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[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 6.8
5
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6* GDB now has an interface for JIT compilation. Applications that
7dynamically generate code can create symbol files in memory and register
8them with GDB. For users, the feature should work transparently, and
9for JIT developers, the interface is documented in the GDB manual in the
10"JIT Compilation Interface" chapter.
11
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12* Tracepoints may now be conditional. The syntax is as for
13breakpoints; either an "if" clause appended to the "trace" command,
14or the "condition" command is available. GDB sends the condition to
15the target for evaluation using the same bytecode format as is used
16for tracepoint actions.
17
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18* "disassemble" command with a /r modifier, print the raw instructions
19in hex as well as in symbolic form."
20
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21* Process record and replay
22
23 In a architecture environment that supports ``process record and
24 replay'', ``process record and replay'' target can record a log of
25 the process execution, and replay it with both forward and reverse
26 execute commands.
27
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28* Reverse debugging: GDB now has new commands reverse-continue, reverse-
29step, reverse-next, reverse-finish, reverse-stepi, reverse-nexti, and
30set execution-direction {forward|reverse}, for targets that support
31reverse execution.
32
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33* GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on MIPS/Linux systems. This
34feature is available with a native GDB running on kernel version
352.6.28 or later.
36
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37* GDB now has support for multi-byte and wide character sets on the
38target. Strings whose character type is wchar_t, char16_t, or
39char32_t are now correctly printed. GDB supports wide- and unicode-
40literals in C, that is, L'x', L"string", u'x', u"string", U'x', and
41U"string" syntax. And, GDB allows the "%ls" and "%lc" formats in
42`printf'. This feature requires iconv to work properly; if your
43system does not have a working iconv, GDB can use GNU libiconv. See
44the installation instructions for more information.
45
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46* GDB now supports automatic retrieval of shared library files from
47remote targets. To use this feature, specify a system root that begins
48with the `remote:' prefix, either via the `set sysroot' command or via
49the `--with-sysroot' configure-time option.
50
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51* "info sharedlibrary" now takes an optional regex of libraries to show,
52and it now reports if a shared library has no debugging information.
53
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54* Commands `set debug-file-directory', `set solib-search-path' and `set args'
55now complete on file names.
56
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57* When completing in expressions, gdb will attempt to limit
58completions to allowable structure or union fields, where appropriate.
59For instance, consider:
60
61 # struct example { int f1; double f2; };
62 # struct example variable;
63 (gdb) p variable.
64
65If the user types TAB at the end of this command line, the available
66completions will be "f1" and "f2".
67
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68* Inlined functions are now supported. They show up in backtraces, and
69the "step", "next", and "finish" commands handle them automatically.
70
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71* GDB now supports the token-splicing (##) and stringification (#)
72operators when expanding macros. It also supports variable-arity
73macros.
74
47a3467a 75* GDB now supports inspecting extra signal information, exported by
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76the new $_siginfo convenience variable. The feature is currently
77implemented on linux ARM, i386 and amd64.
78
79* GDB can now display the VFP floating point registers and NEON vector
80registers on ARM targets. Both ARM GNU/Linux native GDB and gdbserver
81can provide these registers (requires Linux 2.6.30 or later). Remote
82and simulator targets may also provide them.
47a3467a 83
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84* New remote packets
85
86qSearch:memory:
87 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
88
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89QStartNoAckMode
90 Turn off `+'/`-' protocol acknowledgments to permit more efficient
91 operation over reliable transport links. Use of this packet is
92 controlled by the `set remote noack-packet' command.
93
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94vKill
95 Kill the process with the specified process ID. Use this in preference
96 to `k' when multiprocess protocol extensions are supported.
97
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98qXfer:osdata:read
99 Obtains additional operating system information
100
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101qXfer:siginfo:read
102qXfer:siginfo:write
103 Read or write additional signal information.
104
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105* Removed remote protocol undocumented extension
106
107 An undocumented extension to the remote protocol's `S' stop reply
108 packet that permited the stub to pass a process id was removed.
109 Remote servers should use the `T' stop reply packet instead.
110
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111* The "disassemble" command now supports an optional /m modifier to print mixed
112source+assembly.
113
c055b101 114* GDB now supports multiple function calling conventions according to the
a0ef4274 115DWARF-2 DW_AT_calling_convention function attribute.
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116
117* The SH target utilizes the aforementioned change to distinguish between gcc
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118and Renesas calling convention. It also adds the new CLI commands
119`set/show sh calling-convention'.
c055b101 120
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121* GDB can now read compressed debug sections, as produced by GNU gold
122with the --compress-debug-sections=zlib flag.
123
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124* 64-bit core files are now supported on AIX.
125
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126* Thread switching is now supported on Tru64.
127
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128* Watchpoints can now be set on unreadable memory locations, e.g. addresses
129which will be allocated using malloc later in program execution.
130
1fddbabb 131* The qXfer:libraries:read remote procotol packet now allows passing a
31fffb02 132list of section offsets.
1fddbabb 133
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134* On GNU/Linux, GDB can now attach to stopped processes. Several race
135conditions handling signals delivered during attach or thread creation
136have also been fixed.
137
bfb8797a 138* GDB now supports the use of DWARF boolean types for Ada's type Boolean.
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139From the user's standpoint, all unqualified instances of True and False
140are treated as the standard definitions, regardless of context.
bfb8797a 141
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142* GDB now parses C++ symbol and type names more flexibly. For
143example, given:
144
145 template<typename T> class C { };
146 C<char const *> c;
147
148GDB will now correctly handle all of:
149
150 ptype C<char const *>
151 ptype C<char const*>
152 ptype C<const char *>
153 ptype C<const char*>
154
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155* New features in the GDB remote stub, gdbserver
156
157 - The "--wrapper" command-line argument tells gdbserver to use a
158 wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
159
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160 - On PowerPC and S/390 targets, it is now possible to use a single
161 gdbserver executable to debug both 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
162 (This requires gdbserver itself to be built as a 64-bit executable.)
163
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164 - gdbserver uses the new noack protocol mode for TCP connections to
165 reduce communications latency, if also supported and enabled in GDB.
166
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167 - Support for the sparc64-linux-gnu target is now included in
168 gdbserver.
169
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170 - The amd64-linux build of gdbserver now supports debugging both
171 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
172
173 - The i386-linux, amd64-linux, and i386-win32 builds of gdbserver
174 now support hardware watchpoints, and will use them automatically
175 as appropriate.
176
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177* Python scripting
178
179 GDB now has support for scripting using Python. Whether this is
180 available is determined at configure time.
181
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182 New GDB commands can now be written in Python.
183
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184* Ada tasking support
185
186 Ada tasks can now be inspected in GDB. The following commands have
187 been introduced:
188
189 info tasks
190 Print the list of Ada tasks.
191 info task N
192 Print detailed information about task number N.
193 task
194 Print the task number of the current task.
195 task N
196 Switch the context of debugging to task number N.
197
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198* Support for user-defined prefixed commands. The "define" command can
199add new commands to existing prefixes, e.g. "target".
200
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201* Multi-inferior, multi-process debugging.
202
203 GDB now has generalized support for multi-inferior debugging. See
204 "Debugging Multiple Inferiors" in the manual for more information.
205 Although availability still depends on target support, the command
206 set is more uniform now. The GNU/Linux specific multi-forks support
207 has been migrated to this new framework. This implied some user
208 visible changes; see "New commands" and also "Removed commands"
209 below.
210
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211* Target descriptions can now describe the target OS ABI. See the
212"Target Description Format" section in the user manual for more
213information.
214
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215* Target descriptions can now describe "compatible" architectures
216to indicate that the target can execute applications for a different
217architecture in addition to those for the main target architecture.
218See the "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for
219more information.
220
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221* Multi-architecture debugging.
222
223 GDB now includes general supports for debugging applications on
224 hybrid systems that use more than one single processor architecture
225 at the same time. Each such hybrid architecture still requires
226 specific support to be added. The only hybrid architecture supported
227 in this version of GDB is the Cell Broadband Engine.
228
229* GDB now supports integrated debugging of Cell/B.E. applications that
230use both the PPU and SPU architectures. To enable support for hybrid
231Cell/B.E. debugging, you need to configure GDB to support both the
232powerpc-linux or powerpc64-linux and the spu-elf targets, using the
233--enable-targets configure option.
234
d7713ae0 235* New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
75feb17d 236
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237find [/size-char] [/max-count] start-address, end-address|+search-space-size,
238 val1 [, val2, ...]
239 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
240
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241maint set python print-stack
242maint show python print-stack
243 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Python script.
244
245python [CODE]
246 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Python interpreter.
247
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248macro define
249macro list
250macro undef
251 These allow macros to be defined, undefined, and listed
252 interactively.
253
254info os processes
255 Show operating system information about processes.
256
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257info inferiors
258 List the inferiors currently under GDB's control.
259
260inferior NUM
261 Switch focus to inferior number NUM.
262
263detach inferior NUM
264 Detach from inferior number NUM.
265
266kill inferior NUM
267 Kill inferior number NUM.
268
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269* New options
270
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271set spu stop-on-load
272show spu stop-on-load
273 Control whether to stop for new SPE threads during Cell/B.E. debugging.
274
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275set spu auto-flush-cache
276show spu auto-flush-cache
277 Control whether to automatically flush the software-managed cache
278 during Cell/B.E. debugging.
279
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280set sh calling-convention
281show sh calling-convention
282 Control the calling convention used when calling SH target functions.
283
e0a3ce09 284set debug timestamp
75feb17d 285show debug timestamp
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286 Control display of timestamps with GDB debugging output.
287
288set disassemble-next-line
289show disassemble-next-line
290 Control display of disassembled source lines or instructions when
291 the debuggee stops.
292
293set remote noack-packet
294show remote noack-packet
295 Set/show the use of remote protocol QStartNoAckMode packet. See above
296 under "New remote packets."
297
298set remote query-attached-packet
299show remote query-attached-packet
300 Control use of remote protocol `qAttached' (query-attached) packet.
301
302set remote read-siginfo-object
303show remote read-siginfo-object
304 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:read' (read-siginfo-object)
305 packet.
306
307set remote write-siginfo-object
308show remote write-siginfo-object
309 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:write' (write-siginfo-object)
310 packet.
311
312set displaced-stepping
313show displaced-stepping
314 Control displaced stepping mode. Displaced stepping is a way to
315 single-step over breakpoints without removing them from the debuggee.
316 Also known as "out-of-line single-stepping".
317
318set debug displaced
319show debug displaced
320 Control display of debugging info for displaced stepping.
321
322maint set internal-error
323maint show internal-error
324 Control what GDB does when an internal error is detected.
325
326maint set internal-warning
327maint show internal-warning
328 Control what GDB does when an internal warning is detected.
75feb17d 329
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330set exec-wrapper
331show exec-wrapper
332unset exec-wrapper
333 Use a wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
fa4727a6 334
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335set multiple-symbols (all|ask|cancel)
336show multiple-symbols
337 The value of this variable can be changed to adjust the debugger behavior
338 when an expression or a breakpoint location contains an ambiguous symbol
339 name (an overloaded function name, for instance).
340
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341set breakpoint always-inserted
342show breakpoint always-inserted
343 Keep breakpoints always inserted in the target, as opposed to inserting
344 them when resuming the target, and removing them when the target stops.
345 This option can improve debugger performance on slow remote targets.
346
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347set arm fallback-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
348show arm fallback-mode
349set arm force-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
350show arm force-mode
351 These commands control how ARM GDB determines whether instructions
352 are ARM or Thumb. The default for both settings is auto, which uses
353 the current CPSR value for instructions without symbols; previous
354 versions of GDB behaved as if "set arm fallback-mode arm".
355
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356set disable-randomization
357show disable-randomization
358 Standalone programs run with the virtual address space randomization enabled
359 by default on some platforms. This option keeps the addresses stable across
360 multiple debugging sessions.
361
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362set non-stop
363show non-stop
364 Control whether other threads are stopped or not when some thread hits
365 a breakpoint.
366
b3eb342c 367set target-async
d7713ae0 368show target-async
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369 Requests that asynchronous execution is enabled in the target, if available.
370 In this case, it's possible to resume target in the background, and interact
371 with GDB while the target is running. "show target-async" displays the
372 current state of asynchronous execution of the target.
373
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374set target-wide-charset
375show target-wide-charset
376 The target-wide-charset is the name of the character set that GDB
377 uses when printing characters whose type is wchar_t.
378
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379set tcp auto-retry (on|off)
380show tcp auto-retry
381set tcp connect-timeout
382show tcp connect-timeout
383 These commands allow GDB to retry failed TCP connections to a remote stub
384 with a specified timeout period; this is useful if the stub is launched
385 in parallel with GDB but may not be ready to accept connections immediately.
386
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387set libthread-db-search-path
388show libthread-db-search-path
389 Control list of directories which GDB will search for appropriate
390 libthread_db.
391
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392set schedule-multiple (on|off)
393show schedule-multiple
394 Allow GDB to resume all threads of all processes or only threads of
395 the current process.
396
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397set stack-cache
398show stack-cache
399 Use more aggressive caching for accesses to the stack. This improves
400 performance of remote debugging (particularly backtraces) without
401 affecting correctness.
402
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403* Removed commands
404
405info forks
406 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `info
407 inferiors' command. To list checkpoints, you can still use the
408 `info checkpoints' command, which was an alias for the `info forks'
409 command.
410
411fork NUM
412 Replaced by the new `inferior' command. To switch between
413 checkpoints, you can still use the `restart' command, which was an
414 alias for the `fork' command.
415
416process PID
417 This is removed, since some targets don't have a notion of
418 processes. To switch between processes, you can still use the
419 `inferior' command using GDB's own inferior number.
420
421delete fork NUM
422 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `kill
423 inferior' command. To delete a checkpoint, you can still use the
424 `delete checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `delete
425 fork' command.
426
427detach fork NUM
428 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `detach
429 inferior' command. To detach a checkpoint, you can still use the
430 `detach checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `detach
431 fork' command.
432
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433* New native configurations
434
435x86/x86_64 Darwin i[34567]86-*-darwin*
436
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437x86_64 MinGW x86_64-*-mingw*
438
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439* New targets
440
c28c63d8 441Lattice Mico32 lm32-*
75a2d5e7 442x86 DICOS i[34567]86-*-dicos*
4c1d2973 443x86_64 DICOS x86_64-*-dicos*
5f814c3b 444S+core 3 score-*-*
75a2d5e7 445
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446* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports x86 Windows CE
447 (mingw32ce) debugging.
448
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449* Removed commands
450
451catch load
452catch unload
453 These commands were actually not implemented on any target.
454
75feb17d 455*** Changes in GDB 6.8
f9ed52be 456
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457* New native configurations
458
459NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*netbsd*
94a0e877 460Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
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461
462* New targets
463
464NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*-netbsd*
94a0e877 465Xtensa GNU/Lunux xtensa*-*-linux*
af5ca30d 466
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467* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
468
469 When the '-p NUMBER' or '--pid NUMBER' options are used, and
470 attaching to process NUMBER fails, GDB no longer attempts to open a
471 core file named NUMBER. Attaching to a program using the -c option
472 is no longer supported. Instead, use the '-p' or '--pid' options.
473
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474* GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
475(mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
476
fe6fbf8b 477* Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
8d5f9c6f 478is resolved.
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479
480* GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
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481including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
482and in inlined functions.
fe6fbf8b 483
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484* GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
485accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
486more than one contiguous range of addresses.
487
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488* Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
489
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490* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
491registers on PowerPC targets.
492
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493* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
494targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
495
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496* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
497commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
498
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499* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports run and attach in
500extended-remote mode.
501
24a836bd 502* hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
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503The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
504error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
505The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
24a836bd 506
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507* GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
508building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
509target architectures.
510
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511* GDB now supports debugging C and C++ programs which use the
512Decimal Floating Point extension. In addition, the PowerPC target
513now has a set of pseudo-registers to inspect decimal float values
514stored in two consecutive float registers.
515
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516* The -break-insert MI command can optionally create pending
517breakpoints now.
518
b93b6ca7 519* Improved support for debugging Ada
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520Many improvements to the Ada language support have been made. These
521include:
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522 - Better support for Ada2005 interface types
523 - Improved handling of arrays and slices in general
524 - Better support for Taft-amendment types
525 - The '{type} ADDRESS' expression is now allowed on the left hand-side
526 of an assignment
527 - Improved command completion in Ada
528 - Several bug fixes
529
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530* GDB on GNU/Linux and HP/UX can now debug through "exec" of a new
531process.
532
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533* New commands
534
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535set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
536show print frame-arguments
537 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
538 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
539
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540remote put
541remote get
542remote delete
543 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
544
545* New MI commands
546
547-target-file-put
548-target-file-get
549-target-file-delete
550 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
551
552* New remote packets
553
554vFile:open:
555vFile:close:
556vFile:pread:
557vFile:pwrite:
558vFile:unlink:
559 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
d0c678e6 560
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561vAttach
562 Attach to an existing process on the remote system, in extended-remote
563 mode.
564
565vRun
566 Run a new process on the remote system, in extended-remote mode.
567
8d5f9c6f 568*** Changes in GDB 6.7
6dd09645 569
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570* Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
571bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
572Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
573
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574* When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
575symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
576-Bsymbolic linker option.
577
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578* When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
579recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
580is not supported.
581
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582* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
583frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
584
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585* GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
58632-bit or 64-bit register values.
587
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588* Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
589
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590* GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
591target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
592a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
593
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594* Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
595automatically displayed as character or string data.
596
597* The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
598arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
599as strings.
e1f48ead 600
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601* Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
602for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
8d5f9c6f 603only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
123dc839 604
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605* GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
606iWMMXt coprocessor.
fb1e4ffc 607
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608* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
609ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
610has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
611
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612* GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
613
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614* GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
615
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616* The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
617layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
618segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
619
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620* The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
621immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
622
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623* The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
624"library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
625packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
626where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
627Windows and SymbianOS).
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628
629* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
630(DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
f5db8714
JK
631
632* GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
633according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
cfa9d6d9 634
c9bb8148
DJ
635* New commands
636
23776285
MR
637set remoteflow
638show remoteflow
639 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
640 when debugging using remote targets.
641
c9bb8148
DJ
642set mem inaccessible-by-default
643show mem inaccessible-by-default
644 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
645 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
646 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
647 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
648 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
649
650set breakpoint auto-hw
651show breakpoint auto-hw
652 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
653 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
654 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
655 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
656 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
657 including "next" and "finish".
658
0e420bd8
JB
659catch exception
660catch exception unhandled
661 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
662
663catch assert
664 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
665
f822c95b
DJ
666set sysroot
667show sysroot
668 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
669 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
670 an alias to "set sysroot".
671
83cc5c53
UW
672info spu
673 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
674 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
675 architecture.
676
bd372731
MK
677* New native configurations
678
679OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
680
23181151
DJ
681set tdesc filename
682unset tdesc filename
683show tdesc filename
684 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
685 not query the target for its built-in description.
686
c9bb8148
DJ
687* New targets
688
54fe9172 689OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
c9bb8148 690MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
c077150c 691Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
c9bb8148 692
6dd09645
JB
693* New remote packets
694
695QPassSignals:
696 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
697 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
698
23181151
DJ
699qXfer:features:read:
700 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
701 features.
6dd09645 702
83cc5c53
UW
703qXfer:spu:read:
704qXfer:spu:write:
705 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
706 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
707
cfa9d6d9
DJ
708qXfer:libraries:read:
709 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
710 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
711 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
712 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
713
483367ee
DJ
714* Removed targets
715
716Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
717
d08950c4
UW
718alpha*-*-osf1*
719alpha*-*-osf2*
7ce59000 720d10v-*-*
483367ee
DJ
721hppa*-*-hiux*
722i[34567]86-ncr-*
723i[34567]86-*-dgux*
724i[34567]86-*-lynxos*
725i[34567]86-*-netware*
726i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
727i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
728i[34567]86-*-sco*
729i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
730i[34567]86-*-sysv4*
731i[34567]86-*-sysv5*
732i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
733i[34567]86-*-unixware*
734i[34567]86-*-sysv*
735i[34567]86-*-isc*
736m68*-cisco*-*
737m68*-tandem-*
ad527d2e 738mips*-*-pe
483367ee 739rs6000-*-lynxos*
ad527d2e 740sh*-*-pe
483367ee 741
7ce59000
DJ
742* Other removed features
743
744target abug
745target cpu32bug
746target est
747target rom68k
748
749 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
750
ea35711c
DJ
751target hms
752target e7000
753target sh3
754target sh3e
755
756 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
757 H8/300.
758
759target ocd
760
761 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
762 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
763 interfaces.
764
7ce59000
DJ
765DWARF 1 support
766
767 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
768 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
769
54d61198
DJ
770Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
771
772 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
773 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
774 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
775 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
776
ea35711c
DJ
777MIPS ".pdr" sections
778
779 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
780 in debugging information.
781
782Scheme support
783
784 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
785 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
786
1a69e1e4
DJ
787set mips stack-arg-size
788set mips saved-gpreg-size
789
790 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
791
6dd09645 792*** Changes in GDB 6.6
e374b601 793
ca3bf3bd
DJ
794* New targets
795
796Xtensa xtensa-elf
9c309e77 797Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
ca3bf3bd 798
6aec2e11
DJ
799* GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
800(mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
801running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
802
803* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
804Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
805supported.
806
17218d91
DJ
807* The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
808broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
809
9ebce043
DJ
810* The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
811stub provides the required support.
812
7d3d3ece
DJ
813* Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
814longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
815
4f8253f3
JB
816* New commands
817
818set substitute-path
819unset substitute-path
820show substitute-path
821 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
822 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
823 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
824 between compilation and debugging.
825
9fa66fd7
AS
826set trace-commands
827show trace-commands
828 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
829 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
830 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
831
1f5befc1
DJ
832* REMOVED features
833
834The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
835
2ec3381a
DJ
836Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
837an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
838
3d00d119
DJ
839The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
840
be2a5f71
DJ
841* New remote packets
842
843qSupported:
844 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
845 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
846 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
847 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
848 target.
849
0876f84a
DJ
850qXfer:auxv:read:
851 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
852 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
853
9ebce043
DJ
854qXfer:memory-map:read:
855 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
856 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
857
858vFlashErase:
859vFlashWrite:
860vFlashDone:
861 Erase and program a flash memory device.
862
0876f84a
DJ
863* Removed remote packets
864
865qPart:auxv:read:
866 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
867 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
868
e374b601 869*** Changes in GDB 6.5
53e5f3cf 870
96309189
MS
871* New targets
872
873Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
874
875Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
876
53e5f3cf
AS
877* New commands
878
879init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
880 only if it doesn't already have a value.
881
ac264b3b
MS
882The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
883
884checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
885
886restart <n> Return the program state to a
887 previously saved state.
888
889info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
890
891delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
892
893set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
894 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
895
896info forks List forks of the user program that
897 are available to be debugged.
898
899fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
900 forks of the user program that are
901 available to be debugged.
902
903delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
904 that are available to be debugged (and
905 kill the forked process).
906
907detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
908 that are available to be debugged (and
909 allow the process to continue).
910
3950dc3f
NS
911* New architecture
912
913Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
914
0ea3f30e
DJ
915* Improved Windows host support
916
917GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
918native console support, and remote communications using either
919network sockets or serial ports.
920
f79daebb
GM
921* Improved Modula-2 language support
922
923GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
924basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
925pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
926printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
927written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
928GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
929
acab6ab2
MM
930* REMOVED features
931
932The ARM rdi-share module.
933
f4267320
DJ
934The Netware NLM debug server.
935
53e5f3cf 936*** Changes in GDB 6.4
156a53ca 937
e0ecbda1
MK
938* New native configurations
939
02a677ac 940OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
e0ecbda1
MK
941OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
942
d64a6579
KB
943* New targets
944
945Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
946
b33a6190
AS
947* New command line options
948
949--batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
950--return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
951 the child (debugged) program exited with.
952--eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
953 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
954 specified multiple times and in conjunction
955 with the --command (-x) option.
956
11dced61
AC
957* Deprecated commands removed
958
959The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
960removed:
961
962 Command Replacement
963 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
964 othernames set arm disassembler
965 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
966 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
967 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
968 regs info registers
969
6fe85783
MK
970* New BSD user-level threads support
971
972It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
973library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
974configurations are:
975
976FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
977FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
978OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
979
980Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
981are not yet supported.
982
5260ca71
MS
983* New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
984(Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
985
e84ecc99
AC
986* REMOVED configurations and files
987
988VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
9445aa30 989Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
9445aa30 990National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
156a53ca 991
31e35378
JB
992* New "set print array-indexes" command
993
994After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
995when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
996behavior.
997
e85e5c83
MK
998* VAX floating point support
999
1000GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
1001
d91e9901
AS
1002* User-defined command support
1003
1004In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
1005to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
1006section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
1007
f2cb65ca
MC
1008*** Changes in GDB 6.3:
1009
f47b1503
AS
1010* New command line option
1011
1012GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
1013debugging.
1014
f2cb65ca
MC
1015* GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
1016
1017GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
1018information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
1019by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
1020proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
1021to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
860660cb 1022
d08c0230
AC
1023* Internationalization
1024
1025When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
1026internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
1027continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
1028
117ea3cf
PH
1029* Ada
1030
1031Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
1032implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
1033into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
1034
d08c0230
AC
1035* New native configurations
1036
1037GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
1038
1039* Remote 'p' packet
1040
1041GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
1042packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
1043
1044* END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
1045
1046GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
1047The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
1048features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
1049i386 application).
1050
1051GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
1052compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
1053continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
1054configurations:
1055
1056hppa-*-hpux
1057ia64-*-aix
1058mips-*-irix*
1059*-*-lynx
1060mips-*-linux-gnu
1061sds protocol
1062xdr protocol
1063powerpc bdm protocol
1064
1065Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
1066made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
1067
1068* OBSOLETE configurations and files
1069
1070Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1071been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1072configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1073permanently REMOVED.
1074
1075h8300-*-*
1076mcore-*-*
1077mn10300-*-*
1078ns32k-*-*
1079sh64-*-*
1080v850-*-*
1081
ebb7c577
AC
1082*** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
1083
1084* MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
1085
1086When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
1087heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
1088been fixed.
1089
1090* MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
1091
1092When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
1093fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
1094IRIX long double values).
1095
1096* VAX and "next"
1097
1098A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
1099command. This problem has been fixed.
1100
860660cb 1101*** Changes in GDB 6.2:
faae5abe 1102
0dea2468
AC
1103* Fix for ``many threads''
1104
1105On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
1106rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
1107error message:
1108
1109 ptrace: No such process.
1110 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
1111
1112This problem has been fixed.
1113
2c07db7a
AC
1114* "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
1115
1116Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
1117GDB to dump core).
1118
c23968a2
JB
1119* New ``start'' command.
1120
1121This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
1122
71009278
MK
1123* New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
1124
1125Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
1126live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
1127platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
1128
1129FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
1130FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
1131NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
1132NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
1133NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
1134OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
1135OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
1136OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
1137OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
1138
3c0b7db2
AC
1139* Signal trampoline code overhauled
1140
1141Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
1142These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
1143of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
1144call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
1145signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
1146
73cc75f3
AC
1147Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
1148features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
1149include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
3c0b7db2 1150
7243600a
BF
1151* Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
1152
6f606e1c
MK
1153* New native configurations
1154
97dc871c 1155GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
0e56aeaf 1156OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
bf2ca189
MK
1157OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
1158OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
d195bc9f 1159OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 1160NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
9f076e7a 1161OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 1162
a1b461bf
AC
1163* END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
1164
1165GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
1166The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
1167including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
1168migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
1169compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
1170work, was also included.
1171
1172GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
1173module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
1174
1175h8300-*-*
1176mcore-*-*
1177mn10300-*-*
1178ns32k-*-*
1179sh64-*-*
1180v850-*-*
1181xstormy16-*-*
1182
1183Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
1184made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
1185
3c7012f5
AC
1186* REMOVED configurations and files
1187
1188Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
1189Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
1190Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
1191Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
1192Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
1193AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
1194Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
1195decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
1196riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
1197sonymips mips-sony-*
1198sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
1199
e5fe55f7
AC
1200*** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
1201
1202* TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
1203
1204The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
1205GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
1206command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
1207program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
1208with GDB".
1209
1210* Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
1211
1212Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
1213libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
1214cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
1215GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
1216shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
1217the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
1218are created.
1219
1220Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
1221
1222* Fixed ISO-C build problems
1223
1224The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
1225non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
1226compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
1227
1228* Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
1229
1230Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
1231wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
1232
1233* Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
1234
1235The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
1236permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
1237systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
1238
1239* Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
1240
1241Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
1242has been updated to use constant array sizes.
1243
1244* Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
1245
1246GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
1247its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
1248panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
1249
1250* Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
1251
1252When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
1253by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
1254not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
1255
faae5abe 1256*** Changes in GDB 6.1:
f2c06f52 1257
9175c9a3
MC
1258* Removed --with-mmalloc
1259
1260Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
1261conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
1262
3cc87ec0
MK
1263* Changes in AMD64 configurations
1264
1265The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
1266the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
1267and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
1268you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
1269
f0424ef6
MK
1270* Revised SPARC target
1271
1272The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
1273FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
03cebad2
MK
1274support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
1275from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
1276(Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
f0424ef6 1277
59659be2
ILT
1278* New C++ demangler
1279
1280GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
1281names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
1282with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
1283programs.
1284
9e08b29b
DJ
1285* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
1286
1287GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
1288arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
1289encountered these.
1290
8dfe8985
DC
1291* C++ nested types and namespaces
1292
1293GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
1294improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
1295is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
1296Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
1297namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
1298"Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
1299frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
1300if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
1301GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
1302
cced5e27
MK
1303* New native configurations
1304
1305NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
27d1e716 1306OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
2031c21a 1307OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
f2cab569
MK
1308OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
1309OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
cced5e27 1310
b4b4b794
KI
1311* New debugging protocols
1312
1313M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
1314
7989c619
AC
1315* "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
1316
1317The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
1318and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
1319tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
1320
5994185b
AC
1321* OBSOLETE configurations and files
1322
1323Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1324been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1325configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1326permanently REMOVED.
1327
1328Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
1329Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
1330Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
1331Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
1332Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
1333AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
1334Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
0748d941
AC
1335decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
1336riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
1337sonymips mips-sony-*
1338sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
5994185b 1339
0ddabb4c
AC
1340* REMOVED configurations and files
1341
1342SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
1343SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
4a8269c0
AC
1344Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1345Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1346H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1347HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
1348HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1349HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
1350PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
cf7c5c23 1351386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
4a8269c0
AC
1352Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
1353 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
1354 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
f0424ef6
MK
1355SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
1356SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
4a8269c0
AC
1357Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1358Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
0ddabb4c 1359
c7f1390e
DJ
1360*** Changes in GDB 6.0:
1361
1fe43d45
AC
1362* Objective-C
1363
1364Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
1365integrated into GDB.
1366
e6beb428
AC
1367* New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
1368
1369DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
1370information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
1371By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
1372backtraces.
1373
1374The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
1375have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
1376DWARF 2 CFI support.
1377
1378* Hosted file I/O.
1379
1380GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
1381file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
1382remote protocol documentation for details.
1383
1384* All targets using the new architecture framework.
1385
1386All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
1387architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
1388to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
1389ppc32 on ppc64).
1390
1391* GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
1392
1393GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
1394per-thread variables.
1395
1396* GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
1397
1398GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
1399GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
1400
1401* Separate debug info.
1402
1403GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
1404automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
1405of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
1406system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
1407and optional debug files.
1408
1409* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
1410
1411DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
1412describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
1413debugger.
1414
1415GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
1416for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
1417
1418* Java
1419
1420A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
1421Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
1422considered "useable".
1423
85f8f974
DJ
1424* GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
1425
1426The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
1427commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
1428kernel.
1429
0fac0b41
DJ
1430* GDB supports logging output to a file
1431
1432There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
1433used to capture GDB's output to a file.
f2c06f52 1434
6ad8ae5c
DJ
1435* The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
1436
1437The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
1438disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
1439command.
1440
e286caf2 1441* d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
5f601589
AC
1442
1443The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
1444registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
1445
d28f9cdf
DJ
1446* Profiling support
1447
1448A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
1449be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
1450session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
1451"--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
1452data, for more informative profiling results.
1453
da0f9dcd
AC
1454* Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
1455
1456The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
1457option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
b68767c1 1458"mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
da0f9dcd
AC
1459
1460Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
1461removed.
1462
fb9b6b35
JJ
1463Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
1464Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
1465Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
1466 in a subsequent -var-update.
1467
954a4db8
MK
1468* New native configurations.
1469
1470FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
1471
6760f9e6
JB
1472* Multi-arched targets.
1473
b4263afa 1474HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
85a453d5 1475Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
6760f9e6 1476
1b831c93
AC
1477* OBSOLETE configurations and files
1478
1479Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1480been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1481configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1482permanently REMOVED.
1483
8b0e5691 1484Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
67f16606 1485Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
fd2299bd 1486H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
56056df7
AC
1487HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
1488HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1489HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
78c43945 1490PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
2fbce691
AC
1491Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
1492 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
1493 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
f81824a9
AC
1494Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1495Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
fd2299bd 1496
5835abe7
NC
1497* REMOVED configurations and files
1498
1499V850EA ISA
1b831c93
AC
1500Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
1501IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
1502i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
1503i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
1504i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
1505HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
1506 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
1507 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
1508Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1509Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1510Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1511OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1512I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
5835abe7 1513
a094c6fb
AC
1514* MIPS $fp behavior changed
1515
1516The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
1517the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
1518context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
1519address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
1520The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
1521
299ffc64 1522*** Changes in GDB 5.3:
37057839 1523
46248966
AC
1524* GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
1525
1526When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
1527`/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
1528in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
1529library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
1530shared libs like mad''.
1531
b9d14705 1532* ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
6da02953 1533
b9d14705
DJ
1534Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
1535the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
1536arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
1537powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
6da02953 1538
e0e9281e
JB
1539* GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
1540
1541GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
1542and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
1543they expand.
1544
dd73b9bb
AC
1545The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
1546invocations in expression, and shows the result.
1547
1548The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
1549macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
1550
e0e9281e
JB
1551Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
1552information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
1553your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
1554information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
1555
2250ee0c
CV
1556* Multi-arched targets.
1557
6e3ba3b8
JT
1558DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
1559DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
2250ee0c 1560NEC V850 v850-*-*
6e3ba3b8 1561National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
a1789893
GS
1562Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
1563Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
2250ee0c 1564
cd9bfe15 1565* New targets.
e33ce519 1566
456f8b9d
DB
1567Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
1568
e33ce519 1569
da8ca43d
JT
1570* New native configurations
1571
1572Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
029923d4 1573SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
45888261 1574MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
9ce5c36a 1575UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
da8ca43d 1576
cd9bfe15
AC
1577* OBSOLETE configurations and files
1578
1579Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1580been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1581configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1582permanently REMOVED.
1583
92eb23c5 1584Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
a99a9e1b 1585OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1c7cc583 1586IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
7a3085c1 1587Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
7fb623f7 1588Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
eb4c54a2 1589Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
d8ee244c
MK
1590i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
1591i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
1592i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
822e978b
AC
1593HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
1594 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
1595 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
4d210288 1596I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
92eb23c5 1597
db034ac5
AC
1598* OBSOLETE languages
1599
1600CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
1601
cd9bfe15
AC
1602* REMOVED configurations and files
1603
1604AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
1605A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1606AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1607AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1608AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1609
1610testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
1611
20f01a46
DH
1612* New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
1613
1614This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
1615commands. The default is 1024.
1616
a5941fbf
MK
1617* Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
1618
1619Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
1620
89743e04
MS
1621* New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
1622
1623These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
1624to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
1625from a file into memory (restore).
37057839 1626
9fb14e79
JB
1627* Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
1628
1629The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
1630including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
1631of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
1632
2037aebb
AC
1633*** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
1634
1635* New targets.
1636
1637Atmel AVR avr*-*-*
1638
1639* Bug fixes
1640
1641gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
1642mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
1643Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
1644
1645gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
1646dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
1647Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
1648
1649Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
1650Surprisingly enough, it works now.
1651By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
1652
1653i386 hardware watchpoint support:
1654avoid misses on second run for some targets.
1655By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
1656
37057839 1657*** Changes in GDB 5.2:
eb7cedd9 1658
1a703748
MS
1659* New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
1660
1661This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
1662really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
1663In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
1664target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
1665This can be a significant performance improvement on some
1666(notably embedded) targets.
1667
cefd4ef5
MS
1668* New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
1669
55241689
AC
1670This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
1671process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
1672GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
1673hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
cefd4ef5 1674
352ed7b4
MS
1675* New command line option
1676
1677GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
1678
1679* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
1680
1681There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
1682command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
1683a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
1684be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
1685open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
1686issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
1687a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
1688it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
1689GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
1690is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
1691
fe419ffc
RE
1692* Changes in ARM configurations.
1693
1694Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
1695configuration is fully multi-arch.
1696
eb7cedd9
MK
1697* New native configurations
1698
fe419ffc 1699ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
eb7cedd9 1700x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
55241689 1701AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
768f0842 1702Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
eb7cedd9 1703
c9f63e6b
CV
1704* New targets
1705
1706Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
1707
9b4ff276
AC
1708* OBSOLETE configurations and files
1709
1710Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1711been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1712configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1713permanently REMOVED.
1714
1715AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
1716A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1717AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1718AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1719AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1720
b4ceaee6 1721testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
9b4ff276 1722
e2caac18
AC
1723* REMOVED configurations and files
1724
1725TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
7bc65f05 1726WDC 65816 w65-*-*
7768dd6c
AC
1727PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1728PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1729PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
5e734e1f 1730Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1406caf7
AC
1731Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
1732 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
7e24f0b1 1733SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
9b567150 1734Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
3680c638
AC
1735Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
1736ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
a752853e 1737Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
e2caac18 1738
c2a727fa
TT
1739* Changes to command line processing
1740
1741The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
1742for the inferior from gdb's command line.
1743
467d8519
TT
1744* Changes to key bindings
1745
1746There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
1747
7072a954
AC
1748*** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
1749
1750Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
1751
1752Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
1753corrupted.
1754
1755Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
1756
1757Numerous documentation fixes.
1758
1759Numerous testsuite fixes.
1760
34f47bc4 1761*** Changes in GDB 5.1:
139760b7
MK
1762
1763* New native configurations
1764
1765Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
1766x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
55241689 1767MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
e23194cb
EZ
1768MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
1769ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
55241689 1770s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
139760b7 1771
bf64bfd6
AC
1772* New targets
1773
def90278 1774Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
24be5c34 1775CRIS cris-axis
55241689 1776UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
def90278 1777
17e78a56 1778* OBSOLETE configurations and files
bf64bfd6
AC
1779
1780x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
9b9c068d 1781Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
bb19ff3b
AC
1782Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
1783 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
76f4ea53
AC
1784TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1785WDC 65816 w65-*-*
4a1968f4 1786Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1b2b2c16
AC
1787PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1788PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1789PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
24f89b68 1790SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
514e603d
AC
1791Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
1792ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
d036b4d9 1793Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
bf64bfd6 1794
17e78a56
AC
1795stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
1796kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
1797
7fcca85b
AC
1798Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1799been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1800configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1801permanently REMOVED.
1802
a196c81c 1803* REMOVED configurations and files
7fcca85b
AC
1804
1805Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
1806Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
1807Pyramid pyramid-*-*
1808ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
1809Tahoe tahoe-*-*
a196c81c 1810ser-ocd.c *-*-*
bf64bfd6 1811
6d6b80e5 1812* GDB has been converted to ISO C.
e23194cb 1813
6d6b80e5 1814GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
e23194cb
EZ
1815sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
1816present.
1817
bf64bfd6
AC
1818* Other news:
1819
e23194cb
EZ
1820* "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
1821
1822* The MI enabled by default.
1823
1824The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
1825revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
1826engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
1827using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
1828which is now deprecated.
1829
1830* Support for debugging Pascal programs.
1831
1832GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
1833main features are supported:
1834
1835 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
1836
1837 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
1838 extension;
1839
1840 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
1841
1842 - a Pascal expression parser.
1843
1844However, some important features are not yet supported.
1845
1846 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
1847
1848 - there are some problems with boolean types;
1849
1850 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
1851 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
1852
1853 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
1854
1855 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
1856
1857* Changes in completion.
1858
1859Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
1860to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
1861users expect at the shell prompt.
1862
1863Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
1864`breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
1865program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
1866files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
1867be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
1868considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
1869name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
1870
1871`set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
1872
1873* New platform-independent commands:
1874
1875It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
1876hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
1877documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
1878
1879* Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
1880
d7275149
MK
1881Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
1882revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
1883many threads as your system allows you to have.
1884
e23194cb
EZ
1885Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
1886
d7275149
MK
1887Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
1888multi-threaded programs though.
e23194cb
EZ
1889
1890* Changes in MIPS configurations.
bf64bfd6
AC
1891
1892Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
1893
e23194cb
EZ
1894GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
1895debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
1896supported.)
1897
1898* Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
1899
1900Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
1901breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
1902implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
1903put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
1904and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
1905registers.
1906
1907The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
1908debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
1909watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
1910
1911* Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
1912
1913New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
1914the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
1915
1916New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
1917display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
1918IDT.
1919
1920New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
1921from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
1922New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
1923a given linear address.
1924
1925GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
1926program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
1927which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
1928
1929DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
1930
6c56c069
EZ
1931It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
1932
e23194cb
EZ
1933* Changes in documentation.
1934
1935All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
1936Documentation License.
1937
1938Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1939manual.
1940
1941TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
1942
1943Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1944manual.
1945
1946The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
1947documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
1948hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
1949
5d6640b1
AC
1950* GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
1951
1952The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
1953``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
1954contents of this file.
1955
1a1d8446
AC
1956* gdba.el deleted
1957
1958GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
139760b7 1959
9debab2f 1960*** Changes in GDB 5.0:
7a292a7a 1961
c63ce875
EZ
1962* Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
1963
1964Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
1965programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
1966displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
1967greater level of detail.
1968
1969* Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
1970
1971It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
1972bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
1973on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
1974written.
1975
1976* Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
1977
1978The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
1979necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
1980machines ``out of the box''.
1981
1982The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
1983possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
1984signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
1985would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
1986interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
1987
1988It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
1989standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
1990even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
1991and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
1992terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
1993
1994The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
1995enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
1996also works.
1997
1998DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
1999GDB.
2000
2001It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
2002directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
2003times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
2004breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
2005
ed9a39eb
JM
2006* New native configurations
2007
2008ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
afc05dd4 2009PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
ed9a39eb 2010
7a292a7a
SS
2011* New targets
2012
96baa820 2013Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
adf40b2e
JM
2014x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
2015PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
7a292a7a
SS
2016TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
2017
085dd6e6
JM
2018* OBSOLETE configurations
2019
2020Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
2021Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
9846de1b 2022Pyramid pyramid-*-*
ed9a39eb 2023ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
104c1213 2024Tahoe tahoe-*-*
7a292a7a 2025
9debab2f
AC
2026Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
2027but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
2028these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
2029be permanently REMOVED.
2030
5330533d
SS
2031* Gould support removed
2032
2033Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
2034
bc9e5bbf
AC
2035* New features for SVR4
2036
2037On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
2038without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
2039load symbols from the running process's executable file.
2040
2041* Many C++ enhancements
2042
2043C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
2044in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
2045
adf40b2e
JM
2046* Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
2047
2048A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
2049sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
2050with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
2051``|<program> <args>'' vis:
2052
2053 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
2054 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
2055
43e526b9
JM
2056* MIPS 64 remote protocol
2057
2058A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
2059expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
2060instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
2061
2062The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
2063added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
2064
96baa820
JM
2065* ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
2066
2067The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
2068``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
2069include ``set remote P-packet''.
2070
11cf8741
JM
2071* Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
2072
2073The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
2074accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
2075``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
2076
7876dd43
DB
2077* ``apropos'' command added.
2078
2079The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
2080documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
2081try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
2082
bc9e5bbf
AC
2083* New MI interface
2084
2085A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
2086interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
7162c0ca
EZ
2087process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
2088"GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
2089enabled by configuring with:
bc9e5bbf
AC
2090
2091 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
2092
c906108c
SS
2093*** Changes in GDB-4.18:
2094
2095* New native configurations
2096
2097HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
2098HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
55241689 2099M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
c906108c
SS
2100
2101* New targets
2102
2103Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
2104Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
2105Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
2106
2107* OBSOLETE configurations
2108
2109Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
2110
2111Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
2112but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
2113these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
2114be permanently REMOVED.
2115
2116* ANSI/ISO C
2117
2118As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
2119buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
2120containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
2121use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
2122available. If this is not true, please report the affected
2123configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
2124information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
2125already.
2126
2127* Readline 2.2
2128
2129GDB now uses readline 2.2.
2130
2131* set extension-language
2132
2133You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
2134languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
2135you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
2136 set extension-language .c c++
2137The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
2138and their associated languages.
2139
2140* Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
2141
2142When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
2143you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
2144PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
2145
2146 set processor NAME
2147
2148sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
2149following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
2150
2151 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
2152 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
2153 403 IBM PowerPC 403
2154 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
2155 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
2156 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
2157 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
2158 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
2159 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
2160 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
2161 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
2162
2163At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
2164special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
2165registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
2166only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
2167
2168* HP-UX support
2169
2170Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
2171more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
2172library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
2173support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
2174for xdb and dbx commands.
2175
2176* Catchpoints
2177
2178HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
2179generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
2180to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
2181
2182This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
2183argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
2184output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
2185
2186* Debugging across forks
2187
2188On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
2189in the inferior.
2190
2191* TUI
2192
2193HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
2194it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
2195configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
2196
2197* GDB remote protocol additions
2198
2199A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
2200Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
2201fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
2202allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
2203
2204For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
2205full 64-bit address. The command
2206
2207 set remoteaddresssize 32
2208
2209can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
2210the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
2211will be discarded.
2212
2213In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
2214command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
2215
2216 maint packet heythere
2217
2218sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
2219disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
2220time.
2221
2222The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
2223target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
2224downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
2225
2226* Tracing can collect general expressions
2227
2228You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
2229further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
2230doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
2231
2232* mask-address variable for Mips
2233
2234For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
2235a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
2236of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
2237
2238* Higher serial baud rates
2239
2240GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
2241230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
2242to achieve all of these rates.)
2243
2244* i960 simulator
2245
2246The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
2247builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
2248
2249
2250*** Changes in GDB-4.17:
2251
2252* New native configurations
2253
2254Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
2255Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
2256Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
2257PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
2258PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
2259Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
2260Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
2261
2262* New targets
2263
2264Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
2265Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
2266Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
2267Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
2268MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
2269MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
2270MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
2271Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
2272Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
2273Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2274NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
2275
2276* New debugging protocols
2277
2278ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
2279M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
2280DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
2281PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
2282PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
2283Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
2284
2285* DWARF 2
2286
2287All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
2288format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
2289information.
2290
2291* Java frontend
2292
2293GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
2294only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
2295
2296* solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
2297
2298For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
2299loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
2300locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
2301
2302* Live range splitting
2303
2304GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
2305range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
2306more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
2307
2308* Hurd support
2309
2310GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
2311updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
2312
2313* ARM Thumb support
2314
2315GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
2316instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
2317instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
2318accordingly.
2319
2320* MIPS16 support
2321
2322GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
2323instruction set.
2324
2325* Overlay support
2326
2327GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
2328linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
2329will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
2330control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
2331additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
2332in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
2333
2334* info symbol
2335
2336The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
2337the symbol at the specified address.
2338
2339* Trace support
2340
2341The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
2342asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
2343extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
2344includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
2345file tracepoint.c for more details.
2346
2347* MIPS simulator
2348
2349Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
2350by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
2351of most MIPS variants.
2352
2353* Sparc simulator
2354
2355Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
2356by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
2357Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
2358
2359* set architecture
2360
2361For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
2362basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
2363architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
2364the possible architectures.
2365
2366*** Changes in GDB-4.16:
2367
2368* New native configurations
2369
2370Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
2371M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
2372PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
2373PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
2374PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
2375RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
2376
2377* New targets
2378
2379ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
2380I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
2381MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
2382MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
2383PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
2384Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
2385Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2386
2387* PowerPC simulator
2388
2389The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
2390contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
2391PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
2392basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
2393performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
2394
2395* Solaris 2.5
2396
2397GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
2398
2399* Windows 95/NT native
2400
2401GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
2402To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
2403which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
2404Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
2405ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
2406
2407* dont-repeat command
2408
2409If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
2410command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
2411useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
2412extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
2413
2414* Send break instead of ^C
2415
2416The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
2417rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
2418GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
2419
2420* Remote protocol timeout
2421
2422The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
2423that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
2424to read from the target. The default value is 2.
2425
2426* Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
2427
2428By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
2429loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
2430stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
2431when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
2432in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
2433
2434Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
2435/usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
2436automatically on hpux10.
2437
2438* Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
2439
2440Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
2441
2442* Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
2443
2444When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
2445may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
2446the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
2447every character. The default value is 1050.
2448
2449* Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
2450
2451If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
2452a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
2453replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
2454details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
2455remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
2456to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
2457
2458* Speedups for remote debugging
2459
2460GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
2461the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
2462and more efficient S-record downloading.
2463
2464* Memory use reductions and statistics collection
2465
2466GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
2467Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
2468
2469*** Changes in GDB-4.15:
2470
2471* Psymtabs for XCOFF
2472
2473The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
2474can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
2475
2476* Remote targets use caching
2477
2478Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
2479remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
2480it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
2481debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
2482off' turns the the data cache off.
2483
2484* Remote targets may have threads
2485
2486The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
2487in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
2488gdb/remote.c for details.
2489
2490* NetROM support
2491
2492If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
2493support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
2494acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
2495write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
2496support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
2497another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
2498sequence is something like
2499
2500 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
2501 load <prog>
2502 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
2503
2504* Macintosh host
2505
2506GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
2507may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
2508it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
2509available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
2510device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
2511directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
2512scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
2513mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
2514
2515* Autoconf
2516
2517GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
2518but does simplify configuration and building.
2519
2520* hpux10
2521
2522GDB now supports hpux10.
2523
2524*** Changes in GDB-4.14:
2525
2526* New native configurations
2527
2528x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
2529x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
2530NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
2531Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
2532
2533* New targets
2534
2535A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
2536HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
2537CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
2538PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
2539WDC 65816 w65-*-*
2540
2541* Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
2542
2543GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
2544possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
2545filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
2546the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
2547if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
2548
2549* Arguments to user-defined commands
2550
2551User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
2552Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
2553trivial example:
2554define adder
2555 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
2556
2557To execute the command use:
2558adder 1 2 3
2559
2560Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
2561Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
2562use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
2563
2564* New `if' and `while' commands
2565
2566This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
2567commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
2568expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
2569execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
2570terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
2571`else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
2572if the expression is zero.
2573
2574* Fortran source language mode
2575
2576GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
2577Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
2578variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
2579with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
2580Fortran compilers.
2581
2582* Better HPUX support
2583
2584Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
2585running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
2586processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
2587for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
2588that behavior do the following before running the program:
2589
2590 adb -w a.out
2591 __dld_flags?W 0x5
2592 control-d
2593
2594This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
2595To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
2596
2597 adb -w a.out
2598 __dld_flags?W 0x4
2599 control-d
2600
2601You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
2602the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
2603external linkage.
2604
2605GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
2606HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
2607
2608* Target byte order now dynamically selectable
2609
2610You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
2611commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
2612current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
2613"set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
2614associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
2615configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
2616
2617* New DOS host serial code
2618
2619This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
2620no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
2621a PC's serial port.
2622
2623*** Changes in GDB-4.13:
2624
2625* New "complete" command
2626
2627This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
2628were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
2629
2630* Trailing space optional in prompt
2631
2632"set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
2633allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
2634
2635* Breakpoint hit counts
2636
2637"info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
2638has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
2639can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
2640to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
2641less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
2642that breakpoint.
2643
2644* Ability to stop printing at NULL character
2645
2646"set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
2647an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
2648arrays actually contain only short strings.
2649
2650* Shared library breakpoints
2651
2652In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
2653breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
2654
2655* Hardware watchpoints
2656
2657There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
2658targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
2659
55241689 2660Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
c906108c
SS
2661
2662* Annotations
2663
2664Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
2665and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
2666
2667* Improved Irix 5 support
2668
2669GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
2670
2671* Improved HPPA support
2672
2673GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
2674
2675* New native configurations
2676
2677Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
2678HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
2679Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
2680RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
2681
2682* New targets
2683
2684OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
2685MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
2686Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
2687
2688* Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
2689
2690There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
2691This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
2692
2693* Fixes
2694
2695As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
2696and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
2697
2698*** Changes in GDB-4.12:
2699
2700* Irix 5 is now supported
2701
2702* HPPA support
2703
2704GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
2705to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
2706GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
2707of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
2708can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
2709
2710
2711*** Changes in GDB-4.11:
2712
2713* User visible changes:
2714
2715* Remote Debugging
2716
2717The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
2718target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
2719debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
2720integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
2721debugging info for the mips target).
2722
2723* DEC Alpha native support
2724
2725GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
2726debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
2727work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
2728Alpha-specific notes.
2729
2730* Preliminary thread implementation
2731
2732GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
2733
2734* LynxOS native and target support for 386
2735
2736This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
2737to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
2738for details).
2739
2740* Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
2741
2742This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
2743mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
2744call methods, ...etc.
2745
2746*** Changes in GDB-4.10:
2747
2748 * User visible changes:
2749
2750Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
2751supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
2752other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
2753somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
2754
2755Filename completion now works.
2756
2757When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
2758arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
2759addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
2760
2761All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
2762vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
2763should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
2764your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
2765to be on the far side of a thin network line.
2766
2767 * DEC alpha support
2768
2769This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
2770cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
2771
2772
2773*** Changes in GDB-4.9:
2774
2775 * Testsuite
2776
2777This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
2778The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
2779via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
2780
2781 * C++ demangling
2782
2783'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
2784emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
2785Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
2786disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
2787use gdb with AT&T cfront.
2788
2789 * Simulators
2790
2791GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
2792So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
2793Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
2794
2795 * New targets supported
2796
2797H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
2798H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
2799SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
2800Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
2801IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
2802
2803Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
2804version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
2805GO32 memory extender.
2806
2807 * New remote protocols
2808
2809MIPS remote debugging protocol.
2810
2811 * New source languages supported
2812
2813This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
2814used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
2815into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
2816
2817
2818*** Changes in GDB-4.8:
2819
2820 * HP Precision Architecture supported
2821
2822GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
2823version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
2824University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
2825compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
2826format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
2827(as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
2828
2829Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
2830
2831 * Faster and better demangling
2832
2833We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
2834demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
2835character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
2836only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
2837This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
2838increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
2839symbol lookups.
2840
2841`Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
2842from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
2843compiler does not actually implement.
2844
2845 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
2846
2847In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
2848inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
2849recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
2850very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
2851The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
2852circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
2853fix.
2854
2855The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
2856release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
2857
2858 * Improved configure script
2859
2860The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
2861you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
2862host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
2863done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
2864
2865We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
2866version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
2867`--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
2868The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
2869only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
2870We hope to make this the default in a future release.
2871
2872 * Documentation improvements
2873
2874There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
2875produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
2876before submitting changes.
2877
2878The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
2879M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
2880`info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
2881you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
2882a future texinfo-X.Y release.
2883
2884*NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
2885We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
2886been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
2887or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
2888`texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
2889around this problem.
2890
2891 * New features
2892
2893GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
2894the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
2895`print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
2896the target program.
2897
2898The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
2899how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
2900
2901 * New native hosts supported
2902
2903HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
2904386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
2905
2906 * New targets supported
2907
2908AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
2909
2910 * New file formats supported
2911
2912BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
2913HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
2914
2915 * Major bug fixes
2916
2917Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
2918
2919We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
2920printf_filtered("%s") problems.
2921
2922We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
2923for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
2924release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
2925
2926You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
2927will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
2928
2929We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
2930for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
2931especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
2932libraries.
2933
2934The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
2935information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
2936command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
2937any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
2938when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
2939
2940 * Internal improvements
2941
2942GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
2943debugging of multiple languages in the future.
2944
2945GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
2946Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
2947symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
2948contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
2949shared code that handles any of them.
2950
2951 * New command line options
2952
2953We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
2954
2955 * Mmalloc licensing
2956
2957The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
2958General Public License.
2959
2960*** Changes in GDB-4.7:
2961
2962 * Host/native/target split
2963
2964GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
2965hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
2966target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
2967local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
2968ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
2969
2970The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
2971GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
2972is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
2973code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
2974any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
2975built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
2976handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
2977
2978GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
2979It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
2980plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
2981
2982 * New hosts supported
2983
2984HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
2985386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
2986386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
2987
2988 * New targets supported
2989
2990Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
299168030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
2992
2993 * New native hosts supported
2994
2995386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
2996 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
2997386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
2998
2999 * New file formats supported
3000
3001BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
3002supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
3003format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
3004
3005 * New commands
3006
3007`show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
3008`show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
3009These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
3010
3011`info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
3012
3013You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
3014scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
3015prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
3016executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
3017
3018 * C++ improvements
3019
3020We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
3021info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
3022symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
3023
3024Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
3025
3026 * Major bug fixes
3027
3028The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
3029fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
3030by the compiler.
3031
3032We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
3033support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
3034
3035John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
3036slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
3037that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
3038purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
3039the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
3040mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
3041
3042Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
3043about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
3044completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
3045we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
3046
3047 * AMD 29k support
3048
3049A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
3050specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
3051calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
3052usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
3053in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
3054
3055We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
3056Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
3057of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
3058resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
3059
3060 * Remote interfaces
3061
3062We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
3063with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
3064message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
3065This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
3066needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
3067breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
3068each instruction being stepped through.
3069
3070The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
3071registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
3072
3073There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
3074find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
3075Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
3076processor with a serial port.
3077
3078 * Configuration
3079
3080Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
3081`table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
3082supported, and what files each one uses.
3083
3084 * Library changes
3085
3086There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
3087disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
3088Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
3089disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
3090
3091The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
3092Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
3093can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
3094grants all the rights from the General Public License.
3095
3096 * Documentation
3097
3098The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
3099reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
3100as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
3101encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
3102system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
3103bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
3104
3105And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
3106
3107
3108*** Changes in GDB-4.6:
3109
3110 * Better support for C++ function names
3111
3112GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
3113names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
3114(using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
3115single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
3116Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
3117
3118GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
3119the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
3120You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
3121lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
3122for the list of formats.
3123
3124 * G++ symbol mangling problem
3125
3126Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
3127C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
3128directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
3129can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
3130usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
3131about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
3132this problem.)
3133
3134 * New 'maintenance' command
3135
3136All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
3137the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
3138can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
3139
3140 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
3141 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
3142 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
3143 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
3144 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
3145 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
3146
3147The following commands are new:
3148
3149 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
3150 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
3151 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
3152
3153 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
3154
3155We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
3156(e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
3157be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
3158read after argv processing.
3159
3160 * New hosts supported
3161
3162Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
3163
55241689 3164GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
c906108c
SS
3165
3166We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
3167is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
3168for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
3169masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
3170fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
3171It costs extra.
3172
3173 * New targets supported
3174
3175Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
3176
3177 * More smarts about finding #include files
3178
3179GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
3180all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
3181greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
3182especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
3183the one that contains your sources.
3184
3185We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
3186breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
3187try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
3188
3189 * Interesting infernals change
3190
3191GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
3192section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
3193target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
3194stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
3195
3196 * Bug fixes (of course!)
3197
3198There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
3199 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
3200 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
3201
3202See the ChangeLog for details.
3203
3204*** Changes in GDB-4.5:
3205
3206 * New machines supported (host and target)
3207
3208IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
3209
3210SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
3211
3212 * New malloc package
3213
3214GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
3215Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
3216capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
3217This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
3218pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
3219more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
3220
3221 * info proc
3222
3223The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
3224'help info proc' for details.
3225
3226 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
3227
3228The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
3229Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
3230possible.
3231
3232 * File name changes for MS-DOS
3233
3234Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
3235support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
3236conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
3237environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
3238that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
3239in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
3240
3241 * Cross byte order fixes
3242
3243Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
3244targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
3245
3246 * New -mapped and -readnow options
3247
3248If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
3249system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
3250`symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
3251program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
3252called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
3253Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
3254and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
3255the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
3256option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
3257starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
3258
3259You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
3260the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
3261information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
3262slower, but makes future operations faster.
3263
3264The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
3265build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
3266A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
3267use is:
3268
3269 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
3270
3271The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
3272It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
3273shared across multiple host platforms.
3274
3275 * longjmp() handling
3276
3277GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
3278siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
3279all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
3280platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
3281
3282 * Solaris 2.0
3283
3284Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
3285this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
3286reading symbols.
3287
3288 * Bug fixes
3289
3290As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
3291People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
3292crashes and trashed symbol tables.
3293
3294*** Changes in GDB-4.4:
3295
3296 * New machines supported (host and target)
3297
3298SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
3299 (except core files)
3300BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
3301Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
3302
3303 * New machines supported (target)
3304
3305AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
3306
3307 * C++ support
3308
3309GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
3310The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
3311per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
3312
3313GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
3314`ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
3315extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
3316good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
3317will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
3318released.
3319
3320 * New features for SVR4
3321
3322GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
3323shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
3324only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
3325
3326The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
3327on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
3328it prints the address mappings of the process.
3329
3330If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
3331bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
3332
3333 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
3334
3335Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
3336now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
3337skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
3338make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
3339same code linked statically.
3340
3341 * New Getopt
3342
3343GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
3344version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
3345continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
3346Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
3347added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
3348future by other options that begin with the same letter.
3349
3350 * Bugs fixed
3351
3352The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
3353Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
3354See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
3355
3356
3357*** Changes in GDB-4.3:
3358
3359 * New machines supported (host and target)
3360
3361Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
3362NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
3363Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
3364
3365 * Almost SCO Unix support
3366
3367We had hoped to support:
3368SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
3369(except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
3370that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
3371about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
3372
3373 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
3374
3375GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
3376debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
3377is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
3378send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
3379reqired (if any).
3380
3381 * New Readline
3382
3383GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
3384is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
3385required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
3386
3387 * Bugs fixed
3388
3389The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
3390Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
3391See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
3392
3393 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
3394
3395GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
3396supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
3397symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
3398
3399Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
3400mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
3401debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
3402mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
3403version 2.
3404
3405Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
3406really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
3407line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
3408variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
3409situation somewhat.
3410
3411When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
3412However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
3413methods.
3414
3415We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
3416DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
3417encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
3418
3419
3420*** Changes in GDB-4.2:
3421
3422 * Improved configuration
3423
3424Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
3425Porting BFD is simpler.
3426
3427 * Stepping improved
3428
3429The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
3430of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
3431in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
3432function that has debugging information is called within the line.
3433
3434 * Bug fixing
3435
3436Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
3437
3438 * New host supported (not target)
3439
3440Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
3441
3442
3443*** Changes in GDB-4.1:
3444
3445 * Multiple source language support
3446
3447GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
3448It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
3449and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
3450language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
3451You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
3452`set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
3453
3454 * GDB and Modula-2
3455
3456GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
3457currently under development at the State University of New York at
3458Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
3459continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
3460
3461Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
3462debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
3463symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
3464
3465There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
3466in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
3467
3468 * set write on/off
3469
3470GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
3471a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
3472the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
3473by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
3474effect immediately.
3475
3476 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
3477
3478When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
3479shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
3480The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
3481examining core files.
3482
3483 * set listsize
3484
3485You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
3486The default is 10.
3487
3488 * New machines supported (host and target)
3489
3490SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
3491Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
3492Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
3493
3494 * New hosts supported (not targets)
3495
3496IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
3497
3498 * New targets supported (not hosts)
3499
3500AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
3501AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
3502Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
3503
3504 * New remote interfaces
3505
3506AMD 29000 Adapt
3507AMD 29000 Minimon
3508
3509
3510*** Changes in GDB-4.0:
3511
3512 * New Facilities
3513
3514Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
3515
3516Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
3517target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
3518is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
3519remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
3520remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
3521also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
3522using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
3523stub on the target system.
3524
3525New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
3526
3527GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
3528library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
3529object file types such as a.out and coff.
3530
3531There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
3532refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
3533
3534
3535 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
3536
3537All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
3538by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
3539
3540For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
3541``Show prompt'' produces the response:
3542Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
3543
3544What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
3545print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
3546will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
3547all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
3548
3549confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
3550 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
3551 it is already running. Default is ON.
3552
3553editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
3554 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
3555 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
3556 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
3557 Default is ON.
3558
3559history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
3560 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
3561 or the value of the environment variable
3562 GDBHISTFILE.
3563
3564history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
3565 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
3566 HISTSIZE.
3567
3568history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
3569 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
3570 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
3571
3572history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
3573 history expansion will be performed on
3574 command line input. The default is OFF.
3575
3576radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
3577 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
3578 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
3579
3580height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
3581 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
3582 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
3583 variable TERM.
3584
3585width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
3586 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
3587 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
3588 variable TERM.
3589
3590Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
3591``set width'' instead.
3592
3593print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
3594 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
3595 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
3596 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
3597
3598print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
3599 is OFF.
3600
3601print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
3602 "raw" form if off.
3603
3604print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
3605 like instructions.
3606
3607print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
3608
3609
3610 * Support for Epoch Environment.
3611
3612The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
3613new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
3614are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
3615window.
3616
3617
3618 * Support for Shared Libraries
3619
3620GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
3621Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
3622before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
3623happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
3624At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
3625from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
3626shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
3627It can be abbreviated ``share''.
3628
3629sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
3630 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
3631 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
3632
3633info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
3634
3635
3636 * Watchpoints
3637
3638A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
3639expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
3640tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
3641quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
3642problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
3643more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
3644
3645watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
3646
3647info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
3648
3649delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3650disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3651enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3652
3653
3654 * C++ multiple inheritance
3655
3656When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
3657for C++ programs.
3658
3659 * C++ exception handling
3660
3661Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
3662ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
3663the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
3664handler's context).
3665
3666catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
3667 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
3668 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
3669
3670info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
3671 current stack frame.
3672
3673
3674 * Minor command changes
3675
3676The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
3677command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
3678is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
3679
3680The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
3681at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
3682frames without printing.
3683
3684 * New directory command
3685
3686'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
3687The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
3688about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
3689with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
3690find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
3691
3692 * Configuring GDB for compilation
3693
3694For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
3695for more details.
3696
3697GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
3698two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
3699Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
3700where the program that you are debugging will run.
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