* python/lib/gdb/command/pretty_printers.py
[deliverable/binutils-gdb.git] / gdb / NEWS
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1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
3
31916278 4*** Changes since GDB 7.3.1
d6e00af6 5
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6* GDB now allows you to skip uninteresting functions and files when
7 stepping with the "skip function" and "skip file" commands.
8
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9* GDB has two new commands: "set remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit"
10 and "show remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit". These allows to
11 set or show the maximum length limit (in bytes) of a remote
12 target hardware watchpoint.
13
14 This allows e.g. to use "unlimited" hardware watchpoints with the
15 gdbserver integrated in Valgrind version >= 3.7.0. Such Valgrind
16 watchpoints are slower than real hardware watchpoints but are
17 significantly faster than gdb software watchpoints.
18
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19* Python scripting
20
32d1c362 21 ** The register_pretty_printer function in module gdb.printing now takes
7d0aff21 22 an optional `replace' argument. If True, the new printer replaces any
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23 existing one.
24
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25 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" command has been
26 deprecated, and a new command: "set python print-stack on|off" has
27 replaced it. Additionally, the default for "print-stack" is now
28 "off".
29
baacfb07 30 ** A prompt substitution hook (prompt_hook) is now available to the
3a7bf607 31 Python API.
713389e0 32
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33 ** A new Python module, gdb.prompt has been added to the GDB Python
34 modules library. This module provides functionality for
baacfb07 35 escape sequences in prompts (used by set/show
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36 extended-prompt). These escape sequences are replaced by their
37 corresponding value.
38
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39 ** Python commands and convenience-functions located in
40 'data-directory'/python/gdb/command and
41 'data-directory'/python/gdb/function are now automatically loaded
42 on GDB start-up.
43
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44 ** Blocks now provide four new attributes. global_block and
45 static_block will return the global and static blocks
46 respectively. is_static and is_global are boolean attributes
47 that indicate if the block is one of those two types.
48
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49 ** Symbols now provide the "type" attribute, the type of the symbol.
50
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51 ** The "gdb.breakpoint" function has been deprecated in favor of
52 "gdb.breakpoints".
53
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54 ** Type objects for struct and union types now allow access to
55 the fields using standard Python dictionary (mapping) methods.
56 For example, "some_type['myfield']" now works, as does
57 "some_type.items()".
58
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59 ** A new event "gdb.new_objfile" has been added, triggered by loading a
60 new object file.
61
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62 ** A new function, "deep_items" has been added to the gdb.types
63 module in the GDB Python modules library. This function returns
64 an iterator over the fields of a struct or union type. Unlike
65 the standard Python "iteritems" method, it will recursively traverse
66 any anonymous fields.
67
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68* MI changes
69
70 ** "*stopped" events can report several new "reason"s, such as
71 "solib-event".
72
73 ** Breakpoint changes are now notified using new async records, like
74 "=breakpoint-modified".
75
76 ** New command -ada-task-info.
77
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78* libthread-db-search-path now supports two special values: $sdir and $pdir.
79 $sdir specifies the default system locations of shared libraries.
80 $pdir specifies the directory where the libpthread used by the application
81 lives.
82
83 GDB no longer looks in $sdir and $pdir after it has searched the directories
84 mentioned in libthread-db-search-path. If you want to search those
85 directories, they must be specified in libthread-db-search-path.
86 The default value of libthread-db-search-path on GNU/Linux and Solaris
87 systems is now "$sdir:$pdir".
88
89 $pdir is not supported by gdbserver, it is currently ignored.
90 $sdir is supported by gdbserver.
91
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92* New configure option --with-iconv-bin.
93 When using the internationalization support like the one in the GNU C
94 library, GDB will invoke the "iconv" program to get a list of supported
95 character sets. If this program lives in a non-standard location, one can
96 use this option to specify where to find it.
97
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98* When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
99 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports masked hardware
100 watchpoints, which specify a mask in addition to an address to watch.
101 The mask specifies that some bits of an address (the bits which are
102 reset in the mask) should be ignored when matching the address accessed
103 by the inferior against the watchpoint address. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
104 section in the user manual for more details.
105
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106* The new option --once causes GDBserver to stop listening for connections once
107 the first connection is made. The listening port used by GDBserver will
108 become available after that.
109
71eba9c2 110* New commands "info macros" and "alias" have been added.
edc84990 111
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112* New function parameters suffix @entry specifies value of function parameter
113 at the time the function got called. Entry values are available only since
114 gcc version 4.7.
115
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116* New commands
117
118!SHELL COMMAND
119 "!" is now an alias of the "shell" command.
120 Note that no space is needed between "!" and SHELL COMMAND.
121
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122* Changed commands
123
124watch EXPRESSION mask MASK_VALUE
125 The watch command now supports the mask argument which allows creation
126 of masked watchpoints, if the current architecture supports this feature.
127
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128info auto-load-scripts [REGEXP]
129 This command was formerly named "maintenance print section-scripts".
130 It is now generally useful and is no longer a maintenance-only command.
131
71eba9c2 132info macro [-all] [--] MACRO
133 The info macro command has new options `-all' and `--'. The first for
134 printing all definitions of a macro. The second for explicitly specifying
135 the end of arguments and the beginning of the macro name in case the macro
136 name starts with a hyphen.
137
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138collect[/s] EXPRESSIONS
139 The tracepoint collect command now takes an optional modifier "/s"
140 that directs it to dereference pointer-to-character types and
141 collect the bytes of memory up to a zero byte. The behavior is
142 similar to what you see when you use the regular print command on a
143 string. An optional integer following the "/s" sets a bound on the
144 number of bytes that will be collected.
145
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146tstart [NOTES]
147 The trace start command now interprets any supplied arguments as a
148 note to be recorded with the trace run, with an effect similar to
149 setting the variable trace-notes.
150
151tstop [NOTES]
152 The trace stop command now interprets any arguments as a note to be
153 mentioned along with the tstatus report that the trace was stopped
154 with a command. The effect is similar to setting the variable
155 trace-stop-notes.
156
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157* Tracepoints can now be enabled and disabled at any time after a trace
158 experiment has been started using the standard "enable" and "disable"
159 commands. It is now possible to start a trace experiment with no enabled
160 tracepoints; GDB will display a warning, but will allow the experiment to
161 begin, assuming that tracepoints will be enabled as needed while the trace
162 is running.
163
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164* Fast tracepoints on 32-bit x86-architectures can now be placed at
165 locations with 4-byte instructions, when they were previously
166 limited to locations with instructions of 5 bytes or longer.
167
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168* New options
169
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170set extended-prompt
171show extended-prompt
172 Set the GDB prompt, and allow escape sequences to be inserted to
173 display miscellaneous information (see 'help set extended-prompt'
174 for the list of sequences). This prompt (and any information
175 accessed through the escape sequences) is updated every time the
176 prompt is displayed.
177
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178set print entry-values (both|compact|default|if-needed|no|only|preferred)
179show print entry-values
180 Set printing of frame argument values at function entry. In some cases
181 GDB can determine the value of function argument which was passed by the
182 function caller, even if the value was modified inside the called function.
183
184set debug entry-values
185show debug entry-values
186 Control display of debugging info for determining frame argument values at
187 function entry and virtual tail call frames.
188
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189set basenames-may-differ
190show basenames-may-differ
191 Set whether a source file may have multiple base names.
192 (A "base name" is the name of a file with the directory part removed.
193 Example: The base name of "/home/user/hello.c" is "hello.c".)
194 If set, GDB will canonicalize file names (e.g., expand symlinks)
195 before comparing them. Canonicalization is an expensive operation,
196 but it allows the same file be known by more than one base name.
197 If not set (the default), all source files are assumed to have just
198 one base name, and gdb will do file name comparisons more efficiently.
199
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200set trace-user
201show trace-user
202set trace-notes
203show trace-notes
204 Set a user name and notes for the current and any future trace runs.
205 This is useful for long-running and/or disconnected traces, to
206 inform others (or yourself) as to who is running the trace, supply
207 contact information, or otherwise explain what is going on.
208
209set trace-stop-notes
210show trace-stop-notes
211 Set a note attached to the trace run, that is displayed when the
212 trace has been stopped by a tstop command. This is useful for
213 instance as an explanation, if you are stopping a trace run that was
214 started by someone else.
215
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216* New remote packets
217
218QTEnable
219
220 Dynamically enable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
221
222QTDisable
223
224 Dynamically disable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
225
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226QTNotes
227
228 Set the user and notes of the trace run.
229
230qTP
231
232 Query the current status of a tracepoint.
233
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234qTMinFTPILen
235
236 Query the minimum length of instruction at which a fast tracepoint may
237 be placed.
238
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239* Dcache size (number of lines) and line-size are now runtime-configurable
240 via "set dcache line" and "set dcache line-size" commands.
241
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242* New targets
243
244Texas Instruments TMS320C6x tic6x-*-*
245
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246* New Simulators
247
248Renesas RL78 rl78-*-elf
249
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250*** Changes in GDB 7.3.1
251
252* The build failure for NetBSD and OpenBSD targets have now been fixed.
253
d6e00af6 254*** Changes in GDB 7.3
797054e6 255
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256* GDB has a new command: "thread find [REGEXP]".
257 It finds the thread id whose name, target id, or thread extra info
258 matches the given regular expression.
259
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260* The "catch syscall" command now works on mips*-linux* targets.
261
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262* The -data-disassemble MI command now supports modes 2 and 3 for
263 dumping the instruction opcodes.
264
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265* New command line options
266
267-data-directory DIR Specify DIR as the "data-directory".
268 This is mostly for testing purposes.
269
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270* The "maint set python auto-load on|off" command has been renamed to
271 "set auto-load-scripts on|off".
272
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273* GDB has a new command: "set directories".
274 It is like the "dir" command except that it replaces the
275 source path list instead of augmenting it.
276
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277* GDB now understands thread names.
278
279 On GNU/Linux, "info threads" will display the thread name as set by
280 prctl or pthread_setname_np.
281
282 There is also a new command, "thread name", which can be used to
283 assign a name internally for GDB to display.
284
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285* OpenCL C
286 Initial support for the OpenCL C language (http://www.khronos.org/opencl)
287 has been integrated into GDB.
288
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289* Python scripting
290
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291 ** The function gdb.Write now accepts an optional keyword 'stream'.
292 This keyword, when provided, will direct the output to either
293 stdout, stderr, or GDB's logging output.
294
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295 ** Parameters can now be be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
296 you may implement the get_set_doc and get_show_doc functions.
297 This improves how Parameter set/show documentation is processed
298 and allows for more dynamic content.
299
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300 ** Symbols, Symbol Table, Symbol Table and Line, Object Files,
301 Inferior, Inferior Thread, Blocks, and Block Iterator APIs now
302 have an is_valid method.
303
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304 ** Breakpoints can now be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
305 you may implement a 'stop' function that is executed each time
306 the inferior reaches that breakpoint.
307
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308 ** New function gdb.lookup_global_symbol looks up a global symbol.
309
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310 ** GDB values in Python are now callable if the value represents a
311 function. For example, if 'some_value' represents a function that
312 takes two integer parameters and returns a value, you can call
313 that function like so:
314
315 result = some_value (10,20)
316
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317 ** Module gdb.types has been added.
318 It contains a collection of utilities for working with gdb.Types objects:
319 get_basic_type, has_field, make_enum_dict.
320
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321 ** Module gdb.printing has been added.
322 It contains utilities for writing and registering pretty-printers.
323 New classes: PrettyPrinter, SubPrettyPrinter,
324 RegexpCollectionPrettyPrinter.
325 New function: register_pretty_printer.
326
327 ** New commands "info pretty-printers", "enable pretty-printer" and
328 "disable pretty-printer" have been added.
329
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330 ** gdb.parameter("directories") is now available.
331
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332 ** New function gdb.newest_frame returns the newest frame in the
333 selected thread.
334
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335 ** The gdb.InferiorThread class has a new "name" attribute. This
336 holds the thread's name.
337
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338 ** Python Support for Inferior events.
339 Python scripts can add observers to be notified of events
824446ad 340 occurring in the process being debugged.
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341 The following events are currently supported:
342 - gdb.events.cont Continue event.
343 - gdb.events.exited Inferior exited event.
344 - gdb.events.stop Signal received, and Breakpoint hit events.
345
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346* C++ Improvements:
347
348 ** GDB now puts template parameters in scope when debugging in an
349 instantiation. For example, if you have:
350
351 template<int X> int func (void) { return X; }
352
353 then if you step into func<5>, "print X" will show "5". This
354 feature requires proper debuginfo support from the compiler; it
355 was added to GCC 4.5.
356
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357 ** The motion commands "next", "finish", "until", and "advance" now
358 work better when exceptions are thrown. In particular, GDB will
359 no longer lose control of the inferior; instead, the GDB will
360 stop the inferior at the point at which the exception is caught.
361 This functionality requires a change in the exception handling
362 code that was introduced in GCC 4.5.
363
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364* GDB now follows GCC's rules on accessing volatile objects when
365 reading or writing target state during expression evaluation.
366 One notable difference to prior behavior is that "print x = 0"
367 no longer generates a read of x; the value of the assignment is
368 now always taken directly from the value being assigned.
369
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370* GDB now has some support for using labels in the program's source in
371 linespecs. For instance, you can use "advance label" to continue
372 execution to a label.
373
374* GDB now has support for reading and writing a new .gdb_index
375 section. This section holds a fast index of DWARF debugging
376 information and can be used to greatly speed up GDB startup and
377 operation. See the documentation for `save gdb-index' for details.
378
b56df873 379* The "watch" command now accepts an optional "-location" argument.
14c0d4e1 380 When used, this causes GDB to watch the memory referred to by the
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381 expression. Such a watchpoint is never deleted due to it going out
382 of scope.
383
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384* GDB now supports thread debugging of core dumps on GNU/Linux.
385
386 GDB now activates thread debugging using the libthread_db library
387 when debugging GNU/Linux core dumps, similarly to when debugging
388 live processes. As a result, when debugging a core dump file, GDB
389 is now able to display pthread_t ids of threads. For example, "info
390 threads" shows the same output as when debugging the process when it
391 was live. In earlier releases, you'd see something like this:
392
393 (gdb) info threads
394 * 1 LWP 6780 main () at main.c:10
395
396 While now you see this:
397
398 (gdb) info threads
399 * 1 Thread 0x7f0f5712a700 (LWP 6780) main () at main.c:10
400
401 It is also now possible to inspect TLS variables when debugging core
402 dumps.
403
404 When debugging a core dump generated on a machine other than the one
405 used to run GDB, you may need to point GDB at the correct
406 libthread_db library with the "set libthread-db-search-path"
407 command. See the user manual for more details on this command.
408
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409* When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
410 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports ranged breakpoints,
411 which stop execution of the inferior whenever it executes an instruction
412 at any address within the specified range. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
413 section in the user manual for more details.
414
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415* New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
416
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417 ** GDBserver is now supported on PowerPC LynxOS (versions 4.x and 5.x),
418 and i686 LynxOS (version 5.x).
248c9dbc 419
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420 ** GDBserver is now supported on Blackfin Linux.
421
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422* New native configurations
423
424ia64 HP-UX ia64-*-hpux*
425
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426* New targets:
427
428Analog Devices, Inc. Blackfin Processor bfin-*
429
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430* Ada task switching is now supported on sparc-elf targets when
431 debugging a program using the Ravenscar Profile. For more information,
432 see the "Tasking Support when using the Ravenscar Profile" section
433 in the GDB user manual.
434
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435* Guile support was removed.
436
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437* New features in the GNU simulator
438
439 ** The --map-info flag lists all known core mappings.
440
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441 ** CFI flashes may be simulated via the "cfi" device.
442
76b8507d 443*** Changes in GDB 7.2
bfbf3774 444
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445* Shared library support for remote targets by default
446
447 When GDB is configured for a generic, non-OS specific target, like
448 for example, --target=arm-eabi or one of the many *-*-elf targets,
449 GDB now queries remote stubs for loaded shared libraries using the
450 `qXfer:libraries:read' packet. Previously, shared library support
451 was always disabled for such configurations.
452
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453* C++ Improvements:
454
455 ** Argument Dependent Lookup (ADL)
456
457 In C++ ADL lookup directs function search to the namespaces of its
458 arguments even if the namespace has not been imported.
459 For example:
460 namespace A
461 {
462 class B { };
463 void foo (B) { }
464 }
465 ...
466 A::B b
467 foo(b)
468 Here the compiler will search for `foo' in the namespace of 'b'
469 and find A::foo. GDB now supports this. This construct is commonly
470 used in the Standard Template Library for operators.
471
472 ** Improved User Defined Operator Support
473
474 In addition to member operators, GDB now supports lookup of operators
475 defined in a namespace and imported with a `using' directive, operators
476 defined in the global scope, operators imported implicitly from an
477 anonymous namespace, and the ADL operators mentioned in the previous
478 entry.
479 GDB now also supports proper overload resolution for all the previously
480 mentioned flavors of operators.
481
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482 ** static const class members
483
484 Printing of static const class members that are initialized in the
485 class definition has been fixed.
486
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487* Windows Thread Information Block access.
488
489 On Windows targets, GDB now supports displaying the Windows Thread
490 Information Block (TIB) structure. This structure is visible either
491 by using the new command `info w32 thread-information-block' or, by
492 dereferencing the new convenience variable named `$_tlb', a
493 thread-specific pointer to the TIB. This feature is also supported
494 when remote debugging using GDBserver.
495
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496* Static tracepoints
497
498 Static tracepoints are calls in the user program into a tracing
499 library. One such library is a port of the LTTng kernel tracer to
500 userspace --- UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer, http://lttng.org/ust).
501 When debugging with GDBserver, GDB now supports combining the GDB
502 tracepoint machinery with such libraries. For example: the user can
503 use GDB to probe a static tracepoint marker (a call from the user
504 program into the tracing library) with the new "strace" command (see
505 "New commands" below). This creates a "static tracepoint" in the
506 breakpoint list, that can be manipulated with the same feature set
507 as fast and regular tracepoints. E.g., collect registers, local and
508 global variables, collect trace state variables, and define
509 tracepoint conditions. In addition, the user can collect extra
510 static tracepoint marker specific data, by collecting the new
511 $_sdata internal variable. When analyzing the trace buffer, you can
512 inspect $_sdata like any other variable available to GDB. For more
513 information, see the "Tracepoints" chapter in GDB user manual. New
514 remote packets have been defined to support static tracepoints, see
515 the "New remote packets" section below.
516
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517* Better reconstruction of tracepoints after disconnected tracing
518
519 GDB will attempt to download the original source form of tracepoint
520 definitions when starting a trace run, and then will upload these
521 upon reconnection to the target, resulting in a more accurate
522 reconstruction of the tracepoints that are in use on the target.
523
524* Observer mode
525
526 You can now exercise direct control over the ways that GDB can
527 affect your program. For instance, you can disallow the setting of
528 breakpoints, so that the program can run continuously (assuming
529 non-stop mode). In addition, the "observer" variable is available
530 to switch all of the different controls; in observer mode, GDB
531 cannot affect the target's behavior at all, which is useful for
532 tasks like diagnosing live systems in the field.
533
534* The new convenience variable $_thread holds the number of the
535 current thread.
536
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537* New remote packets
538
539qGetTIBAddr
540
541 Return the address of the Windows Thread Information Block of a given thread.
542
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543qRelocInsn
544
545 In response to several of the tracepoint packets, the target may now
546 also respond with a number of intermediate `qRelocInsn' request
547 packets before the final result packet, to have GDB handle
548 relocating an instruction to execute at a different address. This
549 is particularly useful for stubs that support fast tracepoints. GDB
550 reports support for this feature in the qSupported packet.
551
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552qTfSTM, qTsSTM
553
554 List static tracepoint markers in the target program.
555
556qTSTMat
557
558 List static tracepoint markers at a given address in the target
559 program.
560
561qXfer:statictrace:read
562
563 Read the static trace data collected (by a `collect $_sdata'
564 tracepoint action). The remote stub reports support for this packet
565 to gdb's qSupported query.
566
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567QAllow
568
569 Send the current settings of GDB's permission flags.
570
571QTDPsrc
572
573 Send part of the source (textual) form of a tracepoint definition,
574 which includes location, conditional, and action list.
575
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576* The source command now accepts a -s option to force searching for the
577 script in the source search path even if the script name specifies
578 a directory.
579
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580* New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
581
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582 - GDBserver now support tracepoints (including fast tracepoints, and
583 static tracepoints). The feature is currently supported by the
584 i386-linux and amd64-linux builds. See the "Tracepoints support
585 in gdbserver" section in the manual for more information.
586
587 GDBserver JIT compiles the tracepoint's conditional agent
588 expression bytecode into native code whenever possible for low
589 overhead dynamic tracepoints conditionals. For such tracepoints,
590 an expression that examines program state is evaluated when the
591 tracepoint is reached, in order to determine whether to capture
592 trace data. If the condition is simple and false, processing the
593 tracepoint finishes very quickly and no data is gathered.
594
595 GDBserver interfaces with the UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer) library
596 for static tracepoints support.
d337e9f0 597
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598 - GDBserver now supports x86_64 Windows 64-bit debugging.
599
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600* GDB now sends xmlRegisters= in qSupported packet to indicate that
601 it understands register description.
602
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603* The --batch flag now disables pagination and queries.
604
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605* X86 general purpose registers
606
607 GDB now supports reading/writing byte, word and double-word x86
608 general purpose registers directly. This means you can use, say,
609 $ah or $ax to refer, respectively, to the byte register AH and
610 16-bit word register AX that are actually portions of the 32-bit
611 register EAX or 64-bit register RAX.
612
95a42b64 613* The `commands' command now accepts a range of breakpoints to modify.
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614 A plain `commands' following a command that creates multiple
615 breakpoints affects all the breakpoints set by that command. This
616 applies to breakpoints set by `rbreak', and also applies when a
617 single `break' command creates multiple breakpoints (e.g.,
618 breakpoints on overloaded c++ functions).
95a42b64 619
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CM
620* The `rbreak' command now accepts a filename specification as part of
621 its argument, limiting the functions selected by the regex to those
622 in the specified file.
623
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624* Support for remote debugging Windows and SymbianOS shared libraries
625 from Unix hosts has been improved. Non Windows GDB builds now can
626 understand target reported file names that follow MS-DOS based file
627 system semantics, such as file names that include drive letters and
628 use the backslash character as directory separator. This makes it
629 possible to transparently use the "set sysroot" and "set
630 solib-search-path" on Unix hosts to point as host copies of the
631 target's shared libraries. See the new command "set
632 target-file-system-kind" described below, and the "Commands to
633 specify files" section in the user manual for more information.
634
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635* New commands
636
f1421989
HZ
637eval template, expressions...
638 Convert the values of one or more expressions under the control
639 of the string template to a command line, and call it.
640
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PA
641set target-file-system-kind unix|dos-based|auto
642show target-file-system-kind
643 Set or show the assumed file system kind for target reported file
644 names.
645
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PA
646save breakpoints <filename>
647 Save all current breakpoint definitions to a file suitable for use
648 in a later debugging session. To read the saved breakpoint
649 definitions, use the `source' command.
650
651`save tracepoints' is a new alias for `save-tracepoints'. The latter
652is now deprecated.
653
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PA
654info static-tracepoint-markers
655 Display information about static tracepoint markers in the target.
656
657strace FN | FILE:LINE | *ADDR | -m MARKER_ID
658 Define a static tracepoint by probing a marker at the given
659 function, line, address, or marker ID.
660
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SS
661set observer on|off
662show observer
663 Enable and disable observer mode.
664
665set may-write-registers on|off
666set may-write-memory on|off
667set may-insert-breakpoints on|off
668set may-insert-tracepoints on|off
669set may-insert-fast-tracepoints on|off
670set may-interrupt on|off
671 Set individual permissions for GDB effects on the target. Note that
672 some of these settings can have undesirable or surprising
673 consequences, particularly when changed in the middle of a session.
674 For instance, disabling the writing of memory can prevent
675 breakpoints from being inserted, cause single-stepping to fail, or
676 even crash your program, if you disable after breakpoints have been
677 inserted. However, GDB should not crash.
678
679set record memory-query on|off
680show record memory-query
681 Control whether to stop the inferior if memory changes caused
682 by an instruction cannot be recorded.
683
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CR
684* Changed commands
685
686disassemble
687 The disassemble command now supports "start,+length" form of two arguments.
688
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PM
689* Python scripting
690
9279c692
JB
691** GDB now provides a new directory location, called the python directory,
692 where Python scripts written for GDB can be installed. The location
693 of that directory is <data-directory>/python, where <data-directory>
694 is the GDB data directory. For more details, see section `Scripting
695 GDB using Python' in the manual.
696
adc36818 697** The GDB Python API now has access to breakpoints, symbols, symbol
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PM
698 tables, program spaces, inferiors, threads and frame's code blocks.
699 Additionally, GDB Parameters can now be created from the API, and
700 manipulated via set/show in the CLI.
f870a310 701
fa33c3cd 702** New functions gdb.target_charset, gdb.target_wide_charset,
07ca107c
DE
703 gdb.progspaces, gdb.current_progspace, and gdb.string_to_argv.
704
705** New exception gdb.GdbError.
fa33c3cd
DE
706
707** Pretty-printers are now also looked up in the current program space.
f3e9a817 708
967cf477
DE
709** Pretty-printers can now be individually enabled and disabled.
710
8a1ea21f
DE
711** GDB now looks for names of Python scripts to auto-load in a
712 special section named `.debug_gdb_scripts', in addition to looking
713 for a OBJFILE-gdb.py script when OBJFILE is read by the debugger.
714
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715* Tracepoint actions were unified with breakpoint commands. In particular,
716there are no longer differences in "info break" output for breakpoints and
717tracepoints and the "commands" command can be used for both tracepoints and
718regular breakpoints.
719
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720* New targets
721
722ARM Symbian arm*-*-symbianelf*
723
6aecb9c2
JB
724* D language support.
725 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the D programming
726 language.
727
431e49aa
TJB
728* GDB now supports the extended ptrace interface for PowerPC which is
729 available since Linux kernel version 2.6.34. This automatically enables
730 any hardware breakpoints and additional hardware watchpoints available in
731 the processor. The old ptrace interface exposes just one hardware
732 watchpoint and no hardware breakpoints.
733
734* GDB is now able to use the Data Value Compare (DVC) register available on
735 embedded PowerPC processors to implement in hardware simple watchpoint
736 conditions of the form:
737
738 watch ADDRESS|VARIABLE if ADDRESS|VARIABLE == CONSTANT EXPRESSION
739
740 This works in native GDB running on Linux kernels with the extended ptrace
741 interface mentioned above.
742
bfbf3774 743*** Changes in GDB 7.1
abc7453d 744
4eef138c
TT
745* C++ Improvements
746
747 ** Namespace Support
71dee663
SW
748
749 GDB now supports importing of namespaces in C++. This enables the
750 user to inspect variables from imported namespaces. Support for
751 namepace aliasing has also been added. So, if a namespace is
752 aliased in the current scope (e.g. namepace C=A; ) the user can
753 print variables using the alias (e.g. (gdb) print C::x).
754
4eef138c
TT
755 ** Bug Fixes
756
757 All known bugs relating to the printing of virtual base class were
758 fixed. It is now possible to call overloaded static methods using a
759 qualified name.
760
761 ** Cast Operators
762
763 The C++ cast operators static_cast<>, dynamic_cast<>, const_cast<>,
764 and reinterpret_cast<> are now handled by the C++ expression parser.
765
2d1c1221
ME
766* New targets
767
768Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze-*-*
34207b9e 769Renesas RX rx-*-elf
2d1c1221
ME
770
771* New Simulators
772
773Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze
34207b9e 774Renesas RX rx
2d1c1221 775
6c95b8df
PA
776* Multi-program debugging.
777
778 GDB now has support for multi-program (a.k.a. multi-executable or
779 multi-exec) debugging. This allows for debugging multiple inferiors
780 simultaneously each running a different program under the same GDB
781 session. See "Debugging Multiple Inferiors and Programs" in the
782 manual for more information. This implied some user visible changes
783 in the multi-inferior support. For example, "info inferiors" now
784 lists inferiors that are not running yet or that have exited
785 already. See also "New commands" and "New options" below.
786
d5551862
SS
787* New tracing features
788
789 GDB's tracepoint facility now includes several new features:
790
791 ** Trace state variables
f61e138d
SS
792
793 GDB tracepoints now include support for trace state variables, which
794 are variables managed by the target agent during a tracing
795 experiment. They are useful for tracepoints that trigger each
796 other, so for instance one tracepoint can count hits in a variable,
797 and then a second tracepoint has a condition that is true when the
798 count reaches a particular value. Trace state variables share the
799 $-syntax of GDB convenience variables, and can appear in both
800 tracepoint actions and condition expressions. Use the "tvariable"
801 command to create, and "info tvariables" to view; see "Trace State
802 Variables" in the manual for more detail.
7a697b8d 803
d5551862 804 ** Fast tracepoints
7a697b8d
SS
805
806 GDB now includes an option for defining fast tracepoints, which
807 targets may implement more efficiently, such as by installing a jump
808 into the target agent rather than a trap instruction. The resulting
809 speedup can be by two orders of magnitude or more, although the
810 tradeoff is that some program locations on some target architectures
811 might not allow fast tracepoint installation, for instance if the
812 instruction to be replaced is shorter than the jump. To request a
813 fast tracepoint, use the "ftrace" command, with syntax identical to
814 the regular trace command.
815
d5551862
SS
816 ** Disconnected tracing
817
818 It is now possible to detach GDB from the target while it is running
819 a trace experiment, then reconnect later to see how the experiment
820 is going. In addition, a new variable disconnected-tracing lets you
821 tell the target agent whether to continue running a trace if the
822 connection is lost unexpectedly.
823
00bf0b85
SS
824 ** Trace files
825
826 GDB now has the ability to save the trace buffer into a file, and
827 then use that file as a target, similarly to you can do with
828 corefiles. You can select trace frames, print data that was
829 collected in them, and use tstatus to display the state of the
830 tracing run at the moment that it was saved. To create a trace
831 file, use "tsave <filename>", and to use it, do "target tfile
832 <name>".
4daf5ac0
SS
833
834 ** Circular trace buffer
835
836 You can ask the target agent to handle the trace buffer as a
837 circular buffer, discarding the oldest trace frames to make room for
838 newer ones, by setting circular-trace-buffer to on. This feature may
839 not be available for all target agents.
840
21a0512e
PP
841* Changed commands
842
843disassemble
844 The disassemble command, when invoked with two arguments, now requires
845 the arguments to be comma-separated.
846
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DJ
847info variables
848 The info variables command now displays variable definitions. Files
849 which only declare a variable are not shown.
850
fb2e7cb4
JB
851source
852 The source command is now capable of sourcing Python scripts.
853 This feature is dependent on the debugger being build with Python
854 support.
855
856 Related to this enhancement is also the introduction of a new command
857 "set script-extension" (see below).
858
6c95b8df
PA
859* New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
860
399cd161
MS
861record save [<FILENAME>]
862 Save a file (in core file format) containing the process record
863 execution log for replay debugging at a later time.
864
865record restore <FILENAME>
866 Restore the process record execution log that was saved at an
867 earlier time, for replay debugging.
868
6c95b8df
PA
869add-inferior [-copies <N>] [-exec <FILENAME>]
870 Add a new inferior.
871
872clone-inferior [-copies <N>] [ID]
873 Make a new inferior ready to execute the same program another
874 inferior has loaded.
875
876remove-inferior ID
877 Remove an inferior.
878
879maint info program-spaces
880 List the program spaces loaded into GDB.
881
9a7071a8
JB
882set remote interrupt-sequence [Ctrl-C | BREAK | BREAK-g]
883show remote interrupt-sequence
884 Allow the user to select one of ^C, a BREAK signal or BREAK-g
885 as the sequence to the remote target in order to interrupt the execution.
886 Ctrl-C is a default. Some system prefers BREAK which is high level of
887 serial line for some certain time. Linux kernel prefers BREAK-g, a.k.a
888 Magic SysRq g. It is BREAK signal and character 'g'.
889
890set remote interrupt-on-connect [on | off]
891show remote interrupt-on-connect
892 When interrupt-on-connect is ON, gdb sends interrupt-sequence to
893 remote target when gdb connects to it. This is needed when you debug
894 Linux kernel.
895
896set remotebreak [on | off]
897show remotebreak
898Deprecated. Use "set/show remote interrupt-sequence" instead.
899
f61e138d
SS
900tvariable $NAME [ = EXP ]
901 Create or modify a trace state variable.
902
903info tvariables
904 List trace state variables and their values.
905
906delete tvariable $NAME ...
907 Delete one or more trace state variables.
908
6da95a67
SS
909teval EXPR, ...
910 Evaluate the given expressions without collecting anything into the
911 trace buffer. (Valid in tracepoint actions only.)
912
7a697b8d
SS
913ftrace FN / FILE:LINE / *ADDR
914 Define a fast tracepoint at the given function, line, or address.
915
b0f02ee9
JK
916* New expression syntax
917
918 GDB now parses the 0b prefix of binary numbers the same way as GCC does.
919 GDB now parses 0b101010 identically with 42.
920
6c95b8df
PA
921* New options
922
923set follow-exec-mode new|same
924show follow-exec-mode
925 Control whether GDB reuses the same inferior across an exec call or
926 creates a new one. This is useful to be able to restart the old
927 executable after the inferior having done an exec call.
928
236f1d4d
SS
929set default-collect EXPR, ...
930show default-collect
931 Define a list of expressions to be collected at each tracepoint.
932 This is a useful way to ensure essential items are not overlooked,
933 such as registers or a critical global variable.
934
d5551862
SS
935set disconnected-tracing
936show disconnected-tracing
937 If set to 1, the target is instructed to continue tracing if it
938 loses its connection to GDB. If 0, the target is to stop tracing
939 upon disconnection.
940
4daf5ac0
SS
941set circular-trace-buffer
942show circular-trace-buffer
943 If set to on, the target is instructed to use a circular trace buffer
944 and discard the oldest trace frames instead of stopping the trace due
945 to a full trace buffer. If set to off, the trace stops when the buffer
946 fills up. Some targets may not support this.
947
fb2e7cb4
JB
948set script-extension off|soft|strict
949show script-extension
950 If set to "off", the debugger does not perform any script language
951 recognition, and all sourced files are assumed to be GDB scripts.
952 If set to "soft" (the default), files are sourced according to
953 filename extension, falling back to GDB scripts if the first
954 evaluation failed.
955 If set to "strict", files are sourced according to filename extension.
956
2b71fc8e
JB
957set ada trust-PAD-over-XVS on|off
958show ada trust-PAD-over-XVS
959 If off, activate a workaround against a bug in the debugging information
960 generated by the compiler for PAD types (see gcc/exp_dbug.ads in
961 the GCC sources for more information about the GNAT encoding and
962 PAD types in particular). It is always safe to set this option to
963 off, but this introduces a slight performance penalty. The default
964 is on.
965
de2e5182
TT
966* Python API Improvements
967
968 ** GDB provides the new class gdb.LazyString. This is useful in
969 some pretty-printing cases. The new method gdb.Value.lazy_string
970 provides a simple way to create objects of this type.
971
972 ** The fields returned by gdb.Type.fields now have an
973 `is_base_class' attribute.
974
975 ** The new method gdb.Type.range returns the range of an array type.
976
977 ** The new method gdb.parse_and_eval can be used to parse and
978 evaluate an expression.
979
f61e138d
SS
980* New remote packets
981
982QTDV
983 Define a trace state variable.
984
985qTV
986 Get the current value of a trace state variable.
987
d5551862
SS
988QTDisconnected
989 Set desired tracing behavior upon disconnection.
990
4daf5ac0
SS
991QTBuffer:circular
992 Set the trace buffer to be linear or circular.
993
d5551862
SS
994qTfP, qTsP
995 Get data about the tracepoints currently in use.
996
2d483d34
MS
997* Bug fixes
998
999Process record now works correctly with hardware watchpoints.
1000
6e0e5977
JB
1001Multiple bug fixes have been made to the mips-irix port, making it
1002much more reliable. In particular:
1003 - Debugging threaded applications is now possible again. Previously,
1004 GDB would hang while starting the program, or while waiting for
1005 the program to stop at a breakpoint.
1006 - Attaching to a running process no longer hangs.
1007 - An error occurring while loading a core file has been fixed.
1008 - Changing the value of the PC register now works again. This fixes
1009 problems observed when using the "jump" command, or when calling
1010 a function from GDB, or even when assigning a new value to $pc.
1011 - With the "finish" and "return" commands, the return value for functions
1012 returning a small array is now correctly printed.
1013 - It is now possible to break on shared library code which gets executed
1014 during a shared library init phase (code executed while executing
1015 their .init section). Previously, the breakpoint would have no effect.
1016 - GDB is now able to backtrace through the signal handler for
1017 non-threaded programs.
1018
93c26624
JK
1019PIE (Position Independent Executable) programs debugging is now supported.
1020This includes debugging execution of PIC (Position Independent Code) shared
1021libraries although for that, it should be possible to run such libraries as an
1022executable program.
1023
abc7453d 1024*** Changes in GDB 7.0
75feb17d 1025
4efc6507
DE
1026* GDB now has an interface for JIT compilation. Applications that
1027dynamically generate code can create symbol files in memory and register
1028them with GDB. For users, the feature should work transparently, and
1029for JIT developers, the interface is documented in the GDB manual in the
1030"JIT Compilation Interface" chapter.
1031
782b2b07
SS
1032* Tracepoints may now be conditional. The syntax is as for
1033breakpoints; either an "if" clause appended to the "trace" command,
1034or the "condition" command is available. GDB sends the condition to
1035the target for evaluation using the same bytecode format as is used
1036for tracepoint actions.
1037
53a71c06
CR
1038* The disassemble command now supports: an optional /r modifier, print the
1039raw instructions in hex as well as in symbolic form, and an optional /m
1040modifier to print mixed source+assembly.
e6158f16 1041
e7a8dbfb
HZ
1042* Process record and replay
1043
1044 In a architecture environment that supports ``process record and
1045 replay'', ``process record and replay'' target can record a log of
1046 the process execution, and replay it with both forward and reverse
1047 execute commands.
1048
64644d9b
MS
1049* Reverse debugging: GDB now has new commands reverse-continue, reverse-
1050step, reverse-next, reverse-finish, reverse-stepi, reverse-nexti, and
1051set execution-direction {forward|reverse}, for targets that support
1052reverse execution.
1053
b9412953
DD
1054* GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on MIPS/Linux systems. This
1055feature is available with a native GDB running on kernel version
10562.6.28 or later.
1057
6c7a06a3
TT
1058* GDB now has support for multi-byte and wide character sets on the
1059target. Strings whose character type is wchar_t, char16_t, or
1060char32_t are now correctly printed. GDB supports wide- and unicode-
1061literals in C, that is, L'x', L"string", u'x', u"string", U'x', and
1062U"string" syntax. And, GDB allows the "%ls" and "%lc" formats in
1063`printf'. This feature requires iconv to work properly; if your
1064system does not have a working iconv, GDB can use GNU libiconv. See
1065the installation instructions for more information.
1066
f1838a98
UW
1067* GDB now supports automatic retrieval of shared library files from
1068remote targets. To use this feature, specify a system root that begins
1069with the `remote:' prefix, either via the `set sysroot' command or via
1070the `--with-sysroot' configure-time option.
1071
55333a84
DE
1072* "info sharedlibrary" now takes an optional regex of libraries to show,
1073and it now reports if a shared library has no debugging information.
1074
7f6a6314
PM
1075* Commands `set debug-file-directory', `set solib-search-path' and `set args'
1076now complete on file names.
1077
65d12d83
TT
1078* When completing in expressions, gdb will attempt to limit
1079completions to allowable structure or union fields, where appropriate.
1080For instance, consider:
1081
1082 # struct example { int f1; double f2; };
1083 # struct example variable;
1084 (gdb) p variable.
1085
1086If the user types TAB at the end of this command line, the available
1087completions will be "f1" and "f2".
1088
edb3359d
DJ
1089* Inlined functions are now supported. They show up in backtraces, and
1090the "step", "next", and "finish" commands handle them automatically.
1091
2fae03e8
TT
1092* GDB now supports the token-splicing (##) and stringification (#)
1093operators when expanding macros. It also supports variable-arity
1094macros.
1095
47a3467a 1096* GDB now supports inspecting extra signal information, exported by
58d6951d
DJ
1097the new $_siginfo convenience variable. The feature is currently
1098implemented on linux ARM, i386 and amd64.
1099
1100* GDB can now display the VFP floating point registers and NEON vector
1101registers on ARM targets. Both ARM GNU/Linux native GDB and gdbserver
1102can provide these registers (requires Linux 2.6.30 or later). Remote
1103and simulator targets may also provide them.
47a3467a 1104
08388c79
DE
1105* New remote packets
1106
1107qSearch:memory:
1108 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
1109
a6f3e723
SL
1110QStartNoAckMode
1111 Turn off `+'/`-' protocol acknowledgments to permit more efficient
1112 operation over reliable transport links. Use of this packet is
1113 controlled by the `set remote noack-packet' command.
1114
d7713ae0
EZ
1115vKill
1116 Kill the process with the specified process ID. Use this in preference
1117 to `k' when multiprocess protocol extensions are supported.
1118
07e059b5
VP
1119qXfer:osdata:read
1120 Obtains additional operating system information
1121
47a3467a
PA
1122qXfer:siginfo:read
1123qXfer:siginfo:write
1124 Read or write additional signal information.
1125
060871df
PA
1126* Removed remote protocol undocumented extension
1127
1128 An undocumented extension to the remote protocol's `S' stop reply
1129 packet that permited the stub to pass a process id was removed.
1130 Remote servers should use the `T' stop reply packet instead.
1131
c055b101 1132* GDB now supports multiple function calling conventions according to the
a0ef4274 1133DWARF-2 DW_AT_calling_convention function attribute.
c055b101
CV
1134
1135* The SH target utilizes the aforementioned change to distinguish between gcc
a0ef4274
DJ
1136and Renesas calling convention. It also adds the new CLI commands
1137`set/show sh calling-convention'.
c055b101 1138
31fffb02
CS
1139* GDB can now read compressed debug sections, as produced by GNU gold
1140with the --compress-debug-sections=zlib flag.
1141
88d8a8e0
JB
1142* 64-bit core files are now supported on AIX.
1143
7f99b190
JB
1144* Thread switching is now supported on Tru64.
1145
ccd213ac
DJ
1146* Watchpoints can now be set on unreadable memory locations, e.g. addresses
1147which will be allocated using malloc later in program execution.
1148
1fddbabb 1149* The qXfer:libraries:read remote procotol packet now allows passing a
31fffb02 1150list of section offsets.
1fddbabb 1151
a0ef4274
DJ
1152* On GNU/Linux, GDB can now attach to stopped processes. Several race
1153conditions handling signals delivered during attach or thread creation
1154have also been fixed.
1155
bfb8797a 1156* GDB now supports the use of DWARF boolean types for Ada's type Boolean.
158c7665
PH
1157From the user's standpoint, all unqualified instances of True and False
1158are treated as the standard definitions, regardless of context.
bfb8797a 1159
71c25dea
TT
1160* GDB now parses C++ symbol and type names more flexibly. For
1161example, given:
1162
1163 template<typename T> class C { };
1164 C<char const *> c;
1165
1166GDB will now correctly handle all of:
1167
1168 ptype C<char const *>
1169 ptype C<char const*>
1170 ptype C<const char *>
1171 ptype C<const char*>
1172
ccd213ac
DJ
1173* New features in the GDB remote stub, gdbserver
1174
1175 - The "--wrapper" command-line argument tells gdbserver to use a
1176 wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
1177
7ae0e2a2
UW
1178 - On PowerPC and S/390 targets, it is now possible to use a single
1179 gdbserver executable to debug both 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
1180 (This requires gdbserver itself to be built as a 64-bit executable.)
1181
a6f3e723
SL
1182 - gdbserver uses the new noack protocol mode for TCP connections to
1183 reduce communications latency, if also supported and enabled in GDB.
1184
da8bd9a3
DJ
1185 - Support for the sparc64-linux-gnu target is now included in
1186 gdbserver.
1187
d70e31dd
DE
1188 - The amd64-linux build of gdbserver now supports debugging both
1189 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
1190
1191 - The i386-linux, amd64-linux, and i386-win32 builds of gdbserver
1192 now support hardware watchpoints, and will use them automatically
1193 as appropriate.
1194
d57a3c85
TJB
1195* Python scripting
1196
1197 GDB now has support for scripting using Python. Whether this is
1198 available is determined at configure time.
1199
d8906c6f
TJB
1200 New GDB commands can now be written in Python.
1201
aadc346a
JB
1202* Ada tasking support
1203
1204 Ada tasks can now be inspected in GDB. The following commands have
1205 been introduced:
1206
1207 info tasks
1208 Print the list of Ada tasks.
1209 info task N
1210 Print detailed information about task number N.
1211 task
1212 Print the task number of the current task.
1213 task N
1214 Switch the context of debugging to task number N.
1215
adb483fe
DJ
1216* Support for user-defined prefixed commands. The "define" command can
1217add new commands to existing prefixes, e.g. "target".
1218
2277426b
PA
1219* Multi-inferior, multi-process debugging.
1220
1221 GDB now has generalized support for multi-inferior debugging. See
1222 "Debugging Multiple Inferiors" in the manual for more information.
1223 Although availability still depends on target support, the command
1224 set is more uniform now. The GNU/Linux specific multi-forks support
1225 has been migrated to this new framework. This implied some user
1226 visible changes; see "New commands" and also "Removed commands"
1227 below.
1228
08d16641
PA
1229* Target descriptions can now describe the target OS ABI. See the
1230"Target Description Format" section in the user manual for more
1231information.
1232
e35359c5
UW
1233* Target descriptions can now describe "compatible" architectures
1234to indicate that the target can execute applications for a different
1235architecture in addition to those for the main target architecture.
1236See the "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for
1237more information.
1238
85e747d2
UW
1239* Multi-architecture debugging.
1240
1241 GDB now includes general supports for debugging applications on
1242 hybrid systems that use more than one single processor architecture
1243 at the same time. Each such hybrid architecture still requires
1244 specific support to be added. The only hybrid architecture supported
1245 in this version of GDB is the Cell Broadband Engine.
1246
1247* GDB now supports integrated debugging of Cell/B.E. applications that
1248use both the PPU and SPU architectures. To enable support for hybrid
1249Cell/B.E. debugging, you need to configure GDB to support both the
1250powerpc-linux or powerpc64-linux and the spu-elf targets, using the
1251--enable-targets configure option.
1252
11ade57a
PA
1253* Non-stop mode debugging.
1254
1255 For some targets, GDB now supports an optional mode of operation in
1256 which you can examine stopped threads while other threads continue
1257 to execute freely. This is referred to as non-stop mode, with the
1258 old mode referred to as all-stop mode. See the "Non-Stop Mode"
1259 section in the user manual for more information.
1260
1261 To be able to support remote non-stop debugging, a remote stub needs
1262 to implement the non-stop mode remote protocol extensions, as
1263 described in the "Remote Non-Stop" section of the user manual. The
1264 GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been adjusted to support these
1265 extensions on linux targets.
1266
d7713ae0 1267* New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
75feb17d 1268
a96d9b2e
SDJ
1269catch syscall [NAME(S) | NUMBER(S)]
1270 Catch system calls. Arguments, which should be names of system
1271 calls or their numbers, mean catch only those syscalls. Without
1272 arguments, every syscall will be caught. When the inferior issues
1273 any of the specified syscalls, GDB will stop and announce the system
1274 call, both when it is called and when its call returns. This
1275 feature is currently available with a native GDB running on the
1276 Linux Kernel, under the following architectures: x86, x86_64,
1277 PowerPC and PowerPC64.
1278
08388c79
DE
1279find [/size-char] [/max-count] start-address, end-address|+search-space-size,
1280 val1 [, val2, ...]
1281 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
1282
d57a3c85
TJB
1283maint set python print-stack
1284maint show python print-stack
1285 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Python script.
1286
1287python [CODE]
1288 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Python interpreter.
1289
d7713ae0
EZ
1290macro define
1291macro list
1292macro undef
1293 These allow macros to be defined, undefined, and listed
1294 interactively.
1295
1296info os processes
1297 Show operating system information about processes.
1298
2277426b
PA
1299info inferiors
1300 List the inferiors currently under GDB's control.
1301
1302inferior NUM
1303 Switch focus to inferior number NUM.
1304
1305detach inferior NUM
1306 Detach from inferior number NUM.
1307
1308kill inferior NUM
1309 Kill inferior number NUM.
1310
d7713ae0
EZ
1311* New options
1312
3285f3fe
UW
1313set spu stop-on-load
1314show spu stop-on-load
1315 Control whether to stop for new SPE threads during Cell/B.E. debugging.
1316
ff1a52c6
UW
1317set spu auto-flush-cache
1318show spu auto-flush-cache
1319 Control whether to automatically flush the software-managed cache
1320 during Cell/B.E. debugging.
1321
d7713ae0
EZ
1322set sh calling-convention
1323show sh calling-convention
1324 Control the calling convention used when calling SH target functions.
1325
e0a3ce09 1326set debug timestamp
75feb17d 1327show debug timestamp
d7713ae0
EZ
1328 Control display of timestamps with GDB debugging output.
1329
1330set disassemble-next-line
1331show disassemble-next-line
1332 Control display of disassembled source lines or instructions when
1333 the debuggee stops.
1334
1335set remote noack-packet
1336show remote noack-packet
1337 Set/show the use of remote protocol QStartNoAckMode packet. See above
1338 under "New remote packets."
1339
1340set remote query-attached-packet
1341show remote query-attached-packet
1342 Control use of remote protocol `qAttached' (query-attached) packet.
1343
1344set remote read-siginfo-object
1345show remote read-siginfo-object
1346 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:read' (read-siginfo-object)
1347 packet.
1348
1349set remote write-siginfo-object
1350show remote write-siginfo-object
1351 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:write' (write-siginfo-object)
1352 packet.
1353
40ab02ce
MS
1354set remote reverse-continue
1355show remote reverse-continue
1356 Control use of remote protocol 'bc' (reverse-continue) packet.
1357
1358set remote reverse-step
1359show remote reverse-step
1360 Control use of remote protocol 'bs' (reverse-step) packet.
1361
d7713ae0
EZ
1362set displaced-stepping
1363show displaced-stepping
1364 Control displaced stepping mode. Displaced stepping is a way to
1365 single-step over breakpoints without removing them from the debuggee.
1366 Also known as "out-of-line single-stepping".
1367
1368set debug displaced
1369show debug displaced
1370 Control display of debugging info for displaced stepping.
1371
1372maint set internal-error
1373maint show internal-error
1374 Control what GDB does when an internal error is detected.
1375
1376maint set internal-warning
1377maint show internal-warning
1378 Control what GDB does when an internal warning is detected.
75feb17d 1379
ccd213ac
DJ
1380set exec-wrapper
1381show exec-wrapper
1382unset exec-wrapper
1383 Use a wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
fa4727a6 1384
aad4b048
JB
1385set multiple-symbols (all|ask|cancel)
1386show multiple-symbols
1387 The value of this variable can be changed to adjust the debugger behavior
1388 when an expression or a breakpoint location contains an ambiguous symbol
1389 name (an overloaded function name, for instance).
1390
74960c60
VP
1391set breakpoint always-inserted
1392show breakpoint always-inserted
1393 Keep breakpoints always inserted in the target, as opposed to inserting
1394 them when resuming the target, and removing them when the target stops.
1395 This option can improve debugger performance on slow remote targets.
1396
0428b8f5
DJ
1397set arm fallback-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
1398show arm fallback-mode
1399set arm force-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
1400show arm force-mode
1401 These commands control how ARM GDB determines whether instructions
1402 are ARM or Thumb. The default for both settings is auto, which uses
1403 the current CPSR value for instructions without symbols; previous
1404 versions of GDB behaved as if "set arm fallback-mode arm".
1405
10568435
JK
1406set disable-randomization
1407show disable-randomization
1408 Standalone programs run with the virtual address space randomization enabled
1409 by default on some platforms. This option keeps the addresses stable across
1410 multiple debugging sessions.
1411
d7713ae0
EZ
1412set non-stop
1413show non-stop
1414 Control whether other threads are stopped or not when some thread hits
1415 a breakpoint.
1416
b3eb342c 1417set target-async
d7713ae0 1418show target-async
b3eb342c
VP
1419 Requests that asynchronous execution is enabled in the target, if available.
1420 In this case, it's possible to resume target in the background, and interact
1421 with GDB while the target is running. "show target-async" displays the
1422 current state of asynchronous execution of the target.
1423
6c7a06a3
TT
1424set target-wide-charset
1425show target-wide-charset
1426 The target-wide-charset is the name of the character set that GDB
1427 uses when printing characters whose type is wchar_t.
1428
84603566
SL
1429set tcp auto-retry (on|off)
1430show tcp auto-retry
1431set tcp connect-timeout
1432show tcp connect-timeout
1433 These commands allow GDB to retry failed TCP connections to a remote stub
1434 with a specified timeout period; this is useful if the stub is launched
1435 in parallel with GDB but may not be ready to accept connections immediately.
1436
17a37d48
PP
1437set libthread-db-search-path
1438show libthread-db-search-path
1439 Control list of directories which GDB will search for appropriate
1440 libthread_db.
1441
d4db2f36
PA
1442set schedule-multiple (on|off)
1443show schedule-multiple
1444 Allow GDB to resume all threads of all processes or only threads of
1445 the current process.
1446
4e5d721f
DE
1447set stack-cache
1448show stack-cache
1449 Use more aggressive caching for accesses to the stack. This improves
1450 performance of remote debugging (particularly backtraces) without
1451 affecting correctness.
1452
910c5da8
JB
1453set interactive-mode (on|off|auto)
1454show interactive-mode
1455 Control whether GDB runs in interactive mode (on) or not (off).
1456 When in interactive mode, GDB waits for the user to answer all
1457 queries. Otherwise, GDB does not wait and assumes the default
1458 answer. When set to auto (the default), GDB determines which
1459 mode to use based on the stdin settings.
1460
2277426b
PA
1461* Removed commands
1462
1463info forks
1464 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `info
1465 inferiors' command. To list checkpoints, you can still use the
1466 `info checkpoints' command, which was an alias for the `info forks'
1467 command.
1468
1469fork NUM
1470 Replaced by the new `inferior' command. To switch between
1471 checkpoints, you can still use the `restart' command, which was an
1472 alias for the `fork' command.
1473
1474process PID
1475 This is removed, since some targets don't have a notion of
1476 processes. To switch between processes, you can still use the
1477 `inferior' command using GDB's own inferior number.
1478
1479delete fork NUM
1480 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `kill
1481 inferior' command. To delete a checkpoint, you can still use the
1482 `delete checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `delete
1483 fork' command.
1484
1485detach fork NUM
1486 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `detach
1487 inferior' command. To detach a checkpoint, you can still use the
1488 `detach checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `detach
1489 fork' command.
1490
a80b95ba
TG
1491* New native configurations
1492
1493x86/x86_64 Darwin i[34567]86-*-darwin*
1494
b8bfd3ed
JB
1495x86_64 MinGW x86_64-*-mingw*
1496
75a2d5e7
TT
1497* New targets
1498
c28c63d8 1499Lattice Mico32 lm32-*
75a2d5e7 1500x86 DICOS i[34567]86-*-dicos*
4c1d2973 1501x86_64 DICOS x86_64-*-dicos*
5f814c3b 1502S+core 3 score-*-*
75a2d5e7 1503
6de3146c
PA
1504* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports x86 Windows CE
1505 (mingw32ce) debugging.
1506
d5cbbe6e
JB
1507* Removed commands
1508
1509catch load
1510catch unload
1511 These commands were actually not implemented on any target.
1512
75feb17d 1513*** Changes in GDB 6.8
f9ed52be 1514
af5ca30d
NH
1515* New native configurations
1516
1517NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*netbsd*
94a0e877 1518Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
af5ca30d
NH
1519
1520* New targets
1521
1522NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*-netbsd*
94a0e877 1523Xtensa GNU/Lunux xtensa*-*-linux*
af5ca30d 1524
7a404eba
PA
1525* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
1526
1527 When the '-p NUMBER' or '--pid NUMBER' options are used, and
1528 attaching to process NUMBER fails, GDB no longer attempts to open a
1529 core file named NUMBER. Attaching to a program using the -c option
1530 is no longer supported. Instead, use the '-p' or '--pid' options.
1531
430ebac9
PA
1532* GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
1533(mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
1534
fe6fbf8b 1535* Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
8d5f9c6f 1536is resolved.
fe6fbf8b
VP
1537
1538* GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
8d5f9c6f
DJ
1539including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
1540and in inlined functions.
fe6fbf8b 1541
10665d76
JB
1542* GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
1543accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
1544more than one contiguous range of addresses.
1545
7cc46491
DJ
1546* Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
1547
d71340b8
DJ
1548* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
1549registers on PowerPC targets.
1550
523c4513
DJ
1551* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
1552targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
1553
a6b151f1
DJ
1554* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
1555commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
1556
2d717e4f
DJ
1557* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports run and attach in
1558extended-remote mode.
1559
24a836bd 1560* hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
d001be7a
DJ
1561The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
1562error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
1563The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
24a836bd 1564
d0c678e6
UW
1565* GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
1566building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
1567target architectures.
1568
d64a946d
TJB
1569* GDB now supports debugging C and C++ programs which use the
1570Decimal Floating Point extension. In addition, the PowerPC target
1571now has a set of pseudo-registers to inspect decimal float values
1572stored in two consecutive float registers.
1573
ee163bf5
VP
1574* The -break-insert MI command can optionally create pending
1575breakpoints now.
1576
b93b6ca7 1577* Improved support for debugging Ada
d001be7a
DJ
1578Many improvements to the Ada language support have been made. These
1579include:
b93b6ca7
JB
1580 - Better support for Ada2005 interface types
1581 - Improved handling of arrays and slices in general
1582 - Better support for Taft-amendment types
1583 - The '{type} ADDRESS' expression is now allowed on the left hand-side
1584 of an assignment
1585 - Improved command completion in Ada
1586 - Several bug fixes
1587
d001be7a
DJ
1588* GDB on GNU/Linux and HP/UX can now debug through "exec" of a new
1589process.
1590
a6b151f1
DJ
1591* New commands
1592
6d53d0af
JB
1593set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
1594show print frame-arguments
1595 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
1596 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
1597
a6b151f1
DJ
1598remote put
1599remote get
1600remote delete
1601 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
1602
1603* New MI commands
1604
1605-target-file-put
1606-target-file-get
1607-target-file-delete
1608 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
1609
1610* New remote packets
1611
1612vFile:open:
1613vFile:close:
1614vFile:pread:
1615vFile:pwrite:
1616vFile:unlink:
1617 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
d0c678e6 1618
2d717e4f
DJ
1619vAttach
1620 Attach to an existing process on the remote system, in extended-remote
1621 mode.
1622
1623vRun
1624 Run a new process on the remote system, in extended-remote mode.
1625
8d5f9c6f 1626*** Changes in GDB 6.7
6dd09645 1627
19d378fc
MS
1628* Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
1629bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
1630Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
1631
3a40aaa0
UW
1632* When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
1633symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
1634-Bsymbolic linker option.
1635
a6ec25f2
BW
1636* When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
1637recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
1638is not supported.
1639
6dd09645
JB
1640* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
1641frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
1642
c9bb8148
DJ
1643* GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
164432-bit or 64-bit register values.
1645
0d5de010
DJ
1646* Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
1647
23181151
DJ
1648* GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
1649target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
1650a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
1651
ea37ba09
DJ
1652* Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
1653automatically displayed as character or string data.
1654
1655* The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
1656arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
1657as strings.
e1f48ead 1658
123dc839
DJ
1659* Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
1660for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
8d5f9c6f 1661only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
123dc839 1662
05a4558a
DJ
1663* GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
1664iWMMXt coprocessor.
fb1e4ffc 1665
7c963485
PA
1666* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
1667ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
1668has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
1669
b18be20d
DJ
1670* GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
1671
0ca420ce
UW
1672* GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
1673
31d99776
DJ
1674* The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
1675layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
1676segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
1677
a4642986
MR
1678* The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
1679immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
1680
cfa9d6d9
DJ
1681* The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
1682"library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
1683packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
1684where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
1685Windows and SymbianOS).
255e7678
DJ
1686
1687* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
1688(DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
f5db8714
JK
1689
1690* GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
1691according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
cfa9d6d9 1692
c9bb8148
DJ
1693* New commands
1694
23776285
MR
1695set remoteflow
1696show remoteflow
1697 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
1698 when debugging using remote targets.
1699
c9bb8148
DJ
1700set mem inaccessible-by-default
1701show mem inaccessible-by-default
1702 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
1703 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
1704 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
1705 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
1706 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
1707
1708set breakpoint auto-hw
1709show breakpoint auto-hw
1710 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
1711 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
1712 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
1713 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
1714 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
1715 including "next" and "finish".
1716
0e420bd8
JB
1717catch exception
1718catch exception unhandled
1719 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
1720
1721catch assert
1722 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
1723
f822c95b
DJ
1724set sysroot
1725show sysroot
1726 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
1727 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
1728 an alias to "set sysroot".
1729
83cc5c53
UW
1730info spu
1731 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
1732 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
1733 architecture.
1734
bd372731
MK
1735* New native configurations
1736
1737OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
1738
23181151
DJ
1739set tdesc filename
1740unset tdesc filename
1741show tdesc filename
1742 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
1743 not query the target for its built-in description.
1744
c9bb8148
DJ
1745* New targets
1746
54fe9172 1747OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
c9bb8148 1748MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
c077150c 1749Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
c9bb8148 1750
6dd09645
JB
1751* New remote packets
1752
1753QPassSignals:
1754 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
1755 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
1756
23181151
DJ
1757qXfer:features:read:
1758 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
1759 features.
6dd09645 1760
83cc5c53
UW
1761qXfer:spu:read:
1762qXfer:spu:write:
1763 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
1764 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
1765
cfa9d6d9
DJ
1766qXfer:libraries:read:
1767 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
1768 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
1769 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
1770 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
1771
483367ee
DJ
1772* Removed targets
1773
1774Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
1775
d08950c4
UW
1776alpha*-*-osf1*
1777alpha*-*-osf2*
7ce59000 1778d10v-*-*
483367ee
DJ
1779hppa*-*-hiux*
1780i[34567]86-ncr-*
1781i[34567]86-*-dgux*
1782i[34567]86-*-lynxos*
1783i[34567]86-*-netware*
1784i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
1785i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
1786i[34567]86-*-sco*
1787i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
1788i[34567]86-*-sysv4*
1789i[34567]86-*-sysv5*
1790i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
1791i[34567]86-*-unixware*
1792i[34567]86-*-sysv*
1793i[34567]86-*-isc*
1794m68*-cisco*-*
1795m68*-tandem-*
ad527d2e 1796mips*-*-pe
483367ee 1797rs6000-*-lynxos*
ad527d2e 1798sh*-*-pe
483367ee 1799
7ce59000
DJ
1800* Other removed features
1801
1802target abug
1803target cpu32bug
1804target est
1805target rom68k
1806
1807 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
1808
ea35711c
DJ
1809target hms
1810target e7000
1811target sh3
1812target sh3e
1813
1814 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
1815 H8/300.
1816
1817target ocd
1818
1819 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
1820 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
1821 interfaces.
1822
7ce59000
DJ
1823DWARF 1 support
1824
1825 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
1826 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
1827
54d61198
DJ
1828Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
1829
1830 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
1831 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
1832 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
1833 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
1834
ea35711c
DJ
1835MIPS ".pdr" sections
1836
1837 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
1838 in debugging information.
1839
1840Scheme support
1841
1842 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
1843 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
1844
1a69e1e4
DJ
1845set mips stack-arg-size
1846set mips saved-gpreg-size
1847
1848 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
1849
6dd09645 1850*** Changes in GDB 6.6
e374b601 1851
ca3bf3bd
DJ
1852* New targets
1853
1854Xtensa xtensa-elf
9c309e77 1855Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
ca3bf3bd 1856
6aec2e11
DJ
1857* GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
1858(mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
1859running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
1860
1861* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
1862Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
1863supported.
1864
17218d91
DJ
1865* The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
1866broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
1867
9ebce043
DJ
1868* The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
1869stub provides the required support.
1870
7d3d3ece
DJ
1871* Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
1872longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
1873
4f8253f3
JB
1874* New commands
1875
1876set substitute-path
1877unset substitute-path
1878show substitute-path
1879 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
1880 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
1881 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
1882 between compilation and debugging.
1883
9fa66fd7
AS
1884set trace-commands
1885show trace-commands
1886 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
1887 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
1888 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
1889
1f5befc1
DJ
1890* REMOVED features
1891
1892The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
1893
2ec3381a
DJ
1894Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
1895an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
1896
3d00d119
DJ
1897The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
1898
be2a5f71
DJ
1899* New remote packets
1900
1901qSupported:
1902 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
1903 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
1904 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
1905 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
1906 target.
1907
0876f84a
DJ
1908qXfer:auxv:read:
1909 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
1910 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
1911
9ebce043
DJ
1912qXfer:memory-map:read:
1913 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
1914 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
1915
1916vFlashErase:
1917vFlashWrite:
1918vFlashDone:
1919 Erase and program a flash memory device.
1920
0876f84a
DJ
1921* Removed remote packets
1922
1923qPart:auxv:read:
1924 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
1925 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
1926
e374b601 1927*** Changes in GDB 6.5
53e5f3cf 1928
96309189
MS
1929* New targets
1930
1931Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
1932
1933Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
1934
53e5f3cf
AS
1935* New commands
1936
1937init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
1938 only if it doesn't already have a value.
1939
ac264b3b
MS
1940The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
1941
1942checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
1943
1944restart <n> Return the program state to a
1945 previously saved state.
1946
1947info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
1948
1949delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
1950
1951set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
1952 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
1953
1954info forks List forks of the user program that
1955 are available to be debugged.
1956
1957fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
1958 forks of the user program that are
1959 available to be debugged.
1960
1961delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
1962 that are available to be debugged (and
1963 kill the forked process).
1964
1965detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
1966 that are available to be debugged (and
1967 allow the process to continue).
1968
3950dc3f
NS
1969* New architecture
1970
1971Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
1972
0ea3f30e
DJ
1973* Improved Windows host support
1974
1975GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
1976native console support, and remote communications using either
1977network sockets or serial ports.
1978
f79daebb
GM
1979* Improved Modula-2 language support
1980
1981GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
1982basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
1983pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
1984printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
1985written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
1986GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
1987
acab6ab2
MM
1988* REMOVED features
1989
1990The ARM rdi-share module.
1991
f4267320
DJ
1992The Netware NLM debug server.
1993
53e5f3cf 1994*** Changes in GDB 6.4
156a53ca 1995
e0ecbda1
MK
1996* New native configurations
1997
02a677ac 1998OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
e0ecbda1
MK
1999OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
2000
d64a6579
KB
2001* New targets
2002
2003Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
2004
b33a6190
AS
2005* New command line options
2006
2007--batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
2008--return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
2009 the child (debugged) program exited with.
2010--eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
2011 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
2012 specified multiple times and in conjunction
2013 with the --command (-x) option.
2014
11dced61
AC
2015* Deprecated commands removed
2016
2017The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
2018removed:
2019
2020 Command Replacement
2021 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
2022 othernames set arm disassembler
2023 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
2024 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
2025 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
2026 regs info registers
2027
6fe85783
MK
2028* New BSD user-level threads support
2029
2030It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
2031library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
2032configurations are:
2033
2034FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
2035FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
2036OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
2037
2038Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
2039are not yet supported.
2040
5260ca71
MS
2041* New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
2042(Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
2043
e84ecc99
AC
2044* REMOVED configurations and files
2045
2046VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
9445aa30 2047Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
9445aa30 2048National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
156a53ca 2049
31e35378
JB
2050* New "set print array-indexes" command
2051
2052After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
2053when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
2054behavior.
2055
e85e5c83
MK
2056* VAX floating point support
2057
2058GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
2059
d91e9901
AS
2060* User-defined command support
2061
2062In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
2063to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
2064section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
2065
f2cb65ca
MC
2066*** Changes in GDB 6.3:
2067
f47b1503
AS
2068* New command line option
2069
2070GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
2071debugging.
2072
f2cb65ca
MC
2073* GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
2074
2075GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
2076information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
2077by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
2078proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
2079to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
860660cb 2080
d08c0230
AC
2081* Internationalization
2082
2083When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
2084internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
2085continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
2086
117ea3cf
PH
2087* Ada
2088
2089Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
2090implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
2091into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
2092
d08c0230
AC
2093* New native configurations
2094
2095GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
2096
2097* Remote 'p' packet
2098
2099GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
2100packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
2101
2102* END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
2103
2104GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
2105The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
2106features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
2107i386 application).
2108
2109GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
2110compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
2111continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
2112configurations:
2113
2114hppa-*-hpux
2115ia64-*-aix
2116mips-*-irix*
2117*-*-lynx
2118mips-*-linux-gnu
2119sds protocol
2120xdr protocol
2121powerpc bdm protocol
2122
2123Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
2124made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
2125
2126* OBSOLETE configurations and files
2127
2128Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2129been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2130configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2131permanently REMOVED.
2132
2133h8300-*-*
2134mcore-*-*
2135mn10300-*-*
2136ns32k-*-*
2137sh64-*-*
2138v850-*-*
2139
ebb7c577
AC
2140*** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
2141
2142* MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
2143
2144When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
2145heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
2146been fixed.
2147
2148* MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
2149
2150When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
2151fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
2152IRIX long double values).
2153
2154* VAX and "next"
2155
2156A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
2157command. This problem has been fixed.
2158
860660cb 2159*** Changes in GDB 6.2:
faae5abe 2160
0dea2468
AC
2161* Fix for ``many threads''
2162
2163On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
2164rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
2165error message:
2166
2167 ptrace: No such process.
2168 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
2169
2170This problem has been fixed.
2171
2c07db7a
AC
2172* "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
2173
2174Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
2175GDB to dump core).
2176
c23968a2
JB
2177* New ``start'' command.
2178
2179This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
2180
71009278
MK
2181* New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
2182
2183Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
2184live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
2185platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
2186
2187FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
2188FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
2189NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
2190NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
2191NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
2192OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
2193OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
2194OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
2195OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
2196
3c0b7db2
AC
2197* Signal trampoline code overhauled
2198
2199Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
2200These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
2201of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
2202call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
2203signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
2204
73cc75f3
AC
2205Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
2206features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
2207include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
3c0b7db2 2208
7243600a
BF
2209* Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
2210
6f606e1c
MK
2211* New native configurations
2212
97dc871c 2213GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
0e56aeaf 2214OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
bf2ca189
MK
2215OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
2216OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
d195bc9f 2217OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 2218NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
9f076e7a 2219OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 2220
a1b461bf
AC
2221* END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
2222
2223GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
2224The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
2225including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
2226migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
2227compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
2228work, was also included.
2229
2230GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
2231module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
2232
2233h8300-*-*
2234mcore-*-*
2235mn10300-*-*
2236ns32k-*-*
2237sh64-*-*
2238v850-*-*
2239xstormy16-*-*
2240
2241Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
2242made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
2243
3c7012f5
AC
2244* REMOVED configurations and files
2245
2246Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
2247Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
2248Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
2249Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
2250Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
2251AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
2252Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
2253decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
2254riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
2255sonymips mips-sony-*
2256sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
2257
e5fe55f7
AC
2258*** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
2259
2260* TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
2261
2262The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
2263GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
2264command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
2265program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
2266with GDB".
2267
2268* Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
2269
2270Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
2271libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
2272cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
2273GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
2274shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
2275the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
2276are created.
2277
2278Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
2279
2280* Fixed ISO-C build problems
2281
2282The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
2283non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
2284compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
2285
2286* Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
2287
2288Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
2289wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
2290
2291* Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
2292
2293The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
2294permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
2295systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
2296
2297* Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
2298
2299Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
2300has been updated to use constant array sizes.
2301
2302* Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
2303
2304GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
2305its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
2306panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
2307
2308* Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
2309
2310When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
2311by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
2312not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
2313
faae5abe 2314*** Changes in GDB 6.1:
f2c06f52 2315
9175c9a3
MC
2316* Removed --with-mmalloc
2317
2318Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
2319conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
2320
3cc87ec0
MK
2321* Changes in AMD64 configurations
2322
2323The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
2324the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
2325and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
2326you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
2327
f0424ef6
MK
2328* Revised SPARC target
2329
2330The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
2331FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
03cebad2
MK
2332support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
2333from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
2334(Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
f0424ef6 2335
59659be2
ILT
2336* New C++ demangler
2337
2338GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
2339names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
2340with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
2341programs.
2342
9e08b29b
DJ
2343* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
2344
2345GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
2346arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
2347encountered these.
2348
8dfe8985
DC
2349* C++ nested types and namespaces
2350
2351GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
2352improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
2353is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
2354Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
2355namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
2356"Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
2357frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
2358if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
2359GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
2360
cced5e27
MK
2361* New native configurations
2362
2363NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
27d1e716 2364OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
2031c21a 2365OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
f2cab569
MK
2366OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
2367OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
cced5e27 2368
b4b4b794
KI
2369* New debugging protocols
2370
2371M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
2372
7989c619
AC
2373* "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
2374
2375The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
2376and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
2377tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
2378
5994185b
AC
2379* OBSOLETE configurations and files
2380
2381Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2382been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2383configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2384permanently REMOVED.
2385
2386Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
2387Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
2388Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
2389Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
2390Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
2391AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
2392Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
0748d941
AC
2393decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
2394riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
2395sonymips mips-sony-*
2396sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
5994185b 2397
0ddabb4c
AC
2398* REMOVED configurations and files
2399
2400SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
2401SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
4a8269c0
AC
2402Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
2403Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
2404H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
2405HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
2406HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
2407HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
2408PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
cf7c5c23 2409386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
4a8269c0
AC
2410Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
2411 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
2412 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
f0424ef6
MK
2413SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
2414SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
4a8269c0
AC
2415Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2416Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
0ddabb4c 2417
c7f1390e
DJ
2418*** Changes in GDB 6.0:
2419
1fe43d45
AC
2420* Objective-C
2421
2422Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
2423integrated into GDB.
2424
e6beb428
AC
2425* New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
2426
2427DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
2428information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
2429By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
2430backtraces.
2431
2432The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
2433have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
2434DWARF 2 CFI support.
2435
2436* Hosted file I/O.
2437
2438GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
2439file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
2440remote protocol documentation for details.
2441
2442* All targets using the new architecture framework.
2443
2444All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
2445architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
2446to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
2447ppc32 on ppc64).
2448
2449* GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
2450
2451GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
2452per-thread variables.
2453
2454* GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
2455
2456GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
2457GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
2458
2459* Separate debug info.
2460
2461GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
2462automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
2463of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
2464system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
2465and optional debug files.
2466
2467* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
2468
2469DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
2470describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
2471debugger.
2472
2473GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
2474for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
2475
2476* Java
2477
2478A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
2479Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
2480considered "useable".
2481
85f8f974
DJ
2482* GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
2483
2484The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
2485commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
2486kernel.
2487
0fac0b41
DJ
2488* GDB supports logging output to a file
2489
2490There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
2491used to capture GDB's output to a file.
f2c06f52 2492
6ad8ae5c
DJ
2493* The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
2494
2495The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
2496disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
2497command.
2498
e286caf2 2499* d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
5f601589
AC
2500
2501The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
2502registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
2503
d28f9cdf
DJ
2504* Profiling support
2505
2506A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
2507be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
2508session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
2509"--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
2510data, for more informative profiling results.
2511
da0f9dcd
AC
2512* Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
2513
2514The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
2515option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
b68767c1 2516"mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
da0f9dcd
AC
2517
2518Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
2519removed.
2520
fb9b6b35
JJ
2521Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
2522Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
2523Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
2524 in a subsequent -var-update.
2525
954a4db8
MK
2526* New native configurations.
2527
2528FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
2529
6760f9e6
JB
2530* Multi-arched targets.
2531
b4263afa 2532HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
85a453d5 2533Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
6760f9e6 2534
1b831c93
AC
2535* OBSOLETE configurations and files
2536
2537Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2538been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2539configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2540permanently REMOVED.
2541
8b0e5691 2542Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
67f16606 2543Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
fd2299bd 2544H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
56056df7
AC
2545HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
2546HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
2547HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
78c43945 2548PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
2fbce691
AC
2549Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
2550 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
2551 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
f81824a9
AC
2552Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2553Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
fd2299bd 2554
5835abe7
NC
2555* REMOVED configurations and files
2556
2557V850EA ISA
1b831c93
AC
2558Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
2559IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
2560i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
2561i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
2562i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
2563HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
2564 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
2565 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
2566Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
2567Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
2568Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
2569OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
2570I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
5835abe7 2571
a094c6fb
AC
2572* MIPS $fp behavior changed
2573
2574The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
2575the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
2576context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
2577address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
2578The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
2579
299ffc64 2580*** Changes in GDB 5.3:
37057839 2581
46248966
AC
2582* GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
2583
2584When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
2585`/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
2586in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
2587library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
2588shared libs like mad''.
2589
b9d14705 2590* ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
6da02953 2591
b9d14705
DJ
2592Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
2593the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
2594arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
2595powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
6da02953 2596
e0e9281e
JB
2597* GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
2598
2599GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
2600and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
2601they expand.
2602
dd73b9bb
AC
2603The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
2604invocations in expression, and shows the result.
2605
2606The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
2607macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
2608
e0e9281e
JB
2609Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
2610information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
2611your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
2612information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
2613
2250ee0c
CV
2614* Multi-arched targets.
2615
6e3ba3b8
JT
2616DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
2617DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
2250ee0c 2618NEC V850 v850-*-*
6e3ba3b8 2619National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
a1789893
GS
2620Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
2621Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
2250ee0c 2622
cd9bfe15 2623* New targets.
e33ce519 2624
456f8b9d
DB
2625Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
2626
e33ce519 2627
da8ca43d
JT
2628* New native configurations
2629
2630Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
029923d4 2631SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
45888261 2632MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
9ce5c36a 2633UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
da8ca43d 2634
cd9bfe15
AC
2635* OBSOLETE configurations and files
2636
2637Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2638been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2639configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2640permanently REMOVED.
2641
92eb23c5 2642Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
a99a9e1b 2643OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1c7cc583 2644IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
7a3085c1 2645Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
7fb623f7 2646Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
eb4c54a2 2647Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
d8ee244c
MK
2648i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
2649i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
2650i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
822e978b
AC
2651HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
2652 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
2653 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
4d210288 2654I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
92eb23c5 2655
db034ac5
AC
2656* OBSOLETE languages
2657
2658CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
2659
cd9bfe15
AC
2660* REMOVED configurations and files
2661
2662AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
2663A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
2664AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2665AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2666AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2667
2668testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
2669
20f01a46
DH
2670* New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
2671
2672This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
2673commands. The default is 1024.
2674
a5941fbf
MK
2675* Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
2676
2677Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
2678
89743e04
MS
2679* New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
2680
2681These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
2682to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
2683from a file into memory (restore).
37057839 2684
9fb14e79
JB
2685* Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
2686
2687The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
2688including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
2689of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
2690
2037aebb
AC
2691*** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
2692
2693* New targets.
2694
2695Atmel AVR avr*-*-*
2696
2697* Bug fixes
2698
2699gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
2700mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
2701Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
2702
2703gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
2704dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
2705Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
2706
2707Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
2708Surprisingly enough, it works now.
2709By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
2710
2711i386 hardware watchpoint support:
2712avoid misses on second run for some targets.
2713By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
2714
37057839 2715*** Changes in GDB 5.2:
eb7cedd9 2716
1a703748
MS
2717* New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
2718
2719This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
2720really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
2721In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
2722target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
2723This can be a significant performance improvement on some
2724(notably embedded) targets.
2725
cefd4ef5
MS
2726* New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
2727
55241689
AC
2728This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
2729process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
2730GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
2731hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
cefd4ef5 2732
352ed7b4
MS
2733* New command line option
2734
2735GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
2736
2737* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
2738
2739There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
2740command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
2741a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
2742be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
2743open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
2744issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
2745a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
2746it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
2747GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
2748is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
2749
fe419ffc
RE
2750* Changes in ARM configurations.
2751
2752Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
2753configuration is fully multi-arch.
2754
eb7cedd9
MK
2755* New native configurations
2756
fe419ffc 2757ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
eb7cedd9 2758x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
55241689 2759AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
768f0842 2760Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
eb7cedd9 2761
c9f63e6b
CV
2762* New targets
2763
2764Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
2765
9b4ff276
AC
2766* OBSOLETE configurations and files
2767
2768Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2769been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2770configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2771permanently REMOVED.
2772
2773AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
2774A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
2775AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2776AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2777AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2778
b4ceaee6 2779testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
9b4ff276 2780
e2caac18
AC
2781* REMOVED configurations and files
2782
2783TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
7bc65f05 2784WDC 65816 w65-*-*
7768dd6c
AC
2785PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
2786PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
2787PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
5e734e1f 2788Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1406caf7
AC
2789Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
2790 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
7e24f0b1 2791SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
9b567150 2792Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
3680c638
AC
2793Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
2794ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
a752853e 2795Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
e2caac18 2796
c2a727fa
TT
2797* Changes to command line processing
2798
2799The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
2800for the inferior from gdb's command line.
2801
467d8519
TT
2802* Changes to key bindings
2803
2804There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
2805
7072a954
AC
2806*** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
2807
2808Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
2809
2810Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
2811corrupted.
2812
2813Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
2814
2815Numerous documentation fixes.
2816
2817Numerous testsuite fixes.
2818
34f47bc4 2819*** Changes in GDB 5.1:
139760b7
MK
2820
2821* New native configurations
2822
2823Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
2824x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
55241689 2825MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
e23194cb
EZ
2826MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
2827ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
55241689 2828s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
139760b7 2829
bf64bfd6
AC
2830* New targets
2831
def90278 2832Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
24be5c34 2833CRIS cris-axis
55241689 2834UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
def90278 2835
17e78a56 2836* OBSOLETE configurations and files
bf64bfd6
AC
2837
2838x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
9b9c068d 2839Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
bb19ff3b
AC
2840Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
2841 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
76f4ea53
AC
2842TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
2843WDC 65816 w65-*-*
4a1968f4 2844Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1b2b2c16
AC
2845PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
2846PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
2847PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
24f89b68 2848SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
514e603d
AC
2849Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
2850ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
d036b4d9 2851Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
bf64bfd6 2852
17e78a56
AC
2853stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
2854kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
2855
7fcca85b
AC
2856Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2857been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2858configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2859permanently REMOVED.
2860
a196c81c 2861* REMOVED configurations and files
7fcca85b
AC
2862
2863Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
2864Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
2865Pyramid pyramid-*-*
2866ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
2867Tahoe tahoe-*-*
a196c81c 2868ser-ocd.c *-*-*
bf64bfd6 2869
6d6b80e5 2870* GDB has been converted to ISO C.
e23194cb 2871
6d6b80e5 2872GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
e23194cb
EZ
2873sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
2874present.
2875
bf64bfd6
AC
2876* Other news:
2877
e23194cb
EZ
2878* "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
2879
2880* The MI enabled by default.
2881
2882The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
2883revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
2884engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
2885using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
2886which is now deprecated.
2887
2888* Support for debugging Pascal programs.
2889
2890GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
2891main features are supported:
2892
2893 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
2894
2895 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
2896 extension;
2897
2898 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
2899
2900 - a Pascal expression parser.
2901
2902However, some important features are not yet supported.
2903
2904 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
2905
2906 - there are some problems with boolean types;
2907
2908 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
2909 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
2910
2911 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
2912
2913 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
2914
2915* Changes in completion.
2916
2917Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
2918to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
2919users expect at the shell prompt.
2920
2921Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
2922`breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
2923program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
2924files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
2925be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
2926considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
2927name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
2928
2929`set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
2930
2931* New platform-independent commands:
2932
2933It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
2934hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
2935documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
2936
2937* Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
2938
d7275149
MK
2939Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
2940revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
2941many threads as your system allows you to have.
2942
e23194cb
EZ
2943Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
2944
d7275149
MK
2945Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
2946multi-threaded programs though.
e23194cb
EZ
2947
2948* Changes in MIPS configurations.
bf64bfd6
AC
2949
2950Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
2951
e23194cb
EZ
2952GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
2953debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
2954supported.)
2955
2956* Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
2957
2958Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
2959breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
2960implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
2961put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
2962and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
2963registers.
2964
2965The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
2966debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
2967watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
2968
2969* Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
2970
2971New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
2972the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
2973
2974New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
2975display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
2976IDT.
2977
2978New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
2979from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
2980New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
2981a given linear address.
2982
2983GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
2984program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
2985which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
2986
2987DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
2988
6c56c069
EZ
2989It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
2990
e23194cb
EZ
2991* Changes in documentation.
2992
2993All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
2994Documentation License.
2995
2996Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
2997manual.
2998
2999TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
3000
3001Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
3002manual.
3003
3004The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
3005documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
3006hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
3007
5d6640b1
AC
3008* GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
3009
3010The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
3011``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
3012contents of this file.
3013
1a1d8446
AC
3014* gdba.el deleted
3015
3016GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
139760b7 3017
9debab2f 3018*** Changes in GDB 5.0:
7a292a7a 3019
c63ce875
EZ
3020* Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
3021
3022Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
3023programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
3024displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
3025greater level of detail.
3026
3027* Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
3028
3029It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
3030bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
3031on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
3032written.
3033
3034* Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
3035
3036The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
3037necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
3038machines ``out of the box''.
3039
3040The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
3041possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
3042signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
3043would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
3044interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
3045
3046It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
3047standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
3048even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
3049and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
3050terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
3051
3052The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
3053enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
3054also works.
3055
3056DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
3057GDB.
3058
3059It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
3060directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
3061times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
3062breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
3063
ed9a39eb
JM
3064* New native configurations
3065
3066ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
afc05dd4 3067PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
ed9a39eb 3068
7a292a7a
SS
3069* New targets
3070
96baa820 3071Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
adf40b2e
JM
3072x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
3073PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
7a292a7a
SS
3074TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
3075
085dd6e6
JM
3076* OBSOLETE configurations
3077
3078Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
3079Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
9846de1b 3080Pyramid pyramid-*-*
ed9a39eb 3081ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
104c1213 3082Tahoe tahoe-*-*
7a292a7a 3083
9debab2f
AC
3084Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
3085but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
3086these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
3087be permanently REMOVED.
3088
5330533d
SS
3089* Gould support removed
3090
3091Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
3092
bc9e5bbf
AC
3093* New features for SVR4
3094
3095On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
3096without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
3097load symbols from the running process's executable file.
3098
3099* Many C++ enhancements
3100
3101C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
3102in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
3103
adf40b2e
JM
3104* Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
3105
3106A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
3107sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
3108with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
3109``|<program> <args>'' vis:
3110
3111 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
3112 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
3113
43e526b9
JM
3114* MIPS 64 remote protocol
3115
3116A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
3117expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
3118instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
3119
3120The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
3121added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
3122
96baa820
JM
3123* ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
3124
3125The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
3126``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
3127include ``set remote P-packet''.
3128
11cf8741
JM
3129* Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
3130
3131The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
3132accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
3133``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
3134
7876dd43
DB
3135* ``apropos'' command added.
3136
3137The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
3138documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
3139try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
3140
bc9e5bbf
AC
3141* New MI interface
3142
3143A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
3144interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
7162c0ca
EZ
3145process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
3146"GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
3147enabled by configuring with:
bc9e5bbf
AC
3148
3149 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
3150
c906108c
SS
3151*** Changes in GDB-4.18:
3152
3153* New native configurations
3154
3155HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
3156HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
55241689 3157M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
c906108c
SS
3158
3159* New targets
3160
3161Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
3162Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
3163Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
3164
3165* OBSOLETE configurations
3166
3167Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
3168
3169Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
3170but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
3171these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
3172be permanently REMOVED.
3173
3174* ANSI/ISO C
3175
3176As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
3177buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
3178containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
3179use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
3180available. If this is not true, please report the affected
3181configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
3182information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
3183already.
3184
3185* Readline 2.2
3186
3187GDB now uses readline 2.2.
3188
3189* set extension-language
3190
3191You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
3192languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
3193you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
3194 set extension-language .c c++
3195The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
3196and their associated languages.
3197
3198* Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
3199
3200When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
3201you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
3202PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
3203
3204 set processor NAME
3205
3206sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
3207following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
3208
3209 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
3210 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
3211 403 IBM PowerPC 403
3212 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
3213 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
3214 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
3215 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
3216 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
3217 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
3218 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
3219 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
3220
3221At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
3222special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
3223registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
3224only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
3225
3226* HP-UX support
3227
3228Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
3229more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
3230library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
3231support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
3232for xdb and dbx commands.
3233
3234* Catchpoints
3235
3236HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
3237generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
3238to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
3239
3240This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
3241argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
3242output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
3243
3244* Debugging across forks
3245
3246On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
3247in the inferior.
3248
3249* TUI
3250
3251HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
3252it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
3253configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
3254
3255* GDB remote protocol additions
3256
3257A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
3258Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
3259fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
3260allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
3261
3262For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
3263full 64-bit address. The command
3264
3265 set remoteaddresssize 32
3266
3267can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
3268the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
3269will be discarded.
3270
3271In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
3272command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
3273
3274 maint packet heythere
3275
3276sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
3277disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
3278time.
3279
3280The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
3281target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
3282downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
3283
3284* Tracing can collect general expressions
3285
3286You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
3287further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
3288doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
3289
3290* mask-address variable for Mips
3291
3292For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
3293a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
3294of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
3295
3296* Higher serial baud rates
3297
3298GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
3299230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
3300to achieve all of these rates.)
3301
3302* i960 simulator
3303
3304The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
3305builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
3306
3307
3308*** Changes in GDB-4.17:
3309
3310* New native configurations
3311
3312Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
3313Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
3314Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
3315PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
3316PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
3317Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
3318Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
3319
3320* New targets
3321
3322Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
3323Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
3324Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
3325Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
3326MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
3327MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
3328MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
3329Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
3330Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
3331Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
3332NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
3333
3334* New debugging protocols
3335
3336ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
3337M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
3338DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
3339PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
3340PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
3341Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
3342
3343* DWARF 2
3344
3345All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
3346format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
3347information.
3348
3349* Java frontend
3350
3351GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
3352only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
3353
3354* solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
3355
3356For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
3357loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
3358locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
3359
3360* Live range splitting
3361
3362GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
3363range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
3364more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
3365
3366* Hurd support
3367
3368GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
3369updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
3370
3371* ARM Thumb support
3372
3373GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
3374instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
3375instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
3376accordingly.
3377
3378* MIPS16 support
3379
3380GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
3381instruction set.
3382
3383* Overlay support
3384
3385GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
3386linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
3387will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
3388control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
3389additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
3390in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
3391
3392* info symbol
3393
3394The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
3395the symbol at the specified address.
3396
3397* Trace support
3398
3399The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
3400asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
3401extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
3402includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
3403file tracepoint.c for more details.
3404
3405* MIPS simulator
3406
3407Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
3408by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
3409of most MIPS variants.
3410
3411* Sparc simulator
3412
3413Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
3414by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
3415Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
3416
3417* set architecture
3418
3419For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
3420basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
3421architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
3422the possible architectures.
3423
3424*** Changes in GDB-4.16:
3425
3426* New native configurations
3427
3428Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
3429M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
3430PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
3431PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
3432PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
3433RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
3434
3435* New targets
3436
3437ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
3438I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
3439MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
3440MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
3441PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
3442Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
3443Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
3444
3445* PowerPC simulator
3446
3447The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
3448contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
3449PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
3450basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
3451performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
3452
3453* Solaris 2.5
3454
3455GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
3456
3457* Windows 95/NT native
3458
3459GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
3460To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
3461which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
3462Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
3463ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
3464
3465* dont-repeat command
3466
3467If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
3468command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
3469useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
3470extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
3471
3472* Send break instead of ^C
3473
3474The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
3475rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
3476GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
3477
3478* Remote protocol timeout
3479
3480The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
3481that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
3482to read from the target. The default value is 2.
3483
3484* Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
3485
3486By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
3487loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
3488stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
3489when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
3490in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
3491
3492Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
3493/usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
3494automatically on hpux10.
3495
3496* Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
3497
3498Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
3499
3500* Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
3501
3502When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
3503may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
3504the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
3505every character. The default value is 1050.
3506
3507* Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
3508
3509If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
3510a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
3511replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
3512details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
3513remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
3514to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
3515
3516* Speedups for remote debugging
3517
3518GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
3519the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
3520and more efficient S-record downloading.
3521
3522* Memory use reductions and statistics collection
3523
3524GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
3525Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
3526
3527*** Changes in GDB-4.15:
3528
3529* Psymtabs for XCOFF
3530
3531The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
3532can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
3533
3534* Remote targets use caching
3535
3536Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
3537remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
3538it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
3539debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
3540off' turns the the data cache off.
3541
3542* Remote targets may have threads
3543
3544The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
3545in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
3546gdb/remote.c for details.
3547
3548* NetROM support
3549
3550If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
3551support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
3552acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
3553write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
3554support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
3555another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
3556sequence is something like
3557
3558 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
3559 load <prog>
3560 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
3561
3562* Macintosh host
3563
3564GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
3565may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
3566it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
3567available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
3568device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
3569directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
3570scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
3571mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
3572
3573* Autoconf
3574
3575GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
3576but does simplify configuration and building.
3577
3578* hpux10
3579
3580GDB now supports hpux10.
3581
3582*** Changes in GDB-4.14:
3583
3584* New native configurations
3585
3586x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
3587x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
3588NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
3589Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
3590
3591* New targets
3592
3593A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
3594HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
3595CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
3596PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
3597WDC 65816 w65-*-*
3598
3599* Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
3600
3601GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
3602possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
3603filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
3604the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
3605if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
3606
3607* Arguments to user-defined commands
3608
3609User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
3610Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
3611trivial example:
3612define adder
3613 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
3614
3615To execute the command use:
3616adder 1 2 3
3617
3618Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
3619Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
3620use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
3621
3622* New `if' and `while' commands
3623
3624This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
3625commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
3626expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
3627execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
3628terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
3629`else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
3630if the expression is zero.
3631
3632* Fortran source language mode
3633
3634GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
3635Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
3636variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
3637with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
3638Fortran compilers.
3639
3640* Better HPUX support
3641
3642Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
3643running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
3644processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
3645for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
3646that behavior do the following before running the program:
3647
3648 adb -w a.out
3649 __dld_flags?W 0x5
3650 control-d
3651
3652This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
3653To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
3654
3655 adb -w a.out
3656 __dld_flags?W 0x4
3657 control-d
3658
3659You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
3660the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
3661external linkage.
3662
3663GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
3664HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
3665
3666* Target byte order now dynamically selectable
3667
3668You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
3669commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
3670current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
3671"set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
3672associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
3673configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
3674
3675* New DOS host serial code
3676
3677This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
3678no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
3679a PC's serial port.
3680
3681*** Changes in GDB-4.13:
3682
3683* New "complete" command
3684
3685This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
3686were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
3687
3688* Trailing space optional in prompt
3689
3690"set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
3691allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
3692
3693* Breakpoint hit counts
3694
3695"info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
3696has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
3697can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
3698to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
3699less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
3700that breakpoint.
3701
3702* Ability to stop printing at NULL character
3703
3704"set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
3705an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
3706arrays actually contain only short strings.
3707
3708* Shared library breakpoints
3709
3710In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
3711breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
3712
3713* Hardware watchpoints
3714
3715There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
3716targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
3717
55241689 3718Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
c906108c
SS
3719
3720* Annotations
3721
3722Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
3723and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
3724
3725* Improved Irix 5 support
3726
3727GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
3728
3729* Improved HPPA support
3730
3731GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
3732
3733* New native configurations
3734
3735Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
3736HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
3737Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
3738RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
3739
3740* New targets
3741
3742OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
3743MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
3744Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
3745
3746* Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
3747
3748There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
3749This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
3750
3751* Fixes
3752
3753As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
3754and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
3755
3756*** Changes in GDB-4.12:
3757
3758* Irix 5 is now supported
3759
3760* HPPA support
3761
3762GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
3763to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
3764GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
3765of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
3766can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
3767
3768
3769*** Changes in GDB-4.11:
3770
3771* User visible changes:
3772
3773* Remote Debugging
3774
3775The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
3776target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
3777debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
3778integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
3779debugging info for the mips target).
3780
3781* DEC Alpha native support
3782
3783GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
3784debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
3785work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
3786Alpha-specific notes.
3787
3788* Preliminary thread implementation
3789
3790GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
3791
3792* LynxOS native and target support for 386
3793
3794This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
3795to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
3796for details).
3797
3798* Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
3799
3800This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
3801mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
3802call methods, ...etc.
3803
3804*** Changes in GDB-4.10:
3805
3806 * User visible changes:
3807
3808Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
3809supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
3810other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
3811somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
3812
3813Filename completion now works.
3814
3815When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
3816arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
3817addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
3818
3819All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
3820vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
3821should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
3822your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
3823to be on the far side of a thin network line.
3824
3825 * DEC alpha support
3826
3827This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
3828cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
3829
3830
3831*** Changes in GDB-4.9:
3832
3833 * Testsuite
3834
3835This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
3836The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
3837via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
3838
3839 * C++ demangling
3840
3841'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
3842emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
3843Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
3844disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
3845use gdb with AT&T cfront.
3846
3847 * Simulators
3848
3849GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
3850So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
3851Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
3852
3853 * New targets supported
3854
3855H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
3856H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
3857SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
3858Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
3859IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
3860
3861Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
3862version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
3863GO32 memory extender.
3864
3865 * New remote protocols
3866
3867MIPS remote debugging protocol.
3868
3869 * New source languages supported
3870
3871This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
3872used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
3873into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
3874
3875
3876*** Changes in GDB-4.8:
3877
3878 * HP Precision Architecture supported
3879
3880GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
3881version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
3882University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
3883compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
3884format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
3885(as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
3886
3887Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
3888
3889 * Faster and better demangling
3890
3891We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
3892demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
3893character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
3894only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
3895This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
3896increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
3897symbol lookups.
3898
3899`Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
3900from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
3901compiler does not actually implement.
3902
3903 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
3904
3905In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
3906inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
3907recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
3908very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
3909The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
3910circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
3911fix.
3912
3913The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
3914release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
3915
3916 * Improved configure script
3917
3918The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
3919you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
3920host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
3921done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
3922
3923We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
3924version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
3925`--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
3926The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
3927only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
3928We hope to make this the default in a future release.
3929
3930 * Documentation improvements
3931
3932There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
3933produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
3934before submitting changes.
3935
3936The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
3937M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
3938`info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
3939you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
3940a future texinfo-X.Y release.
3941
3942*NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
3943We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
3944been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
3945or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
3946`texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
3947around this problem.
3948
3949 * New features
3950
3951GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
3952the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
3953`print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
3954the target program.
3955
3956The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
3957how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
3958
3959 * New native hosts supported
3960
3961HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
3962386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
3963
3964 * New targets supported
3965
3966AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
3967
3968 * New file formats supported
3969
3970BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
3971HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
3972
3973 * Major bug fixes
3974
3975Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
3976
3977We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
3978printf_filtered("%s") problems.
3979
3980We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
3981for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
3982release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
3983
3984You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
3985will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
3986
3987We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
3988for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
3989especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
3990libraries.
3991
3992The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
3993information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
3994command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
3995any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
3996when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
3997
3998 * Internal improvements
3999
4000GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
4001debugging of multiple languages in the future.
4002
4003GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
4004Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
4005symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
4006contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
4007shared code that handles any of them.
4008
4009 * New command line options
4010
4011We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
4012
4013 * Mmalloc licensing
4014
4015The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
4016General Public License.
4017
4018*** Changes in GDB-4.7:
4019
4020 * Host/native/target split
4021
4022GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
4023hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
4024target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
4025local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
4026ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
4027
4028The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
4029GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
4030is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
4031code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
4032any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
4033built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
4034handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
4035
4036GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
4037It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
4038plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
4039
4040 * New hosts supported
4041
4042HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
4043386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
4044386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
4045
4046 * New targets supported
4047
4048Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
404968030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
4050
4051 * New native hosts supported
4052
4053386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
4054 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
4055386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
4056
4057 * New file formats supported
4058
4059BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
4060supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
4061format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
4062
4063 * New commands
4064
4065`show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
4066`show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
4067These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
4068
4069`info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
4070
4071You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
4072scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
4073prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
4074executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
4075
4076 * C++ improvements
4077
4078We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
4079info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
4080symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
4081
4082Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
4083
4084 * Major bug fixes
4085
4086The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
4087fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
4088by the compiler.
4089
4090We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
4091support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
4092
4093John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
4094slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
4095that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
4096purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
4097the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
4098mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
4099
4100Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
4101about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
4102completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
4103we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
4104
4105 * AMD 29k support
4106
4107A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
4108specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
4109calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
4110usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
4111in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
4112
4113We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
4114Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
4115of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
4116resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
4117
4118 * Remote interfaces
4119
4120We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
4121with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
4122message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
4123This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
4124needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
4125breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
4126each instruction being stepped through.
4127
4128The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
4129registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
4130
4131There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
4132find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
4133Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
4134processor with a serial port.
4135
4136 * Configuration
4137
4138Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
4139`table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
4140supported, and what files each one uses.
4141
4142 * Library changes
4143
4144There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
4145disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
4146Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
4147disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
4148
4149The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
4150Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
4151can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
4152grants all the rights from the General Public License.
4153
4154 * Documentation
4155
4156The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
4157reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
4158as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
4159encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
4160system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
4161bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
4162
4163And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
4164
4165
4166*** Changes in GDB-4.6:
4167
4168 * Better support for C++ function names
4169
4170GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
4171names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
4172(using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
4173single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
4174Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
4175
4176GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
4177the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
4178You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
4179lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
4180for the list of formats.
4181
4182 * G++ symbol mangling problem
4183
4184Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
4185C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
4186directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
4187can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
4188usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
4189about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
4190this problem.)
4191
4192 * New 'maintenance' command
4193
4194All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
4195the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
4196can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
4197
4198 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
4199 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
4200 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
4201 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
4202 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
4203 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
4204
4205The following commands are new:
4206
4207 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
4208 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
4209 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
4210
4211 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
4212
4213We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
4214(e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
4215be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
4216read after argv processing.
4217
4218 * New hosts supported
4219
4220Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
4221
55241689 4222GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
c906108c
SS
4223
4224We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
4225is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
4226for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
4227masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
4228fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
4229It costs extra.
4230
4231 * New targets supported
4232
4233Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
4234
4235 * More smarts about finding #include files
4236
4237GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
4238all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
4239greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
4240especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
4241the one that contains your sources.
4242
4243We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
4244breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
4245try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
4246
4247 * Interesting infernals change
4248
4249GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
4250section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
4251target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
4252stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
4253
4254 * Bug fixes (of course!)
4255
4256There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
4257 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
4258 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
4259
4260See the ChangeLog for details.
4261
4262*** Changes in GDB-4.5:
4263
4264 * New machines supported (host and target)
4265
4266IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
4267
4268SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
4269
4270 * New malloc package
4271
4272GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
4273Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
4274capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
4275This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
4276pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
4277more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
4278
4279 * info proc
4280
4281The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
4282'help info proc' for details.
4283
4284 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
4285
4286The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
4287Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
4288possible.
4289
4290 * File name changes for MS-DOS
4291
4292Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
4293support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
4294conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
4295environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
4296that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
4297in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
4298
4299 * Cross byte order fixes
4300
4301Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
4302targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
4303
4304 * New -mapped and -readnow options
4305
4306If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
4307system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
4308`symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
4309program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
4310called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
4311Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
4312and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
4313the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
4314option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
4315starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
4316
4317You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
4318the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
4319information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
4320slower, but makes future operations faster.
4321
4322The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
4323build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
4324A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
4325use is:
4326
4327 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
4328
4329The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
4330It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
4331shared across multiple host platforms.
4332
4333 * longjmp() handling
4334
4335GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
4336siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
4337all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
4338platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
4339
4340 * Solaris 2.0
4341
4342Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
4343this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
4344reading symbols.
4345
4346 * Bug fixes
4347
4348As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
4349People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
4350crashes and trashed symbol tables.
4351
4352*** Changes in GDB-4.4:
4353
4354 * New machines supported (host and target)
4355
4356SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
4357 (except core files)
4358BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
4359Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
4360
4361 * New machines supported (target)
4362
4363AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
4364
4365 * C++ support
4366
4367GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
4368The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
4369per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
4370
4371GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
4372`ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
4373extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
4374good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
4375will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
4376released.
4377
4378 * New features for SVR4
4379
4380GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
4381shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
4382only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
4383
4384The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
4385on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
4386it prints the address mappings of the process.
4387
4388If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
4389bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
4390
4391 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
4392
4393Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
4394now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
4395skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
4396make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
4397same code linked statically.
4398
4399 * New Getopt
4400
4401GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
4402version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
4403continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
4404Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
4405added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
4406future by other options that begin with the same letter.
4407
4408 * Bugs fixed
4409
4410The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
4411Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
4412See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
4413
4414
4415*** Changes in GDB-4.3:
4416
4417 * New machines supported (host and target)
4418
4419Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
4420NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
4421Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
4422
4423 * Almost SCO Unix support
4424
4425We had hoped to support:
4426SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
4427(except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
4428that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
4429about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
4430
4431 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
4432
4433GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
4434debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
4435is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
4436send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
4437reqired (if any).
4438
4439 * New Readline
4440
4441GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
4442is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
4443required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
4444
4445 * Bugs fixed
4446
4447The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
4448Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
4449See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
4450
4451 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
4452
4453GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
4454supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
4455symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
4456
4457Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
4458mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
4459debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
4460mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
4461version 2.
4462
4463Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
4464really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
4465line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
4466variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
4467situation somewhat.
4468
4469When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
4470However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
4471methods.
4472
4473We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
4474DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
4475encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
4476
4477
4478*** Changes in GDB-4.2:
4479
4480 * Improved configuration
4481
4482Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
4483Porting BFD is simpler.
4484
4485 * Stepping improved
4486
4487The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
4488of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
4489in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
4490function that has debugging information is called within the line.
4491
4492 * Bug fixing
4493
4494Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
4495
4496 * New host supported (not target)
4497
4498Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
4499
4500
4501*** Changes in GDB-4.1:
4502
4503 * Multiple source language support
4504
4505GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
4506It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
4507and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
4508language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
4509You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
4510`set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
4511
4512 * GDB and Modula-2
4513
4514GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
4515currently under development at the State University of New York at
4516Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
4517continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
4518
4519Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
4520debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
4521symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
4522
4523There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
4524in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
4525
4526 * set write on/off
4527
4528GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
4529a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
4530the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
4531by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
4532effect immediately.
4533
4534 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
4535
4536When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
4537shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
4538The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
4539examining core files.
4540
4541 * set listsize
4542
4543You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
4544The default is 10.
4545
4546 * New machines supported (host and target)
4547
4548SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
4549Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
4550Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
4551
4552 * New hosts supported (not targets)
4553
4554IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
4555
4556 * New targets supported (not hosts)
4557
4558AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
4559AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
4560Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
4561
4562 * New remote interfaces
4563
4564AMD 29000 Adapt
4565AMD 29000 Minimon
4566
4567
4568*** Changes in GDB-4.0:
4569
4570 * New Facilities
4571
4572Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
4573
4574Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
4575target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
4576is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
4577remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
4578remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
4579also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
4580using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
4581stub on the target system.
4582
4583New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
4584
4585GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
4586library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
4587object file types such as a.out and coff.
4588
4589There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
4590refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
4591
4592
4593 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
4594
4595All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
4596by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
4597
4598For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
4599``Show prompt'' produces the response:
4600Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
4601
4602What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
4603print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
4604will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
4605all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
4606
4607confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
4608 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
4609 it is already running. Default is ON.
4610
4611editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
4612 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
4613 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
4614 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
4615 Default is ON.
4616
4617history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
4618 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
4619 or the value of the environment variable
4620 GDBHISTFILE.
4621
4622history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
4623 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
4624 HISTSIZE.
4625
4626history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
4627 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
4628 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
4629
4630history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
4631 history expansion will be performed on
4632 command line input. The default is OFF.
4633
4634radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
4635 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
4636 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
4637
4638height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
4639 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
4640 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
4641 variable TERM.
4642
4643width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
4644 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
4645 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
4646 variable TERM.
4647
4648Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
4649``set width'' instead.
4650
4651print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
4652 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
4653 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
4654 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
4655
4656print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
4657 is OFF.
4658
4659print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
4660 "raw" form if off.
4661
4662print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
4663 like instructions.
4664
4665print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
4666
4667
4668 * Support for Epoch Environment.
4669
4670The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
4671new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
4672are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
4673window.
4674
4675
4676 * Support for Shared Libraries
4677
4678GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
4679Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
4680before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
4681happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
4682At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
4683from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
4684shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
4685It can be abbreviated ``share''.
4686
4687sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
4688 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
4689 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
4690
4691info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
4692
4693
4694 * Watchpoints
4695
4696A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
4697expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
4698tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
4699quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
4700problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
4701more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
4702
4703watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
4704
4705info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
4706
4707delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
4708disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
4709enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
4710
4711
4712 * C++ multiple inheritance
4713
4714When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
4715for C++ programs.
4716
4717 * C++ exception handling
4718
4719Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
4720ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
4721the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
4722handler's context).
4723
4724catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
4725 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
4726 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
4727
4728info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
4729 current stack frame.
4730
4731
4732 * Minor command changes
4733
4734The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
4735command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
4736is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
4737
4738The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
4739at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
4740frames without printing.
4741
4742 * New directory command
4743
4744'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
4745The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
4746about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
4747with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
4748find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
4749
4750 * Configuring GDB for compilation
4751
4752For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
4753for more details.
4754
4755GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
4756two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
4757Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
4758where the program that you are debugging will run.
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