2009-10-19 Pedro Alves <pedro@codesourcery.com>
[deliverable/binutils-gdb.git] / gdb / NEWS
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1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
3
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4*** Changes since GDB 7.0
5
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6* New targets
7
8Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze-*-*
9
10* New Simulators
11
12Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze
13
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14* Multi-program debugging.
15
16 GDB now has support for multi-program (a.k.a. multi-executable or
17 multi-exec) debugging. This allows for debugging multiple inferiors
18 simultaneously each running a different program under the same GDB
19 session. See "Debugging Multiple Inferiors and Programs" in the
20 manual for more information. This implied some user visible changes
21 in the multi-inferior support. For example, "info inferiors" now
22 lists inferiors that are not running yet or that have exited
23 already. See also "New commands" and "New options" below.
24
25* New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
26
27add-inferior [-copies <N>] [-exec <FILENAME>]
28 Add a new inferior.
29
30clone-inferior [-copies <N>] [ID]
31 Make a new inferior ready to execute the same program another
32 inferior has loaded.
33
34remove-inferior ID
35 Remove an inferior.
36
37maint info program-spaces
38 List the program spaces loaded into GDB.
39
40* New options
41
42set follow-exec-mode new|same
43show follow-exec-mode
44 Control whether GDB reuses the same inferior across an exec call or
45 creates a new one. This is useful to be able to restart the old
46 executable after the inferior having done an exec call.
47
abc7453d 48*** Changes in GDB 7.0
75feb17d 49
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50* GDB now has an interface for JIT compilation. Applications that
51dynamically generate code can create symbol files in memory and register
52them with GDB. For users, the feature should work transparently, and
53for JIT developers, the interface is documented in the GDB manual in the
54"JIT Compilation Interface" chapter.
55
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56* Tracepoints may now be conditional. The syntax is as for
57breakpoints; either an "if" clause appended to the "trace" command,
58or the "condition" command is available. GDB sends the condition to
59the target for evaluation using the same bytecode format as is used
60for tracepoint actions.
61
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62* "disassemble" command with a /r modifier, print the raw instructions
63in hex as well as in symbolic form."
64
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65* Process record and replay
66
67 In a architecture environment that supports ``process record and
68 replay'', ``process record and replay'' target can record a log of
69 the process execution, and replay it with both forward and reverse
70 execute commands.
71
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72* Reverse debugging: GDB now has new commands reverse-continue, reverse-
73step, reverse-next, reverse-finish, reverse-stepi, reverse-nexti, and
74set execution-direction {forward|reverse}, for targets that support
75reverse execution.
76
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77* GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on MIPS/Linux systems. This
78feature is available with a native GDB running on kernel version
792.6.28 or later.
80
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81* GDB now has support for multi-byte and wide character sets on the
82target. Strings whose character type is wchar_t, char16_t, or
83char32_t are now correctly printed. GDB supports wide- and unicode-
84literals in C, that is, L'x', L"string", u'x', u"string", U'x', and
85U"string" syntax. And, GDB allows the "%ls" and "%lc" formats in
86`printf'. This feature requires iconv to work properly; if your
87system does not have a working iconv, GDB can use GNU libiconv. See
88the installation instructions for more information.
89
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90* GDB now supports automatic retrieval of shared library files from
91remote targets. To use this feature, specify a system root that begins
92with the `remote:' prefix, either via the `set sysroot' command or via
93the `--with-sysroot' configure-time option.
94
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95* "info sharedlibrary" now takes an optional regex of libraries to show,
96and it now reports if a shared library has no debugging information.
97
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98* Commands `set debug-file-directory', `set solib-search-path' and `set args'
99now complete on file names.
100
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101* When completing in expressions, gdb will attempt to limit
102completions to allowable structure or union fields, where appropriate.
103For instance, consider:
104
105 # struct example { int f1; double f2; };
106 # struct example variable;
107 (gdb) p variable.
108
109If the user types TAB at the end of this command line, the available
110completions will be "f1" and "f2".
111
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112* Inlined functions are now supported. They show up in backtraces, and
113the "step", "next", and "finish" commands handle them automatically.
114
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115* GDB now supports the token-splicing (##) and stringification (#)
116operators when expanding macros. It also supports variable-arity
117macros.
118
47a3467a 119* GDB now supports inspecting extra signal information, exported by
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120the new $_siginfo convenience variable. The feature is currently
121implemented on linux ARM, i386 and amd64.
122
123* GDB can now display the VFP floating point registers and NEON vector
124registers on ARM targets. Both ARM GNU/Linux native GDB and gdbserver
125can provide these registers (requires Linux 2.6.30 or later). Remote
126and simulator targets may also provide them.
47a3467a 127
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128* New remote packets
129
130qSearch:memory:
131 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
132
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133QStartNoAckMode
134 Turn off `+'/`-' protocol acknowledgments to permit more efficient
135 operation over reliable transport links. Use of this packet is
136 controlled by the `set remote noack-packet' command.
137
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138vKill
139 Kill the process with the specified process ID. Use this in preference
140 to `k' when multiprocess protocol extensions are supported.
141
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142qXfer:osdata:read
143 Obtains additional operating system information
144
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145qXfer:siginfo:read
146qXfer:siginfo:write
147 Read or write additional signal information.
148
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149* Removed remote protocol undocumented extension
150
151 An undocumented extension to the remote protocol's `S' stop reply
152 packet that permited the stub to pass a process id was removed.
153 Remote servers should use the `T' stop reply packet instead.
154
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155* The "disassemble" command now supports an optional /m modifier to print mixed
156source+assembly.
157
c055b101 158* GDB now supports multiple function calling conventions according to the
a0ef4274 159DWARF-2 DW_AT_calling_convention function attribute.
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160
161* The SH target utilizes the aforementioned change to distinguish between gcc
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162and Renesas calling convention. It also adds the new CLI commands
163`set/show sh calling-convention'.
c055b101 164
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165* GDB can now read compressed debug sections, as produced by GNU gold
166with the --compress-debug-sections=zlib flag.
167
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168* 64-bit core files are now supported on AIX.
169
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170* Thread switching is now supported on Tru64.
171
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172* Watchpoints can now be set on unreadable memory locations, e.g. addresses
173which will be allocated using malloc later in program execution.
174
1fddbabb 175* The qXfer:libraries:read remote procotol packet now allows passing a
31fffb02 176list of section offsets.
1fddbabb 177
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178* On GNU/Linux, GDB can now attach to stopped processes. Several race
179conditions handling signals delivered during attach or thread creation
180have also been fixed.
181
bfb8797a 182* GDB now supports the use of DWARF boolean types for Ada's type Boolean.
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183From the user's standpoint, all unqualified instances of True and False
184are treated as the standard definitions, regardless of context.
bfb8797a 185
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186* GDB now parses C++ symbol and type names more flexibly. For
187example, given:
188
189 template<typename T> class C { };
190 C<char const *> c;
191
192GDB will now correctly handle all of:
193
194 ptype C<char const *>
195 ptype C<char const*>
196 ptype C<const char *>
197 ptype C<const char*>
198
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199* New features in the GDB remote stub, gdbserver
200
201 - The "--wrapper" command-line argument tells gdbserver to use a
202 wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
203
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204 - On PowerPC and S/390 targets, it is now possible to use a single
205 gdbserver executable to debug both 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
206 (This requires gdbserver itself to be built as a 64-bit executable.)
207
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208 - gdbserver uses the new noack protocol mode for TCP connections to
209 reduce communications latency, if also supported and enabled in GDB.
210
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211 - Support for the sparc64-linux-gnu target is now included in
212 gdbserver.
213
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214 - The amd64-linux build of gdbserver now supports debugging both
215 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
216
217 - The i386-linux, amd64-linux, and i386-win32 builds of gdbserver
218 now support hardware watchpoints, and will use them automatically
219 as appropriate.
220
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221* Python scripting
222
223 GDB now has support for scripting using Python. Whether this is
224 available is determined at configure time.
225
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226 New GDB commands can now be written in Python.
227
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228* Ada tasking support
229
230 Ada tasks can now be inspected in GDB. The following commands have
231 been introduced:
232
233 info tasks
234 Print the list of Ada tasks.
235 info task N
236 Print detailed information about task number N.
237 task
238 Print the task number of the current task.
239 task N
240 Switch the context of debugging to task number N.
241
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242* Support for user-defined prefixed commands. The "define" command can
243add new commands to existing prefixes, e.g. "target".
244
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245* Multi-inferior, multi-process debugging.
246
247 GDB now has generalized support for multi-inferior debugging. See
248 "Debugging Multiple Inferiors" in the manual for more information.
249 Although availability still depends on target support, the command
250 set is more uniform now. The GNU/Linux specific multi-forks support
251 has been migrated to this new framework. This implied some user
252 visible changes; see "New commands" and also "Removed commands"
253 below.
254
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255* Target descriptions can now describe the target OS ABI. See the
256"Target Description Format" section in the user manual for more
257information.
258
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259* Target descriptions can now describe "compatible" architectures
260to indicate that the target can execute applications for a different
261architecture in addition to those for the main target architecture.
262See the "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for
263more information.
264
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265* Multi-architecture debugging.
266
267 GDB now includes general supports for debugging applications on
268 hybrid systems that use more than one single processor architecture
269 at the same time. Each such hybrid architecture still requires
270 specific support to be added. The only hybrid architecture supported
271 in this version of GDB is the Cell Broadband Engine.
272
273* GDB now supports integrated debugging of Cell/B.E. applications that
274use both the PPU and SPU architectures. To enable support for hybrid
275Cell/B.E. debugging, you need to configure GDB to support both the
276powerpc-linux or powerpc64-linux and the spu-elf targets, using the
277--enable-targets configure option.
278
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279* Non-stop mode debugging.
280
281 For some targets, GDB now supports an optional mode of operation in
282 which you can examine stopped threads while other threads continue
283 to execute freely. This is referred to as non-stop mode, with the
284 old mode referred to as all-stop mode. See the "Non-Stop Mode"
285 section in the user manual for more information.
286
287 To be able to support remote non-stop debugging, a remote stub needs
288 to implement the non-stop mode remote protocol extensions, as
289 described in the "Remote Non-Stop" section of the user manual. The
290 GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been adjusted to support these
291 extensions on linux targets.
292
d7713ae0 293* New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
75feb17d 294
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295catch syscall [NAME(S) | NUMBER(S)]
296 Catch system calls. Arguments, which should be names of system
297 calls or their numbers, mean catch only those syscalls. Without
298 arguments, every syscall will be caught. When the inferior issues
299 any of the specified syscalls, GDB will stop and announce the system
300 call, both when it is called and when its call returns. This
301 feature is currently available with a native GDB running on the
302 Linux Kernel, under the following architectures: x86, x86_64,
303 PowerPC and PowerPC64.
304
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305find [/size-char] [/max-count] start-address, end-address|+search-space-size,
306 val1 [, val2, ...]
307 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
308
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309maint set python print-stack
310maint show python print-stack
311 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Python script.
312
313python [CODE]
314 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Python interpreter.
315
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316macro define
317macro list
318macro undef
319 These allow macros to be defined, undefined, and listed
320 interactively.
321
322info os processes
323 Show operating system information about processes.
324
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325info inferiors
326 List the inferiors currently under GDB's control.
327
328inferior NUM
329 Switch focus to inferior number NUM.
330
331detach inferior NUM
332 Detach from inferior number NUM.
333
334kill inferior NUM
335 Kill inferior number NUM.
336
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337* New options
338
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339set spu stop-on-load
340show spu stop-on-load
341 Control whether to stop for new SPE threads during Cell/B.E. debugging.
342
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343set spu auto-flush-cache
344show spu auto-flush-cache
345 Control whether to automatically flush the software-managed cache
346 during Cell/B.E. debugging.
347
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348set sh calling-convention
349show sh calling-convention
350 Control the calling convention used when calling SH target functions.
351
e0a3ce09 352set debug timestamp
75feb17d 353show debug timestamp
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354 Control display of timestamps with GDB debugging output.
355
356set disassemble-next-line
357show disassemble-next-line
358 Control display of disassembled source lines or instructions when
359 the debuggee stops.
360
361set remote noack-packet
362show remote noack-packet
363 Set/show the use of remote protocol QStartNoAckMode packet. See above
364 under "New remote packets."
365
366set remote query-attached-packet
367show remote query-attached-packet
368 Control use of remote protocol `qAttached' (query-attached) packet.
369
370set remote read-siginfo-object
371show remote read-siginfo-object
372 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:read' (read-siginfo-object)
373 packet.
374
375set remote write-siginfo-object
376show remote write-siginfo-object
377 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:write' (write-siginfo-object)
378 packet.
379
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380set remote reverse-continue
381show remote reverse-continue
382 Control use of remote protocol 'bc' (reverse-continue) packet.
383
384set remote reverse-step
385show remote reverse-step
386 Control use of remote protocol 'bs' (reverse-step) packet.
387
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388set displaced-stepping
389show displaced-stepping
390 Control displaced stepping mode. Displaced stepping is a way to
391 single-step over breakpoints without removing them from the debuggee.
392 Also known as "out-of-line single-stepping".
393
394set debug displaced
395show debug displaced
396 Control display of debugging info for displaced stepping.
397
398maint set internal-error
399maint show internal-error
400 Control what GDB does when an internal error is detected.
401
402maint set internal-warning
403maint show internal-warning
404 Control what GDB does when an internal warning is detected.
75feb17d 405
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406set exec-wrapper
407show exec-wrapper
408unset exec-wrapper
409 Use a wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
fa4727a6 410
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411set multiple-symbols (all|ask|cancel)
412show multiple-symbols
413 The value of this variable can be changed to adjust the debugger behavior
414 when an expression or a breakpoint location contains an ambiguous symbol
415 name (an overloaded function name, for instance).
416
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417set breakpoint always-inserted
418show breakpoint always-inserted
419 Keep breakpoints always inserted in the target, as opposed to inserting
420 them when resuming the target, and removing them when the target stops.
421 This option can improve debugger performance on slow remote targets.
422
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423set arm fallback-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
424show arm fallback-mode
425set arm force-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
426show arm force-mode
427 These commands control how ARM GDB determines whether instructions
428 are ARM or Thumb. The default for both settings is auto, which uses
429 the current CPSR value for instructions without symbols; previous
430 versions of GDB behaved as if "set arm fallback-mode arm".
431
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432set disable-randomization
433show disable-randomization
434 Standalone programs run with the virtual address space randomization enabled
435 by default on some platforms. This option keeps the addresses stable across
436 multiple debugging sessions.
437
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438set non-stop
439show non-stop
440 Control whether other threads are stopped or not when some thread hits
441 a breakpoint.
442
b3eb342c 443set target-async
d7713ae0 444show target-async
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445 Requests that asynchronous execution is enabled in the target, if available.
446 In this case, it's possible to resume target in the background, and interact
447 with GDB while the target is running. "show target-async" displays the
448 current state of asynchronous execution of the target.
449
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450set target-wide-charset
451show target-wide-charset
452 The target-wide-charset is the name of the character set that GDB
453 uses when printing characters whose type is wchar_t.
454
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455set tcp auto-retry (on|off)
456show tcp auto-retry
457set tcp connect-timeout
458show tcp connect-timeout
459 These commands allow GDB to retry failed TCP connections to a remote stub
460 with a specified timeout period; this is useful if the stub is launched
461 in parallel with GDB but may not be ready to accept connections immediately.
462
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463set libthread-db-search-path
464show libthread-db-search-path
465 Control list of directories which GDB will search for appropriate
466 libthread_db.
467
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468set schedule-multiple (on|off)
469show schedule-multiple
470 Allow GDB to resume all threads of all processes or only threads of
471 the current process.
472
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473set stack-cache
474show stack-cache
475 Use more aggressive caching for accesses to the stack. This improves
476 performance of remote debugging (particularly backtraces) without
477 affecting correctness.
478
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479set interactive-mode (on|off|auto)
480show interactive-mode
481 Control whether GDB runs in interactive mode (on) or not (off).
482 When in interactive mode, GDB waits for the user to answer all
483 queries. Otherwise, GDB does not wait and assumes the default
484 answer. When set to auto (the default), GDB determines which
485 mode to use based on the stdin settings.
486
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487* Removed commands
488
489info forks
490 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `info
491 inferiors' command. To list checkpoints, you can still use the
492 `info checkpoints' command, which was an alias for the `info forks'
493 command.
494
495fork NUM
496 Replaced by the new `inferior' command. To switch between
497 checkpoints, you can still use the `restart' command, which was an
498 alias for the `fork' command.
499
500process PID
501 This is removed, since some targets don't have a notion of
502 processes. To switch between processes, you can still use the
503 `inferior' command using GDB's own inferior number.
504
505delete fork NUM
506 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `kill
507 inferior' command. To delete a checkpoint, you can still use the
508 `delete checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `delete
509 fork' command.
510
511detach fork NUM
512 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `detach
513 inferior' command. To detach a checkpoint, you can still use the
514 `detach checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `detach
515 fork' command.
516
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517* New native configurations
518
519x86/x86_64 Darwin i[34567]86-*-darwin*
520
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521x86_64 MinGW x86_64-*-mingw*
522
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523* New targets
524
c28c63d8 525Lattice Mico32 lm32-*
75a2d5e7 526x86 DICOS i[34567]86-*-dicos*
4c1d2973 527x86_64 DICOS x86_64-*-dicos*
5f814c3b 528S+core 3 score-*-*
75a2d5e7 529
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530* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports x86 Windows CE
531 (mingw32ce) debugging.
532
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533* Removed commands
534
535catch load
536catch unload
537 These commands were actually not implemented on any target.
538
75feb17d 539*** Changes in GDB 6.8
f9ed52be 540
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541* New native configurations
542
543NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*netbsd*
94a0e877 544Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
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545
546* New targets
547
548NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*-netbsd*
94a0e877 549Xtensa GNU/Lunux xtensa*-*-linux*
af5ca30d 550
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551* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
552
553 When the '-p NUMBER' or '--pid NUMBER' options are used, and
554 attaching to process NUMBER fails, GDB no longer attempts to open a
555 core file named NUMBER. Attaching to a program using the -c option
556 is no longer supported. Instead, use the '-p' or '--pid' options.
557
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558* GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
559(mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
560
fe6fbf8b 561* Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
8d5f9c6f 562is resolved.
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563
564* GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
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565including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
566and in inlined functions.
fe6fbf8b 567
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568* GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
569accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
570more than one contiguous range of addresses.
571
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572* Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
573
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574* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
575registers on PowerPC targets.
576
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577* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
578targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
579
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580* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
581commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
582
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583* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports run and attach in
584extended-remote mode.
585
24a836bd 586* hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
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587The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
588error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
589The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
24a836bd 590
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591* GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
592building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
593target architectures.
594
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595* GDB now supports debugging C and C++ programs which use the
596Decimal Floating Point extension. In addition, the PowerPC target
597now has a set of pseudo-registers to inspect decimal float values
598stored in two consecutive float registers.
599
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600* The -break-insert MI command can optionally create pending
601breakpoints now.
602
b93b6ca7 603* Improved support for debugging Ada
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604Many improvements to the Ada language support have been made. These
605include:
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606 - Better support for Ada2005 interface types
607 - Improved handling of arrays and slices in general
608 - Better support for Taft-amendment types
609 - The '{type} ADDRESS' expression is now allowed on the left hand-side
610 of an assignment
611 - Improved command completion in Ada
612 - Several bug fixes
613
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614* GDB on GNU/Linux and HP/UX can now debug through "exec" of a new
615process.
616
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617* New commands
618
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619set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
620show print frame-arguments
621 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
622 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
623
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624remote put
625remote get
626remote delete
627 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
628
629* New MI commands
630
631-target-file-put
632-target-file-get
633-target-file-delete
634 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
635
636* New remote packets
637
638vFile:open:
639vFile:close:
640vFile:pread:
641vFile:pwrite:
642vFile:unlink:
643 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
d0c678e6 644
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DJ
645vAttach
646 Attach to an existing process on the remote system, in extended-remote
647 mode.
648
649vRun
650 Run a new process on the remote system, in extended-remote mode.
651
8d5f9c6f 652*** Changes in GDB 6.7
6dd09645 653
19d378fc
MS
654* Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
655bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
656Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
657
3a40aaa0
UW
658* When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
659symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
660-Bsymbolic linker option.
661
a6ec25f2
BW
662* When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
663recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
664is not supported.
665
6dd09645
JB
666* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
667frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
668
c9bb8148
DJ
669* GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
67032-bit or 64-bit register values.
671
0d5de010
DJ
672* Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
673
23181151
DJ
674* GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
675target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
676a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
677
ea37ba09
DJ
678* Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
679automatically displayed as character or string data.
680
681* The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
682arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
683as strings.
e1f48ead 684
123dc839
DJ
685* Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
686for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
8d5f9c6f 687only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
123dc839 688
05a4558a
DJ
689* GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
690iWMMXt coprocessor.
fb1e4ffc 691
7c963485
PA
692* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
693ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
694has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
695
b18be20d
DJ
696* GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
697
0ca420ce
UW
698* GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
699
31d99776
DJ
700* The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
701layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
702segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
703
a4642986
MR
704* The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
705immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
706
cfa9d6d9
DJ
707* The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
708"library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
709packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
710where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
711Windows and SymbianOS).
255e7678
DJ
712
713* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
714(DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
f5db8714
JK
715
716* GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
717according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
cfa9d6d9 718
c9bb8148
DJ
719* New commands
720
23776285
MR
721set remoteflow
722show remoteflow
723 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
724 when debugging using remote targets.
725
c9bb8148
DJ
726set mem inaccessible-by-default
727show mem inaccessible-by-default
728 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
729 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
730 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
731 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
732 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
733
734set breakpoint auto-hw
735show breakpoint auto-hw
736 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
737 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
738 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
739 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
740 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
741 including "next" and "finish".
742
0e420bd8
JB
743catch exception
744catch exception unhandled
745 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
746
747catch assert
748 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
749
f822c95b
DJ
750set sysroot
751show sysroot
752 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
753 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
754 an alias to "set sysroot".
755
83cc5c53
UW
756info spu
757 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
758 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
759 architecture.
760
bd372731
MK
761* New native configurations
762
763OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
764
23181151
DJ
765set tdesc filename
766unset tdesc filename
767show tdesc filename
768 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
769 not query the target for its built-in description.
770
c9bb8148
DJ
771* New targets
772
54fe9172 773OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
c9bb8148 774MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
c077150c 775Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
c9bb8148 776
6dd09645
JB
777* New remote packets
778
779QPassSignals:
780 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
781 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
782
23181151
DJ
783qXfer:features:read:
784 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
785 features.
6dd09645 786
83cc5c53
UW
787qXfer:spu:read:
788qXfer:spu:write:
789 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
790 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
791
cfa9d6d9
DJ
792qXfer:libraries:read:
793 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
794 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
795 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
796 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
797
483367ee
DJ
798* Removed targets
799
800Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
801
d08950c4
UW
802alpha*-*-osf1*
803alpha*-*-osf2*
7ce59000 804d10v-*-*
483367ee
DJ
805hppa*-*-hiux*
806i[34567]86-ncr-*
807i[34567]86-*-dgux*
808i[34567]86-*-lynxos*
809i[34567]86-*-netware*
810i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
811i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
812i[34567]86-*-sco*
813i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
814i[34567]86-*-sysv4*
815i[34567]86-*-sysv5*
816i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
817i[34567]86-*-unixware*
818i[34567]86-*-sysv*
819i[34567]86-*-isc*
820m68*-cisco*-*
821m68*-tandem-*
ad527d2e 822mips*-*-pe
483367ee 823rs6000-*-lynxos*
ad527d2e 824sh*-*-pe
483367ee 825
7ce59000
DJ
826* Other removed features
827
828target abug
829target cpu32bug
830target est
831target rom68k
832
833 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
834
ea35711c
DJ
835target hms
836target e7000
837target sh3
838target sh3e
839
840 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
841 H8/300.
842
843target ocd
844
845 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
846 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
847 interfaces.
848
7ce59000
DJ
849DWARF 1 support
850
851 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
852 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
853
54d61198
DJ
854Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
855
856 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
857 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
858 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
859 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
860
ea35711c
DJ
861MIPS ".pdr" sections
862
863 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
864 in debugging information.
865
866Scheme support
867
868 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
869 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
870
1a69e1e4
DJ
871set mips stack-arg-size
872set mips saved-gpreg-size
873
874 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
875
6dd09645 876*** Changes in GDB 6.6
e374b601 877
ca3bf3bd
DJ
878* New targets
879
880Xtensa xtensa-elf
9c309e77 881Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
ca3bf3bd 882
6aec2e11
DJ
883* GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
884(mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
885running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
886
887* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
888Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
889supported.
890
17218d91
DJ
891* The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
892broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
893
9ebce043
DJ
894* The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
895stub provides the required support.
896
7d3d3ece
DJ
897* Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
898longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
899
4f8253f3
JB
900* New commands
901
902set substitute-path
903unset substitute-path
904show substitute-path
905 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
906 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
907 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
908 between compilation and debugging.
909
9fa66fd7
AS
910set trace-commands
911show trace-commands
912 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
913 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
914 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
915
1f5befc1
DJ
916* REMOVED features
917
918The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
919
2ec3381a
DJ
920Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
921an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
922
3d00d119
DJ
923The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
924
be2a5f71
DJ
925* New remote packets
926
927qSupported:
928 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
929 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
930 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
931 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
932 target.
933
0876f84a
DJ
934qXfer:auxv:read:
935 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
936 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
937
9ebce043
DJ
938qXfer:memory-map:read:
939 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
940 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
941
942vFlashErase:
943vFlashWrite:
944vFlashDone:
945 Erase and program a flash memory device.
946
0876f84a
DJ
947* Removed remote packets
948
949qPart:auxv:read:
950 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
951 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
952
e374b601 953*** Changes in GDB 6.5
53e5f3cf 954
96309189
MS
955* New targets
956
957Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
958
959Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
960
53e5f3cf
AS
961* New commands
962
963init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
964 only if it doesn't already have a value.
965
ac264b3b
MS
966The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
967
968checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
969
970restart <n> Return the program state to a
971 previously saved state.
972
973info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
974
975delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
976
977set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
978 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
979
980info forks List forks of the user program that
981 are available to be debugged.
982
983fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
984 forks of the user program that are
985 available to be debugged.
986
987delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
988 that are available to be debugged (and
989 kill the forked process).
990
991detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
992 that are available to be debugged (and
993 allow the process to continue).
994
3950dc3f
NS
995* New architecture
996
997Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
998
0ea3f30e
DJ
999* Improved Windows host support
1000
1001GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
1002native console support, and remote communications using either
1003network sockets or serial ports.
1004
f79daebb
GM
1005* Improved Modula-2 language support
1006
1007GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
1008basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
1009pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
1010printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
1011written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
1012GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
1013
acab6ab2
MM
1014* REMOVED features
1015
1016The ARM rdi-share module.
1017
f4267320
DJ
1018The Netware NLM debug server.
1019
53e5f3cf 1020*** Changes in GDB 6.4
156a53ca 1021
e0ecbda1
MK
1022* New native configurations
1023
02a677ac 1024OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
e0ecbda1
MK
1025OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
1026
d64a6579
KB
1027* New targets
1028
1029Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
1030
b33a6190
AS
1031* New command line options
1032
1033--batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
1034--return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
1035 the child (debugged) program exited with.
1036--eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
1037 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
1038 specified multiple times and in conjunction
1039 with the --command (-x) option.
1040
11dced61
AC
1041* Deprecated commands removed
1042
1043The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
1044removed:
1045
1046 Command Replacement
1047 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
1048 othernames set arm disassembler
1049 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
1050 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
1051 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
1052 regs info registers
1053
6fe85783
MK
1054* New BSD user-level threads support
1055
1056It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
1057library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
1058configurations are:
1059
1060FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
1061FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
1062OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
1063
1064Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
1065are not yet supported.
1066
5260ca71
MS
1067* New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
1068(Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
1069
e84ecc99
AC
1070* REMOVED configurations and files
1071
1072VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
9445aa30 1073Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
9445aa30 1074National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
156a53ca 1075
31e35378
JB
1076* New "set print array-indexes" command
1077
1078After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
1079when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
1080behavior.
1081
e85e5c83
MK
1082* VAX floating point support
1083
1084GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
1085
d91e9901
AS
1086* User-defined command support
1087
1088In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
1089to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
1090section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
1091
f2cb65ca
MC
1092*** Changes in GDB 6.3:
1093
f47b1503
AS
1094* New command line option
1095
1096GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
1097debugging.
1098
f2cb65ca
MC
1099* GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
1100
1101GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
1102information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
1103by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
1104proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
1105to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
860660cb 1106
d08c0230
AC
1107* Internationalization
1108
1109When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
1110internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
1111continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
1112
117ea3cf
PH
1113* Ada
1114
1115Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
1116implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
1117into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
1118
d08c0230
AC
1119* New native configurations
1120
1121GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
1122
1123* Remote 'p' packet
1124
1125GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
1126packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
1127
1128* END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
1129
1130GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
1131The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
1132features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
1133i386 application).
1134
1135GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
1136compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
1137continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
1138configurations:
1139
1140hppa-*-hpux
1141ia64-*-aix
1142mips-*-irix*
1143*-*-lynx
1144mips-*-linux-gnu
1145sds protocol
1146xdr protocol
1147powerpc bdm protocol
1148
1149Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
1150made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
1151
1152* OBSOLETE configurations and files
1153
1154Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1155been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1156configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1157permanently REMOVED.
1158
1159h8300-*-*
1160mcore-*-*
1161mn10300-*-*
1162ns32k-*-*
1163sh64-*-*
1164v850-*-*
1165
ebb7c577
AC
1166*** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
1167
1168* MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
1169
1170When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
1171heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
1172been fixed.
1173
1174* MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
1175
1176When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
1177fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
1178IRIX long double values).
1179
1180* VAX and "next"
1181
1182A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
1183command. This problem has been fixed.
1184
860660cb 1185*** Changes in GDB 6.2:
faae5abe 1186
0dea2468
AC
1187* Fix for ``many threads''
1188
1189On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
1190rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
1191error message:
1192
1193 ptrace: No such process.
1194 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
1195
1196This problem has been fixed.
1197
2c07db7a
AC
1198* "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
1199
1200Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
1201GDB to dump core).
1202
c23968a2
JB
1203* New ``start'' command.
1204
1205This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
1206
71009278
MK
1207* New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
1208
1209Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
1210live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
1211platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
1212
1213FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
1214FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
1215NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
1216NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
1217NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
1218OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
1219OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
1220OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
1221OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
1222
3c0b7db2
AC
1223* Signal trampoline code overhauled
1224
1225Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
1226These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
1227of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
1228call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
1229signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
1230
73cc75f3
AC
1231Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
1232features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
1233include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
3c0b7db2 1234
7243600a
BF
1235* Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
1236
6f606e1c
MK
1237* New native configurations
1238
97dc871c 1239GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
0e56aeaf 1240OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
bf2ca189
MK
1241OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
1242OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
d195bc9f 1243OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 1244NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
9f076e7a 1245OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 1246
a1b461bf
AC
1247* END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
1248
1249GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
1250The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
1251including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
1252migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
1253compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
1254work, was also included.
1255
1256GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
1257module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
1258
1259h8300-*-*
1260mcore-*-*
1261mn10300-*-*
1262ns32k-*-*
1263sh64-*-*
1264v850-*-*
1265xstormy16-*-*
1266
1267Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
1268made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
1269
3c7012f5
AC
1270* REMOVED configurations and files
1271
1272Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
1273Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
1274Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
1275Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
1276Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
1277AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
1278Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
1279decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
1280riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
1281sonymips mips-sony-*
1282sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
1283
e5fe55f7
AC
1284*** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
1285
1286* TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
1287
1288The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
1289GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
1290command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
1291program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
1292with GDB".
1293
1294* Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
1295
1296Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
1297libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
1298cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
1299GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
1300shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
1301the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
1302are created.
1303
1304Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
1305
1306* Fixed ISO-C build problems
1307
1308The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
1309non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
1310compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
1311
1312* Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
1313
1314Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
1315wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
1316
1317* Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
1318
1319The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
1320permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
1321systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
1322
1323* Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
1324
1325Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
1326has been updated to use constant array sizes.
1327
1328* Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
1329
1330GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
1331its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
1332panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
1333
1334* Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
1335
1336When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
1337by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
1338not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
1339
faae5abe 1340*** Changes in GDB 6.1:
f2c06f52 1341
9175c9a3
MC
1342* Removed --with-mmalloc
1343
1344Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
1345conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
1346
3cc87ec0
MK
1347* Changes in AMD64 configurations
1348
1349The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
1350the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
1351and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
1352you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
1353
f0424ef6
MK
1354* Revised SPARC target
1355
1356The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
1357FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
03cebad2
MK
1358support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
1359from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
1360(Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
f0424ef6 1361
59659be2
ILT
1362* New C++ demangler
1363
1364GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
1365names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
1366with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
1367programs.
1368
9e08b29b
DJ
1369* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
1370
1371GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
1372arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
1373encountered these.
1374
8dfe8985
DC
1375* C++ nested types and namespaces
1376
1377GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
1378improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
1379is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
1380Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
1381namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
1382"Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
1383frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
1384if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
1385GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
1386
cced5e27
MK
1387* New native configurations
1388
1389NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
27d1e716 1390OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
2031c21a 1391OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
f2cab569
MK
1392OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
1393OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
cced5e27 1394
b4b4b794
KI
1395* New debugging protocols
1396
1397M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
1398
7989c619
AC
1399* "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
1400
1401The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
1402and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
1403tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
1404
5994185b
AC
1405* OBSOLETE configurations and files
1406
1407Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1408been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1409configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1410permanently REMOVED.
1411
1412Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
1413Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
1414Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
1415Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
1416Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
1417AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
1418Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
0748d941
AC
1419decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
1420riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
1421sonymips mips-sony-*
1422sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
5994185b 1423
0ddabb4c
AC
1424* REMOVED configurations and files
1425
1426SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
1427SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
4a8269c0
AC
1428Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1429Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1430H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1431HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
1432HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1433HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
1434PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
cf7c5c23 1435386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
4a8269c0
AC
1436Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
1437 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
1438 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
f0424ef6
MK
1439SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
1440SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
4a8269c0
AC
1441Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1442Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
0ddabb4c 1443
c7f1390e
DJ
1444*** Changes in GDB 6.0:
1445
1fe43d45
AC
1446* Objective-C
1447
1448Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
1449integrated into GDB.
1450
e6beb428
AC
1451* New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
1452
1453DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
1454information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
1455By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
1456backtraces.
1457
1458The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
1459have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
1460DWARF 2 CFI support.
1461
1462* Hosted file I/O.
1463
1464GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
1465file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
1466remote protocol documentation for details.
1467
1468* All targets using the new architecture framework.
1469
1470All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
1471architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
1472to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
1473ppc32 on ppc64).
1474
1475* GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
1476
1477GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
1478per-thread variables.
1479
1480* GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
1481
1482GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
1483GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
1484
1485* Separate debug info.
1486
1487GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
1488automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
1489of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
1490system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
1491and optional debug files.
1492
1493* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
1494
1495DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
1496describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
1497debugger.
1498
1499GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
1500for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
1501
1502* Java
1503
1504A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
1505Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
1506considered "useable".
1507
85f8f974
DJ
1508* GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
1509
1510The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
1511commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
1512kernel.
1513
0fac0b41
DJ
1514* GDB supports logging output to a file
1515
1516There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
1517used to capture GDB's output to a file.
f2c06f52 1518
6ad8ae5c
DJ
1519* The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
1520
1521The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
1522disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
1523command.
1524
e286caf2 1525* d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
5f601589
AC
1526
1527The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
1528registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
1529
d28f9cdf
DJ
1530* Profiling support
1531
1532A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
1533be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
1534session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
1535"--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
1536data, for more informative profiling results.
1537
da0f9dcd
AC
1538* Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
1539
1540The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
1541option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
b68767c1 1542"mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
da0f9dcd
AC
1543
1544Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
1545removed.
1546
fb9b6b35
JJ
1547Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
1548Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
1549Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
1550 in a subsequent -var-update.
1551
954a4db8
MK
1552* New native configurations.
1553
1554FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
1555
6760f9e6
JB
1556* Multi-arched targets.
1557
b4263afa 1558HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
85a453d5 1559Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
6760f9e6 1560
1b831c93
AC
1561* OBSOLETE configurations and files
1562
1563Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1564been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1565configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1566permanently REMOVED.
1567
8b0e5691 1568Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
67f16606 1569Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
fd2299bd 1570H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
56056df7
AC
1571HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
1572HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1573HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
78c43945 1574PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
2fbce691
AC
1575Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
1576 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
1577 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
f81824a9
AC
1578Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1579Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
fd2299bd 1580
5835abe7
NC
1581* REMOVED configurations and files
1582
1583V850EA ISA
1b831c93
AC
1584Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
1585IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
1586i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
1587i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
1588i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
1589HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
1590 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
1591 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
1592Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1593Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1594Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1595OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1596I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
5835abe7 1597
a094c6fb
AC
1598* MIPS $fp behavior changed
1599
1600The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
1601the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
1602context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
1603address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
1604The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
1605
299ffc64 1606*** Changes in GDB 5.3:
37057839 1607
46248966
AC
1608* GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
1609
1610When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
1611`/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
1612in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
1613library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
1614shared libs like mad''.
1615
b9d14705 1616* ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
6da02953 1617
b9d14705
DJ
1618Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
1619the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
1620arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
1621powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
6da02953 1622
e0e9281e
JB
1623* GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
1624
1625GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
1626and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
1627they expand.
1628
dd73b9bb
AC
1629The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
1630invocations in expression, and shows the result.
1631
1632The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
1633macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
1634
e0e9281e
JB
1635Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
1636information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
1637your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
1638information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
1639
2250ee0c
CV
1640* Multi-arched targets.
1641
6e3ba3b8
JT
1642DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
1643DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
2250ee0c 1644NEC V850 v850-*-*
6e3ba3b8 1645National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
a1789893
GS
1646Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
1647Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
2250ee0c 1648
cd9bfe15 1649* New targets.
e33ce519 1650
456f8b9d
DB
1651Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
1652
e33ce519 1653
da8ca43d
JT
1654* New native configurations
1655
1656Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
029923d4 1657SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
45888261 1658MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
9ce5c36a 1659UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
da8ca43d 1660
cd9bfe15
AC
1661* OBSOLETE configurations and files
1662
1663Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1664been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1665configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1666permanently REMOVED.
1667
92eb23c5 1668Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
a99a9e1b 1669OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1c7cc583 1670IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
7a3085c1 1671Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
7fb623f7 1672Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
eb4c54a2 1673Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
d8ee244c
MK
1674i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
1675i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
1676i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
822e978b
AC
1677HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
1678 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
1679 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
4d210288 1680I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
92eb23c5 1681
db034ac5
AC
1682* OBSOLETE languages
1683
1684CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
1685
cd9bfe15
AC
1686* REMOVED configurations and files
1687
1688AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
1689A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1690AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1691AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1692AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1693
1694testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
1695
20f01a46
DH
1696* New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
1697
1698This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
1699commands. The default is 1024.
1700
a5941fbf
MK
1701* Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
1702
1703Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
1704
89743e04
MS
1705* New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
1706
1707These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
1708to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
1709from a file into memory (restore).
37057839 1710
9fb14e79
JB
1711* Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
1712
1713The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
1714including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
1715of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
1716
2037aebb
AC
1717*** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
1718
1719* New targets.
1720
1721Atmel AVR avr*-*-*
1722
1723* Bug fixes
1724
1725gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
1726mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
1727Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
1728
1729gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
1730dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
1731Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
1732
1733Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
1734Surprisingly enough, it works now.
1735By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
1736
1737i386 hardware watchpoint support:
1738avoid misses on second run for some targets.
1739By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
1740
37057839 1741*** Changes in GDB 5.2:
eb7cedd9 1742
1a703748
MS
1743* New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
1744
1745This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
1746really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
1747In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
1748target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
1749This can be a significant performance improvement on some
1750(notably embedded) targets.
1751
cefd4ef5
MS
1752* New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
1753
55241689
AC
1754This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
1755process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
1756GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
1757hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
cefd4ef5 1758
352ed7b4
MS
1759* New command line option
1760
1761GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
1762
1763* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
1764
1765There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
1766command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
1767a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
1768be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
1769open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
1770issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
1771a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
1772it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
1773GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
1774is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
1775
fe419ffc
RE
1776* Changes in ARM configurations.
1777
1778Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
1779configuration is fully multi-arch.
1780
eb7cedd9
MK
1781* New native configurations
1782
fe419ffc 1783ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
eb7cedd9 1784x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
55241689 1785AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
768f0842 1786Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
eb7cedd9 1787
c9f63e6b
CV
1788* New targets
1789
1790Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
1791
9b4ff276
AC
1792* OBSOLETE configurations and files
1793
1794Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1795been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1796configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1797permanently REMOVED.
1798
1799AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
1800A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1801AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1802AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1803AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1804
b4ceaee6 1805testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
9b4ff276 1806
e2caac18
AC
1807* REMOVED configurations and files
1808
1809TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
7bc65f05 1810WDC 65816 w65-*-*
7768dd6c
AC
1811PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1812PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1813PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
5e734e1f 1814Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1406caf7
AC
1815Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
1816 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
7e24f0b1 1817SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
9b567150 1818Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
3680c638
AC
1819Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
1820ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
a752853e 1821Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
e2caac18 1822
c2a727fa
TT
1823* Changes to command line processing
1824
1825The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
1826for the inferior from gdb's command line.
1827
467d8519
TT
1828* Changes to key bindings
1829
1830There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
1831
7072a954
AC
1832*** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
1833
1834Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
1835
1836Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
1837corrupted.
1838
1839Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
1840
1841Numerous documentation fixes.
1842
1843Numerous testsuite fixes.
1844
34f47bc4 1845*** Changes in GDB 5.1:
139760b7
MK
1846
1847* New native configurations
1848
1849Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
1850x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
55241689 1851MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
e23194cb
EZ
1852MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
1853ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
55241689 1854s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
139760b7 1855
bf64bfd6
AC
1856* New targets
1857
def90278 1858Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
24be5c34 1859CRIS cris-axis
55241689 1860UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
def90278 1861
17e78a56 1862* OBSOLETE configurations and files
bf64bfd6
AC
1863
1864x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
9b9c068d 1865Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
bb19ff3b
AC
1866Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
1867 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
76f4ea53
AC
1868TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1869WDC 65816 w65-*-*
4a1968f4 1870Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1b2b2c16
AC
1871PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1872PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1873PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
24f89b68 1874SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
514e603d
AC
1875Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
1876ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
d036b4d9 1877Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
bf64bfd6 1878
17e78a56
AC
1879stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
1880kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
1881
7fcca85b
AC
1882Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1883been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1884configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1885permanently REMOVED.
1886
a196c81c 1887* REMOVED configurations and files
7fcca85b
AC
1888
1889Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
1890Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
1891Pyramid pyramid-*-*
1892ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
1893Tahoe tahoe-*-*
a196c81c 1894ser-ocd.c *-*-*
bf64bfd6 1895
6d6b80e5 1896* GDB has been converted to ISO C.
e23194cb 1897
6d6b80e5 1898GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
e23194cb
EZ
1899sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
1900present.
1901
bf64bfd6
AC
1902* Other news:
1903
e23194cb
EZ
1904* "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
1905
1906* The MI enabled by default.
1907
1908The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
1909revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
1910engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
1911using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
1912which is now deprecated.
1913
1914* Support for debugging Pascal programs.
1915
1916GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
1917main features are supported:
1918
1919 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
1920
1921 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
1922 extension;
1923
1924 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
1925
1926 - a Pascal expression parser.
1927
1928However, some important features are not yet supported.
1929
1930 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
1931
1932 - there are some problems with boolean types;
1933
1934 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
1935 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
1936
1937 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
1938
1939 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
1940
1941* Changes in completion.
1942
1943Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
1944to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
1945users expect at the shell prompt.
1946
1947Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
1948`breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
1949program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
1950files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
1951be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
1952considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
1953name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
1954
1955`set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
1956
1957* New platform-independent commands:
1958
1959It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
1960hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
1961documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
1962
1963* Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
1964
d7275149
MK
1965Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
1966revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
1967many threads as your system allows you to have.
1968
e23194cb
EZ
1969Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
1970
d7275149
MK
1971Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
1972multi-threaded programs though.
e23194cb
EZ
1973
1974* Changes in MIPS configurations.
bf64bfd6
AC
1975
1976Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
1977
e23194cb
EZ
1978GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
1979debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
1980supported.)
1981
1982* Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
1983
1984Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
1985breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
1986implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
1987put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
1988and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
1989registers.
1990
1991The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
1992debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
1993watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
1994
1995* Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
1996
1997New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
1998the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
1999
2000New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
2001display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
2002IDT.
2003
2004New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
2005from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
2006New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
2007a given linear address.
2008
2009GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
2010program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
2011which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
2012
2013DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
2014
6c56c069
EZ
2015It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
2016
e23194cb
EZ
2017* Changes in documentation.
2018
2019All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
2020Documentation License.
2021
2022Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
2023manual.
2024
2025TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
2026
2027Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
2028manual.
2029
2030The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
2031documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
2032hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
2033
5d6640b1
AC
2034* GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
2035
2036The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
2037``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
2038contents of this file.
2039
1a1d8446
AC
2040* gdba.el deleted
2041
2042GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
139760b7 2043
9debab2f 2044*** Changes in GDB 5.0:
7a292a7a 2045
c63ce875
EZ
2046* Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
2047
2048Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
2049programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
2050displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
2051greater level of detail.
2052
2053* Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
2054
2055It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
2056bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
2057on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
2058written.
2059
2060* Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
2061
2062The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
2063necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
2064machines ``out of the box''.
2065
2066The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
2067possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
2068signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
2069would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
2070interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
2071
2072It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
2073standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
2074even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
2075and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
2076terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
2077
2078The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
2079enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
2080also works.
2081
2082DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
2083GDB.
2084
2085It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
2086directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
2087times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
2088breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
2089
ed9a39eb
JM
2090* New native configurations
2091
2092ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
afc05dd4 2093PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
ed9a39eb 2094
7a292a7a
SS
2095* New targets
2096
96baa820 2097Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
adf40b2e
JM
2098x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
2099PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
7a292a7a
SS
2100TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
2101
085dd6e6
JM
2102* OBSOLETE configurations
2103
2104Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
2105Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
9846de1b 2106Pyramid pyramid-*-*
ed9a39eb 2107ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
104c1213 2108Tahoe tahoe-*-*
7a292a7a 2109
9debab2f
AC
2110Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
2111but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
2112these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
2113be permanently REMOVED.
2114
5330533d
SS
2115* Gould support removed
2116
2117Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
2118
bc9e5bbf
AC
2119* New features for SVR4
2120
2121On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
2122without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
2123load symbols from the running process's executable file.
2124
2125* Many C++ enhancements
2126
2127C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
2128in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
2129
adf40b2e
JM
2130* Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
2131
2132A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
2133sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
2134with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
2135``|<program> <args>'' vis:
2136
2137 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
2138 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
2139
43e526b9
JM
2140* MIPS 64 remote protocol
2141
2142A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
2143expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
2144instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
2145
2146The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
2147added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
2148
96baa820
JM
2149* ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
2150
2151The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
2152``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
2153include ``set remote P-packet''.
2154
11cf8741
JM
2155* Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
2156
2157The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
2158accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
2159``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
2160
7876dd43
DB
2161* ``apropos'' command added.
2162
2163The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
2164documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
2165try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
2166
bc9e5bbf
AC
2167* New MI interface
2168
2169A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
2170interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
7162c0ca
EZ
2171process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
2172"GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
2173enabled by configuring with:
bc9e5bbf
AC
2174
2175 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
2176
c906108c
SS
2177*** Changes in GDB-4.18:
2178
2179* New native configurations
2180
2181HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
2182HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
55241689 2183M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
c906108c
SS
2184
2185* New targets
2186
2187Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
2188Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
2189Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
2190
2191* OBSOLETE configurations
2192
2193Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
2194
2195Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
2196but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
2197these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
2198be permanently REMOVED.
2199
2200* ANSI/ISO C
2201
2202As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
2203buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
2204containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
2205use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
2206available. If this is not true, please report the affected
2207configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
2208information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
2209already.
2210
2211* Readline 2.2
2212
2213GDB now uses readline 2.2.
2214
2215* set extension-language
2216
2217You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
2218languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
2219you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
2220 set extension-language .c c++
2221The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
2222and their associated languages.
2223
2224* Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
2225
2226When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
2227you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
2228PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
2229
2230 set processor NAME
2231
2232sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
2233following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
2234
2235 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
2236 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
2237 403 IBM PowerPC 403
2238 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
2239 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
2240 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
2241 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
2242 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
2243 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
2244 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
2245 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
2246
2247At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
2248special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
2249registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
2250only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
2251
2252* HP-UX support
2253
2254Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
2255more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
2256library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
2257support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
2258for xdb and dbx commands.
2259
2260* Catchpoints
2261
2262HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
2263generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
2264to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
2265
2266This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
2267argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
2268output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
2269
2270* Debugging across forks
2271
2272On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
2273in the inferior.
2274
2275* TUI
2276
2277HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
2278it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
2279configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
2280
2281* GDB remote protocol additions
2282
2283A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
2284Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
2285fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
2286allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
2287
2288For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
2289full 64-bit address. The command
2290
2291 set remoteaddresssize 32
2292
2293can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
2294the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
2295will be discarded.
2296
2297In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
2298command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
2299
2300 maint packet heythere
2301
2302sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
2303disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
2304time.
2305
2306The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
2307target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
2308downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
2309
2310* Tracing can collect general expressions
2311
2312You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
2313further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
2314doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
2315
2316* mask-address variable for Mips
2317
2318For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
2319a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
2320of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
2321
2322* Higher serial baud rates
2323
2324GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
2325230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
2326to achieve all of these rates.)
2327
2328* i960 simulator
2329
2330The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
2331builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
2332
2333
2334*** Changes in GDB-4.17:
2335
2336* New native configurations
2337
2338Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
2339Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
2340Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
2341PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
2342PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
2343Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
2344Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
2345
2346* New targets
2347
2348Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
2349Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
2350Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
2351Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
2352MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
2353MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
2354MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
2355Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
2356Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
2357Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2358NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
2359
2360* New debugging protocols
2361
2362ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
2363M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
2364DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
2365PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
2366PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
2367Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
2368
2369* DWARF 2
2370
2371All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
2372format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
2373information.
2374
2375* Java frontend
2376
2377GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
2378only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
2379
2380* solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
2381
2382For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
2383loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
2384locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
2385
2386* Live range splitting
2387
2388GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
2389range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
2390more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
2391
2392* Hurd support
2393
2394GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
2395updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
2396
2397* ARM Thumb support
2398
2399GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
2400instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
2401instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
2402accordingly.
2403
2404* MIPS16 support
2405
2406GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
2407instruction set.
2408
2409* Overlay support
2410
2411GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
2412linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
2413will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
2414control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
2415additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
2416in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
2417
2418* info symbol
2419
2420The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
2421the symbol at the specified address.
2422
2423* Trace support
2424
2425The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
2426asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
2427extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
2428includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
2429file tracepoint.c for more details.
2430
2431* MIPS simulator
2432
2433Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
2434by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
2435of most MIPS variants.
2436
2437* Sparc simulator
2438
2439Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
2440by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
2441Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
2442
2443* set architecture
2444
2445For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
2446basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
2447architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
2448the possible architectures.
2449
2450*** Changes in GDB-4.16:
2451
2452* New native configurations
2453
2454Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
2455M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
2456PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
2457PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
2458PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
2459RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
2460
2461* New targets
2462
2463ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
2464I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
2465MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
2466MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
2467PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
2468Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
2469Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2470
2471* PowerPC simulator
2472
2473The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
2474contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
2475PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
2476basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
2477performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
2478
2479* Solaris 2.5
2480
2481GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
2482
2483* Windows 95/NT native
2484
2485GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
2486To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
2487which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
2488Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
2489ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
2490
2491* dont-repeat command
2492
2493If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
2494command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
2495useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
2496extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
2497
2498* Send break instead of ^C
2499
2500The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
2501rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
2502GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
2503
2504* Remote protocol timeout
2505
2506The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
2507that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
2508to read from the target. The default value is 2.
2509
2510* Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
2511
2512By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
2513loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
2514stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
2515when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
2516in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
2517
2518Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
2519/usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
2520automatically on hpux10.
2521
2522* Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
2523
2524Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
2525
2526* Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
2527
2528When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
2529may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
2530the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
2531every character. The default value is 1050.
2532
2533* Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
2534
2535If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
2536a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
2537replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
2538details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
2539remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
2540to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
2541
2542* Speedups for remote debugging
2543
2544GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
2545the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
2546and more efficient S-record downloading.
2547
2548* Memory use reductions and statistics collection
2549
2550GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
2551Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
2552
2553*** Changes in GDB-4.15:
2554
2555* Psymtabs for XCOFF
2556
2557The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
2558can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
2559
2560* Remote targets use caching
2561
2562Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
2563remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
2564it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
2565debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
2566off' turns the the data cache off.
2567
2568* Remote targets may have threads
2569
2570The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
2571in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
2572gdb/remote.c for details.
2573
2574* NetROM support
2575
2576If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
2577support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
2578acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
2579write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
2580support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
2581another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
2582sequence is something like
2583
2584 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
2585 load <prog>
2586 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
2587
2588* Macintosh host
2589
2590GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
2591may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
2592it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
2593available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
2594device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
2595directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
2596scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
2597mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
2598
2599* Autoconf
2600
2601GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
2602but does simplify configuration and building.
2603
2604* hpux10
2605
2606GDB now supports hpux10.
2607
2608*** Changes in GDB-4.14:
2609
2610* New native configurations
2611
2612x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
2613x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
2614NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
2615Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
2616
2617* New targets
2618
2619A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
2620HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
2621CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
2622PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
2623WDC 65816 w65-*-*
2624
2625* Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
2626
2627GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
2628possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
2629filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
2630the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
2631if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
2632
2633* Arguments to user-defined commands
2634
2635User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
2636Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
2637trivial example:
2638define adder
2639 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
2640
2641To execute the command use:
2642adder 1 2 3
2643
2644Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
2645Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
2646use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
2647
2648* New `if' and `while' commands
2649
2650This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
2651commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
2652expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
2653execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
2654terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
2655`else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
2656if the expression is zero.
2657
2658* Fortran source language mode
2659
2660GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
2661Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
2662variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
2663with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
2664Fortran compilers.
2665
2666* Better HPUX support
2667
2668Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
2669running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
2670processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
2671for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
2672that behavior do the following before running the program:
2673
2674 adb -w a.out
2675 __dld_flags?W 0x5
2676 control-d
2677
2678This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
2679To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
2680
2681 adb -w a.out
2682 __dld_flags?W 0x4
2683 control-d
2684
2685You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
2686the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
2687external linkage.
2688
2689GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
2690HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
2691
2692* Target byte order now dynamically selectable
2693
2694You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
2695commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
2696current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
2697"set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
2698associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
2699configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
2700
2701* New DOS host serial code
2702
2703This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
2704no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
2705a PC's serial port.
2706
2707*** Changes in GDB-4.13:
2708
2709* New "complete" command
2710
2711This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
2712were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
2713
2714* Trailing space optional in prompt
2715
2716"set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
2717allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
2718
2719* Breakpoint hit counts
2720
2721"info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
2722has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
2723can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
2724to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
2725less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
2726that breakpoint.
2727
2728* Ability to stop printing at NULL character
2729
2730"set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
2731an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
2732arrays actually contain only short strings.
2733
2734* Shared library breakpoints
2735
2736In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
2737breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
2738
2739* Hardware watchpoints
2740
2741There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
2742targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
2743
55241689 2744Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
c906108c
SS
2745
2746* Annotations
2747
2748Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
2749and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
2750
2751* Improved Irix 5 support
2752
2753GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
2754
2755* Improved HPPA support
2756
2757GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
2758
2759* New native configurations
2760
2761Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
2762HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
2763Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
2764RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
2765
2766* New targets
2767
2768OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
2769MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
2770Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
2771
2772* Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
2773
2774There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
2775This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
2776
2777* Fixes
2778
2779As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
2780and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
2781
2782*** Changes in GDB-4.12:
2783
2784* Irix 5 is now supported
2785
2786* HPPA support
2787
2788GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
2789to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
2790GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
2791of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
2792can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
2793
2794
2795*** Changes in GDB-4.11:
2796
2797* User visible changes:
2798
2799* Remote Debugging
2800
2801The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
2802target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
2803debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
2804integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
2805debugging info for the mips target).
2806
2807* DEC Alpha native support
2808
2809GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
2810debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
2811work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
2812Alpha-specific notes.
2813
2814* Preliminary thread implementation
2815
2816GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
2817
2818* LynxOS native and target support for 386
2819
2820This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
2821to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
2822for details).
2823
2824* Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
2825
2826This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
2827mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
2828call methods, ...etc.
2829
2830*** Changes in GDB-4.10:
2831
2832 * User visible changes:
2833
2834Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
2835supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
2836other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
2837somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
2838
2839Filename completion now works.
2840
2841When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
2842arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
2843addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
2844
2845All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
2846vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
2847should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
2848your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
2849to be on the far side of a thin network line.
2850
2851 * DEC alpha support
2852
2853This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
2854cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
2855
2856
2857*** Changes in GDB-4.9:
2858
2859 * Testsuite
2860
2861This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
2862The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
2863via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
2864
2865 * C++ demangling
2866
2867'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
2868emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
2869Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
2870disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
2871use gdb with AT&T cfront.
2872
2873 * Simulators
2874
2875GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
2876So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
2877Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
2878
2879 * New targets supported
2880
2881H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
2882H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
2883SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
2884Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
2885IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
2886
2887Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
2888version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
2889GO32 memory extender.
2890
2891 * New remote protocols
2892
2893MIPS remote debugging protocol.
2894
2895 * New source languages supported
2896
2897This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
2898used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
2899into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
2900
2901
2902*** Changes in GDB-4.8:
2903
2904 * HP Precision Architecture supported
2905
2906GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
2907version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
2908University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
2909compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
2910format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
2911(as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
2912
2913Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
2914
2915 * Faster and better demangling
2916
2917We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
2918demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
2919character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
2920only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
2921This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
2922increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
2923symbol lookups.
2924
2925`Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
2926from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
2927compiler does not actually implement.
2928
2929 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
2930
2931In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
2932inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
2933recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
2934very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
2935The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
2936circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
2937fix.
2938
2939The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
2940release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
2941
2942 * Improved configure script
2943
2944The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
2945you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
2946host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
2947done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
2948
2949We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
2950version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
2951`--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
2952The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
2953only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
2954We hope to make this the default in a future release.
2955
2956 * Documentation improvements
2957
2958There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
2959produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
2960before submitting changes.
2961
2962The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
2963M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
2964`info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
2965you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
2966a future texinfo-X.Y release.
2967
2968*NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
2969We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
2970been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
2971or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
2972`texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
2973around this problem.
2974
2975 * New features
2976
2977GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
2978the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
2979`print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
2980the target program.
2981
2982The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
2983how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
2984
2985 * New native hosts supported
2986
2987HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
2988386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
2989
2990 * New targets supported
2991
2992AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
2993
2994 * New file formats supported
2995
2996BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
2997HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
2998
2999 * Major bug fixes
3000
3001Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
3002
3003We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
3004printf_filtered("%s") problems.
3005
3006We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
3007for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
3008release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
3009
3010You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
3011will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
3012
3013We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
3014for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
3015especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
3016libraries.
3017
3018The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
3019information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
3020command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
3021any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
3022when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
3023
3024 * Internal improvements
3025
3026GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
3027debugging of multiple languages in the future.
3028
3029GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
3030Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
3031symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
3032contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
3033shared code that handles any of them.
3034
3035 * New command line options
3036
3037We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
3038
3039 * Mmalloc licensing
3040
3041The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
3042General Public License.
3043
3044*** Changes in GDB-4.7:
3045
3046 * Host/native/target split
3047
3048GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
3049hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
3050target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
3051local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
3052ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
3053
3054The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
3055GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
3056is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
3057code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
3058any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
3059built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
3060handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
3061
3062GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
3063It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
3064plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
3065
3066 * New hosts supported
3067
3068HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
3069386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
3070386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
3071
3072 * New targets supported
3073
3074Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
307568030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
3076
3077 * New native hosts supported
3078
3079386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
3080 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
3081386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
3082
3083 * New file formats supported
3084
3085BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
3086supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
3087format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
3088
3089 * New commands
3090
3091`show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
3092`show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
3093These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
3094
3095`info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
3096
3097You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
3098scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
3099prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
3100executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
3101
3102 * C++ improvements
3103
3104We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
3105info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
3106symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
3107
3108Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
3109
3110 * Major bug fixes
3111
3112The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
3113fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
3114by the compiler.
3115
3116We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
3117support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
3118
3119John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
3120slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
3121that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
3122purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
3123the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
3124mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
3125
3126Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
3127about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
3128completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
3129we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
3130
3131 * AMD 29k support
3132
3133A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
3134specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
3135calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
3136usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
3137in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
3138
3139We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
3140Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
3141of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
3142resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
3143
3144 * Remote interfaces
3145
3146We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
3147with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
3148message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
3149This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
3150needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
3151breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
3152each instruction being stepped through.
3153
3154The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
3155registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
3156
3157There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
3158find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
3159Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
3160processor with a serial port.
3161
3162 * Configuration
3163
3164Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
3165`table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
3166supported, and what files each one uses.
3167
3168 * Library changes
3169
3170There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
3171disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
3172Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
3173disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
3174
3175The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
3176Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
3177can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
3178grants all the rights from the General Public License.
3179
3180 * Documentation
3181
3182The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
3183reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
3184as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
3185encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
3186system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
3187bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
3188
3189And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
3190
3191
3192*** Changes in GDB-4.6:
3193
3194 * Better support for C++ function names
3195
3196GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
3197names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
3198(using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
3199single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
3200Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
3201
3202GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
3203the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
3204You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
3205lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
3206for the list of formats.
3207
3208 * G++ symbol mangling problem
3209
3210Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
3211C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
3212directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
3213can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
3214usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
3215about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
3216this problem.)
3217
3218 * New 'maintenance' command
3219
3220All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
3221the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
3222can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
3223
3224 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
3225 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
3226 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
3227 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
3228 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
3229 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
3230
3231The following commands are new:
3232
3233 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
3234 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
3235 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
3236
3237 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
3238
3239We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
3240(e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
3241be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
3242read after argv processing.
3243
3244 * New hosts supported
3245
3246Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
3247
55241689 3248GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
c906108c
SS
3249
3250We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
3251is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
3252for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
3253masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
3254fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
3255It costs extra.
3256
3257 * New targets supported
3258
3259Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
3260
3261 * More smarts about finding #include files
3262
3263GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
3264all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
3265greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
3266especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
3267the one that contains your sources.
3268
3269We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
3270breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
3271try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
3272
3273 * Interesting infernals change
3274
3275GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
3276section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
3277target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
3278stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
3279
3280 * Bug fixes (of course!)
3281
3282There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
3283 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
3284 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
3285
3286See the ChangeLog for details.
3287
3288*** Changes in GDB-4.5:
3289
3290 * New machines supported (host and target)
3291
3292IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
3293
3294SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
3295
3296 * New malloc package
3297
3298GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
3299Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
3300capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
3301This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
3302pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
3303more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
3304
3305 * info proc
3306
3307The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
3308'help info proc' for details.
3309
3310 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
3311
3312The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
3313Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
3314possible.
3315
3316 * File name changes for MS-DOS
3317
3318Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
3319support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
3320conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
3321environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
3322that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
3323in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
3324
3325 * Cross byte order fixes
3326
3327Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
3328targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
3329
3330 * New -mapped and -readnow options
3331
3332If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
3333system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
3334`symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
3335program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
3336called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
3337Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
3338and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
3339the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
3340option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
3341starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
3342
3343You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
3344the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
3345information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
3346slower, but makes future operations faster.
3347
3348The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
3349build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
3350A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
3351use is:
3352
3353 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
3354
3355The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
3356It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
3357shared across multiple host platforms.
3358
3359 * longjmp() handling
3360
3361GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
3362siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
3363all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
3364platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
3365
3366 * Solaris 2.0
3367
3368Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
3369this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
3370reading symbols.
3371
3372 * Bug fixes
3373
3374As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
3375People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
3376crashes and trashed symbol tables.
3377
3378*** Changes in GDB-4.4:
3379
3380 * New machines supported (host and target)
3381
3382SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
3383 (except core files)
3384BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
3385Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
3386
3387 * New machines supported (target)
3388
3389AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
3390
3391 * C++ support
3392
3393GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
3394The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
3395per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
3396
3397GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
3398`ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
3399extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
3400good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
3401will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
3402released.
3403
3404 * New features for SVR4
3405
3406GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
3407shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
3408only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
3409
3410The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
3411on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
3412it prints the address mappings of the process.
3413
3414If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
3415bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
3416
3417 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
3418
3419Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
3420now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
3421skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
3422make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
3423same code linked statically.
3424
3425 * New Getopt
3426
3427GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
3428version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
3429continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
3430Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
3431added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
3432future by other options that begin with the same letter.
3433
3434 * Bugs fixed
3435
3436The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
3437Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
3438See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
3439
3440
3441*** Changes in GDB-4.3:
3442
3443 * New machines supported (host and target)
3444
3445Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
3446NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
3447Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
3448
3449 * Almost SCO Unix support
3450
3451We had hoped to support:
3452SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
3453(except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
3454that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
3455about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
3456
3457 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
3458
3459GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
3460debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
3461is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
3462send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
3463reqired (if any).
3464
3465 * New Readline
3466
3467GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
3468is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
3469required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
3470
3471 * Bugs fixed
3472
3473The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
3474Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
3475See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
3476
3477 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
3478
3479GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
3480supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
3481symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
3482
3483Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
3484mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
3485debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
3486mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
3487version 2.
3488
3489Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
3490really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
3491line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
3492variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
3493situation somewhat.
3494
3495When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
3496However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
3497methods.
3498
3499We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
3500DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
3501encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
3502
3503
3504*** Changes in GDB-4.2:
3505
3506 * Improved configuration
3507
3508Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
3509Porting BFD is simpler.
3510
3511 * Stepping improved
3512
3513The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
3514of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
3515in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
3516function that has debugging information is called within the line.
3517
3518 * Bug fixing
3519
3520Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
3521
3522 * New host supported (not target)
3523
3524Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
3525
3526
3527*** Changes in GDB-4.1:
3528
3529 * Multiple source language support
3530
3531GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
3532It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
3533and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
3534language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
3535You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
3536`set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
3537
3538 * GDB and Modula-2
3539
3540GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
3541currently under development at the State University of New York at
3542Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
3543continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
3544
3545Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
3546debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
3547symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
3548
3549There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
3550in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
3551
3552 * set write on/off
3553
3554GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
3555a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
3556the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
3557by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
3558effect immediately.
3559
3560 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
3561
3562When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
3563shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
3564The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
3565examining core files.
3566
3567 * set listsize
3568
3569You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
3570The default is 10.
3571
3572 * New machines supported (host and target)
3573
3574SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
3575Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
3576Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
3577
3578 * New hosts supported (not targets)
3579
3580IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
3581
3582 * New targets supported (not hosts)
3583
3584AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
3585AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
3586Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
3587
3588 * New remote interfaces
3589
3590AMD 29000 Adapt
3591AMD 29000 Minimon
3592
3593
3594*** Changes in GDB-4.0:
3595
3596 * New Facilities
3597
3598Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
3599
3600Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
3601target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
3602is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
3603remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
3604remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
3605also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
3606using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
3607stub on the target system.
3608
3609New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
3610
3611GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
3612library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
3613object file types such as a.out and coff.
3614
3615There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
3616refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
3617
3618
3619 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
3620
3621All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
3622by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
3623
3624For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
3625``Show prompt'' produces the response:
3626Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
3627
3628What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
3629print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
3630will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
3631all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
3632
3633confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
3634 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
3635 it is already running. Default is ON.
3636
3637editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
3638 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
3639 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
3640 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
3641 Default is ON.
3642
3643history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
3644 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
3645 or the value of the environment variable
3646 GDBHISTFILE.
3647
3648history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
3649 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
3650 HISTSIZE.
3651
3652history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
3653 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
3654 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
3655
3656history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
3657 history expansion will be performed on
3658 command line input. The default is OFF.
3659
3660radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
3661 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
3662 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
3663
3664height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
3665 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
3666 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
3667 variable TERM.
3668
3669width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
3670 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
3671 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
3672 variable TERM.
3673
3674Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
3675``set width'' instead.
3676
3677print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
3678 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
3679 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
3680 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
3681
3682print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
3683 is OFF.
3684
3685print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
3686 "raw" form if off.
3687
3688print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
3689 like instructions.
3690
3691print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
3692
3693
3694 * Support for Epoch Environment.
3695
3696The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
3697new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
3698are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
3699window.
3700
3701
3702 * Support for Shared Libraries
3703
3704GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
3705Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
3706before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
3707happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
3708At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
3709from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
3710shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
3711It can be abbreviated ``share''.
3712
3713sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
3714 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
3715 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
3716
3717info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
3718
3719
3720 * Watchpoints
3721
3722A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
3723expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
3724tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
3725quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
3726problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
3727more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
3728
3729watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
3730
3731info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
3732
3733delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3734disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3735enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3736
3737
3738 * C++ multiple inheritance
3739
3740When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
3741for C++ programs.
3742
3743 * C++ exception handling
3744
3745Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
3746ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
3747the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
3748handler's context).
3749
3750catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
3751 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
3752 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
3753
3754info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
3755 current stack frame.
3756
3757
3758 * Minor command changes
3759
3760The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
3761command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
3762is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
3763
3764The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
3765at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
3766frames without printing.
3767
3768 * New directory command
3769
3770'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
3771The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
3772about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
3773with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
3774find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
3775
3776 * Configuring GDB for compilation
3777
3778For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
3779for more details.
3780
3781GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
3782two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
3783Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
3784where the program that you are debugging will run.
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