set
536 target-async". The latter is left as a deprecated alias of the
537 former for backward compatibility. If the target supports it,
538 CLI background execution commands are now always possible by
539 default, independently of whether the frontend stated a
540 preference for asynchronous execution with "-gdb-set mi-async".
541 Previously "-gdb-set target-async off" affected both MI execution
542 commands and CLI execution commands.
543
b7bba001 544*** Changes in GDB 7.7
2d450646 545
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546* Improved support for process record-replay and reverse debugging on
547 arm*-linux* targets. Support for thumb32 and syscall instruction
548 recording has been added.
549
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550* GDB now supports SystemTap SDT probes on AArch64 GNU/Linux.
551
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552* GDB now supports Fission DWP file format version 2.
553 http://gcc.gnu.org/wiki/DebugFission
554
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555* New convenience function "$_isvoid", to check whether an expression
556 is void. A void expression is an expression where the type of the
557 result is "void". For example, some convenience variables may be
558 "void" when evaluated (e.g., "$_exitcode" before the execution of
559 the program being debugged; or an undefined convenience variable).
560 Another example, when calling a function whose return type is
561 "void".
562
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563* The "maintenance print objfiles" command now takes an optional regexp.
564
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565* The "catch syscall" command now works on arm*-linux* targets.
566
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567* GDB now consistently shows "<not saved>" when printing values of
568 registers the debug info indicates have not been saved in the frame
569 and there's nowhere to retrieve them from
570 (callee-saved/call-clobbered registers):
571
572 (gdb) p $rax
573 $1 = <not saved>
574
575 (gdb) info registers rax
576 rax <not saved>
577
578 Before, the former would print "<optimized out>", and the latter
579 "*value not available*".
580
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581* New script contrib/gdb-add-index.sh for adding .gdb_index sections
582 to binaries.
583
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584* Python scripting
585
586 ** Frame filters and frame decorators have been added.
f76c27b5 587 ** Temporary breakpoints are now supported.
bc79de95 588 ** Line tables representation has been added.
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589 ** New attribute 'parent_type' for gdb.Field objects.
590 ** gdb.Field objects can be used as subscripts on gdb.Value objects.
c0d48811 591 ** New attribute 'name' for gdb.Type objects.
1e611234 592
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593* New targets
594
595Nios II ELF nios2*-*-elf
596Nios II GNU/Linux nios2*-*-linux
42059f0e 597Texas Instruments MSP430 msp430*-*-elf
a1217d97 598
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599* Removed native configurations
600
601Support for these a.out NetBSD and OpenBSD obsolete configurations has
602been removed. ELF variants of these configurations are kept supported.
603
604arm*-*-netbsd* but arm*-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
605i[34567]86-*-netbsd* but i[34567]86-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
606i[34567]86-*-openbsd[0-2].* but i[34567]86-*-openbsd* is kept supported.
607i[34567]86-*-openbsd3.[0-3]
608m68*-*-netbsd* but m68*-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
609sparc-*-netbsd* but sparc-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
610vax-*-netbsd* but vax-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
611
bd712aed 612* New commands:
b340913d
TT
613catch rethrow
614 Like "catch throw", but catches a re-thrown exception.
7d0c9981
DE
615maint check-psymtabs
616 Renamed from old "maint check-symtabs".
617maint check-symtabs
618 Perform consistency checks on symtabs.
619maint expand-symtabs
620 Expand symtabs matching an optional regexp.
b340913d 621
dccca75d
EZ
622show configuration
623 Display the details of GDB configure-time options.
624
bd712aed
DE
625maint set|show per-command
626maint set|show per-command space
627maint set|show per-command time
628maint set|show per-command symtab
629 Enable display of per-command gdb resource usage.
630
98297bf6
NB
631remove-symbol-file FILENAME
632remove-symbol-file -a ADDRESS
633 Remove a symbol file added via add-symbol-file. The file to remove
634 can be identified by its filename or by an address that lies within
635 the boundaries of this symbol file in memory.
636
58d06528
JB
637info exceptions
638info exceptions REGEXP
639 Display the list of Ada exceptions defined in the program being
640 debugged. If provided, only the exceptions whose names match REGEXP
641 are listed.
642
bd3eecc3
PA
643* New options
644
8fb8eb5c
DE
645set debug symfile off|on
646show debug symfile
647 Control display of debugging info regarding reading symbol files and
648 symbol tables within those files
649
e7045703
DE
650set print raw frame-arguments
651show print raw frame-arguments
652 Set/show whether to print frame arguments in raw mode,
653 disregarding any defined pretty-printers.
654
bd3eecc3
PA
655set remote trace-status-packet
656show remote trace-status-packet
657 Set/show the use of remote protocol qTStatus packet.
658
a1217d97
SL
659set debug nios2
660show debug nios2
661 Control display of debugging messages related to Nios II targets.
662
c1e36e3e
PA
663set range-stepping
664show range-stepping
665 Control whether target-assisted range stepping is enabled.
666
98882a26
PA
667set startup-with-shell
668show startup-with-shell
669 Specifies whether Unix child processes are started via a shell or
670 directly.
671
29453a14
YQ
672set code-cache
673show code-cache
674 Use the target memory cache for accesses to the code segment. This
675 improves performance of remote debugging (particularly disassembly).
676
1c2e4450
PA
677* You can now use a literal value 'unlimited' for options that
678 interpret 0 or -1 as meaning "unlimited". E.g., "set
679 trace-buffer-size unlimited" is now an alias for "set
680 trace-buffer-size -1" and "set height unlimited" is now an alias for
681 "set height 0".
682
db0fec5c
DE
683* The "set debug symtab-create" debugging option of GDB has been changed to
684 accept a verbosity level. 0 means "off", 1 provides basic debugging
685 output, and values of 2 or greater provides more verbose output.
686
dccca75d
EZ
687* New command-line options
688--configuration
689 Display the details of GDB configure-time options.
690
d0353e76
YQ
691* The command 'tsave' can now support new option '-ctf' to save trace
692 buffer in Common Trace Format.
693
b292c783
JK
694* Newly installed $prefix/bin/gcore acts as a shell interface for the
695 GDB command gcore.
696
6e72ca20
TT
697* GDB now implements the the C++ 'typeid' operator.
698
b340913d
TT
699* The new convenience variable $_exception holds the exception being
700 thrown or caught at an exception-related catchpoint.
701
702* The exception-related catchpoints, like "catch throw", now accept a
703 regular expression which can be used to filter exceptions by type.
704
0c557179
SDJ
705* The new convenience variable $_exitsignal is automatically set to
706 the terminating signal number when the program being debugged dies
707 due to an uncaught signal.
708
d0353e76
YQ
709* MI changes
710
403cb6b1 711 ** All MI commands now accept an optional "--language" option.
4e35e808
JB
712 Support for this feature can be verified by using the "-list-features"
713 command, which should contain "language-option".
403cb6b1 714
6b7cbff1
JB
715 ** The new command -info-gdb-mi-command allows the user to determine
716 whether a GDB/MI command is supported or not.
717
2ea126fa
JB
718 ** The "^error" result record returned when trying to execute an undefined
719 GDB/MI command now provides a variable named "code" whose content is the
720 "undefined-command" error code. Support for this feature can be verified
721 by using the "-list-features" command, which should contain
722 "undefined-command-error-code".
723
d0353e76
YQ
724 ** The -trace-save MI command can optionally save trace buffer in Common
725 Trace Format now.
726
c5867ab6
HZ
727 ** The new command -dprintf-insert sets a dynamic printf breakpoint.
728
c898adb7
YQ
729 ** The command -data-list-register-values now accepts an optional
730 "--skip-unavailable" option. When used, only the available registers
731 are displayed.
732
dc673c81
YQ
733 ** The new command -trace-frame-collected dumps collected variables,
734 computed expressions, tvars, memory and registers in a traceframe.
735
6211c335
YQ
736 ** The commands -stack-list-locals, -stack-list-arguments and
737 -stack-list-variables now accept an option "--skip-unavailable".
738 When used, only the available locals or arguments are displayed.
739
5713b9b5
JB
740 ** The -exec-run command now accepts an optional "--start" option.
741 When used, the command follows the same semantics as the "start"
742 command, stopping the program's execution at the start of its
72bfa06c
JB
743 main subprogram. Support for this feature can be verified using
744 the "-list-features" command, which should contain
745 "exec-run-start-option".
5713b9b5 746
40555925
JB
747 ** The new commands -catch-assert and -catch-exceptions insert
748 catchpoints stopping the program when Ada exceptions are raised.
749
58d06528
JB
750 ** The new command -info-ada-exceptions provides the equivalent of
751 the new "info exceptions" command.
752
0201faac
JB
753* New system-wide configuration scripts
754 A GDB installation now provides scripts suitable for use as system-wide
755 configuration scripts for the following systems:
756 ** ElinOS
757 ** Wind River Linux
758
c1e36e3e
PA
759* GDB now supports target-assigned range stepping with remote targets.
760 This improves the performance of stepping source lines by reducing
761 the number of control packets from/to GDB. See "New remote packets"
762 below.
763
28a93511
YQ
764* GDB now understands the element 'tvar' in the XML traceframe info.
765 It has the id of the collected trace state variables.
766
4ac33720
UW
767* On S/390 targets that provide the transactional-execution feature,
768 the program interruption transaction diagnostic block (TDB) is now
769 represented as a number of additional "registers" in GDB.
770
c1e36e3e
PA
771* New remote packets
772
773vCont;r
774
775 The vCont packet supports a new 'r' action, that tells the remote
776 stub to step through an address range itself, without GDB
777 involvemement at each single-step.
778
7f91dbec
GB
779qXfer:libraries-svr4:read's annex
780 The previously unused annex of the qXfer:libraries-svr4:read packet
781 is now used to support passing an argument list. The remote stub
782 reports support for this argument list to GDB's qSupported query.
783 The defined arguments are "start" and "prev", used to reduce work
784 necessary for library list updating, resulting in significant
785 speedup.
786
c2d6af84
PA
787* New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
788
789 ** GDBserver now supports target-assisted range stepping. Currently
790 enabled on x86/x86_64 GNU/Linux targets.
791
28a93511
YQ
792 ** GDBserver now adds element 'tvar' in the XML in the reply to
793 'qXfer:traceframe-info:read'. It has the id of the collected
794 trace state variables.
795
7a60ad40
YQ
796 ** GDBserver now supports hardware watchpoints on the MIPS GNU/Linux
797 target.
798
6fbe845e
AB
799* New 'z' formatter for printing and examining memory, this displays the
800 value as hexadecimal zero padded on the left to the size of the type.
801
9058cc3a
TG
802* GDB can now use Windows x64 unwinding data.
803
0d12017b
JB
804* The "set remotebaud" command has been replaced by "set serial baud".
805 Similarly, "show remotebaud" has been replaced by "show serial baud".
806 The "set remotebaud" and "show remotebaud" commands are still available
807 to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
808
2d450646 809*** Changes in GDB 7.6
80c8d323 810
59ea5688
MM
811* Target record has been renamed to record-full.
812 Record/replay is now enabled with the "record full" command.
813 This also affects settings that are associated with full record/replay
814 that have been moved from "set/show record" to "set/show record full":
815
816set|show record full insn-number-max
817set|show record full stop-at-limit
818set|show record full memory-query
819
820* A new record target "record-btrace" has been added. The new target
821 uses hardware support to record the control-flow of a process. It
822 does not support replaying the execution, but it implements the
823 below new commands for investigating the recorded execution log.
824 This new recording method can be enabled using:
825
826record btrace
827
828 The "record-btrace" target is only available on Intel Atom processors
829 and requires a Linux kernel 2.6.32 or later.
830
831* Two new commands have been added for record/replay to give information
832 about the recorded execution without having to replay the execution.
833 The commands are only supported by "record btrace".
834
835record instruction-history prints the execution history at
836 instruction granularity
837
838record function-call-history prints the execution history at
839 function granularity
840
543bf33d
AT
841* New native configurations
842
51d66578 843ARM AArch64 GNU/Linux aarch64*-*-linux-gnu
543bf33d 844FreeBSD/powerpc powerpc*-*-freebsd
4f4352f7 845x86_64/Cygwin x86_64-*-cygwin*
ea5f3910 846Tilera TILE-Gx GNU/Linux tilegx*-*-linux-gnu
543bf33d 847
249729c4
JB
848* New targets
849
51d66578
MS
850ARM AArch64 aarch64*-*-elf
851ARM AArch64 GNU/Linux aarch64*-*-linux
249729c4 852Lynx 178 PowerPC powerpc-*-lynx*178
3c095f49 853x86_64/Cygwin x86_64-*-cygwin*
ea5f3910 854Tilera TILE-Gx GNU/Linux tilegx*-*-linux
249729c4 855
e64e0392
DE
856* If the configured location of system.gdbinit file (as given by the
857 --with-system-gdbinit option at configure time) is in the
858 data-directory (as specified by --with-gdb-datadir at configure
859 time) or in one of its subdirectories, then GDB will look for the
860 system-wide init file in the directory specified by the
861 --data-directory command-line option.
862
07540c15
DE
863* New command line options:
864
865-nh Disables auto-loading of ~/.gdbinit, but still executes all the
866 other initialization files, unlike -nx which disables all of them.
867
e93a8774
TT
868* Removed command line options
869
870-epoch This was used by the gdb mode in Epoch, an ancient fork of
871 Emacs.
872
53342f27
TT
873* The 'ptype' and 'whatis' commands now accept an argument to control
874 type formatting.
875
451b7c33
TT
876* 'info proc' now works on some core files.
877
a72c3253
DE
878* Python scripting
879
880 ** Vectors can be created with gdb.Type.vector.
881
d7de8e3c
TT
882 ** Python's atexit.register now works in GDB.
883
18a9fc12
TT
884 ** Types can be pretty-printed via a Python API.
885
9a27f2c6
PK
886 ** Python 3 is now supported (in addition to Python 2.4 or later)
887
bea883fd
SCR
888 ** New class gdb.Architecture exposes GDB's internal representation
889 of architecture in the Python API.
890
891 ** New method Frame.architecture returns the gdb.Architecture object
892 corresponding to the frame's architecture.
893
a72c3253
DE
894* New Python-based convenience functions:
895
896 ** $_memeq(buf1, buf2, length)
897 ** $_streq(str1, str2)
898 ** $_strlen(str)
899 ** $_regex(str, regex)
900
f3c8a52a
JK
901* The 'cd' command now defaults to using '~' (the home directory) if not
902 given an argument.
903
1605ef26
TT
904* The C++ ABI now defaults to the GNU v3 ABI. This has been the
905 default for GCC since November 2000.
906
504b36fd
YQ
907* The command 'forward-search' can now be abbreviated as 'fo'.
908
f2a8bc8a
YQ
909* The command 'info tracepoints' can now display 'installed on target'
910 or 'not installed on target' for each non-pending location of tracepoint.
911
23a80689
JB
912* New configure options
913
914--enable-libmcheck/--disable-libmcheck
915 By default, development versions are built with -lmcheck on hosts
916 that support it, in order to help track memory corruption issues.
917 Release versions, on the other hand, are built without -lmcheck
918 by default. The --enable-libmcheck/--disable-libmcheck configure
919 options allow the user to override that default.
393fd4c3
YQ
920--with-babeltrace/--with-babeltrace-include/--with-babeltrace-lib
921 This configure option allows the user to build GDB with
922 libbabeltrace using which GDB can read Common Trace Format data.
23a80689 923
d6b28940
TT
924* New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
925
ab04a2af
TT
926catch signal
927 Catch signals. This is similar to "handle", but allows commands and
928 conditions to be attached.
929
d6b28940
TT
930maint info bfds
931 List the BFDs known to GDB.
932
8315665e
YPK
933python-interactive [command]
934pi [command]
935 Start a Python interactive prompt, or evaluate the optional command
936 and print the result of expressions.
937
938py [command]
939 "py" is a new alias for "python".
940
18a9fc12
TT
941enable type-printer [name]...
942disable type-printer [name]...
943 Enable or disable type printers.
944
aa9259cc
TS
945* Removed commands
946
947 ** For the Renesas Super-H architecture, the "regs" command has been removed
948 (has been deprecated in GDB 7.5), and "info all-registers" should be used
949 instead.
950
53342f27
TT
951* New options
952
953set print type methods (on|off)
954show print type methods
955 Control whether method declarations are displayed by "ptype".
956 The default is to show them.
957
958set print type typedefs (on|off)
959show print type typedefs
960 Control whether typedef definitions are displayed by "ptype".
961 The default is to show them.
962
1b56eb55
JK
963set filename-display basename|relative|absolute
964show filename-display
965 Control the way in which filenames is displayed.
966 The default is "relative", which preserves previous behavior.
967
e9f1758d
PA
968set trace-buffer-size
969show trace-buffer-size
970 Request target to change the size of trace buffer.
971
a46c1e42
PA
972set remote trace-buffer-size-packet auto|on|off
973show remote trace-buffer-size-packet
974 Control the use of the remote protocol `QTBuffer:size' packet.
975
be9a8770
PA
976set debug aarch64
977show debug aarch64
978 Control display of debugging messages related to ARM AArch64.
979 The default is off.
980
981set debug coff-pe-read
982show debug coff-pe-read
983 Control display of debugging messages related to reading of COFF/PE
984 exported symbols.
985
986set debug mach-o
987show debug mach-o
988 Control display of debugging messages related to Mach-O symbols
989 processing.
990
991set debug notification
992show debug notification
993 Control display of debugging info for async remote notification.
994
5b9afe8a
YQ
995* MI changes
996
997 ** Command parameter changes are now notified using new async record
998 "=cmd-param-changed".
201b4506
YQ
999 ** Trace frame changes caused by command "tfind" are now notified using
1000 new async record "=traceframe-changed".
134a2066
YQ
1001 ** The creation, deletion and modification of trace state variables
1002 are now notified using new async records "=tsv-created",
1003 "=tsv-deleted" and "=tsv-modified".
82a90ccf
YQ
1004 ** The start and stop of process record are now notified using new
1005 async record "=record-started" and "=record-stopped".
8de0566d
YQ
1006 ** Memory changes are now notified using new async record
1007 "=memory-changed".
ed8a1c2d 1008 ** The data-disassemble command response will include a "fullname" field
ec83d211 1009 containing the absolute file name when source has been requested.
62747a60
TT
1010 ** New optional parameter COUNT added to the "-data-write-memory-bytes"
1011 command, to allow pattern filling of memory areas.
3fa7bf06
MG
1012 ** New commands "-catch-load"/"-catch-unload" added for intercepting
1013 library load/unload events.
f2a8bc8a
YQ
1014 ** The response to breakpoint commands and breakpoint async records
1015 includes an "installed" field containing a boolean state about each
1016 non-pending tracepoint location is whether installed on target or not.
f5911ea1
HAQ
1017 ** Output of the "-trace-status" command includes a "trace-file" field
1018 containing the name of the trace file being examined. This field is
1019 optional, and only present when examining a trace file.
ec83d211
JK
1020 ** The "fullname" field is now always present along with the "file" field,
1021 even if the file cannot be found by GDB.
5b9afe8a 1022
608e2dbb
TT
1023* GDB now supports the "mini debuginfo" section, .gnu_debugdata.
1024 You must have the LZMA library available when configuring GDB for this
1025 feature to be enabled. For more information, see:
1026 http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/MiniDebugInfo
1027
f6f899bf
HAQ
1028* New remote packets
1029
1030QTBuffer:size
1031 Set the size of trace buffer. The remote stub reports support for this
1032 packet to gdb's qSupported query.
1033
10782d74
MM
1034Qbtrace:bts
1035 Enable Branch Trace Store (BTS)-based branch tracing for the current
1036 thread. The remote stub reports support for this packet to gdb's
1037 qSupported query.
1038
1039Qbtrace:off
1040 Disable branch tracing for the current thread. The remote stub reports
1041 support for this packet to gdb's qSupported query.
1042
1043qXfer:btrace:read
1044 Read the traced branches for the current thread. The remote stub
1045 reports support for this packet to gdb's qSupported query.
1046
80c8d323 1047*** Changes in GDB 7.5
d6e00af6 1048
1b3371b1
L
1049* GDB now supports x32 ABI. Visit <http://sites.google.com/site/x32abi/>
1050 for more x32 ABI info.
1051
d0e64392
MR
1052* GDB now supports access to MIPS DSP registers on Linux targets.
1053
4cc0665f
MR
1054* GDB now supports debugging microMIPS binaries.
1055
85d4a676
SS
1056* The "info os" command on GNU/Linux can now display information on
1057 several new classes of objects managed by the operating system:
1058 "info os procgroups" lists process groups
1059 "info os files" lists file descriptors
1060 "info os sockets" lists internet-domain sockets
1061 "info os shm" lists shared-memory regions
1062 "info os semaphores" lists semaphores
1063 "info os msg" lists message queues
1064 "info os modules" lists loaded kernel modules
1065
55aa24fb
SDJ
1066* GDB now has support for SDT (Static Defined Tracing) probes. Currently,
1067 the only implemented backend is for SystemTap probes (<sys/sdt.h>). You
1068 can set a breakpoint using the new "-probe, "-pstap" or "-probe-stap"
1069 options and inspect the probe arguments using the new $_probe_arg family
1070 of convenience variables. You can obtain more information about SystemTap
1071 in <http://sourceware.org/systemtap/>.
1072
72508ac0
PO
1073* GDB now supports reversible debugging on ARM, it allows you to
1074 debug basic ARM and THUMB instructions, and provides
1075 record/replay support.
1076
16899756
DE
1077* The option "symbol-reloading" has been deleted as it is no longer used.
1078
4795f398
DE
1079* Python scripting
1080
7d74f244
DE
1081 ** GDB commands implemented in Python can now be put in command class
1082 "gdb.COMMAND_USER".
1083
4795f398
DE
1084 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" is now deleted.
1085
50897289
TT
1086 ** A new class, gdb.printing.FlagEnumerationPrinter, can be used to
1087 apply "flag enum"-style pretty-printing to any enum.
1088
64e7d9dd
TT
1089 ** gdb.lookup_symbol can now work when there is no current frame.
1090
1091 ** gdb.Symbol now has a 'line' attribute, holding the line number in
1092 the source at which the symbol was defined.
1093
f0823d2c
TT
1094 ** gdb.Symbol now has the new attribute 'needs_frame' and the new
1095 method 'value'. The former indicates whether the symbol needs a
1096 frame in order to compute its value, and the latter computes the
1097 symbol's value.
1098
7b282c5a
SCR
1099 ** A new method 'referenced_value' on gdb.Value objects which can
1100 dereference pointer as well as C++ reference values.
1101
a20ee7a4
SCR
1102 ** New methods 'global_block' and 'static_block' on gdb.Symtab objects
1103 which return the global and static blocks (as gdb.Block objects),
1104 of the underlying symbol table, respectively.
1105
7efc75aa
SCR
1106 ** New function gdb.find_pc_line which returns the gdb.Symtab_and_line
1107 object associated with a PC value.
1108
ee0bf529
SCR
1109 ** gdb.Symtab_and_line has new attribute 'last' which holds the end
1110 of the address range occupied by code for the current source line.
1111
a766d390
DE
1112* Go language support.
1113 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the Go programming
1114 language.
1115
e0f9f062
DE
1116* GDBserver now supports stdio connections.
1117 E.g. (gdb) target remote | ssh myhost gdbserver - hello
1118
217bff3e
JK
1119* The binary "gdbtui" can no longer be built or installed.
1120 Use "gdb -tui" instead.
1121
cafec441
TT
1122* GDB will now print "flag" enums specially. A flag enum is one where
1123 all the enumerator values have no bits in common when pairwise
1124 "and"ed. When printing a value whose type is a flag enum, GDB will
1125 show all the constants, e.g., for enum E { ONE = 1, TWO = 2}:
1126 (gdb) print (enum E) 3
1127 $1 = (ONE | TWO)
1128
4aac40c8
TT
1129* The filename part of a linespec will now match trailing components
1130 of a source file name. For example, "break gcc/expr.c:1000" will
1131 now set a breakpoint in build/gcc/expr.c, but not
1132 build/libcpp/expr.c.
1133
d99bd577
UW
1134* The "info proc" and "generate-core-file" commands will now also
1135 work on remote targets connected to GDBserver on Linux.
1136
53fe1783
GB
1137* The command "info catch" has been removed. It has been disabled
1138 since December 2007.
1139
e41eec66
JB
1140* The "catch exception" and "catch assert" commands now accept
1141 a condition at the end of the command, much like the "break"
1142 command does. For instance:
1143
1144 (gdb) catch exception Constraint_Error if Barrier = True
1145
1146 Previously, it was possible to add a condition to such catchpoints,
1147 but it had to be done as a second step, after the catchpoint had been
1148 created, using the "condition" command.
1149
5808517f
YQ
1150* The "info static-tracepoint-marker" command will now also work on
1151 native Linux targets with in-process agent.
1152
481860b3
GB
1153* GDB can now set breakpoints on inlined functions.
1154
1155* The .gdb_index section has been updated to include symbols for
1156 inlined functions. GDB will ignore older .gdb_index sections by
1157 default, which could cause symbol files to be loaded more slowly
e615022a
DE
1158 until their .gdb_index sections can be recreated. The new command
1159 "set use-deprecated-index-sections on" will cause GDB to use any older
1160 .gdb_index sections it finds. This will restore performance, but the
1161 ability to set breakpoints on inlined functions will be lost in symbol
1162 files with older .gdb_index sections.
481860b3 1163
156942c7
DE
1164 The .gdb_index section has also been updated to record more information
1165 about each symbol. This speeds up the "info variables", "info functions"
1166 and "info types" commands when used with programs having the .gdb_index
1167 section, as well as speeding up debugging with shared libraries using
1168 the .gdb_index section.
1169
927fbba6
JB
1170* Ada support for GDB/MI Variable Objects has been added.
1171
20388dd6
YQ
1172* GDB can now support 'breakpoint always-inserted mode' in 'record'
1173 target.
1174
f3e0e960
SS
1175* MI changes
1176
1177 ** New command -info-os is the MI equivalent of "info os".
1178
37ce89eb
SS
1179 ** Output logs ("set logging" and related) now include MI output.
1180
edcc5120
TT
1181* New commands
1182
e615022a
DE
1183 ** "set use-deprecated-index-sections on|off"
1184 "show use-deprecated-index-sections on|off"
1185 Controls the use of deprecated .gdb_index sections.
1186
edcc5120
TT
1187 ** "catch load" and "catch unload" can be used to stop when a shared
1188 library is loaded or unloaded, respectively.
1189
816338b5
SS
1190 ** "enable count" can be used to auto-disable a breakpoint after
1191 several hits.
1192
57651221 1193 ** "info vtbl" can be used to show the virtual method tables for
c4aeac85
TT
1194 C++ and Java objects.
1195
06fc020f 1196 ** "explore" and its sub commands "explore value" and "explore type"
6ea71545 1197 can be used to recursively explore values and types of
06fc020f
SCR
1198 expressions. These commands are available only if GDB is
1199 configured with '--with-python'.
1200
bf88dd68
JK
1201 ** "info auto-load" shows status of all kinds of auto-loaded files,
1202 "info auto-load gdb-scripts" shows status of auto-loading GDB canned
1203 sequences of commands files, "info auto-load python-scripts"
1204 shows status of auto-loading Python script files,
1205 "info auto-load local-gdbinit" shows status of loading init file
1206 (.gdbinit) from current directory and "info auto-load libthread-db" shows
1207 status of inferior specific thread debugging shared library loading.
1208
1209 ** "info auto-load-scripts", "set auto-load-scripts on|off"
1210 and "show auto-load-scripts" commands have been deprecated, use their
1211 "info auto-load python-scripts", "set auto-load python-scripts on|off"
1212 and "show auto-load python-scripts" counterparts instead.
1213
e7e0cddf
SS
1214 ** "dprintf location,format,args..." creates a dynamic printf, which
1215 is basically a breakpoint that does a printf and immediately
1216 resumes your program's execution, so it is like a printf that you
1217 can insert dynamically at runtime instead of at compiletime.
1218
9cb709b6
TT
1219 ** "set print symbol"
1220 "show print symbol"
1221 Controls whether GDB attempts to display the symbol, if any,
1222 corresponding to addresses it prints. This defaults to "on", but
1223 you can set it to "off" to restore GDB's previous behavior.
1224
2d4c29c5
TS
1225* Deprecated commands
1226
1227 ** For the Renesas Super-H architecture, the "regs" command has been
1228 deprecated, and "info all-registers" should be used instead.
1229
a58b110a
KB
1230* New targets
1231
1232Renesas RL78 rl78-*-elf
60c9a3c0 1233HP OpenVMS ia64 ia64-hp-openvms*
a58b110a 1234
72895ff6
LM
1235* GDBserver supports evaluation of breakpoint conditions. When
1236 support is advertised by GDBserver, GDB may be told to send the
1237 breakpoint conditions in bytecode form to GDBserver. GDBserver
1238 will only report the breakpoint trigger to GDB when its condition
1239 evaluates to true.
1240
1241* New options
1242
4cc0665f
MR
1243set mips compression
1244show mips compression
1245 Select the compressed ISA encoding used in functions that have no symbol
1246 information available. The encoding can be set to either of:
1247 mips16
1248 micromips
1249 and is updated automatically from ELF file flags if available.
1250
72895ff6
LM
1251set breakpoint condition-evaluation
1252show breakpoint condition-evaluation
cf65ecd3 1253 Control whether breakpoint conditions are evaluated by GDB ("host") or by
5b43fab2
JK
1254 GDBserver ("target"). Default option "auto" chooses the most efficient
1255 available mode.
72895ff6
LM
1256 This option can improve debugger efficiency depending on the speed of the
1257 target.
1258
bf88dd68
JK
1259set auto-load off
1260 Disable auto-loading globally.
1261
1262show auto-load
1263 Show auto-loading setting of all kinds of auto-loaded files.
1264
1265set auto-load gdb-scripts on|off
1266show auto-load gdb-scripts
1267 Control auto-loading of GDB canned sequences of commands files.
1268
1269set auto-load python-scripts on|off
1270show auto-load python-scripts
1271 Control auto-loading of Python script files.
1272
1273set auto-load local-gdbinit on|off
1274show auto-load local-gdbinit
1275 Control loading of init file (.gdbinit) from current directory.
1276
1277set auto-load libthread-db on|off
1278show auto-load libthread-db
1279 Control auto-loading of inferior specific thread debugging shared library.
1280
7349ff92 1281set auto-load scripts-directory <dir1>[:<dir2>...]
9cc815f5 1282show auto-load scripts-directory
7349ff92
JK
1283 Set a list of directories from which to load auto-loaded scripts.
1284 Automatically loaded Python scripts and GDB scripts are located in one
1285 of the directories listed by this option.
1286 The delimiter (':' above) may differ according to the host platform.
1287
bccbefd2
JK
1288set auto-load safe-path <dir1>[:<dir2>...]
1289show auto-load safe-path
1290 Set a list of directories from which it is safe to auto-load files.
1291 The delimiter (':' above) may differ according to the host platform.
1292
4dc84fd1
JK
1293set debug auto-load on|off
1294show debug auto-load
1295 Control display of debugging info for auto-loading the files above.
1296
d3ce09f5 1297set dprintf-style gdb|call|agent
e7e0cddf 1298show dprintf-style
d3ce09f5
SS
1299 Control the way in which a dynamic printf is performed; "gdb"
1300 requests a GDB printf command, while "call" causes dprintf to call a
1301 function in the inferior. "agent" requests that the target agent
1302 (such as GDBserver) do the printing.
e7e0cddf
SS
1303
1304set dprintf-function <expr>
1305show dprintf-function
1306set dprintf-channel <expr>
1307show dprintf-channel
1308 Set the function and optional first argument to the call when using
1309 the "call" style of dynamic printf.
1310
d3ce09f5
SS
1311set disconnected-dprintf on|off
1312show disconnected-dprintf
1313 Control whether agent-style dynamic printfs continue to be in effect
1314 after GDB disconnects.
1315
6dea1fbd
JK
1316* New configure options
1317
7349ff92
JK
1318--with-auto-load-dir
1319 Configure default value for the 'set auto-load scripts-directory'
1564a261
JK
1320 setting above. It defaults to '$debugdir:$datadir/auto-load',
1321 $debugdir representing global debugging info directories (available
1322 via 'show debug-file-directory') and $datadir representing GDB's data
1323 directory (available via 'show data-directory').
7349ff92 1324
6dea1fbd
JK
1325--with-auto-load-safe-path
1326 Configure default value for the 'set auto-load safe-path' setting
7349ff92 1327 above. It defaults to the --with-auto-load-dir setting.
6dea1fbd
JK
1328
1329--without-auto-load-safe-path
1330 Set 'set auto-load safe-path' to '/', effectively disabling this
1331 security feature.
1332
72895ff6
LM
1333* New remote packets
1334
74c48cbb
PA
1335z0/z1 conditional breakpoints extension
1336
72895ff6
LM
1337 The z0/z1 breakpoint insertion packets have been extended to carry
1338 a list of conditional expressions over to the remote stub depending on the
1339 condition evaluation mode. The use of this extension can be controlled
1340 via the "set remote conditional-breakpoints-packet" command.
1341
9b224c5e
PA
1342QProgramSignals:
1343
1344 Specify the signals which the remote stub may pass to the debugged
1345 program without GDB involvement.
1346
8320cc4f
JK
1347* New command line options
1348
1349--init-command=FILE, -ix Like --command, -x but execute it
1350 before loading inferior.
1351--init-eval-command=COMMAND, -iex Like --eval-command=COMMAND, -ex but
1352 execute it before loading inferior.
1353
8837a20f
JB
1354*** Changes in GDB 7.4
1355
f8eba3c6
TT
1356* GDB now handles ambiguous linespecs more consistently; the existing
1357 FILE:LINE support has been expanded to other types of linespecs. A
1358 breakpoint will now be set on all matching locations in all
1359 inferiors, and locations will be added or removed according to
1360 inferior changes.
1361
1bfeeb0f
JL
1362* GDB now allows you to skip uninteresting functions and files when
1363 stepping with the "skip function" and "skip file" commands.
1364
480a3f21
PW
1365* GDB has two new commands: "set remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit"
1366 and "show remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit". These allows to
1367 set or show the maximum length limit (in bytes) of a remote
1368 target hardware watchpoint.
1369
1370 This allows e.g. to use "unlimited" hardware watchpoints with the
1371 gdbserver integrated in Valgrind version >= 3.7.0. Such Valgrind
1372 watchpoints are slower than real hardware watchpoints but are
1373 significantly faster than gdb software watchpoints.
1374
3a7bf607
PM
1375* Python scripting
1376
32d1c362 1377 ** The register_pretty_printer function in module gdb.printing now takes
7d0aff21 1378 an optional `replace' argument. If True, the new printer replaces any
32d1c362
DE
1379 existing one.
1380
3a7bf607 1381 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" command has been
4795f398
DE
1382 deprecated and will be deleted in GDB 7.5.
1383 A new command: "set python print-stack none|full|message" has
1384 replaced it. Additionally, the default for "print-stack" is
1385 now "message", which just prints the error message without
1386 the stack trace.
3a7bf607 1387
baacfb07 1388 ** A prompt substitution hook (prompt_hook) is now available to the
3a7bf607 1389 Python API.
713389e0 1390
fa3a4f15
PM
1391 ** A new Python module, gdb.prompt has been added to the GDB Python
1392 modules library. This module provides functionality for
baacfb07 1393 escape sequences in prompts (used by set/show
fa3a4f15
PM
1394 extended-prompt). These escape sequences are replaced by their
1395 corresponding value.
1396
5e239b84
PM
1397 ** Python commands and convenience-functions located in
1398 'data-directory'/python/gdb/command and
1399 'data-directory'/python/gdb/function are now automatically loaded
1400 on GDB start-up.
1401
9df2fbc4
PM
1402 ** Blocks now provide four new attributes. global_block and
1403 static_block will return the global and static blocks
1404 respectively. is_static and is_global are boolean attributes
1405 that indicate if the block is one of those two types.
1406
457e09f0
DE
1407 ** Symbols now provide the "type" attribute, the type of the symbol.
1408
6839b47f
KP
1409 ** The "gdb.breakpoint" function has been deprecated in favor of
1410 "gdb.breakpoints".
1411
cc72b2a2
KP
1412 ** A new class "gdb.FinishBreakpoint" is provided to catch the return
1413 of a function. This class is based on the "finish" command
1414 available in the CLI.
1415
84ad80e6
PK
1416 ** Type objects for struct and union types now allow access to
1417 the fields using standard Python dictionary (mapping) methods.
1418 For example, "some_type['myfield']" now works, as does
1419 "some_type.items()".
1420
20c168b5
KP
1421 ** A new event "gdb.new_objfile" has been added, triggered by loading a
1422 new object file.
1423
03c3051a
PK
1424 ** A new function, "deep_items" has been added to the gdb.types
1425 module in the GDB Python modules library. This function returns
1426 an iterator over the fields of a struct or union type. Unlike
1427 the standard Python "iteritems" method, it will recursively traverse
1428 any anonymous fields.
1429
7376e450
TT
1430* MI changes
1431
1432 ** "*stopped" events can report several new "reason"s, such as
1433 "solib-event".
1434
1435 ** Breakpoint changes are now notified using new async records, like
1436 "=breakpoint-modified".
1437
1438 ** New command -ada-task-info.
1439
98a5dd13
DE
1440* libthread-db-search-path now supports two special values: $sdir and $pdir.
1441 $sdir specifies the default system locations of shared libraries.
1442 $pdir specifies the directory where the libpthread used by the application
1443 lives.
1444
1445 GDB no longer looks in $sdir and $pdir after it has searched the directories
1446 mentioned in libthread-db-search-path. If you want to search those
1447 directories, they must be specified in libthread-db-search-path.
1448 The default value of libthread-db-search-path on GNU/Linux and Solaris
1449 systems is now "$sdir:$pdir".
1450
1451 $pdir is not supported by gdbserver, it is currently ignored.
1452 $sdir is supported by gdbserver.
1453
478aac75
DE
1454* New configure option --with-iconv-bin.
1455 When using the internationalization support like the one in the GNU C
1456 library, GDB will invoke the "iconv" program to get a list of supported
1457 character sets. If this program lives in a non-standard location, one can
1458 use this option to specify where to find it.
1459
9c06b0b4
TJB
1460* When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
1461 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports masked hardware
1462 watchpoints, which specify a mask in addition to an address to watch.
1463 The mask specifies that some bits of an address (the bits which are
1464 reset in the mask) should be ignored when matching the address accessed
1465 by the inferior against the watchpoint address. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
1466 section in the user manual for more details.
1467
03f2bd59
JK
1468* The new option --once causes GDBserver to stop listening for connections once
1469 the first connection is made. The listening port used by GDBserver will
1470 become available after that.
1471
71eba9c2 1472* New commands "info macros" and "alias" have been added.
edc84990 1473
2bda9cc5
JK
1474* New function parameters suffix @entry specifies value of function parameter
1475 at the time the function got called. Entry values are available only since
1476 gcc version 4.7.
1477
ed59ded5
DE
1478* New commands
1479
1480!SHELL COMMAND
1481 "!" is now an alias of the "shell" command.
1482 Note that no space is needed between "!" and SHELL COMMAND.
1483
9c06b0b4
TJB
1484* Changed commands
1485
1486watch EXPRESSION mask MASK_VALUE
1487 The watch command now supports the mask argument which allows creation
1488 of masked watchpoints, if the current architecture supports this feature.
1489
dbaefcf7
DE
1490info auto-load-scripts [REGEXP]
1491 This command was formerly named "maintenance print section-scripts".
1492 It is now generally useful and is no longer a maintenance-only command.
1493
71eba9c2 1494info macro [-all] [--] MACRO
1495 The info macro command has new options `-all' and `--'. The first for
1496 printing all definitions of a macro. The second for explicitly specifying
1497 the end of arguments and the beginning of the macro name in case the macro
1498 name starts with a hyphen.
1499
3065dfb6
SS
1500collect[/s] EXPRESSIONS
1501 The tracepoint collect command now takes an optional modifier "/s"
1502 that directs it to dereference pointer-to-character types and
1503 collect the bytes of memory up to a zero byte. The behavior is
1504 similar to what you see when you use the regular print command on a
1505 string. An optional integer following the "/s" sets a bound on the
1506 number of bytes that will be collected.
1507
f196051f
SS
1508tstart [NOTES]
1509 The trace start command now interprets any supplied arguments as a
1510 note to be recorded with the trace run, with an effect similar to
1511 setting the variable trace-notes.
1512
1513tstop [NOTES]
1514 The trace stop command now interprets any arguments as a note to be
1515 mentioned along with the tstatus report that the trace was stopped
1516 with a command. The effect is similar to setting the variable
1517 trace-stop-notes.
1518
d248b706
KY
1519* Tracepoints can now be enabled and disabled at any time after a trace
1520 experiment has been started using the standard "enable" and "disable"
1521 commands. It is now possible to start a trace experiment with no enabled
1522 tracepoints; GDB will display a warning, but will allow the experiment to
1523 begin, assuming that tracepoints will be enabled as needed while the trace
1524 is running.
1525
405f8e94
SS
1526* Fast tracepoints on 32-bit x86-architectures can now be placed at
1527 locations with 4-byte instructions, when they were previously
1528 limited to locations with instructions of 5 bytes or longer.
1529
2bda9cc5
JK
1530* New options
1531
45cfd468
DE
1532set debug dwarf2-read
1533show debug dwarf2-read
1534 Turns on or off display of debugging messages related to reading
1535 DWARF debug info. The default is off.
1536
1537set debug symtab-create
1538show debug symtab-create
1539 Turns on or off display of debugging messages related to symbol table
1540 creation. The default is off.
1541
baacfb07
PM
1542set extended-prompt
1543show extended-prompt
1544 Set the GDB prompt, and allow escape sequences to be inserted to
1545 display miscellaneous information (see 'help set extended-prompt'
1546 for the list of sequences). This prompt (and any information
1547 accessed through the escape sequences) is updated every time the
1548 prompt is displayed.
1549
2bda9cc5
JK
1550set print entry-values (both|compact|default|if-needed|no|only|preferred)
1551show print entry-values
1552 Set printing of frame argument values at function entry. In some cases
1553 GDB can determine the value of function argument which was passed by the
1554 function caller, even if the value was modified inside the called function.
1555
1556set debug entry-values
1557show debug entry-values
1558 Control display of debugging info for determining frame argument values at
1559 function entry and virtual tail call frames.
1560
c011a4f4
DE
1561set basenames-may-differ
1562show basenames-may-differ
1563 Set whether a source file may have multiple base names.
1564 (A "base name" is the name of a file with the directory part removed.
1565 Example: The base name of "/home/user/hello.c" is "hello.c".)
1566 If set, GDB will canonicalize file names (e.g., expand symlinks)
1567 before comparing them. Canonicalization is an expensive operation,
1568 but it allows the same file be known by more than one base name.
1569 If not set (the default), all source files are assumed to have just
1570 one base name, and gdb will do file name comparisons more efficiently.
1571
f196051f
SS
1572set trace-user
1573show trace-user
1574set trace-notes
1575show trace-notes
1576 Set a user name and notes for the current and any future trace runs.
1577 This is useful for long-running and/or disconnected traces, to
1578 inform others (or yourself) as to who is running the trace, supply
1579 contact information, or otherwise explain what is going on.
1580
1581set trace-stop-notes
1582show trace-stop-notes
1583 Set a note attached to the trace run, that is displayed when the
1584 trace has been stopped by a tstop command. This is useful for
1585 instance as an explanation, if you are stopping a trace run that was
1586 started by someone else.
1587
d248b706
KY
1588* New remote packets
1589
1590QTEnable
1591
1592 Dynamically enable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
1593
1594QTDisable
1595
1596 Dynamically disable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
1597
f196051f
SS
1598QTNotes
1599
1600 Set the user and notes of the trace run.
1601
1602qTP
1603
1604 Query the current status of a tracepoint.
1605
405f8e94
SS
1606qTMinFTPILen
1607
1608 Query the minimum length of instruction at which a fast tracepoint may
1609 be placed.
1610
1a532630
PP
1611* Dcache size (number of lines) and line-size are now runtime-configurable
1612 via "set dcache line" and "set dcache line-size" commands.
1613
11315641
YQ
1614* New targets
1615
1616Texas Instruments TMS320C6x tic6x-*-*
1617
87326c78
DD
1618* New Simulators
1619
1620Renesas RL78 rl78-*-elf
1621
e8d56f18
JB
1622*** Changes in GDB 7.3.1
1623
1624* The build failure for NetBSD and OpenBSD targets have now been fixed.
1625
d6e00af6 1626*** Changes in GDB 7.3
797054e6 1627
60f98dde
MS
1628* GDB has a new command: "thread find [REGEXP]".
1629 It finds the thread id whose name, target id, or thread extra info
1630 matches the given regular expression.
1631
eee5b35e
DD
1632* The "catch syscall" command now works on mips*-linux* targets.
1633
b716877b
AB
1634* The -data-disassemble MI command now supports modes 2 and 3 for
1635 dumping the instruction opcodes.
1636
aae1c79a
DE
1637* New command line options
1638
1639-data-directory DIR Specify DIR as the "data-directory".
1640 This is mostly for testing purposes.
1641
a86caf66
DE
1642* The "maint set python auto-load on|off" command has been renamed to
1643 "set auto-load-scripts on|off".
1644
99e7ae30
DE
1645* GDB has a new command: "set directories".
1646 It is like the "dir" command except that it replaces the
1647 source path list instead of augmenting it.
1648
4694da01
TT
1649* GDB now understands thread names.
1650
1651 On GNU/Linux, "info threads" will display the thread name as set by
1652 prctl or pthread_setname_np.
1653
1654 There is also a new command, "thread name", which can be used to
1655 assign a name internally for GDB to display.
1656
f4b8a18d
KW
1657* OpenCL C
1658 Initial support for the OpenCL C language (http://www.khronos.org/opencl)
1659 has been integrated into GDB.
1660
585d1eb8
PM
1661* Python scripting
1662
da5d4055
PM
1663 ** The function gdb.Write now accepts an optional keyword 'stream'.
1664 This keyword, when provided, will direct the output to either
1665 stdout, stderr, or GDB's logging output.
1666
9a6f1302
PM
1667 ** Parameters can now be be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
1668 you may implement the get_set_doc and get_show_doc functions.
1669 This improves how Parameter set/show documentation is processed
1670 and allows for more dynamic content.
1671
29703da4
PM
1672 ** Symbols, Symbol Table, Symbol Table and Line, Object Files,
1673 Inferior, Inferior Thread, Blocks, and Block Iterator APIs now
1674 have an is_valid method.
1675
350c6c65
PM
1676 ** Breakpoints can now be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
1677 you may implement a 'stop' function that is executed each time
1678 the inferior reaches that breakpoint.
1679
6e6fbe60
DE
1680 ** New function gdb.lookup_global_symbol looks up a global symbol.
1681
585d1eb8
PM
1682 ** GDB values in Python are now callable if the value represents a
1683 function. For example, if 'some_value' represents a function that
1684 takes two integer parameters and returns a value, you can call
1685 that function like so:
1686
1687 result = some_value (10,20)
1688
0e3509db
DE
1689 ** Module gdb.types has been added.
1690 It contains a collection of utilities for working with gdb.Types objects:
1691 get_basic_type, has_field, make_enum_dict.
1692
7b51bc51
DE
1693 ** Module gdb.printing has been added.
1694 It contains utilities for writing and registering pretty-printers.
1695 New classes: PrettyPrinter, SubPrettyPrinter,
1696 RegexpCollectionPrettyPrinter.
1697 New function: register_pretty_printer.
1698
1699 ** New commands "info pretty-printers", "enable pretty-printer" and
1700 "disable pretty-printer" have been added.
1701
99e7ae30
DE
1702 ** gdb.parameter("directories") is now available.
1703
d8e22779
TT
1704 ** New function gdb.newest_frame returns the newest frame in the
1705 selected thread.
1706
4694da01
TT
1707 ** The gdb.InferiorThread class has a new "name" attribute. This
1708 holds the thread's name.
1709
505500db
SW
1710 ** Python Support for Inferior events.
1711 Python scripts can add observers to be notified of events
824446ad 1712 occurring in the process being debugged.
c17a9e46
HZ
1713 The following events are currently supported:
1714 - gdb.events.cont Continue event.
1715 - gdb.events.exited Inferior exited event.
1716 - gdb.events.stop Signal received, and Breakpoint hit events.
1717
def98928
TT
1718* C++ Improvements:
1719
1720 ** GDB now puts template parameters in scope when debugging in an
1721 instantiation. For example, if you have:
1722
1723 template<int X> int func (void) { return X; }
1724
1725 then if you step into func<5>, "print X" will show "5". This
1726 feature requires proper debuginfo support from the compiler; it
1727 was added to GCC 4.5.
1728
66cb8159
TT
1729 ** The motion commands "next", "finish", "until", and "advance" now
1730 work better when exceptions are thrown. In particular, GDB will
1731 no longer lose control of the inferior; instead, the GDB will
1732 stop the inferior at the point at which the exception is caught.
1733 This functionality requires a change in the exception handling
1734 code that was introduced in GCC 4.5.
1735
4aac0db7
UW
1736* GDB now follows GCC's rules on accessing volatile objects when
1737 reading or writing target state during expression evaluation.
1738 One notable difference to prior behavior is that "print x = 0"
1739 no longer generates a read of x; the value of the assignment is
1740 now always taken directly from the value being assigned.
1741
283e6a52
TT
1742* GDB now has some support for using labels in the program's source in
1743 linespecs. For instance, you can use "advance label" to continue
1744 execution to a label.
1745
1746* GDB now has support for reading and writing a new .gdb_index
1747 section. This section holds a fast index of DWARF debugging
1748 information and can be used to greatly speed up GDB startup and
1749 operation. See the documentation for `save gdb-index' for details.
1750
b56df873 1751* The "watch" command now accepts an optional "-location" argument.
14c0d4e1 1752 When used, this causes GDB to watch the memory referred to by the
b56df873
TT
1753 expression. Such a watchpoint is never deleted due to it going out
1754 of scope.
1755
ae53ffa4
PA
1756* GDB now supports thread debugging of core dumps on GNU/Linux.
1757
1758 GDB now activates thread debugging using the libthread_db library
1759 when debugging GNU/Linux core dumps, similarly to when debugging
1760 live processes. As a result, when debugging a core dump file, GDB
1761 is now able to display pthread_t ids of threads. For example, "info
1762 threads" shows the same output as when debugging the process when it
1763 was live. In earlier releases, you'd see something like this:
1764
1765 (gdb) info threads
1766 * 1 LWP 6780 main () at main.c:10
1767
1768 While now you see this:
1769
1770 (gdb) info threads
1771 * 1 Thread 0x7f0f5712a700 (LWP 6780) main () at main.c:10
1772
1773 It is also now possible to inspect TLS variables when debugging core
1774 dumps.
1775
1776 When debugging a core dump generated on a machine other than the one
1777 used to run GDB, you may need to point GDB at the correct
1778 libthread_db library with the "set libthread-db-search-path"
1779 command. See the user manual for more details on this command.
1780
f1310107
TJB
1781* When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
1782 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports ranged breakpoints,
1783 which stop execution of the inferior whenever it executes an instruction
1784 at any address within the specified range. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
1785 section in the user manual for more details.
1786
248c9dbc
JB
1787* New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
1788
1aee7009
JB
1789 ** GDBserver is now supported on PowerPC LynxOS (versions 4.x and 5.x),
1790 and i686 LynxOS (version 5.x).
248c9dbc 1791
eb826dc6
MF
1792 ** GDBserver is now supported on Blackfin Linux.
1793
44603653
JB
1794* New native configurations
1795
1796ia64 HP-UX ia64-*-hpux*
1797
91021223
MF
1798* New targets:
1799
1800Analog Devices, Inc. Blackfin Processor bfin-*
1801
6e1bb179
JB
1802* Ada task switching is now supported on sparc-elf targets when
1803 debugging a program using the Ravenscar Profile. For more information,
1804 see the "Tasking Support when using the Ravenscar Profile" section
1805 in the GDB user manual.
1806
50c97f38
TT
1807* Guile support was removed.
1808
448a92bf
MF
1809* New features in the GNU simulator
1810
1811 ** The --map-info flag lists all known core mappings.
1812
66ee2731
MF
1813 ** CFI flashes may be simulated via the "cfi" device.
1814
76b8507d 1815*** Changes in GDB 7.2
bfbf3774 1816
ba25b921
PA
1817* Shared library support for remote targets by default
1818
1819 When GDB is configured for a generic, non-OS specific target, like
1820 for example, --target=arm-eabi or one of the many *-*-elf targets,
1821 GDB now queries remote stubs for loaded shared libraries using the
1822 `qXfer:libraries:read' packet. Previously, shared library support
1823 was always disabled for such configurations.
1824
4656f5c6
SW
1825* C++ Improvements:
1826
1827 ** Argument Dependent Lookup (ADL)
1828
1829 In C++ ADL lookup directs function search to the namespaces of its
1830 arguments even if the namespace has not been imported.
1831 For example:
1832 namespace A
1833 {
1834 class B { };
1835 void foo (B) { }
1836 }
1837 ...
1838 A::B b
1839 foo(b)
1840 Here the compiler will search for `foo' in the namespace of 'b'
1841 and find A::foo. GDB now supports this. This construct is commonly
1842 used in the Standard Template Library for operators.
1843
1844 ** Improved User Defined Operator Support
1845
1846 In addition to member operators, GDB now supports lookup of operators
1847 defined in a namespace and imported with a `using' directive, operators
1848 defined in the global scope, operators imported implicitly from an
1849 anonymous namespace, and the ADL operators mentioned in the previous
1850 entry.
1851 GDB now also supports proper overload resolution for all the previously
1852 mentioned flavors of operators.
1853
254e6b9e
DE
1854 ** static const class members
1855
1856 Printing of static const class members that are initialized in the
1857 class definition has been fixed.
1858
711e434b
PM
1859* Windows Thread Information Block access.
1860
1861 On Windows targets, GDB now supports displaying the Windows Thread
1862 Information Block (TIB) structure. This structure is visible either
1863 by using the new command `info w32 thread-information-block' or, by
1864 dereferencing the new convenience variable named `$_tlb', a
1865 thread-specific pointer to the TIB. This feature is also supported
1866 when remote debugging using GDBserver.
1867
0fb4aa4b
PA
1868* Static tracepoints
1869
1870 Static tracepoints are calls in the user program into a tracing
1871 library. One such library is a port of the LTTng kernel tracer to
1872 userspace --- UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer, http://lttng.org/ust).
1873 When debugging with GDBserver, GDB now supports combining the GDB
1874 tracepoint machinery with such libraries. For example: the user can
1875 use GDB to probe a static tracepoint marker (a call from the user
1876 program into the tracing library) with the new "strace" command (see
1877 "New commands" below). This creates a "static tracepoint" in the
1878 breakpoint list, that can be manipulated with the same feature set
1879 as fast and regular tracepoints. E.g., collect registers, local and
1880 global variables, collect trace state variables, and define
1881 tracepoint conditions. In addition, the user can collect extra
1882 static tracepoint marker specific data, by collecting the new
1883 $_sdata internal variable. When analyzing the trace buffer, you can
1884 inspect $_sdata like any other variable available to GDB. For more
1885 information, see the "Tracepoints" chapter in GDB user manual. New
1886 remote packets have been defined to support static tracepoints, see
1887 the "New remote packets" section below.
1888
ca11e899
SS
1889* Better reconstruction of tracepoints after disconnected tracing
1890
1891 GDB will attempt to download the original source form of tracepoint
1892 definitions when starting a trace run, and then will upload these
1893 upon reconnection to the target, resulting in a more accurate
1894 reconstruction of the tracepoints that are in use on the target.
1895
1896* Observer mode
1897
1898 You can now exercise direct control over the ways that GDB can
1899 affect your program. For instance, you can disallow the setting of
1900 breakpoints, so that the program can run continuously (assuming
1901 non-stop mode). In addition, the "observer" variable is available
1902 to switch all of the different controls; in observer mode, GDB
1903 cannot affect the target's behavior at all, which is useful for
1904 tasks like diagnosing live systems in the field.
1905
1906* The new convenience variable $_thread holds the number of the
1907 current thread.
1908
711e434b
PM
1909* New remote packets
1910
1911qGetTIBAddr
1912
1913 Return the address of the Windows Thread Information Block of a given thread.
1914
dde08ee1
PA
1915qRelocInsn
1916
1917 In response to several of the tracepoint packets, the target may now
1918 also respond with a number of intermediate `qRelocInsn' request
1919 packets before the final result packet, to have GDB handle
1920 relocating an instruction to execute at a different address. This
1921 is particularly useful for stubs that support fast tracepoints. GDB
1922 reports support for this feature in the qSupported packet.
1923
0fb4aa4b
PA
1924qTfSTM, qTsSTM
1925
1926 List static tracepoint markers in the target program.
1927
1928qTSTMat
1929
1930 List static tracepoint markers at a given address in the target
1931 program.
1932
1933qXfer:statictrace:read
1934
1935 Read the static trace data collected (by a `collect $_sdata'
1936 tracepoint action). The remote stub reports support for this packet
1937 to gdb's qSupported query.
1938
ca11e899
SS
1939QAllow
1940
1941 Send the current settings of GDB's permission flags.
1942
1943QTDPsrc
1944
1945 Send part of the source (textual) form of a tracepoint definition,
1946 which includes location, conditional, and action list.
1947
3f7b2faa
DE
1948* The source command now accepts a -s option to force searching for the
1949 script in the source search path even if the script name specifies
1950 a directory.
1951
d337e9f0
PA
1952* New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
1953
0fb4aa4b
PA
1954 - GDBserver now support tracepoints (including fast tracepoints, and
1955 static tracepoints). The feature is currently supported by the
1956 i386-linux and amd64-linux builds. See the "Tracepoints support
1957 in gdbserver" section in the manual for more information.
1958
1959 GDBserver JIT compiles the tracepoint's conditional agent
1960 expression bytecode into native code whenever possible for low
1961 overhead dynamic tracepoints conditionals. For such tracepoints,
1962 an expression that examines program state is evaluated when the
1963 tracepoint is reached, in order to determine whether to capture
1964 trace data. If the condition is simple and false, processing the
1965 tracepoint finishes very quickly and no data is gathered.
1966
1967 GDBserver interfaces with the UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer) library
1968 for static tracepoints support.
d337e9f0 1969
c24d0242
PM
1970 - GDBserver now supports x86_64 Windows 64-bit debugging.
1971
c8d5aac9
L
1972* GDB now sends xmlRegisters= in qSupported packet to indicate that
1973 it understands register description.
1974
7c953934
TT
1975* The --batch flag now disables pagination and queries.
1976
8685c86f
L
1977* X86 general purpose registers
1978
1979 GDB now supports reading/writing byte, word and double-word x86
1980 general purpose registers directly. This means you can use, say,
1981 $ah or $ax to refer, respectively, to the byte register AH and
1982 16-bit word register AX that are actually portions of the 32-bit
1983 register EAX or 64-bit register RAX.
1984
95a42b64 1985* The `commands' command now accepts a range of breakpoints to modify.
86b17b60
PA
1986 A plain `commands' following a command that creates multiple
1987 breakpoints affects all the breakpoints set by that command. This
1988 applies to breakpoints set by `rbreak', and also applies when a
1989 single `break' command creates multiple breakpoints (e.g.,
1990 breakpoints on overloaded c++ functions).
95a42b64 1991
8bd10a10
CM
1992* The `rbreak' command now accepts a filename specification as part of
1993 its argument, limiting the functions selected by the regex to those
1994 in the specified file.
1995
ab38a727
PA
1996* Support for remote debugging Windows and SymbianOS shared libraries
1997 from Unix hosts has been improved. Non Windows GDB builds now can
1998 understand target reported file names that follow MS-DOS based file
1999 system semantics, such as file names that include drive letters and
2000 use the backslash character as directory separator. This makes it
2001 possible to transparently use the "set sysroot" and "set
2002 solib-search-path" on Unix hosts to point as host copies of the
2003 target's shared libraries. See the new command "set
2004 target-file-system-kind" described below, and the "Commands to
2005 specify files" section in the user manual for more information.
2006
6149aea9
PA
2007* New commands
2008
f1421989
HZ
2009eval template, expressions...
2010 Convert the values of one or more expressions under the control
2011 of the string template to a command line, and call it.
2012
ab38a727
PA
2013set target-file-system-kind unix|dos-based|auto
2014show target-file-system-kind
2015 Set or show the assumed file system kind for target reported file
2016 names.
2017
6149aea9
PA
2018save breakpoints <filename>
2019 Save all current breakpoint definitions to a file suitable for use
2020 in a later debugging session. To read the saved breakpoint
2021 definitions, use the `source' command.
2022
2023`save tracepoints' is a new alias for `save-tracepoints'. The latter
2024is now deprecated.
2025
0fb4aa4b
PA
2026info static-tracepoint-markers
2027 Display information about static tracepoint markers in the target.
2028
2029strace FN | FILE:LINE | *ADDR | -m MARKER_ID
2030 Define a static tracepoint by probing a marker at the given
2031 function, line, address, or marker ID.
2032
ca11e899
SS
2033set observer on|off
2034show observer
2035 Enable and disable observer mode.
2036
2037set may-write-registers on|off
2038set may-write-memory on|off
2039set may-insert-breakpoints on|off
2040set may-insert-tracepoints on|off
2041set may-insert-fast-tracepoints on|off
2042set may-interrupt on|off
2043 Set individual permissions for GDB effects on the target. Note that
2044 some of these settings can have undesirable or surprising
2045 consequences, particularly when changed in the middle of a session.
2046 For instance, disabling the writing of memory can prevent
2047 breakpoints from being inserted, cause single-stepping to fail, or
2048 even crash your program, if you disable after breakpoints have been
2049 inserted. However, GDB should not crash.
2050
2051set record memory-query on|off
2052show record memory-query
2053 Control whether to stop the inferior if memory changes caused
2054 by an instruction cannot be recorded.
2055
53a71c06
CR
2056* Changed commands
2057
2058disassemble
2059 The disassemble command now supports "start,+length" form of two arguments.
2060
f3e9a817
PM
2061* Python scripting
2062
9279c692
JB
2063** GDB now provides a new directory location, called the python directory,
2064 where Python scripts written for GDB can be installed. The location
2065 of that directory is <data-directory>/python, where <data-directory>
2066 is the GDB data directory. For more details, see section `Scripting
2067 GDB using Python' in the manual.
2068
adc36818 2069** The GDB Python API now has access to breakpoints, symbols, symbol
595939de
PM
2070 tables, program spaces, inferiors, threads and frame's code blocks.
2071 Additionally, GDB Parameters can now be created from the API, and
2072 manipulated via set/show in the CLI.
f870a310 2073
fa33c3cd 2074** New functions gdb.target_charset, gdb.target_wide_charset,
07ca107c
DE
2075 gdb.progspaces, gdb.current_progspace, and gdb.string_to_argv.
2076
2077** New exception gdb.GdbError.
fa33c3cd
DE
2078
2079** Pretty-printers are now also looked up in the current program space.
f3e9a817 2080
967cf477
DE
2081** Pretty-printers can now be individually enabled and disabled.
2082
8a1ea21f
DE
2083** GDB now looks for names of Python scripts to auto-load in a
2084 special section named `.debug_gdb_scripts', in addition to looking
2085 for a OBJFILE-gdb.py script when OBJFILE is read by the debugger.
2086
a7bdde9e
VP
2087* Tracepoint actions were unified with breakpoint commands. In particular,
2088there are no longer differences in "info break" output for breakpoints and
2089tracepoints and the "commands" command can be used for both tracepoints and
2090regular breakpoints.
2091
05071a4d
PA
2092* New targets
2093
2094ARM Symbian arm*-*-symbianelf*
2095
6aecb9c2
JB
2096* D language support.
2097 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the D programming
2098 language.
2099
431e49aa
TJB
2100* GDB now supports the extended ptrace interface for PowerPC which is
2101 available since Linux kernel version 2.6.34. This automatically enables
2102 any hardware breakpoints and additional hardware watchpoints available in
2103 the processor. The old ptrace interface exposes just one hardware
2104 watchpoint and no hardware breakpoints.
2105
2106* GDB is now able to use the Data Value Compare (DVC) register available on
2107 embedded PowerPC processors to implement in hardware simple watchpoint
2108 conditions of the form:
2109
2110 watch ADDRESS|VARIABLE if ADDRESS|VARIABLE == CONSTANT EXPRESSION
2111
2112 This works in native GDB running on Linux kernels with the extended ptrace
2113 interface mentioned above.
2114
bfbf3774 2115*** Changes in GDB 7.1
abc7453d 2116
4eef138c
TT
2117* C++ Improvements
2118
2119 ** Namespace Support
71dee663
SW
2120
2121 GDB now supports importing of namespaces in C++. This enables the
2122 user to inspect variables from imported namespaces. Support for
2123 namepace aliasing has also been added. So, if a namespace is
2124 aliased in the current scope (e.g. namepace C=A; ) the user can
2125 print variables using the alias (e.g. (gdb) print C::x).
2126
4eef138c
TT
2127 ** Bug Fixes
2128
2129 All known bugs relating to the printing of virtual base class were
2130 fixed. It is now possible to call overloaded static methods using a
2131 qualified name.
2132
2133 ** Cast Operators
2134
2135 The C++ cast operators static_cast<>, dynamic_cast<>, const_cast<>,
2136 and reinterpret_cast<> are now handled by the C++ expression parser.
2137
2d1c1221
ME
2138* New targets
2139
2140Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze-*-*
34207b9e 2141Renesas RX rx-*-elf
2d1c1221
ME
2142
2143* New Simulators
2144
2145Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze
34207b9e 2146Renesas RX rx
2d1c1221 2147
6c95b8df
PA
2148* Multi-program debugging.
2149
2150 GDB now has support for multi-program (a.k.a. multi-executable or
2151 multi-exec) debugging. This allows for debugging multiple inferiors
2152 simultaneously each running a different program under the same GDB
2153 session. See "Debugging Multiple Inferiors and Programs" in the
2154 manual for more information. This implied some user visible changes
2155 in the multi-inferior support. For example, "info inferiors" now
2156 lists inferiors that are not running yet or that have exited
2157 already. See also "New commands" and "New options" below.
2158
d5551862
SS
2159* New tracing features
2160
2161 GDB's tracepoint facility now includes several new features:
2162
2163 ** Trace state variables
f61e138d
SS
2164
2165 GDB tracepoints now include support for trace state variables, which
2166 are variables managed by the target agent during a tracing
2167 experiment. They are useful for tracepoints that trigger each
2168 other, so for instance one tracepoint can count hits in a variable,
2169 and then a second tracepoint has a condition that is true when the
2170 count reaches a particular value. Trace state variables share the
2171 $-syntax of GDB convenience variables, and can appear in both
2172 tracepoint actions and condition expressions. Use the "tvariable"
2173 command to create, and "info tvariables" to view; see "Trace State
2174 Variables" in the manual for more detail.
7a697b8d 2175
d5551862 2176 ** Fast tracepoints
7a697b8d
SS
2177
2178 GDB now includes an option for defining fast tracepoints, which
2179 targets may implement more efficiently, such as by installing a jump
2180 into the target agent rather than a trap instruction. The resulting
2181 speedup can be by two orders of magnitude or more, although the
2182 tradeoff is that some program locations on some target architectures
2183 might not allow fast tracepoint installation, for instance if the
2184 instruction to be replaced is shorter than the jump. To request a
2185 fast tracepoint, use the "ftrace" command, with syntax identical to
2186 the regular trace command.
2187
d5551862
SS
2188 ** Disconnected tracing
2189
2190 It is now possible to detach GDB from the target while it is running
2191 a trace experiment, then reconnect later to see how the experiment
2192 is going. In addition, a new variable disconnected-tracing lets you
2193 tell the target agent whether to continue running a trace if the
2194 connection is lost unexpectedly.
2195
00bf0b85
SS
2196 ** Trace files
2197
2198 GDB now has the ability to save the trace buffer into a file, and
2199 then use that file as a target, similarly to you can do with
2200 corefiles. You can select trace frames, print data that was
2201 collected in them, and use tstatus to display the state of the
2202 tracing run at the moment that it was saved. To create a trace
2203 file, use "tsave <filename>", and to use it, do "target tfile
2204 <name>".
4daf5ac0
SS
2205
2206 ** Circular trace buffer
2207
2208 You can ask the target agent to handle the trace buffer as a
2209 circular buffer, discarding the oldest trace frames to make room for
2210 newer ones, by setting circular-trace-buffer to on. This feature may
2211 not be available for all target agents.
2212
21a0512e
PP
2213* Changed commands
2214
2215disassemble
2216 The disassemble command, when invoked with two arguments, now requires
2217 the arguments to be comma-separated.
2218
0fe7935b
DJ
2219info variables
2220 The info variables command now displays variable definitions. Files
2221 which only declare a variable are not shown.
2222
fb2e7cb4
JB
2223source
2224 The source command is now capable of sourcing Python scripts.
2225 This feature is dependent on the debugger being build with Python
2226 support.
2227
2228 Related to this enhancement is also the introduction of a new command
2229 "set script-extension" (see below).
2230
6c95b8df
PA
2231* New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
2232
399cd161
MS
2233record save [<FILENAME>]
2234 Save a file (in core file format) containing the process record
2235 execution log for replay debugging at a later time.
2236
2237record restore <FILENAME>
2238 Restore the process record execution log that was saved at an
2239 earlier time, for replay debugging.
2240
6c95b8df
PA
2241add-inferior [-copies <N>] [-exec <FILENAME>]
2242 Add a new inferior.
2243
2244clone-inferior [-copies <N>] [ID]
2245 Make a new inferior ready to execute the same program another
2246 inferior has loaded.
2247
2248remove-inferior ID
2249 Remove an inferior.
2250
2251maint info program-spaces
2252 List the program spaces loaded into GDB.
2253
9a7071a8
JB
2254set remote interrupt-sequence [Ctrl-C | BREAK | BREAK-g]
2255show remote interrupt-sequence
2256 Allow the user to select one of ^C, a BREAK signal or BREAK-g
2257 as the sequence to the remote target in order to interrupt the execution.
2258 Ctrl-C is a default. Some system prefers BREAK which is high level of
2259 serial line for some certain time. Linux kernel prefers BREAK-g, a.k.a
2260 Magic SysRq g. It is BREAK signal and character 'g'.
2261
2262set remote interrupt-on-connect [on | off]
2263show remote interrupt-on-connect
2264 When interrupt-on-connect is ON, gdb sends interrupt-sequence to
2265 remote target when gdb connects to it. This is needed when you debug
2266 Linux kernel.
2267
2268set remotebreak [on | off]
2269show remotebreak
2270Deprecated. Use "set/show remote interrupt-sequence" instead.
2271
f61e138d
SS
2272tvariable $NAME [ = EXP ]
2273 Create or modify a trace state variable.
2274
2275info tvariables
2276 List trace state variables and their values.
2277
2278delete tvariable $NAME ...
2279 Delete one or more trace state variables.
2280
6da95a67
SS
2281teval EXPR, ...
2282 Evaluate the given expressions without collecting anything into the
2283 trace buffer. (Valid in tracepoint actions only.)
2284
7a697b8d
SS
2285ftrace FN / FILE:LINE / *ADDR
2286 Define a fast tracepoint at the given function, line, or address.
2287
b0f02ee9
JK
2288* New expression syntax
2289
2290 GDB now parses the 0b prefix of binary numbers the same way as GCC does.
2291 GDB now parses 0b101010 identically with 42.
2292
6c95b8df
PA
2293* New options
2294
2295set follow-exec-mode new|same
2296show follow-exec-mode
2297 Control whether GDB reuses the same inferior across an exec call or
2298 creates a new one. This is useful to be able to restart the old
2299 executable after the inferior having done an exec call.
2300
236f1d4d
SS
2301set default-collect EXPR, ...
2302show default-collect
2303 Define a list of expressions to be collected at each tracepoint.
2304 This is a useful way to ensure essential items are not overlooked,
2305 such as registers or a critical global variable.
2306
d5551862
SS
2307set disconnected-tracing
2308show disconnected-tracing
2309 If set to 1, the target is instructed to continue tracing if it
2310 loses its connection to GDB. If 0, the target is to stop tracing
2311 upon disconnection.
2312
4daf5ac0
SS
2313set circular-trace-buffer
2314show circular-trace-buffer
2315 If set to on, the target is instructed to use a circular trace buffer
2316 and discard the oldest trace frames instead of stopping the trace due
2317 to a full trace buffer. If set to off, the trace stops when the buffer
2318 fills up. Some targets may not support this.
2319
fb2e7cb4
JB
2320set script-extension off|soft|strict
2321show script-extension
2322 If set to "off", the debugger does not perform any script language
2323 recognition, and all sourced files are assumed to be GDB scripts.
2324 If set to "soft" (the default), files are sourced according to
2325 filename extension, falling back to GDB scripts if the first
2326 evaluation failed.
2327 If set to "strict", files are sourced according to filename extension.
2328
2b71fc8e
JB
2329set ada trust-PAD-over-XVS on|off
2330show ada trust-PAD-over-XVS
2331 If off, activate a workaround against a bug in the debugging information
2332 generated by the compiler for PAD types (see gcc/exp_dbug.ads in
2333 the GCC sources for more information about the GNAT encoding and
2334 PAD types in particular). It is always safe to set this option to
2335 off, but this introduces a slight performance penalty. The default
2336 is on.
2337
de2e5182
TT
2338* Python API Improvements
2339
2340 ** GDB provides the new class gdb.LazyString. This is useful in
2341 some pretty-printing cases. The new method gdb.Value.lazy_string
2342 provides a simple way to create objects of this type.
2343
2344 ** The fields returned by gdb.Type.fields now have an
2345 `is_base_class' attribute.
2346
2347 ** The new method gdb.Type.range returns the range of an array type.
2348
2349 ** The new method gdb.parse_and_eval can be used to parse and
2350 evaluate an expression.
2351
f61e138d
SS
2352* New remote packets
2353
2354QTDV
2355 Define a trace state variable.
2356
2357qTV
2358 Get the current value of a trace state variable.
2359
d5551862
SS
2360QTDisconnected
2361 Set desired tracing behavior upon disconnection.
2362
4daf5ac0
SS
2363QTBuffer:circular
2364 Set the trace buffer to be linear or circular.
2365
d5551862
SS
2366qTfP, qTsP
2367 Get data about the tracepoints currently in use.
2368
2d483d34
MS
2369* Bug fixes
2370
2371Process record now works correctly with hardware watchpoints.
2372
6e0e5977
JB
2373Multiple bug fixes have been made to the mips-irix port, making it
2374much more reliable. In particular:
2375 - Debugging threaded applications is now possible again. Previously,
2376 GDB would hang while starting the program, or while waiting for
2377 the program to stop at a breakpoint.
2378 - Attaching to a running process no longer hangs.
2379 - An error occurring while loading a core file has been fixed.
2380 - Changing the value of the PC register now works again. This fixes
2381 problems observed when using the "jump" command, or when calling
2382 a function from GDB, or even when assigning a new value to $pc.
2383 - With the "finish" and "return" commands, the return value for functions
2384 returning a small array is now correctly printed.
2385 - It is now possible to break on shared library code which gets executed
2386 during a shared library init phase (code executed while executing
2387 their .init section). Previously, the breakpoint would have no effect.
2388 - GDB is now able to backtrace through the signal handler for
2389 non-threaded programs.
2390
93c26624
JK
2391PIE (Position Independent Executable) programs debugging is now supported.
2392This includes debugging execution of PIC (Position Independent Code) shared
2393libraries although for that, it should be possible to run such libraries as an
2394executable program.
2395
abc7453d 2396*** Changes in GDB 7.0
75feb17d 2397
4efc6507
DE
2398* GDB now has an interface for JIT compilation. Applications that
2399dynamically generate code can create symbol files in memory and register
2400them with GDB. For users, the feature should work transparently, and
2401for JIT developers, the interface is documented in the GDB manual in the
2402"JIT Compilation Interface" chapter.
2403
782b2b07
SS
2404* Tracepoints may now be conditional. The syntax is as for
2405breakpoints; either an "if" clause appended to the "trace" command,
2406or the "condition" command is available. GDB sends the condition to
2407the target for evaluation using the same bytecode format as is used
2408for tracepoint actions.
2409
53a71c06
CR
2410* The disassemble command now supports: an optional /r modifier, print the
2411raw instructions in hex as well as in symbolic form, and an optional /m
2412modifier to print mixed source+assembly.
e6158f16 2413
e7a8dbfb
HZ
2414* Process record and replay
2415
2416 In a architecture environment that supports ``process record and
2417 replay'', ``process record and replay'' target can record a log of
2418 the process execution, and replay it with both forward and reverse
2419 execute commands.
2420
64644d9b
MS
2421* Reverse debugging: GDB now has new commands reverse-continue, reverse-
2422step, reverse-next, reverse-finish, reverse-stepi, reverse-nexti, and
2423set execution-direction {forward|reverse}, for targets that support
2424reverse execution.
2425
b9412953
DD
2426* GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on MIPS/Linux systems. This
2427feature is available with a native GDB running on kernel version
24282.6.28 or later.
2429
6c7a06a3
TT
2430* GDB now has support for multi-byte and wide character sets on the
2431target. Strings whose character type is wchar_t, char16_t, or
2432char32_t are now correctly printed. GDB supports wide- and unicode-
2433literals in C, that is, L'x', L"string", u'x', u"string", U'x', and
2434U"string" syntax. And, GDB allows the "%ls" and "%lc" formats in
2435`printf'. This feature requires iconv to work properly; if your
2436system does not have a working iconv, GDB can use GNU libiconv. See
2437the installation instructions for more information.
2438
f1838a98
UW
2439* GDB now supports automatic retrieval of shared library files from
2440remote targets. To use this feature, specify a system root that begins
2441with the `remote:' prefix, either via the `set sysroot' command or via
2442the `--with-sysroot' configure-time option.
2443
55333a84
DE
2444* "info sharedlibrary" now takes an optional regex of libraries to show,
2445and it now reports if a shared library has no debugging information.
2446
7f6a6314
PM
2447* Commands `set debug-file-directory', `set solib-search-path' and `set args'
2448now complete on file names.
2449
65d12d83
TT
2450* When completing in expressions, gdb will attempt to limit
2451completions to allowable structure or union fields, where appropriate.
2452For instance, consider:
2453
2454 # struct example { int f1; double f2; };
2455 # struct example variable;
2456 (gdb) p variable.
2457
2458If the user types TAB at the end of this command line, the available
2459completions will be "f1" and "f2".
2460
edb3359d
DJ
2461* Inlined functions are now supported. They show up in backtraces, and
2462the "step", "next", and "finish" commands handle them automatically.
2463
2fae03e8
TT
2464* GDB now supports the token-splicing (##) and stringification (#)
2465operators when expanding macros. It also supports variable-arity
2466macros.
2467
47a3467a 2468* GDB now supports inspecting extra signal information, exported by
58d6951d
DJ
2469the new $_siginfo convenience variable. The feature is currently
2470implemented on linux ARM, i386 and amd64.
2471
2472* GDB can now display the VFP floating point registers and NEON vector
2473registers on ARM targets. Both ARM GNU/Linux native GDB and gdbserver
2474can provide these registers (requires Linux 2.6.30 or later). Remote
2475and simulator targets may also provide them.
47a3467a 2476
08388c79
DE
2477* New remote packets
2478
2479qSearch:memory:
2480 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
2481
a6f3e723
SL
2482QStartNoAckMode
2483 Turn off `+'/`-' protocol acknowledgments to permit more efficient
2484 operation over reliable transport links. Use of this packet is
2485 controlled by the `set remote noack-packet' command.
2486
d7713ae0
EZ
2487vKill
2488 Kill the process with the specified process ID. Use this in preference
2489 to `k' when multiprocess protocol extensions are supported.
2490
07e059b5
VP
2491qXfer:osdata:read
2492 Obtains additional operating system information
2493
47a3467a
PA
2494qXfer:siginfo:read
2495qXfer:siginfo:write
2496 Read or write additional signal information.
2497
060871df
PA
2498* Removed remote protocol undocumented extension
2499
2500 An undocumented extension to the remote protocol's `S' stop reply
2501 packet that permited the stub to pass a process id was removed.
2502 Remote servers should use the `T' stop reply packet instead.
2503
c055b101 2504* GDB now supports multiple function calling conventions according to the
a0ef4274 2505DWARF-2 DW_AT_calling_convention function attribute.
c055b101
CV
2506
2507* The SH target utilizes the aforementioned change to distinguish between gcc
a0ef4274
DJ
2508and Renesas calling convention. It also adds the new CLI commands
2509`set/show sh calling-convention'.
c055b101 2510
31fffb02
CS
2511* GDB can now read compressed debug sections, as produced by GNU gold
2512with the --compress-debug-sections=zlib flag.
2513
88d8a8e0
JB
2514* 64-bit core files are now supported on AIX.
2515
7f99b190
JB
2516* Thread switching is now supported on Tru64.
2517
ccd213ac
DJ
2518* Watchpoints can now be set on unreadable memory locations, e.g. addresses
2519which will be allocated using malloc later in program execution.
2520
1fddbabb 2521* The qXfer:libraries:read remote procotol packet now allows passing a
31fffb02 2522list of section offsets.
1fddbabb 2523
a0ef4274
DJ
2524* On GNU/Linux, GDB can now attach to stopped processes. Several race
2525conditions handling signals delivered during attach or thread creation
2526have also been fixed.
2527
bfb8797a 2528* GDB now supports the use of DWARF boolean types for Ada's type Boolean.
158c7665
PH
2529From the user's standpoint, all unqualified instances of True and False
2530are treated as the standard definitions, regardless of context.
bfb8797a 2531
71c25dea
TT
2532* GDB now parses C++ symbol and type names more flexibly. For
2533example, given:
2534
2535 template<typename T> class C { };
2536 C<char const *> c;
2537
2538GDB will now correctly handle all of:
2539
2540 ptype C<char const *>
2541 ptype C<char const*>
2542 ptype C<const char *>
2543 ptype C<const char*>
2544
ccd213ac
DJ
2545* New features in the GDB remote stub, gdbserver
2546
2547 - The "--wrapper" command-line argument tells gdbserver to use a
2548 wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
2549
7ae0e2a2
UW
2550 - On PowerPC and S/390 targets, it is now possible to use a single
2551 gdbserver executable to debug both 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
2552 (This requires gdbserver itself to be built as a 64-bit executable.)
2553
a6f3e723
SL
2554 - gdbserver uses the new noack protocol mode for TCP connections to
2555 reduce communications latency, if also supported and enabled in GDB.
2556
da8bd9a3
DJ
2557 - Support for the sparc64-linux-gnu target is now included in
2558 gdbserver.
2559
d70e31dd
DE
2560 - The amd64-linux build of gdbserver now supports debugging both
2561 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
2562
2563 - The i386-linux, amd64-linux, and i386-win32 builds of gdbserver
2564 now support hardware watchpoints, and will use them automatically
2565 as appropriate.
2566
d57a3c85
TJB
2567* Python scripting
2568
2569 GDB now has support for scripting using Python. Whether this is
2570 available is determined at configure time.
2571
d8906c6f
TJB
2572 New GDB commands can now be written in Python.
2573
aadc346a
JB
2574* Ada tasking support
2575
2576 Ada tasks can now be inspected in GDB. The following commands have
2577 been introduced:
2578
2579 info tasks
2580 Print the list of Ada tasks.
2581 info task N
2582 Print detailed information about task number N.
2583 task
2584 Print the task number of the current task.
2585 task N
2586 Switch the context of debugging to task number N.
2587
adb483fe
DJ
2588* Support for user-defined prefixed commands. The "define" command can
2589add new commands to existing prefixes, e.g. "target".
2590
2277426b
PA
2591* Multi-inferior, multi-process debugging.
2592
2593 GDB now has generalized support for multi-inferior debugging. See
2594 "Debugging Multiple Inferiors" in the manual for more information.
2595 Although availability still depends on target support, the command
2596 set is more uniform now. The GNU/Linux specific multi-forks support
2597 has been migrated to this new framework. This implied some user
2598 visible changes; see "New commands" and also "Removed commands"
2599 below.
2600
08d16641
PA
2601* Target descriptions can now describe the target OS ABI. See the
2602"Target Description Format" section in the user manual for more
2603information.
2604
e35359c5
UW
2605* Target descriptions can now describe "compatible" architectures
2606to indicate that the target can execute applications for a different
2607architecture in addition to those for the main target architecture.
2608See the "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for
2609more information.
2610
85e747d2
UW
2611* Multi-architecture debugging.
2612
2613 GDB now includes general supports for debugging applications on
2614 hybrid systems that use more than one single processor architecture
2615 at the same time. Each such hybrid architecture still requires
2616 specific support to be added. The only hybrid architecture supported
2617 in this version of GDB is the Cell Broadband Engine.
2618
2619* GDB now supports integrated debugging of Cell/B.E. applications that
2620use both the PPU and SPU architectures. To enable support for hybrid
2621Cell/B.E. debugging, you need to configure GDB to support both the
2622powerpc-linux or powerpc64-linux and the spu-elf targets, using the
2623--enable-targets configure option.
2624
11ade57a
PA
2625* Non-stop mode debugging.
2626
2627 For some targets, GDB now supports an optional mode of operation in
2628 which you can examine stopped threads while other threads continue
2629 to execute freely. This is referred to as non-stop mode, with the
2630 old mode referred to as all-stop mode. See the "Non-Stop Mode"
2631 section in the user manual for more information.
2632
2633 To be able to support remote non-stop debugging, a remote stub needs
2634 to implement the non-stop mode remote protocol extensions, as
2635 described in the "Remote Non-Stop" section of the user manual. The
2636 GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been adjusted to support these
2637 extensions on linux targets.
2638
d7713ae0 2639* New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
75feb17d 2640
a96d9b2e
SDJ
2641catch syscall [NAME(S) | NUMBER(S)]
2642 Catch system calls. Arguments, which should be names of system
2643 calls or their numbers, mean catch only those syscalls. Without
2644 arguments, every syscall will be caught. When the inferior issues
2645 any of the specified syscalls, GDB will stop and announce the system
2646 call, both when it is called and when its call returns. This
2647 feature is currently available with a native GDB running on the
2648 Linux Kernel, under the following architectures: x86, x86_64,
2649 PowerPC and PowerPC64.
2650
08388c79
DE
2651find [/size-char] [/max-count] start-address, end-address|+search-space-size,
2652 val1 [, val2, ...]
2653 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
2654
d57a3c85
TJB
2655maint set python print-stack
2656maint show python print-stack
2657 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Python script.
2658
2659python [CODE]
2660 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Python interpreter.
2661
d7713ae0
EZ
2662macro define
2663macro list
2664macro undef
2665 These allow macros to be defined, undefined, and listed
2666 interactively.
2667
2668info os processes
2669 Show operating system information about processes.
2670
2277426b
PA
2671info inferiors
2672 List the inferiors currently under GDB's control.
2673
2674inferior NUM
2675 Switch focus to inferior number NUM.
2676
2677detach inferior NUM
2678 Detach from inferior number NUM.
2679
2680kill inferior NUM
2681 Kill inferior number NUM.
2682
d7713ae0
EZ
2683* New options
2684
3285f3fe
UW
2685set spu stop-on-load
2686show spu stop-on-load
2687 Control whether to stop for new SPE threads during Cell/B.E. debugging.
2688
ff1a52c6
UW
2689set spu auto-flush-cache
2690show spu auto-flush-cache
2691 Control whether to automatically flush the software-managed cache
2692 during Cell/B.E. debugging.
2693
d7713ae0
EZ
2694set sh calling-convention
2695show sh calling-convention
2696 Control the calling convention used when calling SH target functions.
2697
e0a3ce09 2698set debug timestamp
75feb17d 2699show debug timestamp
d7713ae0
EZ
2700 Control display of timestamps with GDB debugging output.
2701
2702set disassemble-next-line
2703show disassemble-next-line
2704 Control display of disassembled source lines or instructions when
2705 the debuggee stops.
2706
2707set remote noack-packet
2708show remote noack-packet
2709 Set/show the use of remote protocol QStartNoAckMode packet. See above
2710 under "New remote packets."
2711
2712set remote query-attached-packet
2713show remote query-attached-packet
2714 Control use of remote protocol `qAttached' (query-attached) packet.
2715
2716set remote read-siginfo-object
2717show remote read-siginfo-object
2718 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:read' (read-siginfo-object)
2719 packet.
2720
2721set remote write-siginfo-object
2722show remote write-siginfo-object
2723 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:write' (write-siginfo-object)
2724 packet.
2725
40ab02ce
MS
2726set remote reverse-continue
2727show remote reverse-continue
2728 Control use of remote protocol 'bc' (reverse-continue) packet.
2729
2730set remote reverse-step
2731show remote reverse-step
2732 Control use of remote protocol 'bs' (reverse-step) packet.
2733
d7713ae0
EZ
2734set displaced-stepping
2735show displaced-stepping
2736 Control displaced stepping mode. Displaced stepping is a way to
2737 single-step over breakpoints without removing them from the debuggee.
2738 Also known as "out-of-line single-stepping".
2739
2740set debug displaced
2741show debug displaced
2742 Control display of debugging info for displaced stepping.
2743
2744maint set internal-error
2745maint show internal-error
2746 Control what GDB does when an internal error is detected.
2747
2748maint set internal-warning
2749maint show internal-warning
2750 Control what GDB does when an internal warning is detected.
75feb17d 2751
ccd213ac
DJ
2752set exec-wrapper
2753show exec-wrapper
2754unset exec-wrapper
2755 Use a wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
fa4727a6 2756
aad4b048
JB
2757set multiple-symbols (all|ask|cancel)
2758show multiple-symbols
2759 The value of this variable can be changed to adjust the debugger behavior
2760 when an expression or a breakpoint location contains an ambiguous symbol
2761 name (an overloaded function name, for instance).
2762
74960c60
VP
2763set breakpoint always-inserted
2764show breakpoint always-inserted
2765 Keep breakpoints always inserted in the target, as opposed to inserting
2766 them when resuming the target, and removing them when the target stops.
2767 This option can improve debugger performance on slow remote targets.
2768
0428b8f5
DJ
2769set arm fallback-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
2770show arm fallback-mode
2771set arm force-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
2772show arm force-mode
2773 These commands control how ARM GDB determines whether instructions
2774 are ARM or Thumb. The default for both settings is auto, which uses
2775 the current CPSR value for instructions without symbols; previous
2776 versions of GDB behaved as if "set arm fallback-mode arm".
2777
10568435
JK
2778set disable-randomization
2779show disable-randomization
2780 Standalone programs run with the virtual address space randomization enabled
2781 by default on some platforms. This option keeps the addresses stable across
2782 multiple debugging sessions.
2783
d7713ae0
EZ
2784set non-stop
2785show non-stop
2786 Control whether other threads are stopped or not when some thread hits
2787 a breakpoint.
2788
b3eb342c 2789set target-async
d7713ae0 2790show target-async
b3eb342c
VP
2791 Requests that asynchronous execution is enabled in the target, if available.
2792 In this case, it's possible to resume target in the background, and interact
2793 with GDB while the target is running. "show target-async" displays the
2794 current state of asynchronous execution of the target.
2795
6c7a06a3
TT
2796set target-wide-charset
2797show target-wide-charset
2798 The target-wide-charset is the name of the character set that GDB
2799 uses when printing characters whose type is wchar_t.
2800
84603566
SL
2801set tcp auto-retry (on|off)
2802show tcp auto-retry
2803set tcp connect-timeout
2804show tcp connect-timeout
2805 These commands allow GDB to retry failed TCP connections to a remote stub
2806 with a specified timeout period; this is useful if the stub is launched
2807 in parallel with GDB but may not be ready to accept connections immediately.
2808
17a37d48
PP
2809set libthread-db-search-path
2810show libthread-db-search-path
2811 Control list of directories which GDB will search for appropriate
2812 libthread_db.
2813
d4db2f36
PA
2814set schedule-multiple (on|off)
2815show schedule-multiple
2816 Allow GDB to resume all threads of all processes or only threads of
2817 the current process.
2818
4e5d721f
DE
2819set stack-cache
2820show stack-cache
2821 Use more aggressive caching for accesses to the stack. This improves
2822 performance of remote debugging (particularly backtraces) without
2823 affecting correctness.
2824
910c5da8
JB
2825set interactive-mode (on|off|auto)
2826show interactive-mode
2827 Control whether GDB runs in interactive mode (on) or not (off).
2828 When in interactive mode, GDB waits for the user to answer all
2829 queries. Otherwise, GDB does not wait and assumes the default
2830 answer. When set to auto (the default), GDB determines which
2831 mode to use based on the stdin settings.
2832
2277426b
PA
2833* Removed commands
2834
2835info forks
2836 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `info
2837 inferiors' command. To list checkpoints, you can still use the
2838 `info checkpoints' command, which was an alias for the `info forks'
2839 command.
2840
2841fork NUM
2842 Replaced by the new `inferior' command. To switch between
2843 checkpoints, you can still use the `restart' command, which was an
2844 alias for the `fork' command.
2845
2846process PID
2847 This is removed, since some targets don't have a notion of
2848 processes. To switch between processes, you can still use the
2849 `inferior' command using GDB's own inferior number.
2850
2851delete fork NUM
2852 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `kill
2853 inferior' command. To delete a checkpoint, you can still use the
2854 `delete checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `delete
2855 fork' command.
2856
2857detach fork NUM
2858 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `detach
2859 inferior' command. To detach a checkpoint, you can still use the
2860 `detach checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `detach
2861 fork' command.
2862
a80b95ba
TG
2863* New native configurations
2864
2865x86/x86_64 Darwin i[34567]86-*-darwin*
2866
b8bfd3ed
JB
2867x86_64 MinGW x86_64-*-mingw*
2868
75a2d5e7
TT
2869* New targets
2870
c28c63d8 2871Lattice Mico32 lm32-*
75a2d5e7 2872x86 DICOS i[34567]86-*-dicos*
4c1d2973 2873x86_64 DICOS x86_64-*-dicos*
5f814c3b 2874S+core 3 score-*-*
75a2d5e7 2875
6de3146c
PA
2876* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports x86 Windows CE
2877 (mingw32ce) debugging.
2878
d5cbbe6e
JB
2879* Removed commands
2880
2881catch load
2882catch unload
2883 These commands were actually not implemented on any target.
2884
75feb17d 2885*** Changes in GDB 6.8
f9ed52be 2886
af5ca30d
NH
2887* New native configurations
2888
2889NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*netbsd*
94a0e877 2890Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
af5ca30d
NH
2891
2892* New targets
2893
2894NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*-netbsd*
94a0e877 2895Xtensa GNU/Lunux xtensa*-*-linux*
af5ca30d 2896
7a404eba
PA
2897* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
2898
2899 When the '-p NUMBER' or '--pid NUMBER' options are used, and
2900 attaching to process NUMBER fails, GDB no longer attempts to open a
2901 core file named NUMBER. Attaching to a program using the -c option
2902 is no longer supported. Instead, use the '-p' or '--pid' options.
2903
430ebac9
PA
2904* GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
2905(mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
2906
fe6fbf8b 2907* Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
8d5f9c6f 2908is resolved.
fe6fbf8b
VP
2909
2910* GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
8d5f9c6f
DJ
2911including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
2912and in inlined functions.
fe6fbf8b 2913
10665d76
JB
2914* GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
2915accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
2916more than one contiguous range of addresses.
2917
7cc46491
DJ
2918* Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
2919
d71340b8
DJ
2920* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
2921registers on PowerPC targets.
2922
523c4513
DJ
2923* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
2924targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
2925
a6b151f1
DJ
2926* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
2927commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
2928
2d717e4f
DJ
2929* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports run and attach in
2930extended-remote mode.
2931
24a836bd 2932* hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
d001be7a
DJ
2933The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
2934error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
2935The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
24a836bd 2936
d0c678e6
UW
2937* GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
2938building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
2939target architectures.
2940
d64a946d
TJB
2941* GDB now supports debugging C and C++ programs which use the
2942Decimal Floating Point extension. In addition, the PowerPC target
2943now has a set of pseudo-registers to inspect decimal float values
2944stored in two consecutive float registers.
2945
ee163bf5
VP
2946* The -break-insert MI command can optionally create pending
2947breakpoints now.
2948
b93b6ca7 2949* Improved support for debugging Ada
d001be7a
DJ
2950Many improvements to the Ada language support have been made. These
2951include:
b93b6ca7
JB
2952 - Better support for Ada2005 interface types
2953 - Improved handling of arrays and slices in general
2954 - Better support for Taft-amendment types
2955 - The '{type} ADDRESS' expression is now allowed on the left hand-side
2956 of an assignment
2957 - Improved command completion in Ada
2958 - Several bug fixes
2959
d001be7a
DJ
2960* GDB on GNU/Linux and HP/UX can now debug through "exec" of a new
2961process.
2962
a6b151f1
DJ
2963* New commands
2964
6d53d0af
JB
2965set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
2966show print frame-arguments
2967 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
2968 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
2969
a6b151f1
DJ
2970remote put
2971remote get
2972remote delete
2973 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
2974
2975* New MI commands
2976
2977-target-file-put
2978-target-file-get
2979-target-file-delete
2980 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
2981
2982* New remote packets
2983
2984vFile:open:
2985vFile:close:
2986vFile:pread:
2987vFile:pwrite:
2988vFile:unlink:
2989 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
d0c678e6 2990
2d717e4f
DJ
2991vAttach
2992 Attach to an existing process on the remote system, in extended-remote
2993 mode.
2994
2995vRun
2996 Run a new process on the remote system, in extended-remote mode.
2997
8d5f9c6f 2998*** Changes in GDB 6.7
6dd09645 2999
19d378fc
MS
3000* Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
3001bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
3002Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
3003
3a40aaa0
UW
3004* When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
3005symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
3006-Bsymbolic linker option.
3007
a6ec25f2
BW
3008* When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
3009recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
3010is not supported.
3011
6dd09645
JB
3012* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
3013frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
3014
c9bb8148
DJ
3015* GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
301632-bit or 64-bit register values.
3017
0d5de010
DJ
3018* Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
3019
23181151
DJ
3020* GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
3021target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
3022a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
3023
ea37ba09
DJ
3024* Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
3025automatically displayed as character or string data.
3026
3027* The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
3028arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
3029as strings.
e1f48ead 3030
123dc839
DJ
3031* Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
3032for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
8d5f9c6f 3033only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
123dc839 3034
05a4558a
DJ
3035* GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
3036iWMMXt coprocessor.
fb1e4ffc 3037
7c963485
PA
3038* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
3039ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
3040has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
3041
b18be20d
DJ
3042* GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
3043
0ca420ce
UW
3044* GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
3045
31d99776
DJ
3046* The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
3047layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
3048segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
3049
a4642986
MR
3050* The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
3051immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
3052
cfa9d6d9
DJ
3053* The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
3054"library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
3055packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
3056where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
3057Windows and SymbianOS).
255e7678
DJ
3058
3059* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
3060(DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
f5db8714
JK
3061
3062* GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
3063according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
cfa9d6d9 3064
c9bb8148
DJ
3065* New commands
3066
23776285
MR
3067set remoteflow
3068show remoteflow
3069 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
3070 when debugging using remote targets.
3071
c9bb8148
DJ
3072set mem inaccessible-by-default
3073show mem inaccessible-by-default
3074 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
3075 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
3076 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
3077 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
3078 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
3079
3080set breakpoint auto-hw
3081show breakpoint auto-hw
3082 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
3083 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
3084 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
3085 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
3086 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
3087 including "next" and "finish".
3088
0e420bd8
JB
3089catch exception
3090catch exception unhandled
3091 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
3092
3093catch assert
3094 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
3095
f822c95b
DJ
3096set sysroot
3097show sysroot
3098 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
3099 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
3100 an alias to "set sysroot".
3101
83cc5c53
UW
3102info spu
3103 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
3104 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
3105 architecture.
3106
bd372731
MK
3107* New native configurations
3108
3109OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
3110
23181151
DJ
3111set tdesc filename
3112unset tdesc filename
3113show tdesc filename
3114 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
3115 not query the target for its built-in description.
3116
c9bb8148
DJ
3117* New targets
3118
54fe9172 3119OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
c9bb8148 3120MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
c077150c 3121Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
c9bb8148 3122
6dd09645
JB
3123* New remote packets
3124
3125QPassSignals:
3126 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
3127 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
3128
23181151
DJ
3129qXfer:features:read:
3130 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
3131 features.
6dd09645 3132
83cc5c53
UW
3133qXfer:spu:read:
3134qXfer:spu:write:
3135 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
3136 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
3137
cfa9d6d9
DJ
3138qXfer:libraries:read:
3139 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
3140 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
3141 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
3142 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
3143
483367ee
DJ
3144* Removed targets
3145
3146Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
3147
d08950c4
UW
3148alpha*-*-osf1*
3149alpha*-*-osf2*
7ce59000 3150d10v-*-*
483367ee
DJ
3151hppa*-*-hiux*
3152i[34567]86-ncr-*
3153i[34567]86-*-dgux*
3154i[34567]86-*-lynxos*
3155i[34567]86-*-netware*
3156i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
3157i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
3158i[34567]86-*-sco*
3159i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
3160i[34567]86-*-sysv4*
3161i[34567]86-*-sysv5*
3162i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
3163i[34567]86-*-unixware*
3164i[34567]86-*-sysv*
3165i[34567]86-*-isc*
3166m68*-cisco*-*
3167m68*-tandem-*
ad527d2e 3168mips*-*-pe
483367ee 3169rs6000-*-lynxos*
ad527d2e 3170sh*-*-pe
483367ee 3171
7ce59000
DJ
3172* Other removed features
3173
3174target abug
3175target cpu32bug
3176target est
3177target rom68k
3178
3179 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
3180
ea35711c
DJ
3181target hms
3182target e7000
3183target sh3
3184target sh3e
3185
3186 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
3187 H8/300.
3188
3189target ocd
3190
3191 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
3192 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
3193 interfaces.
3194
7ce59000
DJ
3195DWARF 1 support
3196
3197 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
3198 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
3199
54d61198
DJ
3200Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
3201
3202 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
3203 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
3204 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
3205 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
3206
ea35711c
DJ
3207MIPS ".pdr" sections
3208
3209 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
3210 in debugging information.
3211
3212Scheme support
3213
3214 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
3215 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
3216
1a69e1e4
DJ
3217set mips stack-arg-size
3218set mips saved-gpreg-size
3219
3220 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
3221
6dd09645 3222*** Changes in GDB 6.6
e374b601 3223
ca3bf3bd
DJ
3224* New targets
3225
3226Xtensa xtensa-elf
9c309e77 3227Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
ca3bf3bd 3228
6aec2e11
DJ
3229* GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
3230(mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
3231running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
3232
3233* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
3234Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
3235supported.
3236
17218d91
DJ
3237* The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
3238broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
3239
9ebce043
DJ
3240* The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
3241stub provides the required support.
3242
7d3d3ece
DJ
3243* Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
3244longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
3245
4f8253f3
JB
3246* New commands
3247
3248set substitute-path
3249unset substitute-path
3250show substitute-path
3251 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
3252 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
3253 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
3254 between compilation and debugging.
3255
9fa66fd7
AS
3256set trace-commands
3257show trace-commands
3258 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
3259 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
3260 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
3261
1f5befc1
DJ
3262* REMOVED features
3263
3264The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
3265
2ec3381a
DJ
3266Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
3267an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
3268
3d00d119
DJ
3269The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
3270
be2a5f71
DJ
3271* New remote packets
3272
3273qSupported:
3274 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
3275 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
3276 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
3277 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
3278 target.
3279
0876f84a
DJ
3280qXfer:auxv:read:
3281 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
3282 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
3283
9ebce043
DJ
3284qXfer:memory-map:read:
3285 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
3286 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
3287
3288vFlashErase:
3289vFlashWrite:
3290vFlashDone:
3291 Erase and program a flash memory device.
3292
0876f84a
DJ
3293* Removed remote packets
3294
3295qPart:auxv:read:
3296 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
3297 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
3298
e374b601 3299*** Changes in GDB 6.5
53e5f3cf 3300
96309189
MS
3301* New targets
3302
3303Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
3304
3305Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
3306
53e5f3cf
AS
3307* New commands
3308
3309init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
3310 only if it doesn't already have a value.
3311
ac264b3b
MS
3312The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
3313
3314checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
3315
3316restart <n> Return the program state to a
3317 previously saved state.
3318
3319info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
3320
3321delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
3322
3323set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
3324 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
3325
3326info forks List forks of the user program that
3327 are available to be debugged.
3328
3329fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
3330 forks of the user program that are
3331 available to be debugged.
3332
3333delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
3334 that are available to be debugged (and
3335 kill the forked process).
3336
3337detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
3338 that are available to be debugged (and
3339 allow the process to continue).
3340
3950dc3f
NS
3341* New architecture
3342
3343Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
3344
0ea3f30e
DJ
3345* Improved Windows host support
3346
3347GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
3348native console support, and remote communications using either
3349network sockets or serial ports.
3350
f79daebb
GM
3351* Improved Modula-2 language support
3352
3353GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
3354basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
3355pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
3356printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
3357written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
3358GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
3359
acab6ab2
MM
3360* REMOVED features
3361
3362The ARM rdi-share module.
3363
f4267320
DJ
3364The Netware NLM debug server.
3365
53e5f3cf 3366*** Changes in GDB 6.4
156a53ca 3367
e0ecbda1
MK
3368* New native configurations
3369
02a677ac 3370OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
e0ecbda1
MK
3371OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
3372
d64a6579
KB
3373* New targets
3374
3375Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
3376
b33a6190
AS
3377* New command line options
3378
3379--batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
3380--return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
3381 the child (debugged) program exited with.
3382--eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
3383 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
3384 specified multiple times and in conjunction
3385 with the --command (-x) option.
3386
11dced61
AC
3387* Deprecated commands removed
3388
3389The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
3390removed:
3391
3392 Command Replacement
3393 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
3394 othernames set arm disassembler
3395 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
3396 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
3397 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
3398 regs info registers
3399
6fe85783
MK
3400* New BSD user-level threads support
3401
3402It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
3403library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
3404configurations are:
3405
3406FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
3407FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
3408OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
3409
3410Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
3411are not yet supported.
3412
5260ca71
MS
3413* New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
3414(Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
3415
e84ecc99
AC
3416* REMOVED configurations and files
3417
3418VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
9445aa30 3419Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
9445aa30 3420National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
156a53ca 3421
31e35378
JB
3422* New "set print array-indexes" command
3423
3424After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
3425when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
3426behavior.
3427
e85e5c83
MK
3428* VAX floating point support
3429
3430GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
3431
d91e9901
AS
3432* User-defined command support
3433
3434In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
3435to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
3436section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
3437
f2cb65ca
MC
3438*** Changes in GDB 6.3:
3439
f47b1503
AS
3440* New command line option
3441
3442GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
3443debugging.
3444
f2cb65ca
MC
3445* GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
3446
3447GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
3448information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
3449by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
3450proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
3451to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
860660cb 3452
d08c0230
AC
3453* Internationalization
3454
3455When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
3456internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
3457continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
3458
117ea3cf
PH
3459* Ada
3460
3461Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
3462implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
3463into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
3464
d08c0230
AC
3465* New native configurations
3466
3467GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
3468
3469* Remote 'p' packet
3470
3471GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
3472packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
3473
3474* END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
3475
3476GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
3477The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
3478features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
3479i386 application).
3480
3481GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
3482compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
3483continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
3484configurations:
3485
3486hppa-*-hpux
3487ia64-*-aix
3488mips-*-irix*
3489*-*-lynx
3490mips-*-linux-gnu
3491sds protocol
3492xdr protocol
3493powerpc bdm protocol
3494
3495Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
3496made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
3497
3498* OBSOLETE configurations and files
3499
3500Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
3501been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
3502configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
3503permanently REMOVED.
3504
3505h8300-*-*
3506mcore-*-*
3507mn10300-*-*
3508ns32k-*-*
3509sh64-*-*
3510v850-*-*
3511
ebb7c577
AC
3512*** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
3513
3514* MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
3515
3516When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
3517heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
3518been fixed.
3519
3520* MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
3521
3522When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
3523fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
3524IRIX long double values).
3525
3526* VAX and "next"
3527
3528A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
3529command. This problem has been fixed.
3530
860660cb 3531*** Changes in GDB 6.2:
faae5abe 3532
0dea2468
AC
3533* Fix for ``many threads''
3534
3535On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
3536rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
3537error message:
3538
3539 ptrace: No such process.
3540 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
3541
3542This problem has been fixed.
3543
2c07db7a
AC
3544* "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
3545
3546Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
3547GDB to dump core).
3548
c23968a2
JB
3549* New ``start'' command.
3550
3551This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
3552
71009278
MK
3553* New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
3554
3555Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
3556live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
3557platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
3558
3559FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
3560FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
3561NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
3562NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
3563NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
3564OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
3565OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
3566OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
3567OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
3568
3c0b7db2
AC
3569* Signal trampoline code overhauled
3570
3571Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
3572These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
3573of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
3574call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
3575signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
3576
73cc75f3
AC
3577Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
3578features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
3579include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
3c0b7db2 3580
7243600a
BF
3581* Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
3582
6f606e1c
MK
3583* New native configurations
3584
97dc871c 3585GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
0e56aeaf 3586OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
bf2ca189
MK
3587OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
3588OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
d195bc9f 3589OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 3590NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
9f076e7a 3591OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 3592
a1b461bf
AC
3593* END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
3594
3595GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
3596The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
3597including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
3598migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
3599compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
3600work, was also included.
3601
3602GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
3603module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
3604
3605h8300-*-*
3606mcore-*-*
3607mn10300-*-*
3608ns32k-*-*
3609sh64-*-*
3610v850-*-*
3611xstormy16-*-*
3612
3613Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
3614made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
3615
3c7012f5
AC
3616* REMOVED configurations and files
3617
3618Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
3619Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
3620Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
3621Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
3622Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
3623AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
3624Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
3625decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
3626riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
3627sonymips mips-sony-*
3628sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
3629
e5fe55f7
AC
3630*** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
3631
3632* TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
3633
3634The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
3635GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
3636command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
3637program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
3638with GDB".
3639
3640* Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
3641
3642Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
3643libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
3644cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
3645GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
3646shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
3647the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
3648are created.
3649
3650Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
3651
3652* Fixed ISO-C build problems
3653
3654The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
3655non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
3656compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
3657
3658* Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
3659
3660Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
3661wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
3662
3663* Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
3664
3665The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
3666permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
3667systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
3668
3669* Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
3670
3671Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
3672has been updated to use constant array sizes.
3673
3674* Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
3675
3676GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
3677its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
3678panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
3679
3680* Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
3681
3682When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
3683by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
3684not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
3685
faae5abe 3686*** Changes in GDB 6.1:
f2c06f52 3687
9175c9a3
MC
3688* Removed --with-mmalloc
3689
3690Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
3691conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
3692
3cc87ec0
MK
3693* Changes in AMD64 configurations
3694
3695The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
3696the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
3697and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
3698you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
3699
f0424ef6
MK
3700* Revised SPARC target
3701
3702The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
3703FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
03cebad2
MK
3704support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
3705from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
3706(Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
f0424ef6 3707
59659be2
ILT
3708* New C++ demangler
3709
3710GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
3711names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
3712with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
3713programs.
3714
9e08b29b
DJ
3715* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
3716
3717GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
3718arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
3719encountered these.
3720
8dfe8985
DC
3721* C++ nested types and namespaces
3722
3723GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
3724improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
3725is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
3726Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
3727namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
3728"Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
3729frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
3730if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
3731GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
3732
cced5e27
MK
3733* New native configurations
3734
3735NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
27d1e716 3736OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
2031c21a 3737OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
f2cab569
MK
3738OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
3739OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
cced5e27 3740
b4b4b794
KI
3741* New debugging protocols
3742
3743M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
3744
7989c619
AC
3745* "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
3746
3747The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
3748and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
3749tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
3750
5994185b
AC
3751* OBSOLETE configurations and files
3752
3753Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
3754been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
3755configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
3756permanently REMOVED.
3757
3758Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
3759Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
3760Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
3761Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
3762Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
3763AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
3764Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
0748d941
AC
3765decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
3766riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
3767sonymips mips-sony-*
3768sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
5994185b 3769
0ddabb4c
AC
3770* REMOVED configurations and files
3771
3772SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
3773SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
4a8269c0
AC
3774Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
3775Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
3776H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
3777HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
3778HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
3779HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
3780PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
cf7c5c23 3781386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
4a8269c0
AC
3782Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
3783 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
3784 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
f0424ef6
MK
3785SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
3786SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
4a8269c0
AC
3787Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
3788Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
0ddabb4c 3789
c7f1390e
DJ
3790*** Changes in GDB 6.0:
3791
1fe43d45
AC
3792* Objective-C
3793
3794Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
3795integrated into GDB.
3796
e6beb428
AC
3797* New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
3798
3799DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
3800information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
3801By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
3802backtraces.
3803
3804The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
3805have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
3806DWARF 2 CFI support.
3807
3808* Hosted file I/O.
3809
3810GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
3811file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
3812remote protocol documentation for details.
3813
3814* All targets using the new architecture framework.
3815
3816All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
3817architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
3818to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
3819ppc32 on ppc64).
3820
3821* GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
3822
3823GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
3824per-thread variables.
3825
3826* GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
3827
3828GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
3829GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
3830
3831* Separate debug info.
3832
3833GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
3834automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
3835of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
3836system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
3837and optional debug files.
3838
3839* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
3840
3841DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
3842describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
3843debugger.
3844
3845GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
3846for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
3847
3848* Java
3849
3850A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
3851Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
3852considered "useable".
3853
85f8f974
DJ
3854* GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
3855
3856The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
3857commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
3858kernel.
3859
0fac0b41
DJ
3860* GDB supports logging output to a file
3861
3862There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
3863used to capture GDB's output to a file.
f2c06f52 3864
6ad8ae5c
DJ
3865* The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
3866
3867The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
3868disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
3869command.
3870
e286caf2 3871* d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
5f601589
AC
3872
3873The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
3874registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
3875
d28f9cdf
DJ
3876* Profiling support
3877
3878A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
3879be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
3880session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
3881"--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
3882data, for more informative profiling results.
3883
da0f9dcd
AC
3884* Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
3885
3886The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
3887option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
b68767c1 3888"mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
da0f9dcd
AC
3889
3890Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
3891removed.
3892
fb9b6b35
JJ
3893Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
3894Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
3895Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
3896 in a subsequent -var-update.
3897
954a4db8
MK
3898* New native configurations.
3899
3900FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
3901
6760f9e6
JB
3902* Multi-arched targets.
3903
b4263afa 3904HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
85a453d5 3905Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
6760f9e6 3906
1b831c93
AC
3907* OBSOLETE configurations and files
3908
3909Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
3910been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
3911configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
3912permanently REMOVED.
3913
8b0e5691 3914Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
67f16606 3915Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
fd2299bd 3916H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
56056df7
AC
3917HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
3918HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
3919HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
78c43945 3920PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
2fbce691
AC
3921Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
3922 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
3923 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
f81824a9
AC
3924Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
3925Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
fd2299bd 3926
5835abe7
NC
3927* REMOVED configurations and files
3928
3929V850EA ISA
1b831c93
AC
3930Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
3931IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
3932i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
3933i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
3934i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
3935HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
3936 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
3937 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
3938Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
3939Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
3940Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
3941OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
3942I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
5835abe7 3943
a094c6fb
AC
3944* MIPS $fp behavior changed
3945
3946The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
3947the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
3948context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
3949address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
3950The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
3951
299ffc64 3952*** Changes in GDB 5.3:
37057839 3953
46248966
AC
3954* GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
3955
3956When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
3957`/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
3958in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
3959library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
3960shared libs like mad''.
3961
b9d14705 3962* ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
6da02953 3963
b9d14705
DJ
3964Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
3965the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
3966arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
3967powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
6da02953 3968
e0e9281e
JB
3969* GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
3970
3971GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
3972and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
3973they expand.
3974
dd73b9bb
AC
3975The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
3976invocations in expression, and shows the result.
3977
3978The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
3979macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
3980
e0e9281e
JB
3981Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
3982information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
3983your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
3984information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
3985
2250ee0c
CV
3986* Multi-arched targets.
3987
6e3ba3b8
JT
3988DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
3989DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
2250ee0c 3990NEC V850 v850-*-*
6e3ba3b8 3991National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
a1789893
GS
3992Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
3993Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
2250ee0c 3994
cd9bfe15 3995* New targets.
e33ce519 3996
456f8b9d
DB
3997Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
3998
e33ce519 3999
da8ca43d
JT
4000* New native configurations
4001
4002Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
029923d4 4003SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
45888261 4004MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
9ce5c36a 4005UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
da8ca43d 4006
cd9bfe15
AC
4007* OBSOLETE configurations and files
4008
4009Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
4010been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
4011configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
4012permanently REMOVED.
4013
92eb23c5 4014Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
a99a9e1b 4015OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1c7cc583 4016IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
7a3085c1 4017Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
7fb623f7 4018Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
eb4c54a2 4019Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
d8ee244c
MK
4020i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
4021i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
4022i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
822e978b
AC
4023HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
4024 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
4025 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
4d210288 4026I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
92eb23c5 4027
db034ac5
AC
4028* OBSOLETE languages
4029
4030CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
4031
cd9bfe15
AC
4032* REMOVED configurations and files
4033
4034AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
4035A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
4036AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
4037AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
4038AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
4039
4040testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
4041
20f01a46
DH
4042* New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
4043
4044This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
4045commands. The default is 1024.
4046
a5941fbf
MK
4047* Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
4048
4049Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
4050
89743e04
MS
4051* New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
4052
4053These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
4054to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
4055from a file into memory (restore).
37057839 4056
9fb14e79
JB
4057* Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
4058
4059The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
4060including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
4061of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
4062
2037aebb
AC
4063*** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
4064
4065* New targets.
4066
4067Atmel AVR avr*-*-*
4068
4069* Bug fixes
4070
4071gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
4072mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
4073Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
4074
4075gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
4076dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
4077Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
4078
4079Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
4080Surprisingly enough, it works now.
4081By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
4082
4083i386 hardware watchpoint support:
4084avoid misses on second run for some targets.
4085By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
4086
37057839 4087*** Changes in GDB 5.2:
eb7cedd9 4088
1a703748
MS
4089* New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
4090
4091This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
4092really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
4093In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
4094target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
4095This can be a significant performance improvement on some
4096(notably embedded) targets.
4097
cefd4ef5
MS
4098* New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
4099
55241689
AC
4100This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
4101process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
4102GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
4103hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
cefd4ef5 4104
352ed7b4
MS
4105* New command line option
4106
4107GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
4108
4109* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
4110
4111There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
4112command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
4113a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
4114be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
4115open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
4116issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
4117a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
4118it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
4119GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
4120is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
4121
fe419ffc
RE
4122* Changes in ARM configurations.
4123
4124Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
4125configuration is fully multi-arch.
4126
eb7cedd9
MK
4127* New native configurations
4128
fe419ffc 4129ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
eb7cedd9 4130x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
55241689 4131AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
768f0842 4132Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
eb7cedd9 4133
c9f63e6b
CV
4134* New targets
4135
4136Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
4137
9b4ff276
AC
4138* OBSOLETE configurations and files
4139
4140Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
4141been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
4142configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
4143permanently REMOVED.
4144
4145AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
4146A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
4147AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
4148AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
4149AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
4150
b4ceaee6 4151testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
9b4ff276 4152
e2caac18
AC
4153* REMOVED configurations and files
4154
4155TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
7bc65f05 4156WDC 65816 w65-*-*
7768dd6c
AC
4157PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
4158PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
4159PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
5e734e1f 4160Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1406caf7
AC
4161Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
4162 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
7e24f0b1 4163SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
9b567150 4164Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
3680c638
AC
4165Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
4166ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
a752853e 4167Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
e2caac18 4168
c2a727fa
TT
4169* Changes to command line processing
4170
4171The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
4172for the inferior from gdb's command line.
4173
467d8519
TT
4174* Changes to key bindings
4175
4176There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
4177
7072a954
AC
4178*** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
4179
4180Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
4181
4182Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
4183corrupted.
4184
4185Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
4186
4187Numerous documentation fixes.
4188
4189Numerous testsuite fixes.
4190
34f47bc4 4191*** Changes in GDB 5.1:
139760b7
MK
4192
4193* New native configurations
4194
4195Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
4196x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
55241689 4197MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
e23194cb
EZ
4198MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
4199ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
55241689 4200s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
139760b7 4201
bf64bfd6
AC
4202* New targets
4203
def90278 4204Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
24be5c34 4205CRIS cris-axis
55241689 4206UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
def90278 4207
17e78a56 4208* OBSOLETE configurations and files
bf64bfd6
AC
4209
4210x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
9b9c068d 4211Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
bb19ff3b
AC
4212Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
4213 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
76f4ea53
AC
4214TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
4215WDC 65816 w65-*-*
4a1968f4 4216Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1b2b2c16
AC
4217PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
4218PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
4219PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
24f89b68 4220SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
514e603d
AC
4221Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
4222ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
d036b4d9 4223Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
bf64bfd6 4224
17e78a56
AC
4225stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
4226kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
4227
7fcca85b
AC
4228Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
4229been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
4230configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
4231permanently REMOVED.
4232
a196c81c 4233* REMOVED configurations and files
7fcca85b
AC
4234
4235Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
4236Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
4237Pyramid pyramid-*-*
4238ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
4239Tahoe tahoe-*-*
a196c81c 4240ser-ocd.c *-*-*
bf64bfd6 4241
6d6b80e5 4242* GDB has been converted to ISO C.
e23194cb 4243
6d6b80e5 4244GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
e23194cb
EZ
4245sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
4246present.
4247
bf64bfd6
AC
4248* Other news:
4249
e23194cb
EZ
4250* "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
4251
4252* The MI enabled by default.
4253
4254The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
4255revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
4256engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
4257using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
4258which is now deprecated.
4259
4260* Support for debugging Pascal programs.
4261
4262GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
4263main features are supported:
4264
4265 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
4266
4267 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
4268 extension;
4269
4270 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
4271
4272 - a Pascal expression parser.
4273
4274However, some important features are not yet supported.
4275
4276 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
4277
4278 - there are some problems with boolean types;
4279
4280 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
4281 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
4282
4283 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
4284
4285 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
4286
4287* Changes in completion.
4288
4289Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
4290to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
4291users expect at the shell prompt.
4292
4293Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
4294`breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
4295program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
4296files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
4297be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
4298considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
4299name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
4300
4301`set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
4302
4303* New platform-independent commands:
4304
4305It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
4306hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
4307documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
4308
4309* Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
4310
d7275149
MK
4311Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
4312revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
4313many threads as your system allows you to have.
4314
e23194cb
EZ
4315Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
4316
d7275149
MK
4317Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
4318multi-threaded programs though.
e23194cb
EZ
4319
4320* Changes in MIPS configurations.
bf64bfd6
AC
4321
4322Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
4323
e23194cb
EZ
4324GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
4325debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
4326supported.)
4327
4328* Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
4329
4330Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
4331breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
4332implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
4333put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
4334and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
4335registers.
4336
4337The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
4338debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
4339watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
4340
4341* Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
4342
4343New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
4344the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
4345
4346New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
4347display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
4348IDT.
4349
4350New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
4351from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
4352New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
4353a given linear address.
4354
4355GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
4356program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
4357which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
4358
4359DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
4360
6c56c069
EZ
4361It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
4362
e23194cb
EZ
4363* Changes in documentation.
4364
4365All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
4366Documentation License.
4367
4368Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
4369manual.
4370
4371TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
4372
4373Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
4374manual.
4375
4376The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
4377documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
4378hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
4379
5d6640b1
AC
4380* GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
4381
4382The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
4383``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
4384contents of this file.
4385
1a1d8446
AC
4386* gdba.el deleted
4387
4388GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
139760b7 4389
9debab2f 4390*** Changes in GDB 5.0:
7a292a7a 4391
c63ce875
EZ
4392* Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
4393
4394Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
4395programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
4396displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
4397greater level of detail.
4398
4399* Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
4400
4401It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
4402bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
4403on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
4404written.
4405
4406* Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
4407
4408The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
4409necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
4410machines ``out of the box''.
4411
4412The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
4413possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
4414signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
4415would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
4416interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
4417
4418It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
4419standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
4420even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
4421and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
4422terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
4423
4424The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
4425enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
4426also works.
4427
4428DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
4429GDB.
4430
4431It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
4432directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
4433times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
4434breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
4435
ed9a39eb
JM
4436* New native configurations
4437
4438ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
afc05dd4 4439PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
ed9a39eb 4440
7a292a7a
SS
4441* New targets
4442
96baa820 4443Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
adf40b2e
JM
4444x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
4445PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
7a292a7a
SS
4446TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
4447
085dd6e6
JM
4448* OBSOLETE configurations
4449
4450Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
4451Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
9846de1b 4452Pyramid pyramid-*-*
ed9a39eb 4453ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
104c1213 4454Tahoe tahoe-*-*
7a292a7a 4455
9debab2f
AC
4456Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
4457but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
4458these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
4459be permanently REMOVED.
4460
5330533d
SS
4461* Gould support removed
4462
4463Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
4464
bc9e5bbf
AC
4465* New features for SVR4
4466
4467On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
4468without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
4469load symbols from the running process's executable file.
4470
4471* Many C++ enhancements
4472
4473C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
4474in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
4475
adf40b2e
JM
4476* Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
4477
4478A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
4479sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
4480with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
4481``|<program> <args>'' vis:
4482
4483 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
4484 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
4485
43e526b9
JM
4486* MIPS 64 remote protocol
4487
4488A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
4489expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
4490instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
4491
4492The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
4493added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
4494
96baa820
JM
4495* ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
4496
4497The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
4498``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
4499include ``set remote P-packet''.
4500
11cf8741
JM
4501* Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
4502
4503The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
4504accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
4505``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
4506
7876dd43
DB
4507* ``apropos'' command added.
4508
4509The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
4510documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
4511try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
4512
bc9e5bbf
AC
4513* New MI interface
4514
4515A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
4516interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
7162c0ca
EZ
4517process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
4518"GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
4519enabled by configuring with:
bc9e5bbf
AC
4520
4521 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
4522
c906108c
SS
4523*** Changes in GDB-4.18:
4524
4525* New native configurations
4526
4527HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
4528HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
55241689 4529M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
c906108c
SS
4530
4531* New targets
4532
4533Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
4534Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
4535Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
4536
4537* OBSOLETE configurations
4538
4539Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
4540
4541Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
4542but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
4543these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
4544be permanently REMOVED.
4545
4546* ANSI/ISO C
4547
4548As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
4549buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
4550containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
4551use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
4552available. If this is not true, please report the affected
4553configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
4554information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
4555already.
4556
4557* Readline 2.2
4558
4559GDB now uses readline 2.2.
4560
4561* set extension-language
4562
4563You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
4564languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
4565you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
4566 set extension-language .c c++
4567The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
4568and their associated languages.
4569
4570* Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
4571
4572When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
4573you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
4574PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
4575
4576 set processor NAME
4577
4578sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
4579following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
4580
4581 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
4582 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
4583 403 IBM PowerPC 403
4584 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
4585 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
4586 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
4587 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
4588 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
4589 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
4590 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
4591 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
4592
4593At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
4594special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
4595registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
4596only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
4597
4598* HP-UX support
4599
4600Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
4601more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
4602library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
4603support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
4604for xdb and dbx commands.
4605
4606* Catchpoints
4607
4608HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
4609generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
4610to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
4611
4612This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
4613argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
4614output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
4615
4616* Debugging across forks
4617
4618On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
4619in the inferior.
4620
4621* TUI
4622
4623HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
4624it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
4625configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
4626
4627* GDB remote protocol additions
4628
4629A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
4630Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
4631fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
4632allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
4633
4634For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
4635full 64-bit address. The command
4636
4637 set remoteaddresssize 32
4638
4639can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
4640the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
4641will be discarded.
4642
4643In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
4644command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
4645
4646 maint packet heythere
4647
4648sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
4649disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
4650time.
4651
4652The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
4653target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
4654downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
4655
4656* Tracing can collect general expressions
4657
4658You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
4659further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
4660doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
4661
4662* mask-address variable for Mips
4663
4664For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
4665a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
4666of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
4667
4668* Higher serial baud rates
4669
4670GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
4671230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
4672to achieve all of these rates.)
4673
4674* i960 simulator
4675
4676The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
4677builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
4678
4679
4680*** Changes in GDB-4.17:
4681
4682* New native configurations
4683
4684Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
4685Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
4686Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
4687PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
4688PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
4689Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
4690Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
4691
4692* New targets
4693
4694Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
4695Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
4696Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
4697Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
4698MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
4699MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
4700MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
4701Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
4702Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
4703Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
4704NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
4705
4706* New debugging protocols
4707
4708ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
4709M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
4710DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
4711PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
4712PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
4713Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
4714
4715* DWARF 2
4716
4717All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
4718format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
4719information.
4720
4721* Java frontend
4722
4723GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
4724only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
4725
4726* solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
4727
4728For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
4729loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
4730locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
4731
4732* Live range splitting
4733
4734GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
4735range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
4736more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
4737
4738* Hurd support
4739
4740GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
4741updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
4742
4743* ARM Thumb support
4744
4745GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
4746instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
4747instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
4748accordingly.
4749
4750* MIPS16 support
4751
4752GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
4753instruction set.
4754
4755* Overlay support
4756
4757GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
4758linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
4759will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
4760control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
4761additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
4762in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
4763
4764* info symbol
4765
4766The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
4767the symbol at the specified address.
4768
4769* Trace support
4770
4771The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
4772asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
4773extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
4774includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
4775file tracepoint.c for more details.
4776
4777* MIPS simulator
4778
4779Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
4780by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
4781of most MIPS variants.
4782
4783* Sparc simulator
4784
4785Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
4786by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
4787Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
4788
4789* set architecture
4790
4791For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
4792basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
4793architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
4794the possible architectures.
4795
4796*** Changes in GDB-4.16:
4797
4798* New native configurations
4799
4800Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
4801M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
4802PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
4803PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
4804PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
4805RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
4806
4807* New targets
4808
4809ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
4810I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
4811MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
4812MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
4813PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
4814Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
4815Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
4816
4817* PowerPC simulator
4818
4819The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
4820contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
4821PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
4822basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
4823performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
4824
4825* Solaris 2.5
4826
4827GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
4828
4829* Windows 95/NT native
4830
4831GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
4832To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
4833which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
4834Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
4835ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
4836
4837* dont-repeat command
4838
4839If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
4840command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
4841useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
4842extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
4843
4844* Send break instead of ^C
4845
4846The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
4847rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
4848GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
4849
4850* Remote protocol timeout
4851
4852The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
4853that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
4854to read from the target. The default value is 2.
4855
4856* Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
4857
4858By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
4859loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
4860stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
4861when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
4862in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
4863
4864Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
4865/usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
4866automatically on hpux10.
4867
4868* Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
4869
4870Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
4871
4872* Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
4873
4874When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
4875may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
4876the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
4877every character. The default value is 1050.
4878
4879* Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
4880
4881If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
4882a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
4883replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
4884details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
4885remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
4886to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
4887
4888* Speedups for remote debugging
4889
4890GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
4891the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
4892and more efficient S-record downloading.
4893
4894* Memory use reductions and statistics collection
4895
4896GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
4897Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
4898
4899*** Changes in GDB-4.15:
4900
4901* Psymtabs for XCOFF
4902
4903The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
4904can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
4905
4906* Remote targets use caching
4907
4908Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
4909remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
4910it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
4911debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
4912off' turns the the data cache off.
4913
4914* Remote targets may have threads
4915
4916The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
4917in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
4918gdb/remote.c for details.
4919
4920* NetROM support
4921
4922If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
4923support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
4924acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
4925write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
4926support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
4927another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
4928sequence is something like
4929
4930 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
4931 load <prog>
4932 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
4933
4934* Macintosh host
4935
4936GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
4937may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
4938it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
4939available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
4940device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
4941directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
4942scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
4943mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
4944
4945* Autoconf
4946
4947GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
4948but does simplify configuration and building.
4949
4950* hpux10
4951
4952GDB now supports hpux10.
4953
4954*** Changes in GDB-4.14:
4955
4956* New native configurations
4957
4958x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
4959x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
4960NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
4961Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
4962
4963* New targets
4964
4965A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
4966HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
4967CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
4968PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
4969WDC 65816 w65-*-*
4970
4971* Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
4972
4973GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
4974possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
4975filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
4976the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
4977if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
4978
4979* Arguments to user-defined commands
4980
4981User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
4982Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
4983trivial example:
4984define adder
4985 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
4986
4987To execute the command use:
4988adder 1 2 3
4989
4990Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
4991Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
4992use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
4993
4994* New `if' and `while' commands
4995
4996This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
4997commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
4998expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
4999execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
5000terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
5001`else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
5002if the expression is zero.
5003
5004* Fortran source language mode
5005
5006GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
5007Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
5008variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
5009with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
5010Fortran compilers.
5011
5012* Better HPUX support
5013
5014Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
5015running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
5016processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
5017for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
5018that behavior do the following before running the program:
5019
5020 adb -w a.out
5021 __dld_flags?W 0x5
5022 control-d
5023
5024This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
5025To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
5026
5027 adb -w a.out
5028 __dld_flags?W 0x4
5029 control-d
5030
5031You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
5032the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
5033external linkage.
5034
5035GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
5036HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
5037
5038* Target byte order now dynamically selectable
5039
5040You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
5041commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
5042current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
5043"set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
5044associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
5045configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
5046
5047* New DOS host serial code
5048
5049This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
5050no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
5051a PC's serial port.
5052
5053*** Changes in GDB-4.13:
5054
5055* New "complete" command
5056
5057This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
5058were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
5059
5060* Trailing space optional in prompt
5061
5062"set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
5063allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
5064
5065* Breakpoint hit counts
5066
5067"info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
5068has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
5069can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
5070to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
5071less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
5072that breakpoint.
5073
5074* Ability to stop printing at NULL character
5075
5076"set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
5077an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
5078arrays actually contain only short strings.
5079
5080* Shared library breakpoints
5081
5082In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
5083breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
5084
5085* Hardware watchpoints
5086
5087There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
5088targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
5089
55241689 5090Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
c906108c
SS
5091
5092* Annotations
5093
5094Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
5095and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
5096
5097* Improved Irix 5 support
5098
5099GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
5100
5101* Improved HPPA support
5102
5103GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
5104
5105* New native configurations
5106
5107Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
5108HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
5109Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
5110RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
5111
5112* New targets
5113
5114OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
5115MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
5116Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
5117
5118* Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
5119
5120There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
5121This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
5122
5123* Fixes
5124
5125As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
5126and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
5127
5128*** Changes in GDB-4.12:
5129
5130* Irix 5 is now supported
5131
5132* HPPA support
5133
5134GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
5135to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
5136GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
5137of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
5138can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
5139
5140
5141*** Changes in GDB-4.11:
5142
5143* User visible changes:
5144
5145* Remote Debugging
5146
5147The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
5148target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
5149debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
5150integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
5151debugging info for the mips target).
5152
5153* DEC Alpha native support
5154
5155GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
5156debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
5157work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
5158Alpha-specific notes.
5159
5160* Preliminary thread implementation
5161
5162GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
5163
5164* LynxOS native and target support for 386
5165
5166This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
5167to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
5168for details).
5169
5170* Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
5171
5172This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
5173mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
5174call methods, ...etc.
5175
5176*** Changes in GDB-4.10:
5177
5178 * User visible changes:
5179
5180Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
5181supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
5182other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
5183somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
5184
5185Filename completion now works.
5186
5187When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
5188arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
5189addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
5190
5191All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
5192vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
5193should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
5194your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
5195to be on the far side of a thin network line.
5196
5197 * DEC alpha support
5198
5199This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
5200cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
5201
5202
5203*** Changes in GDB-4.9:
5204
5205 * Testsuite
5206
5207This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
5208The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
5209via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
5210
5211 * C++ demangling
5212
5213'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
5214emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
5215Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
5216disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
5217use gdb with AT&T cfront.
5218
5219 * Simulators
5220
5221GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
5222So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
5223Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
5224
5225 * New targets supported
5226
5227H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
5228H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
5229SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
5230Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
5231IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
5232
5233Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
5234version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
5235GO32 memory extender.
5236
5237 * New remote protocols
5238
5239MIPS remote debugging protocol.
5240
5241 * New source languages supported
5242
5243This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
5244used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
5245into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
5246
5247
5248*** Changes in GDB-4.8:
5249
5250 * HP Precision Architecture supported
5251
5252GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
5253version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
5254University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
5255compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
5256format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
5257(as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
5258
5259Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
5260
5261 * Faster and better demangling
5262
5263We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
5264demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
5265character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
5266only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
5267This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
5268increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
5269symbol lookups.
5270
5271`Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
5272from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
5273compiler does not actually implement.
5274
5275 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
5276
5277In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
5278inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
5279recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
5280very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
5281The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
5282circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
5283fix.
5284
5285The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
5286release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
5287
5288 * Improved configure script
5289
5290The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
5291you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
5292host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
5293done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
5294
5295We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
5296version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
5297`--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
5298The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
5299only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
5300We hope to make this the default in a future release.
5301
5302 * Documentation improvements
5303
5304There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
5305produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
5306before submitting changes.
5307
5308The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
5309M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
5310`info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
5311you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
5312a future texinfo-X.Y release.
5313
5314*NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
5315We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
5316been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
5317or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
5318`texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
5319around this problem.
5320
5321 * New features
5322
5323GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
5324the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
5325`print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
5326the target program.
5327
5328The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
5329how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
5330
5331 * New native hosts supported
5332
5333HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
5334386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
5335
5336 * New targets supported
5337
5338AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
5339
5340 * New file formats supported
5341
5342BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
5343HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
5344
5345 * Major bug fixes
5346
5347Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
5348
5349We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
5350printf_filtered("%s") problems.
5351
5352We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
5353for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
5354release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
5355
5356You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
5357will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
5358
5359We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
5360for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
5361especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
5362libraries.
5363
5364The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
5365information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
5366command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
5367any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
5368when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
5369
5370 * Internal improvements
5371
5372GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
5373debugging of multiple languages in the future.
5374
5375GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
5376Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
5377symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
5378contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
5379shared code that handles any of them.
5380
5381 * New command line options
5382
5383We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
5384
5385 * Mmalloc licensing
5386
5387The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
5388General Public License.
5389
5390*** Changes in GDB-4.7:
5391
5392 * Host/native/target split
5393
5394GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
5395hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
5396target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
5397local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
5398ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
5399
5400The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
5401GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
5402is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
5403code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
5404any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
5405built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
5406handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
5407
5408GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
5409It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
5410plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
5411
5412 * New hosts supported
5413
5414HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
5415386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
5416386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
5417
5418 * New targets supported
5419
5420Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
542168030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
5422
5423 * New native hosts supported
5424
5425386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
5426 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
5427386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
5428
5429 * New file formats supported
5430
5431BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
5432supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
5433format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
5434
5435 * New commands
5436
5437`show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
5438`show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
5439These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
5440
5441`info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
5442
5443You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
5444scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
5445prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
5446executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
5447
5448 * C++ improvements
5449
5450We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
5451info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
5452symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
5453
5454Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
5455
5456 * Major bug fixes
5457
5458The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
5459fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
5460by the compiler.
5461
5462We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
5463support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
5464
5465John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
5466slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
5467that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
5468purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
5469the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
5470mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
5471
5472Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
5473about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
5474completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
5475we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
5476
5477 * AMD 29k support
5478
5479A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
5480specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
5481calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
5482usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
5483in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
5484
5485We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
5486Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
5487of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
5488resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
5489
5490 * Remote interfaces
5491
5492We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
5493with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
5494message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
5495This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
5496needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
5497breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
5498each instruction being stepped through.
5499
5500The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
5501registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
5502
5503There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
5504find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
5505Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
5506processor with a serial port.
5507
5508 * Configuration
5509
5510Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
5511`table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
5512supported, and what files each one uses.
5513
5514 * Library changes
5515
5516There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
5517disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
5518Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
5519disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
5520
5521The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
5522Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
5523can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
5524grants all the rights from the General Public License.
5525
5526 * Documentation
5527
5528The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
5529reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
5530as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
5531encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
5532system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
5533bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
5534
5535And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
5536
5537
5538*** Changes in GDB-4.6:
5539
5540 * Better support for C++ function names
5541
5542GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
5543names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
5544(using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
5545single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
5546Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
5547
5548GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
5549the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
5550You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
5551lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
5552for the list of formats.
5553
5554 * G++ symbol mangling problem
5555
5556Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
5557C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
5558directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
5559can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
5560usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
5561about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
5562this problem.)
5563
5564 * New 'maintenance' command
5565
5566All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
5567the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
5568can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
5569
5570 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
5571 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
5572 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
5573 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
5574 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
5575 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
5576
5577The following commands are new:
5578
5579 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
5580 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
5581 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
5582
5583 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
5584
5585We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
5586(e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
5587be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
5588read after argv processing.
5589
5590 * New hosts supported
5591
5592Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
5593
55241689 5594GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
c906108c
SS
5595
5596We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
5597is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
5598for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
5599masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
5600fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
5601It costs extra.
5602
5603 * New targets supported
5604
5605Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
5606
5607 * More smarts about finding #include files
5608
5609GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
5610all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
5611greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
5612especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
5613the one that contains your sources.
5614
5615We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
5616breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
5617try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
5618
5619 * Interesting infernals change
5620
5621GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
5622section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
5623target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
5624stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
5625
5626 * Bug fixes (of course!)
5627
5628There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
5629 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
5630 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
5631
5632See the ChangeLog for details.
5633
5634*** Changes in GDB-4.5:
5635
5636 * New machines supported (host and target)
5637
5638IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
5639
5640SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
5641
5642 * New malloc package
5643
5644GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
5645Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
5646capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
5647This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
5648pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
5649more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
5650
5651 * info proc
5652
5653The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
5654'help info proc' for details.
5655
5656 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
5657
5658The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
5659Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
5660possible.
5661
5662 * File name changes for MS-DOS
5663
5664Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
5665support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
5666conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
5667environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
5668that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
5669in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
5670
5671 * Cross byte order fixes
5672
5673Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
5674targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
5675
5676 * New -mapped and -readnow options
5677
5678If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
5679system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
5680`symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
5681program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
5682called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
5683Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
5684and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
5685the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
5686option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
5687starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
5688
5689You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
5690the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
5691information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
5692slower, but makes future operations faster.
5693
5694The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
5695build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
5696A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
5697use is:
5698
5699 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
5700
5701The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
5702It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
5703shared across multiple host platforms.
5704
5705 * longjmp() handling
5706
5707GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
5708siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
5709all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
5710platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
5711
5712 * Solaris 2.0
5713
5714Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
5715this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
5716reading symbols.
5717
5718 * Bug fixes
5719
5720As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
5721People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
5722crashes and trashed symbol tables.
5723
5724*** Changes in GDB-4.4:
5725
5726 * New machines supported (host and target)
5727
5728SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
5729 (except core files)
5730BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
5731Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
5732
5733 * New machines supported (target)
5734
5735AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
5736
5737 * C++ support
5738
5739GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
5740The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
5741per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
5742
5743GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
5744`ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
5745extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
5746good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
5747will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
5748released.
5749
5750 * New features for SVR4
5751
5752GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
5753shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
5754only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
5755
5756The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
5757on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
5758it prints the address mappings of the process.
5759
5760If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
5761bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
5762
5763 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
5764
5765Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
5766now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
5767skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
5768make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
5769same code linked statically.
5770
5771 * New Getopt
5772
5773GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
5774version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
5775continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
5776Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
5777added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
5778future by other options that begin with the same letter.
5779
5780 * Bugs fixed
5781
5782The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
5783Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
5784See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
5785
5786
5787*** Changes in GDB-4.3:
5788
5789 * New machines supported (host and target)
5790
5791Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
5792NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
5793Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
5794
5795 * Almost SCO Unix support
5796
5797We had hoped to support:
5798SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
5799(except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
5800that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
5801about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
5802
5803 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
5804
5805GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
5806debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
5807is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
5808send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
5809reqired (if any).
5810
5811 * New Readline
5812
5813GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
5814is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
5815required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
5816
5817 * Bugs fixed
5818
5819The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
5820Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
5821See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
5822
5823 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
5824
5825GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
5826supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
5827symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
5828
5829Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
5830mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
5831debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
5832mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
5833version 2.
5834
5835Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
5836really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
5837line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
5838variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
5839situation somewhat.
5840
5841When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
5842However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
5843methods.
5844
5845We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
5846DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
5847encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
5848
5849
5850*** Changes in GDB-4.2:
5851
5852 * Improved configuration
5853
5854Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
5855Porting BFD is simpler.
5856
5857 * Stepping improved
5858
5859The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
5860of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
5861in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
5862function that has debugging information is called within the line.
5863
5864 * Bug fixing
5865
5866Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
5867
5868 * New host supported (not target)
5869
5870Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
5871
5872
5873*** Changes in GDB-4.1:
5874
5875 * Multiple source language support
5876
5877GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
5878It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
5879and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
5880language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
5881You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
5882`set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
5883
5884 * GDB and Modula-2
5885
5886GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
5887currently under development at the State University of New York at
5888Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
5889continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
5890
5891Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
5892debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
5893symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
5894
5895There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
5896in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
5897
5898 * set write on/off
5899
5900GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
5901a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
5902the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
5903by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
5904effect immediately.
5905
5906 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
5907
5908When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
5909shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
5910The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
5911examining core files.
5912
5913 * set listsize
5914
5915You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
5916The default is 10.
5917
5918 * New machines supported (host and target)
5919
5920SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
5921Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
5922Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
5923
5924 * New hosts supported (not targets)
5925
5926IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
5927
5928 * New targets supported (not hosts)
5929
5930AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
5931AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
5932Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
5933
5934 * New remote interfaces
5935
5936AMD 29000 Adapt
5937AMD 29000 Minimon
5938
5939
5940*** Changes in GDB-4.0:
5941
5942 * New Facilities
5943
5944Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
5945
5946Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
5947target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
5948is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
5949remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
5950remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
5951also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
5952using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
5953stub on the target system.
5954
5955New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
5956
5957GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
5958library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
5959object file types such as a.out and coff.
5960
5961There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
5962refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
5963
5964
5965 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
5966
5967All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
5968by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
5969
5970For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
5971``Show prompt'' produces the response:
5972Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
5973
5974What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
5975print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
5976will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
5977all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
5978
5979confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
5980 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
5981 it is already running. Default is ON.
5982
5983editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
5984 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
5985 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
5986 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
5987 Default is ON.
5988
5989history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
5990 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
5991 or the value of the environment variable
5992 GDBHISTFILE.
5993
5994history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
5995 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
5996 HISTSIZE.
5997
5998history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
5999 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
6000 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
6001
6002history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
6003 history expansion will be performed on
6004 command line input. The default is OFF.
6005
6006radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
6007 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
6008 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
6009
6010height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
6011 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
6012 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
6013 variable TERM.
6014
6015width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
6016 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
6017 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
6018 variable TERM.
6019
6020Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
6021``set width'' instead.
6022
6023print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
6024 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
6025 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
6026 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
6027
6028print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
6029 is OFF.
6030
6031print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
6032 "raw" form if off.
6033
6034print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
6035 like instructions.
6036
6037print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
6038
6039
6040 * Support for Epoch Environment.
6041
6042The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
6043new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
6044are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
6045window.
6046
6047
6048 * Support for Shared Libraries
6049
6050GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
6051Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
6052before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
6053happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
6054At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
6055from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
6056shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
6057It can be abbreviated ``share''.
6058
6059sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
6060 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
6061 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
6062
6063info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
6064
6065
6066 * Watchpoints
6067
6068A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
6069expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
6070tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
6071quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
6072problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
6073more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
6074
6075watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
6076
6077info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
6078
6079delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
6080disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
6081enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
6082
6083
6084 * C++ multiple inheritance
6085
6086When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
6087for C++ programs.
6088
6089 * C++ exception handling
6090
6091Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
6092ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
6093the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
6094handler's context).
6095
6096catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
6097 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
6098 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
6099
6100info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
6101 current stack frame.
6102
6103
6104 * Minor command changes
6105
6106The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
6107command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
6108is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
6109
6110The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
6111at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
6112frames without printing.
6113
6114 * New directory command
6115
6116'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
6117The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
6118about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
6119with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
6120find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
6121
6122 * Configuring GDB for compilation
6123
6124For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
6125for more details.
6126
6127GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
6128two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
6129Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
6130where the program that you are debugging will run.
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