Zap some older PPC targets.
[deliverable/binutils-gdb.git] / gdb / NEWS
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1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
3
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4*** Changes since GDB 5.1:
5
6* New native configurations
7
8x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
9
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10* REMOVED configurations and files
11
12TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
7bc65f05 13WDC 65816 w65-*-*
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14PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
15PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
16PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
e2caac18 17
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18* Changes to command line processing
19
20The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
21for the inferior from gdb's command line.
22
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23* Changes to key bindings
24
25There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
26
34f47bc4 27*** Changes in GDB 5.1:
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28
29* New native configurations
30
31Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
32x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
2aa830e4 33MIPS Linux mips*-*-linux*
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34MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
35ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
5769d3cd 36s390 and s390x Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
139760b7 37
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38* New targets
39
def90278 40Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
24be5c34 41CRIS cris-axis
e23194cb 42UltraSparc running Linux sparc64-*-linux*
def90278 43
17e78a56 44* OBSOLETE configurations and files
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45
46x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
9b9c068d 47Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
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48Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
49 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
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50TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
51WDC 65816 w65-*-*
4a1968f4 52Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
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53PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
54PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
55PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
24f89b68 56SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
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57Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
58ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
d036b4d9 59Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
bf64bfd6 60
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61stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
62kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
63
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64Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
65been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
66configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
67permanently REMOVED.
68
a196c81c 69* REMOVED configurations and files
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70
71Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
72Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
73Pyramid pyramid-*-*
74ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
75Tahoe tahoe-*-*
a196c81c 76ser-ocd.c *-*-*
bf64bfd6 77
6d6b80e5 78* GDB has been converted to ISO C.
e23194cb 79
6d6b80e5 80GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
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81sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
82present.
83
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84* Other news:
85
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86* "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
87
88* The MI enabled by default.
89
90The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
91revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
92engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
93using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
94which is now deprecated.
95
96* Support for debugging Pascal programs.
97
98GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
99main features are supported:
100
101 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
102
103 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
104 extension;
105
106 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
107
108 - a Pascal expression parser.
109
110However, some important features are not yet supported.
111
112 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
113
114 - there are some problems with boolean types;
115
116 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
117 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
118
119 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
120
121 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
122
123* Changes in completion.
124
125Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
126to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
127users expect at the shell prompt.
128
129Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
130`breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
131program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
132files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
133be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
134considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
135name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
136
137`set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
138
139* New platform-independent commands:
140
141It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
142hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
143documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
144
145* Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
146
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147Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
148revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
149many threads as your system allows you to have.
150
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151Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
152
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153Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
154multi-threaded programs though.
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155
156* Changes in MIPS configurations.
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157
158Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
159
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160GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
161debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
162supported.)
163
164* Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
165
166Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
167breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
168implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
169put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
170and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
171registers.
172
173The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
174debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
175watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
176
177* Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
178
179New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
180the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
181
182New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
183display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
184IDT.
185
186New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
187from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
188New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
189a given linear address.
190
191GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
192program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
193which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
194
195DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
196
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197It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
198
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199* Changes in documentation.
200
201All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
202Documentation License.
203
204Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
205manual.
206
207TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
208
209Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
210manual.
211
212The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
213documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
214hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
215
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216* GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
217
218The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
219``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
220contents of this file.
221
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222* gdba.el deleted
223
224GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
139760b7 225
9debab2f 226*** Changes in GDB 5.0:
7a292a7a 227
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228* Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
229
230Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
231programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
232displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
233greater level of detail.
234
235* Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
236
237It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
238bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
239on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
240written.
241
242* Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
243
244The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
245necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
246machines ``out of the box''.
247
248The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
249possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
250signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
251would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
252interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
253
254It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
255standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
256even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
257and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
258terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
259
260The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
261enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
262also works.
263
264DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
265GDB.
266
267It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
268directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
269times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
270breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
271
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272* New native configurations
273
274ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
afc05dd4 275PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
ed9a39eb 276
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277* New targets
278
96baa820 279Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
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280x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
281PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
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282TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
283
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284* OBSOLETE configurations
285
286Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
287Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
9846de1b 288Pyramid pyramid-*-*
ed9a39eb 289ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
104c1213 290Tahoe tahoe-*-*
7a292a7a 291
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292Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
293but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
294these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
295be permanently REMOVED.
296
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297* Gould support removed
298
299Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
300
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301* New features for SVR4
302
303On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
304without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
305load symbols from the running process's executable file.
306
307* Many C++ enhancements
308
309C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
310in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
311
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312* Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
313
314A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
315sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
316with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
317``|<program> <args>'' vis:
318
319 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
320 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
321
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322* MIPS 64 remote protocol
323
324A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
325expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
326instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
327
328The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
329added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
330
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331* ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
332
333The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
334``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
335include ``set remote P-packet''.
336
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337* Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
338
339The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
340accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
341``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
342
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343* ``apropos'' command added.
344
345The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
346documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
347try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
348
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349* New MI interface
350
351A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
352interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
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353process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
354"GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
355enabled by configuring with:
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356
357 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
358
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359*** Changes in GDB-4.18:
360
361* New native configurations
362
363HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
364HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
365M68K Linux m68*-*-linux*
366
367* New targets
368
369Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
370Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
371Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
372
373* OBSOLETE configurations
374
375Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
376
377Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
378but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
379these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
380be permanently REMOVED.
381
382* ANSI/ISO C
383
384As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
385buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
386containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
387use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
388available. If this is not true, please report the affected
389configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
390information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
391already.
392
393* Readline 2.2
394
395GDB now uses readline 2.2.
396
397* set extension-language
398
399You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
400languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
401you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
402 set extension-language .c c++
403The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
404and their associated languages.
405
406* Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
407
408When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
409you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
410PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
411
412 set processor NAME
413
414sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
415following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
416
417 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
418 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
419 403 IBM PowerPC 403
420 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
421 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
422 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
423 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
424 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
425 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
426 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
427 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
428
429At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
430special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
431registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
432only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
433
434* HP-UX support
435
436Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
437more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
438library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
439support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
440for xdb and dbx commands.
441
442* Catchpoints
443
444HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
445generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
446to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
447
448This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
449argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
450output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
451
452* Debugging across forks
453
454On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
455in the inferior.
456
457* TUI
458
459HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
460it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
461configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
462
463* GDB remote protocol additions
464
465A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
466Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
467fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
468allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
469
470For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
471full 64-bit address. The command
472
473 set remoteaddresssize 32
474
475can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
476the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
477will be discarded.
478
479In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
480command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
481
482 maint packet heythere
483
484sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
485disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
486time.
487
488The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
489target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
490downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
491
492* Tracing can collect general expressions
493
494You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
495further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
496doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
497
498* mask-address variable for Mips
499
500For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
501a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
502of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
503
504* Higher serial baud rates
505
506GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
507230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
508to achieve all of these rates.)
509
510* i960 simulator
511
512The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
513builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
514
515
516*** Changes in GDB-4.17:
517
518* New native configurations
519
520Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
521Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
522Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
523PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
524PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
525Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
526Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
527
528* New targets
529
530Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
531Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
532Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
533Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
534MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
535MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
536MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
537Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
538Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
539Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
540NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
541
542* New debugging protocols
543
544ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
545M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
546DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
547PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
548PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
549Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
550
551* DWARF 2
552
553All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
554format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
555information.
556
557* Java frontend
558
559GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
560only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
561
562* solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
563
564For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
565loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
566locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
567
568* Live range splitting
569
570GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
571range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
572more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
573
574* Hurd support
575
576GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
577updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
578
579* ARM Thumb support
580
581GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
582instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
583instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
584accordingly.
585
586* MIPS16 support
587
588GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
589instruction set.
590
591* Overlay support
592
593GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
594linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
595will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
596control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
597additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
598in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
599
600* info symbol
601
602The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
603the symbol at the specified address.
604
605* Trace support
606
607The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
608asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
609extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
610includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
611file tracepoint.c for more details.
612
613* MIPS simulator
614
615Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
616by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
617of most MIPS variants.
618
619* Sparc simulator
620
621Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
622by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
623Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
624
625* set architecture
626
627For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
628basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
629architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
630the possible architectures.
631
632*** Changes in GDB-4.16:
633
634* New native configurations
635
636Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
637M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
638PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
639PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
640PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
641RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
642
643* New targets
644
645ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
646I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
647MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
648MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
649PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
650Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
651Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
652
653* PowerPC simulator
654
655The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
656contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
657PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
658basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
659performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
660
661* Solaris 2.5
662
663GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
664
665* Windows 95/NT native
666
667GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
668To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
669which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
670Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
671ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
672
673* dont-repeat command
674
675If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
676command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
677useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
678extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
679
680* Send break instead of ^C
681
682The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
683rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
684GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
685
686* Remote protocol timeout
687
688The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
689that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
690to read from the target. The default value is 2.
691
692* Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
693
694By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
695loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
696stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
697when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
698in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
699
700Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
701/usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
702automatically on hpux10.
703
704* Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
705
706Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
707
708* Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
709
710When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
711may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
712the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
713every character. The default value is 1050.
714
715* Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
716
717If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
718a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
719replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
720details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
721remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
722to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
723
724* Speedups for remote debugging
725
726GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
727the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
728and more efficient S-record downloading.
729
730* Memory use reductions and statistics collection
731
732GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
733Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
734
735*** Changes in GDB-4.15:
736
737* Psymtabs for XCOFF
738
739The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
740can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
741
742* Remote targets use caching
743
744Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
745remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
746it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
747debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
748off' turns the the data cache off.
749
750* Remote targets may have threads
751
752The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
753in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
754gdb/remote.c for details.
755
756* NetROM support
757
758If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
759support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
760acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
761write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
762support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
763another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
764sequence is something like
765
766 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
767 load <prog>
768 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
769
770* Macintosh host
771
772GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
773may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
774it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
775available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
776device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
777directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
778scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
779mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
780
781* Autoconf
782
783GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
784but does simplify configuration and building.
785
786* hpux10
787
788GDB now supports hpux10.
789
790*** Changes in GDB-4.14:
791
792* New native configurations
793
794x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
795x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
796NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
797Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
798
799* New targets
800
801A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
802HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
803CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
804PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
805WDC 65816 w65-*-*
806
807* Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
808
809GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
810possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
811filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
812the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
813if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
814
815* Arguments to user-defined commands
816
817User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
818Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
819trivial example:
820define adder
821 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
822
823To execute the command use:
824adder 1 2 3
825
826Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
827Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
828use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
829
830* New `if' and `while' commands
831
832This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
833commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
834expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
835execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
836terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
837`else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
838if the expression is zero.
839
840* Fortran source language mode
841
842GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
843Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
844variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
845with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
846Fortran compilers.
847
848* Better HPUX support
849
850Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
851running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
852processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
853for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
854that behavior do the following before running the program:
855
856 adb -w a.out
857 __dld_flags?W 0x5
858 control-d
859
860This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
861To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
862
863 adb -w a.out
864 __dld_flags?W 0x4
865 control-d
866
867You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
868the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
869external linkage.
870
871GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
872HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
873
874* Target byte order now dynamically selectable
875
876You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
877commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
878current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
879"set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
880associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
881configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
882
883* New DOS host serial code
884
885This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
886no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
887a PC's serial port.
888
889*** Changes in GDB-4.13:
890
891* New "complete" command
892
893This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
894were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
895
896* Trailing space optional in prompt
897
898"set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
899allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
900
901* Breakpoint hit counts
902
903"info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
904has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
905can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
906to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
907less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
908that breakpoint.
909
910* Ability to stop printing at NULL character
911
912"set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
913an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
914arrays actually contain only short strings.
915
916* Shared library breakpoints
917
918In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
919breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
920
921* Hardware watchpoints
922
923There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
924targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
925
926Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under Linux.
927
928* Annotations
929
930Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
931and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
932
933* Improved Irix 5 support
934
935GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
936
937* Improved HPPA support
938
939GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
940
941* New native configurations
942
943Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
944HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
945Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
946RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
947
948* New targets
949
950OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
951MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
952Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
953
954* Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
955
956There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
957This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
958
959* Fixes
960
961As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
962and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
963
964*** Changes in GDB-4.12:
965
966* Irix 5 is now supported
967
968* HPPA support
969
970GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
971to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
972GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
973of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
974can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
975
976
977*** Changes in GDB-4.11:
978
979* User visible changes:
980
981* Remote Debugging
982
983The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
984target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
985debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
986integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
987debugging info for the mips target).
988
989* DEC Alpha native support
990
991GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
992debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
993work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
994Alpha-specific notes.
995
996* Preliminary thread implementation
997
998GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
999
1000* LynxOS native and target support for 386
1001
1002This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
1003to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
1004for details).
1005
1006* Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
1007
1008This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
1009mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
1010call methods, ...etc.
1011
1012*** Changes in GDB-4.10:
1013
1014 * User visible changes:
1015
1016Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
1017supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
1018other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
1019somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
1020
1021Filename completion now works.
1022
1023When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
1024arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
1025addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
1026
1027All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
1028vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
1029should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
1030your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
1031to be on the far side of a thin network line.
1032
1033 * DEC alpha support
1034
1035This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
1036cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
1037
1038
1039*** Changes in GDB-4.9:
1040
1041 * Testsuite
1042
1043This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
1044The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
1045via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
1046
1047 * C++ demangling
1048
1049'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
1050emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
1051Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
1052disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
1053use gdb with AT&T cfront.
1054
1055 * Simulators
1056
1057GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
1058So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
1059Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
1060
1061 * New targets supported
1062
1063H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1064H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1065SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
1066Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1067IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
1068
1069Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
1070version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
1071GO32 memory extender.
1072
1073 * New remote protocols
1074
1075MIPS remote debugging protocol.
1076
1077 * New source languages supported
1078
1079This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
1080used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
1081into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
1082
1083
1084*** Changes in GDB-4.8:
1085
1086 * HP Precision Architecture supported
1087
1088GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
1089version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
1090University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
1091compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
1092format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
1093(as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
1094
1095Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
1096
1097 * Faster and better demangling
1098
1099We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
1100demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
1101character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
1102only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
1103This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
1104increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
1105symbol lookups.
1106
1107`Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
1108from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
1109compiler does not actually implement.
1110
1111 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
1112
1113In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
1114inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
1115recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
1116very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
1117The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
1118circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
1119fix.
1120
1121The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
1122release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
1123
1124 * Improved configure script
1125
1126The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
1127you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
1128host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
1129done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
1130
1131We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
1132version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
1133`--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
1134The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
1135only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
1136We hope to make this the default in a future release.
1137
1138 * Documentation improvements
1139
1140There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
1141produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
1142before submitting changes.
1143
1144The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
1145M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
1146`info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
1147you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
1148a future texinfo-X.Y release.
1149
1150*NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
1151We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
1152been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
1153or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
1154`texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
1155around this problem.
1156
1157 * New features
1158
1159GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
1160the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
1161`print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
1162the target program.
1163
1164The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
1165how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
1166
1167 * New native hosts supported
1168
1169HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
1170386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
1171
1172 * New targets supported
1173
1174AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
1175
1176 * New file formats supported
1177
1178BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
1179HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
1180
1181 * Major bug fixes
1182
1183Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
1184
1185We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
1186printf_filtered("%s") problems.
1187
1188We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
1189for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
1190release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
1191
1192You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
1193will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
1194
1195We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
1196for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
1197especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
1198libraries.
1199
1200The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
1201information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
1202command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
1203any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
1204when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
1205
1206 * Internal improvements
1207
1208GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
1209debugging of multiple languages in the future.
1210
1211GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
1212Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
1213symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
1214contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
1215shared code that handles any of them.
1216
1217 * New command line options
1218
1219We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
1220
1221 * Mmalloc licensing
1222
1223The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
1224General Public License.
1225
1226*** Changes in GDB-4.7:
1227
1228 * Host/native/target split
1229
1230GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
1231hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
1232target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
1233local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
1234ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
1235
1236The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
1237GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
1238is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
1239code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
1240any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
1241built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
1242handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
1243
1244GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
1245It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
1246plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
1247
1248 * New hosts supported
1249
1250HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
1251386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1252386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
1253
1254 * New targets supported
1255
1256Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
125768030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
1258
1259 * New native hosts supported
1260
1261386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1262 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
1263386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
1264
1265 * New file formats supported
1266
1267BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
1268supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
1269format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
1270
1271 * New commands
1272
1273`show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
1274`show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
1275These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
1276
1277`info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
1278
1279You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
1280scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
1281prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
1282executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
1283
1284 * C++ improvements
1285
1286We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
1287info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
1288symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
1289
1290Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
1291
1292 * Major bug fixes
1293
1294The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
1295fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
1296by the compiler.
1297
1298We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
1299support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
1300
1301John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
1302slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
1303that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
1304purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
1305the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
1306mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
1307
1308Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
1309about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
1310completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
1311we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
1312
1313 * AMD 29k support
1314
1315A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
1316specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
1317calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
1318usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
1319in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
1320
1321We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
1322Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
1323of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
1324resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
1325
1326 * Remote interfaces
1327
1328We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
1329with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
1330message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
1331This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
1332needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
1333breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
1334each instruction being stepped through.
1335
1336The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
1337registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
1338
1339There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
1340find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
1341Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
1342processor with a serial port.
1343
1344 * Configuration
1345
1346Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
1347`table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
1348supported, and what files each one uses.
1349
1350 * Library changes
1351
1352There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
1353disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
1354Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
1355disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
1356
1357The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
1358Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
1359can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
1360grants all the rights from the General Public License.
1361
1362 * Documentation
1363
1364The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
1365reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
1366as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
1367encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
1368system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
1369bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
1370
1371And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
1372
1373
1374*** Changes in GDB-4.6:
1375
1376 * Better support for C++ function names
1377
1378GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
1379names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
1380(using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
1381single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
1382Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
1383
1384GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
1385the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
1386You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
1387lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
1388for the list of formats.
1389
1390 * G++ symbol mangling problem
1391
1392Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
1393C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
1394directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
1395can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
1396usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
1397about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
1398this problem.)
1399
1400 * New 'maintenance' command
1401
1402All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
1403the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
1404can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
1405
1406 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
1407 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
1408 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
1409 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
1410 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
1411 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
1412
1413The following commands are new:
1414
1415 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
1416 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
1417 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
1418
1419 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
1420
1421We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
1422(e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
1423be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
1424read after argv processing.
1425
1426 * New hosts supported
1427
1428Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
1429
1430Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
1431
1432We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
1433is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
1434for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
1435masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
1436fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
1437It costs extra.
1438
1439 * New targets supported
1440
1441Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1442
1443 * More smarts about finding #include files
1444
1445GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
1446all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
1447greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
1448especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
1449the one that contains your sources.
1450
1451We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
1452breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
1453try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
1454
1455 * Interesting infernals change
1456
1457GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
1458section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
1459target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
1460stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
1461
1462 * Bug fixes (of course!)
1463
1464There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
1465 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
1466 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
1467
1468See the ChangeLog for details.
1469
1470*** Changes in GDB-4.5:
1471
1472 * New machines supported (host and target)
1473
1474IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
1475
1476SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
1477
1478 * New malloc package
1479
1480GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
1481Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
1482capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
1483This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
1484pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
1485more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
1486
1487 * info proc
1488
1489The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
1490'help info proc' for details.
1491
1492 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
1493
1494The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
1495Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
1496possible.
1497
1498 * File name changes for MS-DOS
1499
1500Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
1501support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
1502conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
1503environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
1504that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
1505in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
1506
1507 * Cross byte order fixes
1508
1509Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
1510targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
1511
1512 * New -mapped and -readnow options
1513
1514If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
1515system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
1516`symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
1517program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
1518called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
1519Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
1520and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
1521the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
1522option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
1523starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
1524
1525You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
1526the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
1527information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
1528slower, but makes future operations faster.
1529
1530The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
1531build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
1532A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
1533use is:
1534
1535 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
1536
1537The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
1538It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
1539shared across multiple host platforms.
1540
1541 * longjmp() handling
1542
1543GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
1544siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
1545all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
1546platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
1547
1548 * Solaris 2.0
1549
1550Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
1551this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
1552reading symbols.
1553
1554 * Bug fixes
1555
1556As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
1557People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
1558crashes and trashed symbol tables.
1559
1560*** Changes in GDB-4.4:
1561
1562 * New machines supported (host and target)
1563
1564SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
1565 (except core files)
1566BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
1567Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
1568
1569 * New machines supported (target)
1570
1571AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1572
1573 * C++ support
1574
1575GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
1576The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
1577per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
1578
1579GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
1580`ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
1581extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
1582good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
1583will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
1584released.
1585
1586 * New features for SVR4
1587
1588GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
1589shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
1590only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
1591
1592The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
1593on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
1594it prints the address mappings of the process.
1595
1596If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
1597bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
1598
1599 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
1600
1601Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
1602now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
1603skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
1604make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
1605same code linked statically.
1606
1607 * New Getopt
1608
1609GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
1610version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
1611continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
1612Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
1613added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
1614future by other options that begin with the same letter.
1615
1616 * Bugs fixed
1617
1618The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
1619Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
1620See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
1621
1622
1623*** Changes in GDB-4.3:
1624
1625 * New machines supported (host and target)
1626
1627Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
1628NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
1629Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
1630
1631 * Almost SCO Unix support
1632
1633We had hoped to support:
1634SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
1635(except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
1636that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
1637about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
1638
1639 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
1640
1641GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
1642debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
1643is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
1644send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
1645reqired (if any).
1646
1647 * New Readline
1648
1649GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
1650is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
1651required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
1652
1653 * Bugs fixed
1654
1655The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
1656Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
1657See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
1658
1659 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
1660
1661GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
1662supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
1663symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
1664
1665Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
1666mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
1667debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
1668mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
1669version 2.
1670
1671Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
1672really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
1673line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
1674variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
1675situation somewhat.
1676
1677When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
1678However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
1679methods.
1680
1681We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
1682DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
1683encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
1684
1685
1686*** Changes in GDB-4.2:
1687
1688 * Improved configuration
1689
1690Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
1691Porting BFD is simpler.
1692
1693 * Stepping improved
1694
1695The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
1696of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
1697in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
1698function that has debugging information is called within the line.
1699
1700 * Bug fixing
1701
1702Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
1703
1704 * New host supported (not target)
1705
1706Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
1707
1708
1709*** Changes in GDB-4.1:
1710
1711 * Multiple source language support
1712
1713GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
1714It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
1715and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
1716language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
1717You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
1718`set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
1719
1720 * GDB and Modula-2
1721
1722GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
1723currently under development at the State University of New York at
1724Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
1725continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
1726
1727Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
1728debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
1729symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
1730
1731There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
1732in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
1733
1734 * set write on/off
1735
1736GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
1737a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
1738the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
1739by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
1740effect immediately.
1741
1742 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
1743
1744When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
1745shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
1746The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
1747examining core files.
1748
1749 * set listsize
1750
1751You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
1752The default is 10.
1753
1754 * New machines supported (host and target)
1755
1756SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
1757Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
1758Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
1759
1760 * New hosts supported (not targets)
1761
1762IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
1763
1764 * New targets supported (not hosts)
1765
1766AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1767AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1768Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
1769
1770 * New remote interfaces
1771
1772AMD 29000 Adapt
1773AMD 29000 Minimon
1774
1775
1776*** Changes in GDB-4.0:
1777
1778 * New Facilities
1779
1780Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
1781
1782Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
1783target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
1784is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
1785remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
1786remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
1787also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
1788using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
1789stub on the target system.
1790
1791New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
1792
1793GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
1794library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
1795object file types such as a.out and coff.
1796
1797There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
1798refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
1799
1800
1801 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
1802
1803All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
1804by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
1805
1806For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
1807``Show prompt'' produces the response:
1808Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
1809
1810What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
1811print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
1812will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
1813all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
1814
1815confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
1816 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
1817 it is already running. Default is ON.
1818
1819editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
1820 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
1821 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
1822 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
1823 Default is ON.
1824
1825history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
1826 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
1827 or the value of the environment variable
1828 GDBHISTFILE.
1829
1830history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
1831 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
1832 HISTSIZE.
1833
1834history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
1835 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
1836 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
1837
1838history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
1839 history expansion will be performed on
1840 command line input. The default is OFF.
1841
1842radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
1843 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
1844 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
1845
1846height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
1847 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
1848 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
1849 variable TERM.
1850
1851width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
1852 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
1853 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
1854 variable TERM.
1855
1856Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
1857``set width'' instead.
1858
1859print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
1860 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
1861 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
1862 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
1863
1864print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
1865 is OFF.
1866
1867print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
1868 "raw" form if off.
1869
1870print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
1871 like instructions.
1872
1873print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
1874
1875
1876 * Support for Epoch Environment.
1877
1878The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
1879new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
1880are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
1881window.
1882
1883
1884 * Support for Shared Libraries
1885
1886GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
1887Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
1888before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
1889happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
1890At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
1891from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
1892shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
1893It can be abbreviated ``share''.
1894
1895sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
1896 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
1897 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
1898
1899info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
1900
1901
1902 * Watchpoints
1903
1904A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
1905expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
1906tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
1907quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
1908problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
1909more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
1910
1911watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
1912
1913info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
1914
1915delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
1916disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
1917enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
1918
1919
1920 * C++ multiple inheritance
1921
1922When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
1923for C++ programs.
1924
1925 * C++ exception handling
1926
1927Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
1928ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
1929the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
1930handler's context).
1931
1932catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
1933 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
1934 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
1935
1936info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
1937 current stack frame.
1938
1939
1940 * Minor command changes
1941
1942The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
1943command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
1944is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
1945
1946The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
1947at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
1948frames without printing.
1949
1950 * New directory command
1951
1952'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
1953The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
1954about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
1955with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
1956find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
1957
1958 * Configuring GDB for compilation
1959
1960For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
1961for more details.
1962
1963GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
1964two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
1965Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
1966where the program that you are debugging will run.
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