Fix misplaced documentation entry (Paul Koning, 2011-09-28)
[deliverable/binutils-gdb.git] / gdb / NEWS
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1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
3
31916278 4*** Changes since GDB 7.3.1
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6* GDB has two new commands: "set remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit"
7 and "show remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit". These allows to
8 set or show the maximum length limit (in bytes) of a remote
9 target hardware watchpoint.
10
11 This allows e.g. to use "unlimited" hardware watchpoints with the
12 gdbserver integrated in Valgrind version >= 3.7.0. Such Valgrind
13 watchpoints are slower than real hardware watchpoints but are
14 significantly faster than gdb software watchpoints.
15
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16* Python scripting
17
18 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" command has been
19 deprecated, and a new command: "set python print-stack on|off" has
20 replaced it. Additionally, the default for "print-stack" is now
21 "off".
22
23 ** A prompt subsitution hook (prompt_hook) is now available to the
24 Python API.
713389e0 25
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26 ** A new command set/show extended-prompt has been added.
27
28 ** A new Python module, gdb.prompt has been added to the GDB Python
29 modules library. This module provides functionality for
30 escape sequentions in prompts (used by set/show
31 extended-prompt). These escape sequences are replaced by their
32 corresponding value.
33
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34 ** Python commands and convenience-functions located in
35 'data-directory'/python/gdb/command and
36 'data-directory'/python/gdb/function are now automatically loaded
37 on GDB start-up.
38
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39 ** Symbols now provide the "type" attribute, the type of the symbol.
40
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41 ** The "gdb.breakpoint" function has been deprecated in favor of
42 "gdb.breakpoints".
43
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44* libthread-db-search-path now supports two special values: $sdir and $pdir.
45 $sdir specifies the default system locations of shared libraries.
46 $pdir specifies the directory where the libpthread used by the application
47 lives.
48
49 GDB no longer looks in $sdir and $pdir after it has searched the directories
50 mentioned in libthread-db-search-path. If you want to search those
51 directories, they must be specified in libthread-db-search-path.
52 The default value of libthread-db-search-path on GNU/Linux and Solaris
53 systems is now "$sdir:$pdir".
54
55 $pdir is not supported by gdbserver, it is currently ignored.
56 $sdir is supported by gdbserver.
57
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58* New configure option --with-iconv-bin.
59 When using the internationalization support like the one in the GNU C
60 library, GDB will invoke the "iconv" program to get a list of supported
61 character sets. If this program lives in a non-standard location, one can
62 use this option to specify where to find it.
63
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64* When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
65 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports masked hardware
66 watchpoints, which specify a mask in addition to an address to watch.
67 The mask specifies that some bits of an address (the bits which are
68 reset in the mask) should be ignored when matching the address accessed
69 by the inferior against the watchpoint address. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
70 section in the user manual for more details.
71
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72* The new option --once causes GDBserver to stop listening for connections once
73 the first connection is made. The listening port used by GDBserver will
74 become available after that.
75
edc84990 76* New commands "info macros", and "info definitions" have been added.
77
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78* Changed commands
79
80watch EXPRESSION mask MASK_VALUE
81 The watch command now supports the mask argument which allows creation
82 of masked watchpoints, if the current architecture supports this feature.
83
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84info auto-load-scripts [REGEXP]
85 This command was formerly named "maintenance print section-scripts".
86 It is now generally useful and is no longer a maintenance-only command.
87
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88* Tracepoints can now be enabled and disabled at any time after a trace
89 experiment has been started using the standard "enable" and "disable"
90 commands. It is now possible to start a trace experiment with no enabled
91 tracepoints; GDB will display a warning, but will allow the experiment to
92 begin, assuming that tracepoints will be enabled as needed while the trace
93 is running.
94
95* New remote packets
96
97QTEnable
98
99 Dynamically enable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
100
101QTDisable
102
103 Dynamically disable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
104
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105* Dcache size (number of lines) and line-size are now runtime-configurable
106 via "set dcache line" and "set dcache line-size" commands.
107
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108* New targets
109
110Texas Instruments TMS320C6x tic6x-*-*
111
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112*** Changes in GDB 7.3.1
113
114* The build failure for NetBSD and OpenBSD targets have now been fixed.
115
d6e00af6 116*** Changes in GDB 7.3
797054e6 117
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118* GDB has a new command: "thread find [REGEXP]".
119 It finds the thread id whose name, target id, or thread extra info
120 matches the given regular expression.
121
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122* The "catch syscall" command now works on mips*-linux* targets.
123
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124* The -data-disassemble MI command now supports modes 2 and 3 for
125 dumping the instruction opcodes.
126
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127* New command line options
128
129-data-directory DIR Specify DIR as the "data-directory".
130 This is mostly for testing purposes.
131
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132* The "maint set python auto-load on|off" command has been renamed to
133 "set auto-load-scripts on|off".
134
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135* GDB has a new command: "set directories".
136 It is like the "dir" command except that it replaces the
137 source path list instead of augmenting it.
138
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139* GDB now understands thread names.
140
141 On GNU/Linux, "info threads" will display the thread name as set by
142 prctl or pthread_setname_np.
143
144 There is also a new command, "thread name", which can be used to
145 assign a name internally for GDB to display.
146
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147* OpenCL C
148 Initial support for the OpenCL C language (http://www.khronos.org/opencl)
149 has been integrated into GDB.
150
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151* Python scripting
152
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153 ** The function gdb.Write now accepts an optional keyword 'stream'.
154 This keyword, when provided, will direct the output to either
155 stdout, stderr, or GDB's logging output.
156
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157 ** Parameters can now be be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
158 you may implement the get_set_doc and get_show_doc functions.
159 This improves how Parameter set/show documentation is processed
160 and allows for more dynamic content.
161
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162 ** Symbols, Symbol Table, Symbol Table and Line, Object Files,
163 Inferior, Inferior Thread, Blocks, and Block Iterator APIs now
164 have an is_valid method.
165
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166 ** Breakpoints can now be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
167 you may implement a 'stop' function that is executed each time
168 the inferior reaches that breakpoint.
169
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170 ** New function gdb.lookup_global_symbol looks up a global symbol.
171
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172 ** GDB values in Python are now callable if the value represents a
173 function. For example, if 'some_value' represents a function that
174 takes two integer parameters and returns a value, you can call
175 that function like so:
176
177 result = some_value (10,20)
178
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179 ** Module gdb.types has been added.
180 It contains a collection of utilities for working with gdb.Types objects:
181 get_basic_type, has_field, make_enum_dict.
182
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183 ** Module gdb.printing has been added.
184 It contains utilities for writing and registering pretty-printers.
185 New classes: PrettyPrinter, SubPrettyPrinter,
186 RegexpCollectionPrettyPrinter.
187 New function: register_pretty_printer.
188
189 ** New commands "info pretty-printers", "enable pretty-printer" and
190 "disable pretty-printer" have been added.
191
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192 ** gdb.parameter("directories") is now available.
193
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194 ** New function gdb.newest_frame returns the newest frame in the
195 selected thread.
196
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197 ** The gdb.InferiorThread class has a new "name" attribute. This
198 holds the thread's name.
199
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200 ** Python Support for Inferior events.
201 Python scripts can add observers to be notified of events
824446ad 202 occurring in the process being debugged.
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203 The following events are currently supported:
204 - gdb.events.cont Continue event.
205 - gdb.events.exited Inferior exited event.
206 - gdb.events.stop Signal received, and Breakpoint hit events.
207
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208* C++ Improvements:
209
210 ** GDB now puts template parameters in scope when debugging in an
211 instantiation. For example, if you have:
212
213 template<int X> int func (void) { return X; }
214
215 then if you step into func<5>, "print X" will show "5". This
216 feature requires proper debuginfo support from the compiler; it
217 was added to GCC 4.5.
218
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219 ** The motion commands "next", "finish", "until", and "advance" now
220 work better when exceptions are thrown. In particular, GDB will
221 no longer lose control of the inferior; instead, the GDB will
222 stop the inferior at the point at which the exception is caught.
223 This functionality requires a change in the exception handling
224 code that was introduced in GCC 4.5.
225
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226* GDB now follows GCC's rules on accessing volatile objects when
227 reading or writing target state during expression evaluation.
228 One notable difference to prior behavior is that "print x = 0"
229 no longer generates a read of x; the value of the assignment is
230 now always taken directly from the value being assigned.
231
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232* GDB now has some support for using labels in the program's source in
233 linespecs. For instance, you can use "advance label" to continue
234 execution to a label.
235
236* GDB now has support for reading and writing a new .gdb_index
237 section. This section holds a fast index of DWARF debugging
238 information and can be used to greatly speed up GDB startup and
239 operation. See the documentation for `save gdb-index' for details.
240
b56df873 241* The "watch" command now accepts an optional "-location" argument.
14c0d4e1 242 When used, this causes GDB to watch the memory referred to by the
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243 expression. Such a watchpoint is never deleted due to it going out
244 of scope.
245
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246* GDB now supports thread debugging of core dumps on GNU/Linux.
247
248 GDB now activates thread debugging using the libthread_db library
249 when debugging GNU/Linux core dumps, similarly to when debugging
250 live processes. As a result, when debugging a core dump file, GDB
251 is now able to display pthread_t ids of threads. For example, "info
252 threads" shows the same output as when debugging the process when it
253 was live. In earlier releases, you'd see something like this:
254
255 (gdb) info threads
256 * 1 LWP 6780 main () at main.c:10
257
258 While now you see this:
259
260 (gdb) info threads
261 * 1 Thread 0x7f0f5712a700 (LWP 6780) main () at main.c:10
262
263 It is also now possible to inspect TLS variables when debugging core
264 dumps.
265
266 When debugging a core dump generated on a machine other than the one
267 used to run GDB, you may need to point GDB at the correct
268 libthread_db library with the "set libthread-db-search-path"
269 command. See the user manual for more details on this command.
270
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271* When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
272 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports ranged breakpoints,
273 which stop execution of the inferior whenever it executes an instruction
274 at any address within the specified range. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
275 section in the user manual for more details.
276
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277* New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
278
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279 ** GDBserver is now supported on PowerPC LynxOS (versions 4.x and 5.x),
280 and i686 LynxOS (version 5.x).
248c9dbc 281
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282 ** GDBserver is now supported on Blackfin Linux.
283
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284* New native configurations
285
286ia64 HP-UX ia64-*-hpux*
287
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288* New targets:
289
290Analog Devices, Inc. Blackfin Processor bfin-*
291
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292* Ada task switching is now supported on sparc-elf targets when
293 debugging a program using the Ravenscar Profile. For more information,
294 see the "Tasking Support when using the Ravenscar Profile" section
295 in the GDB user manual.
296
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297* Guile support was removed.
298
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299* New features in the GNU simulator
300
301 ** The --map-info flag lists all known core mappings.
302
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303 ** CFI flashes may be simulated via the "cfi" device.
304
76b8507d 305*** Changes in GDB 7.2
bfbf3774 306
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307* Shared library support for remote targets by default
308
309 When GDB is configured for a generic, non-OS specific target, like
310 for example, --target=arm-eabi or one of the many *-*-elf targets,
311 GDB now queries remote stubs for loaded shared libraries using the
312 `qXfer:libraries:read' packet. Previously, shared library support
313 was always disabled for such configurations.
314
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315* C++ Improvements:
316
317 ** Argument Dependent Lookup (ADL)
318
319 In C++ ADL lookup directs function search to the namespaces of its
320 arguments even if the namespace has not been imported.
321 For example:
322 namespace A
323 {
324 class B { };
325 void foo (B) { }
326 }
327 ...
328 A::B b
329 foo(b)
330 Here the compiler will search for `foo' in the namespace of 'b'
331 and find A::foo. GDB now supports this. This construct is commonly
332 used in the Standard Template Library for operators.
333
334 ** Improved User Defined Operator Support
335
336 In addition to member operators, GDB now supports lookup of operators
337 defined in a namespace and imported with a `using' directive, operators
338 defined in the global scope, operators imported implicitly from an
339 anonymous namespace, and the ADL operators mentioned in the previous
340 entry.
341 GDB now also supports proper overload resolution for all the previously
342 mentioned flavors of operators.
343
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344 ** static const class members
345
346 Printing of static const class members that are initialized in the
347 class definition has been fixed.
348
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349* Windows Thread Information Block access.
350
351 On Windows targets, GDB now supports displaying the Windows Thread
352 Information Block (TIB) structure. This structure is visible either
353 by using the new command `info w32 thread-information-block' or, by
354 dereferencing the new convenience variable named `$_tlb', a
355 thread-specific pointer to the TIB. This feature is also supported
356 when remote debugging using GDBserver.
357
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358* Static tracepoints
359
360 Static tracepoints are calls in the user program into a tracing
361 library. One such library is a port of the LTTng kernel tracer to
362 userspace --- UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer, http://lttng.org/ust).
363 When debugging with GDBserver, GDB now supports combining the GDB
364 tracepoint machinery with such libraries. For example: the user can
365 use GDB to probe a static tracepoint marker (a call from the user
366 program into the tracing library) with the new "strace" command (see
367 "New commands" below). This creates a "static tracepoint" in the
368 breakpoint list, that can be manipulated with the same feature set
369 as fast and regular tracepoints. E.g., collect registers, local and
370 global variables, collect trace state variables, and define
371 tracepoint conditions. In addition, the user can collect extra
372 static tracepoint marker specific data, by collecting the new
373 $_sdata internal variable. When analyzing the trace buffer, you can
374 inspect $_sdata like any other variable available to GDB. For more
375 information, see the "Tracepoints" chapter in GDB user manual. New
376 remote packets have been defined to support static tracepoints, see
377 the "New remote packets" section below.
378
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379* Better reconstruction of tracepoints after disconnected tracing
380
381 GDB will attempt to download the original source form of tracepoint
382 definitions when starting a trace run, and then will upload these
383 upon reconnection to the target, resulting in a more accurate
384 reconstruction of the tracepoints that are in use on the target.
385
386* Observer mode
387
388 You can now exercise direct control over the ways that GDB can
389 affect your program. For instance, you can disallow the setting of
390 breakpoints, so that the program can run continuously (assuming
391 non-stop mode). In addition, the "observer" variable is available
392 to switch all of the different controls; in observer mode, GDB
393 cannot affect the target's behavior at all, which is useful for
394 tasks like diagnosing live systems in the field.
395
396* The new convenience variable $_thread holds the number of the
397 current thread.
398
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399* New remote packets
400
401qGetTIBAddr
402
403 Return the address of the Windows Thread Information Block of a given thread.
404
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405qRelocInsn
406
407 In response to several of the tracepoint packets, the target may now
408 also respond with a number of intermediate `qRelocInsn' request
409 packets before the final result packet, to have GDB handle
410 relocating an instruction to execute at a different address. This
411 is particularly useful for stubs that support fast tracepoints. GDB
412 reports support for this feature in the qSupported packet.
413
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414qTfSTM, qTsSTM
415
416 List static tracepoint markers in the target program.
417
418qTSTMat
419
420 List static tracepoint markers at a given address in the target
421 program.
422
423qXfer:statictrace:read
424
425 Read the static trace data collected (by a `collect $_sdata'
426 tracepoint action). The remote stub reports support for this packet
427 to gdb's qSupported query.
428
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429QAllow
430
431 Send the current settings of GDB's permission flags.
432
433QTDPsrc
434
435 Send part of the source (textual) form of a tracepoint definition,
436 which includes location, conditional, and action list.
437
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438* The source command now accepts a -s option to force searching for the
439 script in the source search path even if the script name specifies
440 a directory.
441
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442* New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
443
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444 - GDBserver now support tracepoints (including fast tracepoints, and
445 static tracepoints). The feature is currently supported by the
446 i386-linux and amd64-linux builds. See the "Tracepoints support
447 in gdbserver" section in the manual for more information.
448
449 GDBserver JIT compiles the tracepoint's conditional agent
450 expression bytecode into native code whenever possible for low
451 overhead dynamic tracepoints conditionals. For such tracepoints,
452 an expression that examines program state is evaluated when the
453 tracepoint is reached, in order to determine whether to capture
454 trace data. If the condition is simple and false, processing the
455 tracepoint finishes very quickly and no data is gathered.
456
457 GDBserver interfaces with the UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer) library
458 for static tracepoints support.
d337e9f0 459
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460 - GDBserver now supports x86_64 Windows 64-bit debugging.
461
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462* GDB now sends xmlRegisters= in qSupported packet to indicate that
463 it understands register description.
464
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465* The --batch flag now disables pagination and queries.
466
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467* X86 general purpose registers
468
469 GDB now supports reading/writing byte, word and double-word x86
470 general purpose registers directly. This means you can use, say,
471 $ah or $ax to refer, respectively, to the byte register AH and
472 16-bit word register AX that are actually portions of the 32-bit
473 register EAX or 64-bit register RAX.
474
95a42b64 475* The `commands' command now accepts a range of breakpoints to modify.
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476 A plain `commands' following a command that creates multiple
477 breakpoints affects all the breakpoints set by that command. This
478 applies to breakpoints set by `rbreak', and also applies when a
479 single `break' command creates multiple breakpoints (e.g.,
480 breakpoints on overloaded c++ functions).
95a42b64 481
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482* The `rbreak' command now accepts a filename specification as part of
483 its argument, limiting the functions selected by the regex to those
484 in the specified file.
485
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486* Support for remote debugging Windows and SymbianOS shared libraries
487 from Unix hosts has been improved. Non Windows GDB builds now can
488 understand target reported file names that follow MS-DOS based file
489 system semantics, such as file names that include drive letters and
490 use the backslash character as directory separator. This makes it
491 possible to transparently use the "set sysroot" and "set
492 solib-search-path" on Unix hosts to point as host copies of the
493 target's shared libraries. See the new command "set
494 target-file-system-kind" described below, and the "Commands to
495 specify files" section in the user manual for more information.
496
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497* New commands
498
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499eval template, expressions...
500 Convert the values of one or more expressions under the control
501 of the string template to a command line, and call it.
502
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503set target-file-system-kind unix|dos-based|auto
504show target-file-system-kind
505 Set or show the assumed file system kind for target reported file
506 names.
507
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508save breakpoints <filename>
509 Save all current breakpoint definitions to a file suitable for use
510 in a later debugging session. To read the saved breakpoint
511 definitions, use the `source' command.
512
513`save tracepoints' is a new alias for `save-tracepoints'. The latter
514is now deprecated.
515
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516info static-tracepoint-markers
517 Display information about static tracepoint markers in the target.
518
519strace FN | FILE:LINE | *ADDR | -m MARKER_ID
520 Define a static tracepoint by probing a marker at the given
521 function, line, address, or marker ID.
522
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523set observer on|off
524show observer
525 Enable and disable observer mode.
526
527set may-write-registers on|off
528set may-write-memory on|off
529set may-insert-breakpoints on|off
530set may-insert-tracepoints on|off
531set may-insert-fast-tracepoints on|off
532set may-interrupt on|off
533 Set individual permissions for GDB effects on the target. Note that
534 some of these settings can have undesirable or surprising
535 consequences, particularly when changed in the middle of a session.
536 For instance, disabling the writing of memory can prevent
537 breakpoints from being inserted, cause single-stepping to fail, or
538 even crash your program, if you disable after breakpoints have been
539 inserted. However, GDB should not crash.
540
541set record memory-query on|off
542show record memory-query
543 Control whether to stop the inferior if memory changes caused
544 by an instruction cannot be recorded.
545
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546* Changed commands
547
548disassemble
549 The disassemble command now supports "start,+length" form of two arguments.
550
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551* Python scripting
552
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553** GDB now provides a new directory location, called the python directory,
554 where Python scripts written for GDB can be installed. The location
555 of that directory is <data-directory>/python, where <data-directory>
556 is the GDB data directory. For more details, see section `Scripting
557 GDB using Python' in the manual.
558
adc36818 559** The GDB Python API now has access to breakpoints, symbols, symbol
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560 tables, program spaces, inferiors, threads and frame's code blocks.
561 Additionally, GDB Parameters can now be created from the API, and
562 manipulated via set/show in the CLI.
f870a310 563
fa33c3cd 564** New functions gdb.target_charset, gdb.target_wide_charset,
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565 gdb.progspaces, gdb.current_progspace, and gdb.string_to_argv.
566
567** New exception gdb.GdbError.
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568
569** Pretty-printers are now also looked up in the current program space.
f3e9a817 570
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571** Pretty-printers can now be individually enabled and disabled.
572
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573** GDB now looks for names of Python scripts to auto-load in a
574 special section named `.debug_gdb_scripts', in addition to looking
575 for a OBJFILE-gdb.py script when OBJFILE is read by the debugger.
576
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577* Tracepoint actions were unified with breakpoint commands. In particular,
578there are no longer differences in "info break" output for breakpoints and
579tracepoints and the "commands" command can be used for both tracepoints and
580regular breakpoints.
581
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582* New targets
583
584ARM Symbian arm*-*-symbianelf*
585
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586* D language support.
587 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the D programming
588 language.
589
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590* GDB now supports the extended ptrace interface for PowerPC which is
591 available since Linux kernel version 2.6.34. This automatically enables
592 any hardware breakpoints and additional hardware watchpoints available in
593 the processor. The old ptrace interface exposes just one hardware
594 watchpoint and no hardware breakpoints.
595
596* GDB is now able to use the Data Value Compare (DVC) register available on
597 embedded PowerPC processors to implement in hardware simple watchpoint
598 conditions of the form:
599
600 watch ADDRESS|VARIABLE if ADDRESS|VARIABLE == CONSTANT EXPRESSION
601
602 This works in native GDB running on Linux kernels with the extended ptrace
603 interface mentioned above.
604
bfbf3774 605*** Changes in GDB 7.1
abc7453d 606
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607* C++ Improvements
608
609 ** Namespace Support
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610
611 GDB now supports importing of namespaces in C++. This enables the
612 user to inspect variables from imported namespaces. Support for
613 namepace aliasing has also been added. So, if a namespace is
614 aliased in the current scope (e.g. namepace C=A; ) the user can
615 print variables using the alias (e.g. (gdb) print C::x).
616
4eef138c
TT
617 ** Bug Fixes
618
619 All known bugs relating to the printing of virtual base class were
620 fixed. It is now possible to call overloaded static methods using a
621 qualified name.
622
623 ** Cast Operators
624
625 The C++ cast operators static_cast<>, dynamic_cast<>, const_cast<>,
626 and reinterpret_cast<> are now handled by the C++ expression parser.
627
2d1c1221
ME
628* New targets
629
630Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze-*-*
34207b9e 631Renesas RX rx-*-elf
2d1c1221
ME
632
633* New Simulators
634
635Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze
34207b9e 636Renesas RX rx
2d1c1221 637
6c95b8df
PA
638* Multi-program debugging.
639
640 GDB now has support for multi-program (a.k.a. multi-executable or
641 multi-exec) debugging. This allows for debugging multiple inferiors
642 simultaneously each running a different program under the same GDB
643 session. See "Debugging Multiple Inferiors and Programs" in the
644 manual for more information. This implied some user visible changes
645 in the multi-inferior support. For example, "info inferiors" now
646 lists inferiors that are not running yet or that have exited
647 already. See also "New commands" and "New options" below.
648
d5551862
SS
649* New tracing features
650
651 GDB's tracepoint facility now includes several new features:
652
653 ** Trace state variables
f61e138d
SS
654
655 GDB tracepoints now include support for trace state variables, which
656 are variables managed by the target agent during a tracing
657 experiment. They are useful for tracepoints that trigger each
658 other, so for instance one tracepoint can count hits in a variable,
659 and then a second tracepoint has a condition that is true when the
660 count reaches a particular value. Trace state variables share the
661 $-syntax of GDB convenience variables, and can appear in both
662 tracepoint actions and condition expressions. Use the "tvariable"
663 command to create, and "info tvariables" to view; see "Trace State
664 Variables" in the manual for more detail.
7a697b8d 665
d5551862 666 ** Fast tracepoints
7a697b8d
SS
667
668 GDB now includes an option for defining fast tracepoints, which
669 targets may implement more efficiently, such as by installing a jump
670 into the target agent rather than a trap instruction. The resulting
671 speedup can be by two orders of magnitude or more, although the
672 tradeoff is that some program locations on some target architectures
673 might not allow fast tracepoint installation, for instance if the
674 instruction to be replaced is shorter than the jump. To request a
675 fast tracepoint, use the "ftrace" command, with syntax identical to
676 the regular trace command.
677
d5551862
SS
678 ** Disconnected tracing
679
680 It is now possible to detach GDB from the target while it is running
681 a trace experiment, then reconnect later to see how the experiment
682 is going. In addition, a new variable disconnected-tracing lets you
683 tell the target agent whether to continue running a trace if the
684 connection is lost unexpectedly.
685
00bf0b85
SS
686 ** Trace files
687
688 GDB now has the ability to save the trace buffer into a file, and
689 then use that file as a target, similarly to you can do with
690 corefiles. You can select trace frames, print data that was
691 collected in them, and use tstatus to display the state of the
692 tracing run at the moment that it was saved. To create a trace
693 file, use "tsave <filename>", and to use it, do "target tfile
694 <name>".
4daf5ac0
SS
695
696 ** Circular trace buffer
697
698 You can ask the target agent to handle the trace buffer as a
699 circular buffer, discarding the oldest trace frames to make room for
700 newer ones, by setting circular-trace-buffer to on. This feature may
701 not be available for all target agents.
702
21a0512e
PP
703* Changed commands
704
705disassemble
706 The disassemble command, when invoked with two arguments, now requires
707 the arguments to be comma-separated.
708
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DJ
709info variables
710 The info variables command now displays variable definitions. Files
711 which only declare a variable are not shown.
712
fb2e7cb4
JB
713source
714 The source command is now capable of sourcing Python scripts.
715 This feature is dependent on the debugger being build with Python
716 support.
717
718 Related to this enhancement is also the introduction of a new command
719 "set script-extension" (see below).
720
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PA
721* New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
722
399cd161
MS
723record save [<FILENAME>]
724 Save a file (in core file format) containing the process record
725 execution log for replay debugging at a later time.
726
727record restore <FILENAME>
728 Restore the process record execution log that was saved at an
729 earlier time, for replay debugging.
730
6c95b8df
PA
731add-inferior [-copies <N>] [-exec <FILENAME>]
732 Add a new inferior.
733
734clone-inferior [-copies <N>] [ID]
735 Make a new inferior ready to execute the same program another
736 inferior has loaded.
737
738remove-inferior ID
739 Remove an inferior.
740
741maint info program-spaces
742 List the program spaces loaded into GDB.
743
9a7071a8
JB
744set remote interrupt-sequence [Ctrl-C | BREAK | BREAK-g]
745show remote interrupt-sequence
746 Allow the user to select one of ^C, a BREAK signal or BREAK-g
747 as the sequence to the remote target in order to interrupt the execution.
748 Ctrl-C is a default. Some system prefers BREAK which is high level of
749 serial line for some certain time. Linux kernel prefers BREAK-g, a.k.a
750 Magic SysRq g. It is BREAK signal and character 'g'.
751
752set remote interrupt-on-connect [on | off]
753show remote interrupt-on-connect
754 When interrupt-on-connect is ON, gdb sends interrupt-sequence to
755 remote target when gdb connects to it. This is needed when you debug
756 Linux kernel.
757
758set remotebreak [on | off]
759show remotebreak
760Deprecated. Use "set/show remote interrupt-sequence" instead.
761
f61e138d
SS
762tvariable $NAME [ = EXP ]
763 Create or modify a trace state variable.
764
765info tvariables
766 List trace state variables and their values.
767
768delete tvariable $NAME ...
769 Delete one or more trace state variables.
770
6da95a67
SS
771teval EXPR, ...
772 Evaluate the given expressions without collecting anything into the
773 trace buffer. (Valid in tracepoint actions only.)
774
7a697b8d
SS
775ftrace FN / FILE:LINE / *ADDR
776 Define a fast tracepoint at the given function, line, or address.
777
b0f02ee9
JK
778* New expression syntax
779
780 GDB now parses the 0b prefix of binary numbers the same way as GCC does.
781 GDB now parses 0b101010 identically with 42.
782
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PA
783* New options
784
785set follow-exec-mode new|same
786show follow-exec-mode
787 Control whether GDB reuses the same inferior across an exec call or
788 creates a new one. This is useful to be able to restart the old
789 executable after the inferior having done an exec call.
790
236f1d4d
SS
791set default-collect EXPR, ...
792show default-collect
793 Define a list of expressions to be collected at each tracepoint.
794 This is a useful way to ensure essential items are not overlooked,
795 such as registers or a critical global variable.
796
d5551862
SS
797set disconnected-tracing
798show disconnected-tracing
799 If set to 1, the target is instructed to continue tracing if it
800 loses its connection to GDB. If 0, the target is to stop tracing
801 upon disconnection.
802
4daf5ac0
SS
803set circular-trace-buffer
804show circular-trace-buffer
805 If set to on, the target is instructed to use a circular trace buffer
806 and discard the oldest trace frames instead of stopping the trace due
807 to a full trace buffer. If set to off, the trace stops when the buffer
808 fills up. Some targets may not support this.
809
fb2e7cb4
JB
810set script-extension off|soft|strict
811show script-extension
812 If set to "off", the debugger does not perform any script language
813 recognition, and all sourced files are assumed to be GDB scripts.
814 If set to "soft" (the default), files are sourced according to
815 filename extension, falling back to GDB scripts if the first
816 evaluation failed.
817 If set to "strict", files are sourced according to filename extension.
818
2b71fc8e
JB
819set ada trust-PAD-over-XVS on|off
820show ada trust-PAD-over-XVS
821 If off, activate a workaround against a bug in the debugging information
822 generated by the compiler for PAD types (see gcc/exp_dbug.ads in
823 the GCC sources for more information about the GNAT encoding and
824 PAD types in particular). It is always safe to set this option to
825 off, but this introduces a slight performance penalty. The default
826 is on.
827
de2e5182
TT
828* Python API Improvements
829
830 ** GDB provides the new class gdb.LazyString. This is useful in
831 some pretty-printing cases. The new method gdb.Value.lazy_string
832 provides a simple way to create objects of this type.
833
834 ** The fields returned by gdb.Type.fields now have an
835 `is_base_class' attribute.
836
837 ** The new method gdb.Type.range returns the range of an array type.
838
839 ** The new method gdb.parse_and_eval can be used to parse and
840 evaluate an expression.
841
f61e138d
SS
842* New remote packets
843
844QTDV
845 Define a trace state variable.
846
847qTV
848 Get the current value of a trace state variable.
849
d5551862
SS
850QTDisconnected
851 Set desired tracing behavior upon disconnection.
852
4daf5ac0
SS
853QTBuffer:circular
854 Set the trace buffer to be linear or circular.
855
d5551862
SS
856qTfP, qTsP
857 Get data about the tracepoints currently in use.
858
2d483d34
MS
859* Bug fixes
860
861Process record now works correctly with hardware watchpoints.
862
6e0e5977
JB
863Multiple bug fixes have been made to the mips-irix port, making it
864much more reliable. In particular:
865 - Debugging threaded applications is now possible again. Previously,
866 GDB would hang while starting the program, or while waiting for
867 the program to stop at a breakpoint.
868 - Attaching to a running process no longer hangs.
869 - An error occurring while loading a core file has been fixed.
870 - Changing the value of the PC register now works again. This fixes
871 problems observed when using the "jump" command, or when calling
872 a function from GDB, or even when assigning a new value to $pc.
873 - With the "finish" and "return" commands, the return value for functions
874 returning a small array is now correctly printed.
875 - It is now possible to break on shared library code which gets executed
876 during a shared library init phase (code executed while executing
877 their .init section). Previously, the breakpoint would have no effect.
878 - GDB is now able to backtrace through the signal handler for
879 non-threaded programs.
880
93c26624
JK
881PIE (Position Independent Executable) programs debugging is now supported.
882This includes debugging execution of PIC (Position Independent Code) shared
883libraries although for that, it should be possible to run such libraries as an
884executable program.
885
abc7453d 886*** Changes in GDB 7.0
75feb17d 887
4efc6507
DE
888* GDB now has an interface for JIT compilation. Applications that
889dynamically generate code can create symbol files in memory and register
890them with GDB. For users, the feature should work transparently, and
891for JIT developers, the interface is documented in the GDB manual in the
892"JIT Compilation Interface" chapter.
893
782b2b07
SS
894* Tracepoints may now be conditional. The syntax is as for
895breakpoints; either an "if" clause appended to the "trace" command,
896or the "condition" command is available. GDB sends the condition to
897the target for evaluation using the same bytecode format as is used
898for tracepoint actions.
899
53a71c06
CR
900* The disassemble command now supports: an optional /r modifier, print the
901raw instructions in hex as well as in symbolic form, and an optional /m
902modifier to print mixed source+assembly.
e6158f16 903
e7a8dbfb
HZ
904* Process record and replay
905
906 In a architecture environment that supports ``process record and
907 replay'', ``process record and replay'' target can record a log of
908 the process execution, and replay it with both forward and reverse
909 execute commands.
910
64644d9b
MS
911* Reverse debugging: GDB now has new commands reverse-continue, reverse-
912step, reverse-next, reverse-finish, reverse-stepi, reverse-nexti, and
913set execution-direction {forward|reverse}, for targets that support
914reverse execution.
915
b9412953
DD
916* GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on MIPS/Linux systems. This
917feature is available with a native GDB running on kernel version
9182.6.28 or later.
919
6c7a06a3
TT
920* GDB now has support for multi-byte and wide character sets on the
921target. Strings whose character type is wchar_t, char16_t, or
922char32_t are now correctly printed. GDB supports wide- and unicode-
923literals in C, that is, L'x', L"string", u'x', u"string", U'x', and
924U"string" syntax. And, GDB allows the "%ls" and "%lc" formats in
925`printf'. This feature requires iconv to work properly; if your
926system does not have a working iconv, GDB can use GNU libiconv. See
927the installation instructions for more information.
928
f1838a98
UW
929* GDB now supports automatic retrieval of shared library files from
930remote targets. To use this feature, specify a system root that begins
931with the `remote:' prefix, either via the `set sysroot' command or via
932the `--with-sysroot' configure-time option.
933
55333a84
DE
934* "info sharedlibrary" now takes an optional regex of libraries to show,
935and it now reports if a shared library has no debugging information.
936
7f6a6314
PM
937* Commands `set debug-file-directory', `set solib-search-path' and `set args'
938now complete on file names.
939
65d12d83
TT
940* When completing in expressions, gdb will attempt to limit
941completions to allowable structure or union fields, where appropriate.
942For instance, consider:
943
944 # struct example { int f1; double f2; };
945 # struct example variable;
946 (gdb) p variable.
947
948If the user types TAB at the end of this command line, the available
949completions will be "f1" and "f2".
950
edb3359d
DJ
951* Inlined functions are now supported. They show up in backtraces, and
952the "step", "next", and "finish" commands handle them automatically.
953
2fae03e8
TT
954* GDB now supports the token-splicing (##) and stringification (#)
955operators when expanding macros. It also supports variable-arity
956macros.
957
47a3467a 958* GDB now supports inspecting extra signal information, exported by
58d6951d
DJ
959the new $_siginfo convenience variable. The feature is currently
960implemented on linux ARM, i386 and amd64.
961
962* GDB can now display the VFP floating point registers and NEON vector
963registers on ARM targets. Both ARM GNU/Linux native GDB and gdbserver
964can provide these registers (requires Linux 2.6.30 or later). Remote
965and simulator targets may also provide them.
47a3467a 966
08388c79
DE
967* New remote packets
968
969qSearch:memory:
970 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
971
a6f3e723
SL
972QStartNoAckMode
973 Turn off `+'/`-' protocol acknowledgments to permit more efficient
974 operation over reliable transport links. Use of this packet is
975 controlled by the `set remote noack-packet' command.
976
d7713ae0
EZ
977vKill
978 Kill the process with the specified process ID. Use this in preference
979 to `k' when multiprocess protocol extensions are supported.
980
07e059b5
VP
981qXfer:osdata:read
982 Obtains additional operating system information
983
47a3467a
PA
984qXfer:siginfo:read
985qXfer:siginfo:write
986 Read or write additional signal information.
987
060871df
PA
988* Removed remote protocol undocumented extension
989
990 An undocumented extension to the remote protocol's `S' stop reply
991 packet that permited the stub to pass a process id was removed.
992 Remote servers should use the `T' stop reply packet instead.
993
c055b101 994* GDB now supports multiple function calling conventions according to the
a0ef4274 995DWARF-2 DW_AT_calling_convention function attribute.
c055b101
CV
996
997* The SH target utilizes the aforementioned change to distinguish between gcc
a0ef4274
DJ
998and Renesas calling convention. It also adds the new CLI commands
999`set/show sh calling-convention'.
c055b101 1000
31fffb02
CS
1001* GDB can now read compressed debug sections, as produced by GNU gold
1002with the --compress-debug-sections=zlib flag.
1003
88d8a8e0
JB
1004* 64-bit core files are now supported on AIX.
1005
7f99b190
JB
1006* Thread switching is now supported on Tru64.
1007
ccd213ac
DJ
1008* Watchpoints can now be set on unreadable memory locations, e.g. addresses
1009which will be allocated using malloc later in program execution.
1010
1fddbabb 1011* The qXfer:libraries:read remote procotol packet now allows passing a
31fffb02 1012list of section offsets.
1fddbabb 1013
a0ef4274
DJ
1014* On GNU/Linux, GDB can now attach to stopped processes. Several race
1015conditions handling signals delivered during attach or thread creation
1016have also been fixed.
1017
bfb8797a 1018* GDB now supports the use of DWARF boolean types for Ada's type Boolean.
158c7665
PH
1019From the user's standpoint, all unqualified instances of True and False
1020are treated as the standard definitions, regardless of context.
bfb8797a 1021
71c25dea
TT
1022* GDB now parses C++ symbol and type names more flexibly. For
1023example, given:
1024
1025 template<typename T> class C { };
1026 C<char const *> c;
1027
1028GDB will now correctly handle all of:
1029
1030 ptype C<char const *>
1031 ptype C<char const*>
1032 ptype C<const char *>
1033 ptype C<const char*>
1034
ccd213ac
DJ
1035* New features in the GDB remote stub, gdbserver
1036
1037 - The "--wrapper" command-line argument tells gdbserver to use a
1038 wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
1039
7ae0e2a2
UW
1040 - On PowerPC and S/390 targets, it is now possible to use a single
1041 gdbserver executable to debug both 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
1042 (This requires gdbserver itself to be built as a 64-bit executable.)
1043
a6f3e723
SL
1044 - gdbserver uses the new noack protocol mode for TCP connections to
1045 reduce communications latency, if also supported and enabled in GDB.
1046
da8bd9a3
DJ
1047 - Support for the sparc64-linux-gnu target is now included in
1048 gdbserver.
1049
d70e31dd
DE
1050 - The amd64-linux build of gdbserver now supports debugging both
1051 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
1052
1053 - The i386-linux, amd64-linux, and i386-win32 builds of gdbserver
1054 now support hardware watchpoints, and will use them automatically
1055 as appropriate.
1056
d57a3c85
TJB
1057* Python scripting
1058
1059 GDB now has support for scripting using Python. Whether this is
1060 available is determined at configure time.
1061
d8906c6f
TJB
1062 New GDB commands can now be written in Python.
1063
aadc346a
JB
1064* Ada tasking support
1065
1066 Ada tasks can now be inspected in GDB. The following commands have
1067 been introduced:
1068
1069 info tasks
1070 Print the list of Ada tasks.
1071 info task N
1072 Print detailed information about task number N.
1073 task
1074 Print the task number of the current task.
1075 task N
1076 Switch the context of debugging to task number N.
1077
adb483fe
DJ
1078* Support for user-defined prefixed commands. The "define" command can
1079add new commands to existing prefixes, e.g. "target".
1080
2277426b
PA
1081* Multi-inferior, multi-process debugging.
1082
1083 GDB now has generalized support for multi-inferior debugging. See
1084 "Debugging Multiple Inferiors" in the manual for more information.
1085 Although availability still depends on target support, the command
1086 set is more uniform now. The GNU/Linux specific multi-forks support
1087 has been migrated to this new framework. This implied some user
1088 visible changes; see "New commands" and also "Removed commands"
1089 below.
1090
08d16641
PA
1091* Target descriptions can now describe the target OS ABI. See the
1092"Target Description Format" section in the user manual for more
1093information.
1094
e35359c5
UW
1095* Target descriptions can now describe "compatible" architectures
1096to indicate that the target can execute applications for a different
1097architecture in addition to those for the main target architecture.
1098See the "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for
1099more information.
1100
85e747d2
UW
1101* Multi-architecture debugging.
1102
1103 GDB now includes general supports for debugging applications on
1104 hybrid systems that use more than one single processor architecture
1105 at the same time. Each such hybrid architecture still requires
1106 specific support to be added. The only hybrid architecture supported
1107 in this version of GDB is the Cell Broadband Engine.
1108
1109* GDB now supports integrated debugging of Cell/B.E. applications that
1110use both the PPU and SPU architectures. To enable support for hybrid
1111Cell/B.E. debugging, you need to configure GDB to support both the
1112powerpc-linux or powerpc64-linux and the spu-elf targets, using the
1113--enable-targets configure option.
1114
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PA
1115* Non-stop mode debugging.
1116
1117 For some targets, GDB now supports an optional mode of operation in
1118 which you can examine stopped threads while other threads continue
1119 to execute freely. This is referred to as non-stop mode, with the
1120 old mode referred to as all-stop mode. See the "Non-Stop Mode"
1121 section in the user manual for more information.
1122
1123 To be able to support remote non-stop debugging, a remote stub needs
1124 to implement the non-stop mode remote protocol extensions, as
1125 described in the "Remote Non-Stop" section of the user manual. The
1126 GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been adjusted to support these
1127 extensions on linux targets.
1128
d7713ae0 1129* New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
75feb17d 1130
a96d9b2e
SDJ
1131catch syscall [NAME(S) | NUMBER(S)]
1132 Catch system calls. Arguments, which should be names of system
1133 calls or their numbers, mean catch only those syscalls. Without
1134 arguments, every syscall will be caught. When the inferior issues
1135 any of the specified syscalls, GDB will stop and announce the system
1136 call, both when it is called and when its call returns. This
1137 feature is currently available with a native GDB running on the
1138 Linux Kernel, under the following architectures: x86, x86_64,
1139 PowerPC and PowerPC64.
1140
08388c79
DE
1141find [/size-char] [/max-count] start-address, end-address|+search-space-size,
1142 val1 [, val2, ...]
1143 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
1144
d57a3c85
TJB
1145maint set python print-stack
1146maint show python print-stack
1147 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Python script.
1148
1149python [CODE]
1150 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Python interpreter.
1151
d7713ae0
EZ
1152macro define
1153macro list
1154macro undef
1155 These allow macros to be defined, undefined, and listed
1156 interactively.
1157
1158info os processes
1159 Show operating system information about processes.
1160
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PA
1161info inferiors
1162 List the inferiors currently under GDB's control.
1163
1164inferior NUM
1165 Switch focus to inferior number NUM.
1166
1167detach inferior NUM
1168 Detach from inferior number NUM.
1169
1170kill inferior NUM
1171 Kill inferior number NUM.
1172
d7713ae0
EZ
1173* New options
1174
3285f3fe
UW
1175set spu stop-on-load
1176show spu stop-on-load
1177 Control whether to stop for new SPE threads during Cell/B.E. debugging.
1178
ff1a52c6
UW
1179set spu auto-flush-cache
1180show spu auto-flush-cache
1181 Control whether to automatically flush the software-managed cache
1182 during Cell/B.E. debugging.
1183
d7713ae0
EZ
1184set sh calling-convention
1185show sh calling-convention
1186 Control the calling convention used when calling SH target functions.
1187
e0a3ce09 1188set debug timestamp
75feb17d 1189show debug timestamp
d7713ae0
EZ
1190 Control display of timestamps with GDB debugging output.
1191
1192set disassemble-next-line
1193show disassemble-next-line
1194 Control display of disassembled source lines or instructions when
1195 the debuggee stops.
1196
1197set remote noack-packet
1198show remote noack-packet
1199 Set/show the use of remote protocol QStartNoAckMode packet. See above
1200 under "New remote packets."
1201
1202set remote query-attached-packet
1203show remote query-attached-packet
1204 Control use of remote protocol `qAttached' (query-attached) packet.
1205
1206set remote read-siginfo-object
1207show remote read-siginfo-object
1208 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:read' (read-siginfo-object)
1209 packet.
1210
1211set remote write-siginfo-object
1212show remote write-siginfo-object
1213 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:write' (write-siginfo-object)
1214 packet.
1215
40ab02ce
MS
1216set remote reverse-continue
1217show remote reverse-continue
1218 Control use of remote protocol 'bc' (reverse-continue) packet.
1219
1220set remote reverse-step
1221show remote reverse-step
1222 Control use of remote protocol 'bs' (reverse-step) packet.
1223
d7713ae0
EZ
1224set displaced-stepping
1225show displaced-stepping
1226 Control displaced stepping mode. Displaced stepping is a way to
1227 single-step over breakpoints without removing them from the debuggee.
1228 Also known as "out-of-line single-stepping".
1229
1230set debug displaced
1231show debug displaced
1232 Control display of debugging info for displaced stepping.
1233
1234maint set internal-error
1235maint show internal-error
1236 Control what GDB does when an internal error is detected.
1237
1238maint set internal-warning
1239maint show internal-warning
1240 Control what GDB does when an internal warning is detected.
75feb17d 1241
ccd213ac
DJ
1242set exec-wrapper
1243show exec-wrapper
1244unset exec-wrapper
1245 Use a wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
fa4727a6 1246
aad4b048
JB
1247set multiple-symbols (all|ask|cancel)
1248show multiple-symbols
1249 The value of this variable can be changed to adjust the debugger behavior
1250 when an expression or a breakpoint location contains an ambiguous symbol
1251 name (an overloaded function name, for instance).
1252
74960c60
VP
1253set breakpoint always-inserted
1254show breakpoint always-inserted
1255 Keep breakpoints always inserted in the target, as opposed to inserting
1256 them when resuming the target, and removing them when the target stops.
1257 This option can improve debugger performance on slow remote targets.
1258
0428b8f5
DJ
1259set arm fallback-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
1260show arm fallback-mode
1261set arm force-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
1262show arm force-mode
1263 These commands control how ARM GDB determines whether instructions
1264 are ARM or Thumb. The default for both settings is auto, which uses
1265 the current CPSR value for instructions without symbols; previous
1266 versions of GDB behaved as if "set arm fallback-mode arm".
1267
10568435
JK
1268set disable-randomization
1269show disable-randomization
1270 Standalone programs run with the virtual address space randomization enabled
1271 by default on some platforms. This option keeps the addresses stable across
1272 multiple debugging sessions.
1273
d7713ae0
EZ
1274set non-stop
1275show non-stop
1276 Control whether other threads are stopped or not when some thread hits
1277 a breakpoint.
1278
b3eb342c 1279set target-async
d7713ae0 1280show target-async
b3eb342c
VP
1281 Requests that asynchronous execution is enabled in the target, if available.
1282 In this case, it's possible to resume target in the background, and interact
1283 with GDB while the target is running. "show target-async" displays the
1284 current state of asynchronous execution of the target.
1285
6c7a06a3
TT
1286set target-wide-charset
1287show target-wide-charset
1288 The target-wide-charset is the name of the character set that GDB
1289 uses when printing characters whose type is wchar_t.
1290
84603566
SL
1291set tcp auto-retry (on|off)
1292show tcp auto-retry
1293set tcp connect-timeout
1294show tcp connect-timeout
1295 These commands allow GDB to retry failed TCP connections to a remote stub
1296 with a specified timeout period; this is useful if the stub is launched
1297 in parallel with GDB but may not be ready to accept connections immediately.
1298
17a37d48
PP
1299set libthread-db-search-path
1300show libthread-db-search-path
1301 Control list of directories which GDB will search for appropriate
1302 libthread_db.
1303
d4db2f36
PA
1304set schedule-multiple (on|off)
1305show schedule-multiple
1306 Allow GDB to resume all threads of all processes or only threads of
1307 the current process.
1308
4e5d721f
DE
1309set stack-cache
1310show stack-cache
1311 Use more aggressive caching for accesses to the stack. This improves
1312 performance of remote debugging (particularly backtraces) without
1313 affecting correctness.
1314
910c5da8
JB
1315set interactive-mode (on|off|auto)
1316show interactive-mode
1317 Control whether GDB runs in interactive mode (on) or not (off).
1318 When in interactive mode, GDB waits for the user to answer all
1319 queries. Otherwise, GDB does not wait and assumes the default
1320 answer. When set to auto (the default), GDB determines which
1321 mode to use based on the stdin settings.
1322
2277426b
PA
1323* Removed commands
1324
1325info forks
1326 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `info
1327 inferiors' command. To list checkpoints, you can still use the
1328 `info checkpoints' command, which was an alias for the `info forks'
1329 command.
1330
1331fork NUM
1332 Replaced by the new `inferior' command. To switch between
1333 checkpoints, you can still use the `restart' command, which was an
1334 alias for the `fork' command.
1335
1336process PID
1337 This is removed, since some targets don't have a notion of
1338 processes. To switch between processes, you can still use the
1339 `inferior' command using GDB's own inferior number.
1340
1341delete fork NUM
1342 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `kill
1343 inferior' command. To delete a checkpoint, you can still use the
1344 `delete checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `delete
1345 fork' command.
1346
1347detach fork NUM
1348 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `detach
1349 inferior' command. To detach a checkpoint, you can still use the
1350 `detach checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `detach
1351 fork' command.
1352
a80b95ba
TG
1353* New native configurations
1354
1355x86/x86_64 Darwin i[34567]86-*-darwin*
1356
b8bfd3ed
JB
1357x86_64 MinGW x86_64-*-mingw*
1358
75a2d5e7
TT
1359* New targets
1360
c28c63d8 1361Lattice Mico32 lm32-*
75a2d5e7 1362x86 DICOS i[34567]86-*-dicos*
4c1d2973 1363x86_64 DICOS x86_64-*-dicos*
5f814c3b 1364S+core 3 score-*-*
75a2d5e7 1365
6de3146c
PA
1366* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports x86 Windows CE
1367 (mingw32ce) debugging.
1368
d5cbbe6e
JB
1369* Removed commands
1370
1371catch load
1372catch unload
1373 These commands were actually not implemented on any target.
1374
75feb17d 1375*** Changes in GDB 6.8
f9ed52be 1376
af5ca30d
NH
1377* New native configurations
1378
1379NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*netbsd*
94a0e877 1380Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
af5ca30d
NH
1381
1382* New targets
1383
1384NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*-netbsd*
94a0e877 1385Xtensa GNU/Lunux xtensa*-*-linux*
af5ca30d 1386
7a404eba
PA
1387* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
1388
1389 When the '-p NUMBER' or '--pid NUMBER' options are used, and
1390 attaching to process NUMBER fails, GDB no longer attempts to open a
1391 core file named NUMBER. Attaching to a program using the -c option
1392 is no longer supported. Instead, use the '-p' or '--pid' options.
1393
430ebac9
PA
1394* GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
1395(mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
1396
fe6fbf8b 1397* Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
8d5f9c6f 1398is resolved.
fe6fbf8b
VP
1399
1400* GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
8d5f9c6f
DJ
1401including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
1402and in inlined functions.
fe6fbf8b 1403
10665d76
JB
1404* GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
1405accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
1406more than one contiguous range of addresses.
1407
7cc46491
DJ
1408* Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
1409
d71340b8
DJ
1410* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
1411registers on PowerPC targets.
1412
523c4513
DJ
1413* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
1414targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
1415
a6b151f1
DJ
1416* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
1417commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
1418
2d717e4f
DJ
1419* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports run and attach in
1420extended-remote mode.
1421
24a836bd 1422* hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
d001be7a
DJ
1423The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
1424error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
1425The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
24a836bd 1426
d0c678e6
UW
1427* GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
1428building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
1429target architectures.
1430
d64a946d
TJB
1431* GDB now supports debugging C and C++ programs which use the
1432Decimal Floating Point extension. In addition, the PowerPC target
1433now has a set of pseudo-registers to inspect decimal float values
1434stored in two consecutive float registers.
1435
ee163bf5
VP
1436* The -break-insert MI command can optionally create pending
1437breakpoints now.
1438
b93b6ca7 1439* Improved support for debugging Ada
d001be7a
DJ
1440Many improvements to the Ada language support have been made. These
1441include:
b93b6ca7
JB
1442 - Better support for Ada2005 interface types
1443 - Improved handling of arrays and slices in general
1444 - Better support for Taft-amendment types
1445 - The '{type} ADDRESS' expression is now allowed on the left hand-side
1446 of an assignment
1447 - Improved command completion in Ada
1448 - Several bug fixes
1449
d001be7a
DJ
1450* GDB on GNU/Linux and HP/UX can now debug through "exec" of a new
1451process.
1452
a6b151f1
DJ
1453* New commands
1454
6d53d0af
JB
1455set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
1456show print frame-arguments
1457 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
1458 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
1459
a6b151f1
DJ
1460remote put
1461remote get
1462remote delete
1463 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
1464
1465* New MI commands
1466
1467-target-file-put
1468-target-file-get
1469-target-file-delete
1470 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
1471
1472* New remote packets
1473
1474vFile:open:
1475vFile:close:
1476vFile:pread:
1477vFile:pwrite:
1478vFile:unlink:
1479 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
d0c678e6 1480
2d717e4f
DJ
1481vAttach
1482 Attach to an existing process on the remote system, in extended-remote
1483 mode.
1484
1485vRun
1486 Run a new process on the remote system, in extended-remote mode.
1487
8d5f9c6f 1488*** Changes in GDB 6.7
6dd09645 1489
19d378fc
MS
1490* Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
1491bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
1492Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
1493
3a40aaa0
UW
1494* When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
1495symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
1496-Bsymbolic linker option.
1497
a6ec25f2
BW
1498* When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
1499recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
1500is not supported.
1501
6dd09645
JB
1502* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
1503frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
1504
c9bb8148
DJ
1505* GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
150632-bit or 64-bit register values.
1507
0d5de010
DJ
1508* Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
1509
23181151
DJ
1510* GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
1511target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
1512a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
1513
ea37ba09
DJ
1514* Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
1515automatically displayed as character or string data.
1516
1517* The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
1518arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
1519as strings.
e1f48ead 1520
123dc839
DJ
1521* Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
1522for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
8d5f9c6f 1523only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
123dc839 1524
05a4558a
DJ
1525* GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
1526iWMMXt coprocessor.
fb1e4ffc 1527
7c963485
PA
1528* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
1529ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
1530has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
1531
b18be20d
DJ
1532* GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
1533
0ca420ce
UW
1534* GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
1535
31d99776
DJ
1536* The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
1537layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
1538segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
1539
a4642986
MR
1540* The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
1541immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
1542
cfa9d6d9
DJ
1543* The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
1544"library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
1545packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
1546where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
1547Windows and SymbianOS).
255e7678
DJ
1548
1549* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
1550(DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
f5db8714
JK
1551
1552* GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
1553according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
cfa9d6d9 1554
c9bb8148
DJ
1555* New commands
1556
23776285
MR
1557set remoteflow
1558show remoteflow
1559 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
1560 when debugging using remote targets.
1561
c9bb8148
DJ
1562set mem inaccessible-by-default
1563show mem inaccessible-by-default
1564 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
1565 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
1566 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
1567 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
1568 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
1569
1570set breakpoint auto-hw
1571show breakpoint auto-hw
1572 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
1573 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
1574 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
1575 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
1576 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
1577 including "next" and "finish".
1578
0e420bd8
JB
1579catch exception
1580catch exception unhandled
1581 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
1582
1583catch assert
1584 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
1585
f822c95b
DJ
1586set sysroot
1587show sysroot
1588 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
1589 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
1590 an alias to "set sysroot".
1591
83cc5c53
UW
1592info spu
1593 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
1594 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
1595 architecture.
1596
bd372731
MK
1597* New native configurations
1598
1599OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
1600
23181151
DJ
1601set tdesc filename
1602unset tdesc filename
1603show tdesc filename
1604 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
1605 not query the target for its built-in description.
1606
c9bb8148
DJ
1607* New targets
1608
54fe9172 1609OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
c9bb8148 1610MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
c077150c 1611Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
c9bb8148 1612
6dd09645
JB
1613* New remote packets
1614
1615QPassSignals:
1616 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
1617 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
1618
23181151
DJ
1619qXfer:features:read:
1620 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
1621 features.
6dd09645 1622
83cc5c53
UW
1623qXfer:spu:read:
1624qXfer:spu:write:
1625 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
1626 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
1627
cfa9d6d9
DJ
1628qXfer:libraries:read:
1629 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
1630 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
1631 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
1632 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
1633
483367ee
DJ
1634* Removed targets
1635
1636Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
1637
d08950c4
UW
1638alpha*-*-osf1*
1639alpha*-*-osf2*
7ce59000 1640d10v-*-*
483367ee
DJ
1641hppa*-*-hiux*
1642i[34567]86-ncr-*
1643i[34567]86-*-dgux*
1644i[34567]86-*-lynxos*
1645i[34567]86-*-netware*
1646i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
1647i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
1648i[34567]86-*-sco*
1649i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
1650i[34567]86-*-sysv4*
1651i[34567]86-*-sysv5*
1652i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
1653i[34567]86-*-unixware*
1654i[34567]86-*-sysv*
1655i[34567]86-*-isc*
1656m68*-cisco*-*
1657m68*-tandem-*
ad527d2e 1658mips*-*-pe
483367ee 1659rs6000-*-lynxos*
ad527d2e 1660sh*-*-pe
483367ee 1661
7ce59000
DJ
1662* Other removed features
1663
1664target abug
1665target cpu32bug
1666target est
1667target rom68k
1668
1669 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
1670
ea35711c
DJ
1671target hms
1672target e7000
1673target sh3
1674target sh3e
1675
1676 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
1677 H8/300.
1678
1679target ocd
1680
1681 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
1682 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
1683 interfaces.
1684
7ce59000
DJ
1685DWARF 1 support
1686
1687 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
1688 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
1689
54d61198
DJ
1690Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
1691
1692 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
1693 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
1694 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
1695 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
1696
ea35711c
DJ
1697MIPS ".pdr" sections
1698
1699 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
1700 in debugging information.
1701
1702Scheme support
1703
1704 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
1705 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
1706
1a69e1e4
DJ
1707set mips stack-arg-size
1708set mips saved-gpreg-size
1709
1710 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
1711
6dd09645 1712*** Changes in GDB 6.6
e374b601 1713
ca3bf3bd
DJ
1714* New targets
1715
1716Xtensa xtensa-elf
9c309e77 1717Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
ca3bf3bd 1718
6aec2e11
DJ
1719* GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
1720(mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
1721running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
1722
1723* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
1724Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
1725supported.
1726
17218d91
DJ
1727* The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
1728broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
1729
9ebce043
DJ
1730* The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
1731stub provides the required support.
1732
7d3d3ece
DJ
1733* Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
1734longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
1735
4f8253f3
JB
1736* New commands
1737
1738set substitute-path
1739unset substitute-path
1740show substitute-path
1741 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
1742 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
1743 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
1744 between compilation and debugging.
1745
9fa66fd7
AS
1746set trace-commands
1747show trace-commands
1748 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
1749 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
1750 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
1751
1f5befc1
DJ
1752* REMOVED features
1753
1754The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
1755
2ec3381a
DJ
1756Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
1757an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
1758
3d00d119
DJ
1759The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
1760
be2a5f71
DJ
1761* New remote packets
1762
1763qSupported:
1764 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
1765 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
1766 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
1767 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
1768 target.
1769
0876f84a
DJ
1770qXfer:auxv:read:
1771 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
1772 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
1773
9ebce043
DJ
1774qXfer:memory-map:read:
1775 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
1776 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
1777
1778vFlashErase:
1779vFlashWrite:
1780vFlashDone:
1781 Erase and program a flash memory device.
1782
0876f84a
DJ
1783* Removed remote packets
1784
1785qPart:auxv:read:
1786 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
1787 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
1788
e374b601 1789*** Changes in GDB 6.5
53e5f3cf 1790
96309189
MS
1791* New targets
1792
1793Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
1794
1795Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
1796
53e5f3cf
AS
1797* New commands
1798
1799init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
1800 only if it doesn't already have a value.
1801
ac264b3b
MS
1802The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
1803
1804checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
1805
1806restart <n> Return the program state to a
1807 previously saved state.
1808
1809info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
1810
1811delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
1812
1813set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
1814 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
1815
1816info forks List forks of the user program that
1817 are available to be debugged.
1818
1819fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
1820 forks of the user program that are
1821 available to be debugged.
1822
1823delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
1824 that are available to be debugged (and
1825 kill the forked process).
1826
1827detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
1828 that are available to be debugged (and
1829 allow the process to continue).
1830
3950dc3f
NS
1831* New architecture
1832
1833Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
1834
0ea3f30e
DJ
1835* Improved Windows host support
1836
1837GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
1838native console support, and remote communications using either
1839network sockets or serial ports.
1840
f79daebb
GM
1841* Improved Modula-2 language support
1842
1843GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
1844basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
1845pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
1846printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
1847written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
1848GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
1849
acab6ab2
MM
1850* REMOVED features
1851
1852The ARM rdi-share module.
1853
f4267320
DJ
1854The Netware NLM debug server.
1855
53e5f3cf 1856*** Changes in GDB 6.4
156a53ca 1857
e0ecbda1
MK
1858* New native configurations
1859
02a677ac 1860OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
e0ecbda1
MK
1861OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
1862
d64a6579
KB
1863* New targets
1864
1865Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
1866
b33a6190
AS
1867* New command line options
1868
1869--batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
1870--return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
1871 the child (debugged) program exited with.
1872--eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
1873 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
1874 specified multiple times and in conjunction
1875 with the --command (-x) option.
1876
11dced61
AC
1877* Deprecated commands removed
1878
1879The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
1880removed:
1881
1882 Command Replacement
1883 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
1884 othernames set arm disassembler
1885 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
1886 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
1887 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
1888 regs info registers
1889
6fe85783
MK
1890* New BSD user-level threads support
1891
1892It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
1893library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
1894configurations are:
1895
1896FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
1897FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
1898OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
1899
1900Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
1901are not yet supported.
1902
5260ca71
MS
1903* New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
1904(Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
1905
e84ecc99
AC
1906* REMOVED configurations and files
1907
1908VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
9445aa30 1909Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
9445aa30 1910National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
156a53ca 1911
31e35378
JB
1912* New "set print array-indexes" command
1913
1914After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
1915when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
1916behavior.
1917
e85e5c83
MK
1918* VAX floating point support
1919
1920GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
1921
d91e9901
AS
1922* User-defined command support
1923
1924In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
1925to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
1926section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
1927
f2cb65ca
MC
1928*** Changes in GDB 6.3:
1929
f47b1503
AS
1930* New command line option
1931
1932GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
1933debugging.
1934
f2cb65ca
MC
1935* GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
1936
1937GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
1938information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
1939by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
1940proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
1941to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
860660cb 1942
d08c0230
AC
1943* Internationalization
1944
1945When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
1946internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
1947continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
1948
117ea3cf
PH
1949* Ada
1950
1951Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
1952implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
1953into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
1954
d08c0230
AC
1955* New native configurations
1956
1957GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
1958
1959* Remote 'p' packet
1960
1961GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
1962packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
1963
1964* END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
1965
1966GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
1967The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
1968features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
1969i386 application).
1970
1971GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
1972compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
1973continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
1974configurations:
1975
1976hppa-*-hpux
1977ia64-*-aix
1978mips-*-irix*
1979*-*-lynx
1980mips-*-linux-gnu
1981sds protocol
1982xdr protocol
1983powerpc bdm protocol
1984
1985Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
1986made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
1987
1988* OBSOLETE configurations and files
1989
1990Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1991been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1992configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1993permanently REMOVED.
1994
1995h8300-*-*
1996mcore-*-*
1997mn10300-*-*
1998ns32k-*-*
1999sh64-*-*
2000v850-*-*
2001
ebb7c577
AC
2002*** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
2003
2004* MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
2005
2006When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
2007heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
2008been fixed.
2009
2010* MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
2011
2012When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
2013fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
2014IRIX long double values).
2015
2016* VAX and "next"
2017
2018A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
2019command. This problem has been fixed.
2020
860660cb 2021*** Changes in GDB 6.2:
faae5abe 2022
0dea2468
AC
2023* Fix for ``many threads''
2024
2025On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
2026rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
2027error message:
2028
2029 ptrace: No such process.
2030 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
2031
2032This problem has been fixed.
2033
2c07db7a
AC
2034* "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
2035
2036Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
2037GDB to dump core).
2038
c23968a2
JB
2039* New ``start'' command.
2040
2041This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
2042
71009278
MK
2043* New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
2044
2045Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
2046live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
2047platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
2048
2049FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
2050FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
2051NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
2052NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
2053NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
2054OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
2055OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
2056OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
2057OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
2058
3c0b7db2
AC
2059* Signal trampoline code overhauled
2060
2061Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
2062These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
2063of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
2064call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
2065signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
2066
73cc75f3
AC
2067Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
2068features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
2069include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
3c0b7db2 2070
7243600a
BF
2071* Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
2072
6f606e1c
MK
2073* New native configurations
2074
97dc871c 2075GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
0e56aeaf 2076OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
bf2ca189
MK
2077OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
2078OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
d195bc9f 2079OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 2080NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
9f076e7a 2081OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 2082
a1b461bf
AC
2083* END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
2084
2085GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
2086The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
2087including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
2088migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
2089compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
2090work, was also included.
2091
2092GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
2093module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
2094
2095h8300-*-*
2096mcore-*-*
2097mn10300-*-*
2098ns32k-*-*
2099sh64-*-*
2100v850-*-*
2101xstormy16-*-*
2102
2103Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
2104made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
2105
3c7012f5
AC
2106* REMOVED configurations and files
2107
2108Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
2109Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
2110Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
2111Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
2112Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
2113AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
2114Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
2115decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
2116riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
2117sonymips mips-sony-*
2118sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
2119
e5fe55f7
AC
2120*** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
2121
2122* TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
2123
2124The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
2125GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
2126command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
2127program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
2128with GDB".
2129
2130* Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
2131
2132Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
2133libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
2134cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
2135GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
2136shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
2137the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
2138are created.
2139
2140Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
2141
2142* Fixed ISO-C build problems
2143
2144The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
2145non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
2146compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
2147
2148* Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
2149
2150Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
2151wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
2152
2153* Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
2154
2155The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
2156permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
2157systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
2158
2159* Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
2160
2161Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
2162has been updated to use constant array sizes.
2163
2164* Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
2165
2166GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
2167its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
2168panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
2169
2170* Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
2171
2172When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
2173by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
2174not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
2175
faae5abe 2176*** Changes in GDB 6.1:
f2c06f52 2177
9175c9a3
MC
2178* Removed --with-mmalloc
2179
2180Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
2181conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
2182
3cc87ec0
MK
2183* Changes in AMD64 configurations
2184
2185The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
2186the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
2187and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
2188you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
2189
f0424ef6
MK
2190* Revised SPARC target
2191
2192The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
2193FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
03cebad2
MK
2194support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
2195from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
2196(Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
f0424ef6 2197
59659be2
ILT
2198* New C++ demangler
2199
2200GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
2201names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
2202with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
2203programs.
2204
9e08b29b
DJ
2205* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
2206
2207GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
2208arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
2209encountered these.
2210
8dfe8985
DC
2211* C++ nested types and namespaces
2212
2213GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
2214improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
2215is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
2216Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
2217namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
2218"Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
2219frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
2220if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
2221GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
2222
cced5e27
MK
2223* New native configurations
2224
2225NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
27d1e716 2226OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
2031c21a 2227OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
f2cab569
MK
2228OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
2229OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
cced5e27 2230
b4b4b794
KI
2231* New debugging protocols
2232
2233M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
2234
7989c619
AC
2235* "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
2236
2237The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
2238and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
2239tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
2240
5994185b
AC
2241* OBSOLETE configurations and files
2242
2243Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2244been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2245configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2246permanently REMOVED.
2247
2248Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
2249Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
2250Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
2251Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
2252Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
2253AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
2254Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
0748d941
AC
2255decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
2256riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
2257sonymips mips-sony-*
2258sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
5994185b 2259
0ddabb4c
AC
2260* REMOVED configurations and files
2261
2262SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
2263SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
4a8269c0
AC
2264Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
2265Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
2266H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
2267HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
2268HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
2269HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
2270PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
cf7c5c23 2271386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
4a8269c0
AC
2272Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
2273 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
2274 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
f0424ef6
MK
2275SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
2276SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
4a8269c0
AC
2277Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2278Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
0ddabb4c 2279
c7f1390e
DJ
2280*** Changes in GDB 6.0:
2281
1fe43d45
AC
2282* Objective-C
2283
2284Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
2285integrated into GDB.
2286
e6beb428
AC
2287* New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
2288
2289DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
2290information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
2291By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
2292backtraces.
2293
2294The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
2295have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
2296DWARF 2 CFI support.
2297
2298* Hosted file I/O.
2299
2300GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
2301file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
2302remote protocol documentation for details.
2303
2304* All targets using the new architecture framework.
2305
2306All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
2307architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
2308to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
2309ppc32 on ppc64).
2310
2311* GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
2312
2313GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
2314per-thread variables.
2315
2316* GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
2317
2318GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
2319GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
2320
2321* Separate debug info.
2322
2323GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
2324automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
2325of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
2326system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
2327and optional debug files.
2328
2329* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
2330
2331DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
2332describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
2333debugger.
2334
2335GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
2336for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
2337
2338* Java
2339
2340A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
2341Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
2342considered "useable".
2343
85f8f974
DJ
2344* GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
2345
2346The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
2347commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
2348kernel.
2349
0fac0b41
DJ
2350* GDB supports logging output to a file
2351
2352There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
2353used to capture GDB's output to a file.
f2c06f52 2354
6ad8ae5c
DJ
2355* The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
2356
2357The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
2358disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
2359command.
2360
e286caf2 2361* d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
5f601589
AC
2362
2363The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
2364registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
2365
d28f9cdf
DJ
2366* Profiling support
2367
2368A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
2369be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
2370session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
2371"--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
2372data, for more informative profiling results.
2373
da0f9dcd
AC
2374* Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
2375
2376The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
2377option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
b68767c1 2378"mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
da0f9dcd
AC
2379
2380Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
2381removed.
2382
fb9b6b35
JJ
2383Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
2384Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
2385Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
2386 in a subsequent -var-update.
2387
954a4db8
MK
2388* New native configurations.
2389
2390FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
2391
6760f9e6
JB
2392* Multi-arched targets.
2393
b4263afa 2394HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
85a453d5 2395Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
6760f9e6 2396
1b831c93
AC
2397* OBSOLETE configurations and files
2398
2399Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2400been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2401configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2402permanently REMOVED.
2403
8b0e5691 2404Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
67f16606 2405Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
fd2299bd 2406H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
56056df7
AC
2407HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
2408HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
2409HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
78c43945 2410PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
2fbce691
AC
2411Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
2412 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
2413 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
f81824a9
AC
2414Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2415Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
fd2299bd 2416
5835abe7
NC
2417* REMOVED configurations and files
2418
2419V850EA ISA
1b831c93
AC
2420Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
2421IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
2422i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
2423i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
2424i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
2425HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
2426 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
2427 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
2428Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
2429Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
2430Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
2431OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
2432I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
5835abe7 2433
a094c6fb
AC
2434* MIPS $fp behavior changed
2435
2436The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
2437the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
2438context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
2439address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
2440The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
2441
299ffc64 2442*** Changes in GDB 5.3:
37057839 2443
46248966
AC
2444* GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
2445
2446When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
2447`/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
2448in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
2449library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
2450shared libs like mad''.
2451
b9d14705 2452* ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
6da02953 2453
b9d14705
DJ
2454Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
2455the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
2456arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
2457powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
6da02953 2458
e0e9281e
JB
2459* GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
2460
2461GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
2462and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
2463they expand.
2464
dd73b9bb
AC
2465The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
2466invocations in expression, and shows the result.
2467
2468The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
2469macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
2470
e0e9281e
JB
2471Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
2472information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
2473your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
2474information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
2475
2250ee0c
CV
2476* Multi-arched targets.
2477
6e3ba3b8
JT
2478DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
2479DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
2250ee0c 2480NEC V850 v850-*-*
6e3ba3b8 2481National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
a1789893
GS
2482Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
2483Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
2250ee0c 2484
cd9bfe15 2485* New targets.
e33ce519 2486
456f8b9d
DB
2487Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
2488
e33ce519 2489
da8ca43d
JT
2490* New native configurations
2491
2492Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
029923d4 2493SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
45888261 2494MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
9ce5c36a 2495UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
da8ca43d 2496
cd9bfe15
AC
2497* OBSOLETE configurations and files
2498
2499Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2500been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2501configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2502permanently REMOVED.
2503
92eb23c5 2504Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
a99a9e1b 2505OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1c7cc583 2506IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
7a3085c1 2507Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
7fb623f7 2508Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
eb4c54a2 2509Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
d8ee244c
MK
2510i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
2511i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
2512i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
822e978b
AC
2513HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
2514 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
2515 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
4d210288 2516I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
92eb23c5 2517
db034ac5
AC
2518* OBSOLETE languages
2519
2520CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
2521
cd9bfe15
AC
2522* REMOVED configurations and files
2523
2524AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
2525A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
2526AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2527AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2528AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2529
2530testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
2531
20f01a46
DH
2532* New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
2533
2534This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
2535commands. The default is 1024.
2536
a5941fbf
MK
2537* Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
2538
2539Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
2540
89743e04
MS
2541* New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
2542
2543These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
2544to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
2545from a file into memory (restore).
37057839 2546
9fb14e79
JB
2547* Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
2548
2549The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
2550including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
2551of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
2552
2037aebb
AC
2553*** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
2554
2555* New targets.
2556
2557Atmel AVR avr*-*-*
2558
2559* Bug fixes
2560
2561gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
2562mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
2563Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
2564
2565gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
2566dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
2567Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
2568
2569Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
2570Surprisingly enough, it works now.
2571By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
2572
2573i386 hardware watchpoint support:
2574avoid misses on second run for some targets.
2575By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
2576
37057839 2577*** Changes in GDB 5.2:
eb7cedd9 2578
1a703748
MS
2579* New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
2580
2581This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
2582really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
2583In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
2584target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
2585This can be a significant performance improvement on some
2586(notably embedded) targets.
2587
cefd4ef5
MS
2588* New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
2589
55241689
AC
2590This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
2591process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
2592GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
2593hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
cefd4ef5 2594
352ed7b4
MS
2595* New command line option
2596
2597GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
2598
2599* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
2600
2601There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
2602command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
2603a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
2604be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
2605open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
2606issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
2607a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
2608it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
2609GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
2610is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
2611
fe419ffc
RE
2612* Changes in ARM configurations.
2613
2614Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
2615configuration is fully multi-arch.
2616
eb7cedd9
MK
2617* New native configurations
2618
fe419ffc 2619ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
eb7cedd9 2620x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
55241689 2621AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
768f0842 2622Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
eb7cedd9 2623
c9f63e6b
CV
2624* New targets
2625
2626Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
2627
9b4ff276
AC
2628* OBSOLETE configurations and files
2629
2630Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2631been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2632configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2633permanently REMOVED.
2634
2635AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
2636A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
2637AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2638AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2639AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2640
b4ceaee6 2641testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
9b4ff276 2642
e2caac18
AC
2643* REMOVED configurations and files
2644
2645TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
7bc65f05 2646WDC 65816 w65-*-*
7768dd6c
AC
2647PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
2648PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
2649PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
5e734e1f 2650Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1406caf7
AC
2651Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
2652 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
7e24f0b1 2653SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
9b567150 2654Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
3680c638
AC
2655Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
2656ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
a752853e 2657Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
e2caac18 2658
c2a727fa
TT
2659* Changes to command line processing
2660
2661The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
2662for the inferior from gdb's command line.
2663
467d8519
TT
2664* Changes to key bindings
2665
2666There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
2667
7072a954
AC
2668*** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
2669
2670Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
2671
2672Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
2673corrupted.
2674
2675Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
2676
2677Numerous documentation fixes.
2678
2679Numerous testsuite fixes.
2680
34f47bc4 2681*** Changes in GDB 5.1:
139760b7
MK
2682
2683* New native configurations
2684
2685Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
2686x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
55241689 2687MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
e23194cb
EZ
2688MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
2689ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
55241689 2690s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
139760b7 2691
bf64bfd6
AC
2692* New targets
2693
def90278 2694Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
24be5c34 2695CRIS cris-axis
55241689 2696UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
def90278 2697
17e78a56 2698* OBSOLETE configurations and files
bf64bfd6
AC
2699
2700x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
9b9c068d 2701Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
bb19ff3b
AC
2702Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
2703 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
76f4ea53
AC
2704TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
2705WDC 65816 w65-*-*
4a1968f4 2706Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1b2b2c16
AC
2707PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
2708PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
2709PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
24f89b68 2710SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
514e603d
AC
2711Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
2712ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
d036b4d9 2713Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
bf64bfd6 2714
17e78a56
AC
2715stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
2716kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
2717
7fcca85b
AC
2718Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2719been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2720configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2721permanently REMOVED.
2722
a196c81c 2723* REMOVED configurations and files
7fcca85b
AC
2724
2725Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
2726Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
2727Pyramid pyramid-*-*
2728ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
2729Tahoe tahoe-*-*
a196c81c 2730ser-ocd.c *-*-*
bf64bfd6 2731
6d6b80e5 2732* GDB has been converted to ISO C.
e23194cb 2733
6d6b80e5 2734GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
e23194cb
EZ
2735sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
2736present.
2737
bf64bfd6
AC
2738* Other news:
2739
e23194cb
EZ
2740* "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
2741
2742* The MI enabled by default.
2743
2744The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
2745revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
2746engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
2747using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
2748which is now deprecated.
2749
2750* Support for debugging Pascal programs.
2751
2752GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
2753main features are supported:
2754
2755 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
2756
2757 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
2758 extension;
2759
2760 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
2761
2762 - a Pascal expression parser.
2763
2764However, some important features are not yet supported.
2765
2766 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
2767
2768 - there are some problems with boolean types;
2769
2770 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
2771 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
2772
2773 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
2774
2775 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
2776
2777* Changes in completion.
2778
2779Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
2780to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
2781users expect at the shell prompt.
2782
2783Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
2784`breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
2785program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
2786files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
2787be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
2788considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
2789name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
2790
2791`set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
2792
2793* New platform-independent commands:
2794
2795It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
2796hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
2797documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
2798
2799* Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
2800
d7275149
MK
2801Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
2802revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
2803many threads as your system allows you to have.
2804
e23194cb
EZ
2805Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
2806
d7275149
MK
2807Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
2808multi-threaded programs though.
e23194cb
EZ
2809
2810* Changes in MIPS configurations.
bf64bfd6
AC
2811
2812Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
2813
e23194cb
EZ
2814GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
2815debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
2816supported.)
2817
2818* Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
2819
2820Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
2821breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
2822implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
2823put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
2824and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
2825registers.
2826
2827The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
2828debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
2829watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
2830
2831* Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
2832
2833New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
2834the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
2835
2836New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
2837display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
2838IDT.
2839
2840New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
2841from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
2842New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
2843a given linear address.
2844
2845GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
2846program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
2847which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
2848
2849DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
2850
6c56c069
EZ
2851It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
2852
e23194cb
EZ
2853* Changes in documentation.
2854
2855All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
2856Documentation License.
2857
2858Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
2859manual.
2860
2861TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
2862
2863Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
2864manual.
2865
2866The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
2867documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
2868hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
2869
5d6640b1
AC
2870* GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
2871
2872The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
2873``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
2874contents of this file.
2875
1a1d8446
AC
2876* gdba.el deleted
2877
2878GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
139760b7 2879
9debab2f 2880*** Changes in GDB 5.0:
7a292a7a 2881
c63ce875
EZ
2882* Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
2883
2884Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
2885programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
2886displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
2887greater level of detail.
2888
2889* Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
2890
2891It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
2892bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
2893on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
2894written.
2895
2896* Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
2897
2898The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
2899necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
2900machines ``out of the box''.
2901
2902The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
2903possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
2904signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
2905would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
2906interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
2907
2908It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
2909standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
2910even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
2911and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
2912terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
2913
2914The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
2915enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
2916also works.
2917
2918DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
2919GDB.
2920
2921It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
2922directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
2923times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
2924breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
2925
ed9a39eb
JM
2926* New native configurations
2927
2928ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
afc05dd4 2929PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
ed9a39eb 2930
7a292a7a
SS
2931* New targets
2932
96baa820 2933Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
adf40b2e
JM
2934x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
2935PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
7a292a7a
SS
2936TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
2937
085dd6e6
JM
2938* OBSOLETE configurations
2939
2940Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
2941Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
9846de1b 2942Pyramid pyramid-*-*
ed9a39eb 2943ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
104c1213 2944Tahoe tahoe-*-*
7a292a7a 2945
9debab2f
AC
2946Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
2947but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
2948these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
2949be permanently REMOVED.
2950
5330533d
SS
2951* Gould support removed
2952
2953Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
2954
bc9e5bbf
AC
2955* New features for SVR4
2956
2957On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
2958without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
2959load symbols from the running process's executable file.
2960
2961* Many C++ enhancements
2962
2963C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
2964in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
2965
adf40b2e
JM
2966* Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
2967
2968A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
2969sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
2970with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
2971``|<program> <args>'' vis:
2972
2973 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
2974 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
2975
43e526b9
JM
2976* MIPS 64 remote protocol
2977
2978A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
2979expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
2980instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
2981
2982The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
2983added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
2984
96baa820
JM
2985* ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
2986
2987The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
2988``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
2989include ``set remote P-packet''.
2990
11cf8741
JM
2991* Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
2992
2993The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
2994accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
2995``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
2996
7876dd43
DB
2997* ``apropos'' command added.
2998
2999The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
3000documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
3001try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
3002
bc9e5bbf
AC
3003* New MI interface
3004
3005A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
3006interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
7162c0ca
EZ
3007process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
3008"GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
3009enabled by configuring with:
bc9e5bbf
AC
3010
3011 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
3012
c906108c
SS
3013*** Changes in GDB-4.18:
3014
3015* New native configurations
3016
3017HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
3018HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
55241689 3019M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
c906108c
SS
3020
3021* New targets
3022
3023Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
3024Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
3025Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
3026
3027* OBSOLETE configurations
3028
3029Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
3030
3031Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
3032but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
3033these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
3034be permanently REMOVED.
3035
3036* ANSI/ISO C
3037
3038As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
3039buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
3040containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
3041use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
3042available. If this is not true, please report the affected
3043configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
3044information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
3045already.
3046
3047* Readline 2.2
3048
3049GDB now uses readline 2.2.
3050
3051* set extension-language
3052
3053You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
3054languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
3055you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
3056 set extension-language .c c++
3057The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
3058and their associated languages.
3059
3060* Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
3061
3062When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
3063you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
3064PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
3065
3066 set processor NAME
3067
3068sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
3069following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
3070
3071 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
3072 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
3073 403 IBM PowerPC 403
3074 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
3075 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
3076 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
3077 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
3078 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
3079 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
3080 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
3081 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
3082
3083At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
3084special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
3085registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
3086only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
3087
3088* HP-UX support
3089
3090Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
3091more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
3092library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
3093support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
3094for xdb and dbx commands.
3095
3096* Catchpoints
3097
3098HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
3099generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
3100to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
3101
3102This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
3103argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
3104output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
3105
3106* Debugging across forks
3107
3108On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
3109in the inferior.
3110
3111* TUI
3112
3113HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
3114it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
3115configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
3116
3117* GDB remote protocol additions
3118
3119A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
3120Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
3121fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
3122allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
3123
3124For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
3125full 64-bit address. The command
3126
3127 set remoteaddresssize 32
3128
3129can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
3130the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
3131will be discarded.
3132
3133In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
3134command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
3135
3136 maint packet heythere
3137
3138sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
3139disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
3140time.
3141
3142The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
3143target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
3144downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
3145
3146* Tracing can collect general expressions
3147
3148You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
3149further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
3150doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
3151
3152* mask-address variable for Mips
3153
3154For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
3155a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
3156of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
3157
3158* Higher serial baud rates
3159
3160GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
3161230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
3162to achieve all of these rates.)
3163
3164* i960 simulator
3165
3166The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
3167builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
3168
3169
3170*** Changes in GDB-4.17:
3171
3172* New native configurations
3173
3174Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
3175Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
3176Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
3177PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
3178PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
3179Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
3180Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
3181
3182* New targets
3183
3184Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
3185Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
3186Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
3187Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
3188MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
3189MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
3190MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
3191Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
3192Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
3193Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
3194NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
3195
3196* New debugging protocols
3197
3198ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
3199M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
3200DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
3201PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
3202PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
3203Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
3204
3205* DWARF 2
3206
3207All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
3208format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
3209information.
3210
3211* Java frontend
3212
3213GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
3214only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
3215
3216* solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
3217
3218For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
3219loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
3220locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
3221
3222* Live range splitting
3223
3224GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
3225range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
3226more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
3227
3228* Hurd support
3229
3230GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
3231updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
3232
3233* ARM Thumb support
3234
3235GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
3236instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
3237instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
3238accordingly.
3239
3240* MIPS16 support
3241
3242GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
3243instruction set.
3244
3245* Overlay support
3246
3247GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
3248linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
3249will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
3250control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
3251additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
3252in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
3253
3254* info symbol
3255
3256The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
3257the symbol at the specified address.
3258
3259* Trace support
3260
3261The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
3262asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
3263extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
3264includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
3265file tracepoint.c for more details.
3266
3267* MIPS simulator
3268
3269Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
3270by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
3271of most MIPS variants.
3272
3273* Sparc simulator
3274
3275Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
3276by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
3277Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
3278
3279* set architecture
3280
3281For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
3282basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
3283architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
3284the possible architectures.
3285
3286*** Changes in GDB-4.16:
3287
3288* New native configurations
3289
3290Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
3291M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
3292PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
3293PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
3294PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
3295RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
3296
3297* New targets
3298
3299ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
3300I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
3301MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
3302MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
3303PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
3304Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
3305Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
3306
3307* PowerPC simulator
3308
3309The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
3310contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
3311PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
3312basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
3313performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
3314
3315* Solaris 2.5
3316
3317GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
3318
3319* Windows 95/NT native
3320
3321GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
3322To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
3323which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
3324Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
3325ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
3326
3327* dont-repeat command
3328
3329If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
3330command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
3331useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
3332extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
3333
3334* Send break instead of ^C
3335
3336The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
3337rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
3338GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
3339
3340* Remote protocol timeout
3341
3342The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
3343that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
3344to read from the target. The default value is 2.
3345
3346* Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
3347
3348By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
3349loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
3350stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
3351when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
3352in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
3353
3354Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
3355/usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
3356automatically on hpux10.
3357
3358* Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
3359
3360Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
3361
3362* Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
3363
3364When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
3365may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
3366the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
3367every character. The default value is 1050.
3368
3369* Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
3370
3371If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
3372a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
3373replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
3374details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
3375remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
3376to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
3377
3378* Speedups for remote debugging
3379
3380GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
3381the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
3382and more efficient S-record downloading.
3383
3384* Memory use reductions and statistics collection
3385
3386GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
3387Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
3388
3389*** Changes in GDB-4.15:
3390
3391* Psymtabs for XCOFF
3392
3393The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
3394can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
3395
3396* Remote targets use caching
3397
3398Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
3399remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
3400it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
3401debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
3402off' turns the the data cache off.
3403
3404* Remote targets may have threads
3405
3406The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
3407in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
3408gdb/remote.c for details.
3409
3410* NetROM support
3411
3412If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
3413support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
3414acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
3415write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
3416support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
3417another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
3418sequence is something like
3419
3420 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
3421 load <prog>
3422 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
3423
3424* Macintosh host
3425
3426GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
3427may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
3428it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
3429available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
3430device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
3431directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
3432scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
3433mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
3434
3435* Autoconf
3436
3437GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
3438but does simplify configuration and building.
3439
3440* hpux10
3441
3442GDB now supports hpux10.
3443
3444*** Changes in GDB-4.14:
3445
3446* New native configurations
3447
3448x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
3449x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
3450NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
3451Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
3452
3453* New targets
3454
3455A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
3456HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
3457CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
3458PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
3459WDC 65816 w65-*-*
3460
3461* Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
3462
3463GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
3464possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
3465filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
3466the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
3467if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
3468
3469* Arguments to user-defined commands
3470
3471User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
3472Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
3473trivial example:
3474define adder
3475 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
3476
3477To execute the command use:
3478adder 1 2 3
3479
3480Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
3481Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
3482use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
3483
3484* New `if' and `while' commands
3485
3486This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
3487commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
3488expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
3489execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
3490terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
3491`else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
3492if the expression is zero.
3493
3494* Fortran source language mode
3495
3496GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
3497Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
3498variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
3499with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
3500Fortran compilers.
3501
3502* Better HPUX support
3503
3504Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
3505running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
3506processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
3507for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
3508that behavior do the following before running the program:
3509
3510 adb -w a.out
3511 __dld_flags?W 0x5
3512 control-d
3513
3514This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
3515To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
3516
3517 adb -w a.out
3518 __dld_flags?W 0x4
3519 control-d
3520
3521You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
3522the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
3523external linkage.
3524
3525GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
3526HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
3527
3528* Target byte order now dynamically selectable
3529
3530You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
3531commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
3532current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
3533"set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
3534associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
3535configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
3536
3537* New DOS host serial code
3538
3539This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
3540no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
3541a PC's serial port.
3542
3543*** Changes in GDB-4.13:
3544
3545* New "complete" command
3546
3547This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
3548were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
3549
3550* Trailing space optional in prompt
3551
3552"set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
3553allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
3554
3555* Breakpoint hit counts
3556
3557"info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
3558has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
3559can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
3560to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
3561less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
3562that breakpoint.
3563
3564* Ability to stop printing at NULL character
3565
3566"set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
3567an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
3568arrays actually contain only short strings.
3569
3570* Shared library breakpoints
3571
3572In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
3573breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
3574
3575* Hardware watchpoints
3576
3577There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
3578targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
3579
55241689 3580Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
c906108c
SS
3581
3582* Annotations
3583
3584Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
3585and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
3586
3587* Improved Irix 5 support
3588
3589GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
3590
3591* Improved HPPA support
3592
3593GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
3594
3595* New native configurations
3596
3597Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
3598HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
3599Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
3600RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
3601
3602* New targets
3603
3604OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
3605MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
3606Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
3607
3608* Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
3609
3610There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
3611This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
3612
3613* Fixes
3614
3615As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
3616and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
3617
3618*** Changes in GDB-4.12:
3619
3620* Irix 5 is now supported
3621
3622* HPPA support
3623
3624GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
3625to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
3626GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
3627of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
3628can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
3629
3630
3631*** Changes in GDB-4.11:
3632
3633* User visible changes:
3634
3635* Remote Debugging
3636
3637The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
3638target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
3639debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
3640integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
3641debugging info for the mips target).
3642
3643* DEC Alpha native support
3644
3645GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
3646debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
3647work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
3648Alpha-specific notes.
3649
3650* Preliminary thread implementation
3651
3652GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
3653
3654* LynxOS native and target support for 386
3655
3656This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
3657to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
3658for details).
3659
3660* Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
3661
3662This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
3663mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
3664call methods, ...etc.
3665
3666*** Changes in GDB-4.10:
3667
3668 * User visible changes:
3669
3670Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
3671supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
3672other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
3673somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
3674
3675Filename completion now works.
3676
3677When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
3678arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
3679addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
3680
3681All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
3682vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
3683should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
3684your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
3685to be on the far side of a thin network line.
3686
3687 * DEC alpha support
3688
3689This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
3690cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
3691
3692
3693*** Changes in GDB-4.9:
3694
3695 * Testsuite
3696
3697This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
3698The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
3699via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
3700
3701 * C++ demangling
3702
3703'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
3704emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
3705Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
3706disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
3707use gdb with AT&T cfront.
3708
3709 * Simulators
3710
3711GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
3712So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
3713Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
3714
3715 * New targets supported
3716
3717H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
3718H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
3719SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
3720Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
3721IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
3722
3723Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
3724version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
3725GO32 memory extender.
3726
3727 * New remote protocols
3728
3729MIPS remote debugging protocol.
3730
3731 * New source languages supported
3732
3733This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
3734used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
3735into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
3736
3737
3738*** Changes in GDB-4.8:
3739
3740 * HP Precision Architecture supported
3741
3742GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
3743version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
3744University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
3745compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
3746format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
3747(as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
3748
3749Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
3750
3751 * Faster and better demangling
3752
3753We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
3754demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
3755character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
3756only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
3757This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
3758increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
3759symbol lookups.
3760
3761`Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
3762from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
3763compiler does not actually implement.
3764
3765 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
3766
3767In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
3768inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
3769recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
3770very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
3771The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
3772circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
3773fix.
3774
3775The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
3776release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
3777
3778 * Improved configure script
3779
3780The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
3781you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
3782host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
3783done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
3784
3785We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
3786version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
3787`--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
3788The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
3789only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
3790We hope to make this the default in a future release.
3791
3792 * Documentation improvements
3793
3794There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
3795produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
3796before submitting changes.
3797
3798The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
3799M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
3800`info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
3801you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
3802a future texinfo-X.Y release.
3803
3804*NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
3805We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
3806been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
3807or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
3808`texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
3809around this problem.
3810
3811 * New features
3812
3813GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
3814the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
3815`print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
3816the target program.
3817
3818The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
3819how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
3820
3821 * New native hosts supported
3822
3823HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
3824386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
3825
3826 * New targets supported
3827
3828AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
3829
3830 * New file formats supported
3831
3832BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
3833HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
3834
3835 * Major bug fixes
3836
3837Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
3838
3839We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
3840printf_filtered("%s") problems.
3841
3842We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
3843for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
3844release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
3845
3846You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
3847will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
3848
3849We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
3850for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
3851especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
3852libraries.
3853
3854The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
3855information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
3856command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
3857any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
3858when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
3859
3860 * Internal improvements
3861
3862GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
3863debugging of multiple languages in the future.
3864
3865GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
3866Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
3867symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
3868contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
3869shared code that handles any of them.
3870
3871 * New command line options
3872
3873We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
3874
3875 * Mmalloc licensing
3876
3877The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
3878General Public License.
3879
3880*** Changes in GDB-4.7:
3881
3882 * Host/native/target split
3883
3884GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
3885hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
3886target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
3887local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
3888ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
3889
3890The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
3891GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
3892is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
3893code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
3894any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
3895built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
3896handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
3897
3898GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
3899It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
3900plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
3901
3902 * New hosts supported
3903
3904HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
3905386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
3906386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
3907
3908 * New targets supported
3909
3910Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
391168030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
3912
3913 * New native hosts supported
3914
3915386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
3916 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
3917386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
3918
3919 * New file formats supported
3920
3921BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
3922supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
3923format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
3924
3925 * New commands
3926
3927`show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
3928`show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
3929These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
3930
3931`info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
3932
3933You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
3934scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
3935prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
3936executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
3937
3938 * C++ improvements
3939
3940We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
3941info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
3942symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
3943
3944Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
3945
3946 * Major bug fixes
3947
3948The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
3949fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
3950by the compiler.
3951
3952We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
3953support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
3954
3955John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
3956slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
3957that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
3958purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
3959the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
3960mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
3961
3962Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
3963about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
3964completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
3965we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
3966
3967 * AMD 29k support
3968
3969A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
3970specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
3971calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
3972usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
3973in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
3974
3975We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
3976Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
3977of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
3978resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
3979
3980 * Remote interfaces
3981
3982We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
3983with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
3984message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
3985This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
3986needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
3987breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
3988each instruction being stepped through.
3989
3990The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
3991registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
3992
3993There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
3994find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
3995Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
3996processor with a serial port.
3997
3998 * Configuration
3999
4000Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
4001`table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
4002supported, and what files each one uses.
4003
4004 * Library changes
4005
4006There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
4007disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
4008Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
4009disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
4010
4011The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
4012Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
4013can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
4014grants all the rights from the General Public License.
4015
4016 * Documentation
4017
4018The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
4019reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
4020as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
4021encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
4022system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
4023bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
4024
4025And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
4026
4027
4028*** Changes in GDB-4.6:
4029
4030 * Better support for C++ function names
4031
4032GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
4033names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
4034(using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
4035single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
4036Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
4037
4038GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
4039the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
4040You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
4041lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
4042for the list of formats.
4043
4044 * G++ symbol mangling problem
4045
4046Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
4047C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
4048directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
4049can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
4050usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
4051about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
4052this problem.)
4053
4054 * New 'maintenance' command
4055
4056All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
4057the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
4058can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
4059
4060 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
4061 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
4062 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
4063 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
4064 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
4065 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
4066
4067The following commands are new:
4068
4069 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
4070 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
4071 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
4072
4073 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
4074
4075We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
4076(e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
4077be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
4078read after argv processing.
4079
4080 * New hosts supported
4081
4082Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
4083
55241689 4084GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
c906108c
SS
4085
4086We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
4087is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
4088for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
4089masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
4090fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
4091It costs extra.
4092
4093 * New targets supported
4094
4095Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
4096
4097 * More smarts about finding #include files
4098
4099GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
4100all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
4101greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
4102especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
4103the one that contains your sources.
4104
4105We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
4106breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
4107try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
4108
4109 * Interesting infernals change
4110
4111GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
4112section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
4113target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
4114stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
4115
4116 * Bug fixes (of course!)
4117
4118There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
4119 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
4120 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
4121
4122See the ChangeLog for details.
4123
4124*** Changes in GDB-4.5:
4125
4126 * New machines supported (host and target)
4127
4128IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
4129
4130SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
4131
4132 * New malloc package
4133
4134GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
4135Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
4136capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
4137This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
4138pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
4139more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
4140
4141 * info proc
4142
4143The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
4144'help info proc' for details.
4145
4146 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
4147
4148The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
4149Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
4150possible.
4151
4152 * File name changes for MS-DOS
4153
4154Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
4155support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
4156conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
4157environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
4158that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
4159in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
4160
4161 * Cross byte order fixes
4162
4163Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
4164targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
4165
4166 * New -mapped and -readnow options
4167
4168If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
4169system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
4170`symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
4171program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
4172called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
4173Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
4174and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
4175the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
4176option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
4177starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
4178
4179You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
4180the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
4181information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
4182slower, but makes future operations faster.
4183
4184The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
4185build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
4186A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
4187use is:
4188
4189 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
4190
4191The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
4192It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
4193shared across multiple host platforms.
4194
4195 * longjmp() handling
4196
4197GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
4198siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
4199all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
4200platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
4201
4202 * Solaris 2.0
4203
4204Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
4205this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
4206reading symbols.
4207
4208 * Bug fixes
4209
4210As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
4211People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
4212crashes and trashed symbol tables.
4213
4214*** Changes in GDB-4.4:
4215
4216 * New machines supported (host and target)
4217
4218SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
4219 (except core files)
4220BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
4221Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
4222
4223 * New machines supported (target)
4224
4225AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
4226
4227 * C++ support
4228
4229GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
4230The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
4231per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
4232
4233GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
4234`ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
4235extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
4236good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
4237will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
4238released.
4239
4240 * New features for SVR4
4241
4242GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
4243shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
4244only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
4245
4246The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
4247on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
4248it prints the address mappings of the process.
4249
4250If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
4251bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
4252
4253 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
4254
4255Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
4256now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
4257skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
4258make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
4259same code linked statically.
4260
4261 * New Getopt
4262
4263GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
4264version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
4265continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
4266Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
4267added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
4268future by other options that begin with the same letter.
4269
4270 * Bugs fixed
4271
4272The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
4273Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
4274See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
4275
4276
4277*** Changes in GDB-4.3:
4278
4279 * New machines supported (host and target)
4280
4281Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
4282NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
4283Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
4284
4285 * Almost SCO Unix support
4286
4287We had hoped to support:
4288SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
4289(except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
4290that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
4291about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
4292
4293 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
4294
4295GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
4296debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
4297is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
4298send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
4299reqired (if any).
4300
4301 * New Readline
4302
4303GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
4304is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
4305required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
4306
4307 * Bugs fixed
4308
4309The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
4310Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
4311See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
4312
4313 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
4314
4315GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
4316supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
4317symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
4318
4319Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
4320mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
4321debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
4322mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
4323version 2.
4324
4325Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
4326really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
4327line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
4328variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
4329situation somewhat.
4330
4331When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
4332However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
4333methods.
4334
4335We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
4336DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
4337encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
4338
4339
4340*** Changes in GDB-4.2:
4341
4342 * Improved configuration
4343
4344Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
4345Porting BFD is simpler.
4346
4347 * Stepping improved
4348
4349The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
4350of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
4351in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
4352function that has debugging information is called within the line.
4353
4354 * Bug fixing
4355
4356Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
4357
4358 * New host supported (not target)
4359
4360Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
4361
4362
4363*** Changes in GDB-4.1:
4364
4365 * Multiple source language support
4366
4367GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
4368It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
4369and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
4370language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
4371You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
4372`set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
4373
4374 * GDB and Modula-2
4375
4376GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
4377currently under development at the State University of New York at
4378Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
4379continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
4380
4381Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
4382debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
4383symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
4384
4385There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
4386in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
4387
4388 * set write on/off
4389
4390GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
4391a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
4392the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
4393by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
4394effect immediately.
4395
4396 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
4397
4398When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
4399shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
4400The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
4401examining core files.
4402
4403 * set listsize
4404
4405You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
4406The default is 10.
4407
4408 * New machines supported (host and target)
4409
4410SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
4411Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
4412Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
4413
4414 * New hosts supported (not targets)
4415
4416IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
4417
4418 * New targets supported (not hosts)
4419
4420AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
4421AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
4422Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
4423
4424 * New remote interfaces
4425
4426AMD 29000 Adapt
4427AMD 29000 Minimon
4428
4429
4430*** Changes in GDB-4.0:
4431
4432 * New Facilities
4433
4434Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
4435
4436Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
4437target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
4438is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
4439remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
4440remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
4441also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
4442using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
4443stub on the target system.
4444
4445New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
4446
4447GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
4448library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
4449object file types such as a.out and coff.
4450
4451There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
4452refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
4453
4454
4455 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
4456
4457All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
4458by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
4459
4460For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
4461``Show prompt'' produces the response:
4462Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
4463
4464What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
4465print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
4466will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
4467all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
4468
4469confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
4470 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
4471 it is already running. Default is ON.
4472
4473editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
4474 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
4475 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
4476 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
4477 Default is ON.
4478
4479history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
4480 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
4481 or the value of the environment variable
4482 GDBHISTFILE.
4483
4484history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
4485 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
4486 HISTSIZE.
4487
4488history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
4489 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
4490 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
4491
4492history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
4493 history expansion will be performed on
4494 command line input. The default is OFF.
4495
4496radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
4497 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
4498 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
4499
4500height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
4501 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
4502 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
4503 variable TERM.
4504
4505width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
4506 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
4507 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
4508 variable TERM.
4509
4510Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
4511``set width'' instead.
4512
4513print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
4514 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
4515 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
4516 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
4517
4518print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
4519 is OFF.
4520
4521print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
4522 "raw" form if off.
4523
4524print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
4525 like instructions.
4526
4527print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
4528
4529
4530 * Support for Epoch Environment.
4531
4532The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
4533new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
4534are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
4535window.
4536
4537
4538 * Support for Shared Libraries
4539
4540GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
4541Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
4542before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
4543happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
4544At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
4545from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
4546shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
4547It can be abbreviated ``share''.
4548
4549sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
4550 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
4551 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
4552
4553info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
4554
4555
4556 * Watchpoints
4557
4558A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
4559expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
4560tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
4561quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
4562problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
4563more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
4564
4565watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
4566
4567info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
4568
4569delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
4570disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
4571enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
4572
4573
4574 * C++ multiple inheritance
4575
4576When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
4577for C++ programs.
4578
4579 * C++ exception handling
4580
4581Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
4582ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
4583the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
4584handler's context).
4585
4586catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
4587 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
4588 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
4589
4590info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
4591 current stack frame.
4592
4593
4594 * Minor command changes
4595
4596The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
4597command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
4598is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
4599
4600The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
4601at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
4602frames without printing.
4603
4604 * New directory command
4605
4606'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
4607The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
4608about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
4609with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
4610find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
4611
4612 * Configuring GDB for compilation
4613
4614For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
4615for more details.
4616
4617GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
4618two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
4619Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
4620where the program that you are debugging will run.
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