* elfxx-mips.c (mips_n64_exe_plt0_entry): Use 64-bit move.
[deliverable/binutils-gdb.git] / gdb / NEWS
CommitLineData
c906108c
SS
1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
3
31916278 4*** Changes since GDB 7.3.1
d6e00af6 5
1bfeeb0f
JL
6* GDB now allows you to skip uninteresting functions and files when
7 stepping with the "skip function" and "skip file" commands.
8
480a3f21
PW
9* GDB has two new commands: "set remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit"
10 and "show remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit". These allows to
11 set or show the maximum length limit (in bytes) of a remote
12 target hardware watchpoint.
13
14 This allows e.g. to use "unlimited" hardware watchpoints with the
15 gdbserver integrated in Valgrind version >= 3.7.0. Such Valgrind
16 watchpoints are slower than real hardware watchpoints but are
17 significantly faster than gdb software watchpoints.
18
3a7bf607
PM
19* Python scripting
20
32d1c362 21 ** The register_pretty_printer function in module gdb.printing now takes
7d0aff21 22 an optional `replace' argument. If True, the new printer replaces any
32d1c362
DE
23 existing one.
24
3a7bf607
PM
25 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" command has been
26 deprecated, and a new command: "set python print-stack on|off" has
27 replaced it. Additionally, the default for "print-stack" is now
28 "off".
29
baacfb07 30 ** A prompt substitution hook (prompt_hook) is now available to the
3a7bf607 31 Python API.
713389e0 32
fa3a4f15
PM
33 ** A new Python module, gdb.prompt has been added to the GDB Python
34 modules library. This module provides functionality for
baacfb07 35 escape sequences in prompts (used by set/show
fa3a4f15
PM
36 extended-prompt). These escape sequences are replaced by their
37 corresponding value.
38
5e239b84
PM
39 ** Python commands and convenience-functions located in
40 'data-directory'/python/gdb/command and
41 'data-directory'/python/gdb/function are now automatically loaded
42 on GDB start-up.
43
9df2fbc4
PM
44 ** Blocks now provide four new attributes. global_block and
45 static_block will return the global and static blocks
46 respectively. is_static and is_global are boolean attributes
47 that indicate if the block is one of those two types.
48
457e09f0
DE
49 ** Symbols now provide the "type" attribute, the type of the symbol.
50
6839b47f
KP
51 ** The "gdb.breakpoint" function has been deprecated in favor of
52 "gdb.breakpoints".
53
84ad80e6
PK
54 ** Type objects for struct and union types now allow access to
55 the fields using standard Python dictionary (mapping) methods.
56 For example, "some_type['myfield']" now works, as does
57 "some_type.items()".
58
20c168b5
KP
59 ** A new event "gdb.new_objfile" has been added, triggered by loading a
60 new object file.
61
03c3051a
PK
62 ** A new function, "deep_items" has been added to the gdb.types
63 module in the GDB Python modules library. This function returns
64 an iterator over the fields of a struct or union type. Unlike
65 the standard Python "iteritems" method, it will recursively traverse
66 any anonymous fields.
67
98a5dd13
DE
68* libthread-db-search-path now supports two special values: $sdir and $pdir.
69 $sdir specifies the default system locations of shared libraries.
70 $pdir specifies the directory where the libpthread used by the application
71 lives.
72
73 GDB no longer looks in $sdir and $pdir after it has searched the directories
74 mentioned in libthread-db-search-path. If you want to search those
75 directories, they must be specified in libthread-db-search-path.
76 The default value of libthread-db-search-path on GNU/Linux and Solaris
77 systems is now "$sdir:$pdir".
78
79 $pdir is not supported by gdbserver, it is currently ignored.
80 $sdir is supported by gdbserver.
81
478aac75
DE
82* New configure option --with-iconv-bin.
83 When using the internationalization support like the one in the GNU C
84 library, GDB will invoke the "iconv" program to get a list of supported
85 character sets. If this program lives in a non-standard location, one can
86 use this option to specify where to find it.
87
9c06b0b4
TJB
88* When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
89 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports masked hardware
90 watchpoints, which specify a mask in addition to an address to watch.
91 The mask specifies that some bits of an address (the bits which are
92 reset in the mask) should be ignored when matching the address accessed
93 by the inferior against the watchpoint address. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
94 section in the user manual for more details.
95
03f2bd59
JK
96* The new option --once causes GDBserver to stop listening for connections once
97 the first connection is made. The listening port used by GDBserver will
98 become available after that.
99
71eba9c2 100* New commands "info macros" and "alias" have been added.
edc84990 101
2bda9cc5
JK
102* New function parameters suffix @entry specifies value of function parameter
103 at the time the function got called. Entry values are available only since
104 gcc version 4.7.
105
9c06b0b4
TJB
106* Changed commands
107
108watch EXPRESSION mask MASK_VALUE
109 The watch command now supports the mask argument which allows creation
110 of masked watchpoints, if the current architecture supports this feature.
111
dbaefcf7
DE
112info auto-load-scripts [REGEXP]
113 This command was formerly named "maintenance print section-scripts".
114 It is now generally useful and is no longer a maintenance-only command.
115
71eba9c2 116info macro [-all] [--] MACRO
117 The info macro command has new options `-all' and `--'. The first for
118 printing all definitions of a macro. The second for explicitly specifying
119 the end of arguments and the beginning of the macro name in case the macro
120 name starts with a hyphen.
121
3065dfb6
SS
122collect[/s] EXPRESSIONS
123 The tracepoint collect command now takes an optional modifier "/s"
124 that directs it to dereference pointer-to-character types and
125 collect the bytes of memory up to a zero byte. The behavior is
126 similar to what you see when you use the regular print command on a
127 string. An optional integer following the "/s" sets a bound on the
128 number of bytes that will be collected.
129
d248b706
KY
130* Tracepoints can now be enabled and disabled at any time after a trace
131 experiment has been started using the standard "enable" and "disable"
132 commands. It is now possible to start a trace experiment with no enabled
133 tracepoints; GDB will display a warning, but will allow the experiment to
134 begin, assuming that tracepoints will be enabled as needed while the trace
135 is running.
136
405f8e94
SS
137* Fast tracepoints on 32-bit x86-architectures can now be placed at
138 locations with 4-byte instructions, when they were previously
139 limited to locations with instructions of 5 bytes or longer.
140
2bda9cc5
JK
141* New options
142
baacfb07
PM
143set extended-prompt
144show extended-prompt
145 Set the GDB prompt, and allow escape sequences to be inserted to
146 display miscellaneous information (see 'help set extended-prompt'
147 for the list of sequences). This prompt (and any information
148 accessed through the escape sequences) is updated every time the
149 prompt is displayed.
150
2bda9cc5
JK
151set print entry-values (both|compact|default|if-needed|no|only|preferred)
152show print entry-values
153 Set printing of frame argument values at function entry. In some cases
154 GDB can determine the value of function argument which was passed by the
155 function caller, even if the value was modified inside the called function.
156
157set debug entry-values
158show debug entry-values
159 Control display of debugging info for determining frame argument values at
160 function entry and virtual tail call frames.
161
d248b706
KY
162* New remote packets
163
164QTEnable
165
166 Dynamically enable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
167
168QTDisable
169
170 Dynamically disable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
171
405f8e94
SS
172qTMinFTPILen
173
174 Query the minimum length of instruction at which a fast tracepoint may
175 be placed.
176
1a532630
PP
177* Dcache size (number of lines) and line-size are now runtime-configurable
178 via "set dcache line" and "set dcache line-size" commands.
179
11315641
YQ
180* New targets
181
182Texas Instruments TMS320C6x tic6x-*-*
183
e8d56f18
JB
184*** Changes in GDB 7.3.1
185
186* The build failure for NetBSD and OpenBSD targets have now been fixed.
187
d6e00af6 188*** Changes in GDB 7.3
797054e6 189
60f98dde
MS
190* GDB has a new command: "thread find [REGEXP]".
191 It finds the thread id whose name, target id, or thread extra info
192 matches the given regular expression.
193
eee5b35e
DD
194* The "catch syscall" command now works on mips*-linux* targets.
195
b716877b
AB
196* The -data-disassemble MI command now supports modes 2 and 3 for
197 dumping the instruction opcodes.
198
aae1c79a
DE
199* New command line options
200
201-data-directory DIR Specify DIR as the "data-directory".
202 This is mostly for testing purposes.
203
a86caf66
DE
204* The "maint set python auto-load on|off" command has been renamed to
205 "set auto-load-scripts on|off".
206
99e7ae30
DE
207* GDB has a new command: "set directories".
208 It is like the "dir" command except that it replaces the
209 source path list instead of augmenting it.
210
4694da01
TT
211* GDB now understands thread names.
212
213 On GNU/Linux, "info threads" will display the thread name as set by
214 prctl or pthread_setname_np.
215
216 There is also a new command, "thread name", which can be used to
217 assign a name internally for GDB to display.
218
f4b8a18d
KW
219* OpenCL C
220 Initial support for the OpenCL C language (http://www.khronos.org/opencl)
221 has been integrated into GDB.
222
585d1eb8
PM
223* Python scripting
224
da5d4055
PM
225 ** The function gdb.Write now accepts an optional keyword 'stream'.
226 This keyword, when provided, will direct the output to either
227 stdout, stderr, or GDB's logging output.
228
9a6f1302
PM
229 ** Parameters can now be be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
230 you may implement the get_set_doc and get_show_doc functions.
231 This improves how Parameter set/show documentation is processed
232 and allows for more dynamic content.
233
29703da4
PM
234 ** Symbols, Symbol Table, Symbol Table and Line, Object Files,
235 Inferior, Inferior Thread, Blocks, and Block Iterator APIs now
236 have an is_valid method.
237
350c6c65
PM
238 ** Breakpoints can now be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
239 you may implement a 'stop' function that is executed each time
240 the inferior reaches that breakpoint.
241
6e6fbe60
DE
242 ** New function gdb.lookup_global_symbol looks up a global symbol.
243
585d1eb8
PM
244 ** GDB values in Python are now callable if the value represents a
245 function. For example, if 'some_value' represents a function that
246 takes two integer parameters and returns a value, you can call
247 that function like so:
248
249 result = some_value (10,20)
250
0e3509db
DE
251 ** Module gdb.types has been added.
252 It contains a collection of utilities for working with gdb.Types objects:
253 get_basic_type, has_field, make_enum_dict.
254
7b51bc51
DE
255 ** Module gdb.printing has been added.
256 It contains utilities for writing and registering pretty-printers.
257 New classes: PrettyPrinter, SubPrettyPrinter,
258 RegexpCollectionPrettyPrinter.
259 New function: register_pretty_printer.
260
261 ** New commands "info pretty-printers", "enable pretty-printer" and
262 "disable pretty-printer" have been added.
263
99e7ae30
DE
264 ** gdb.parameter("directories") is now available.
265
d8e22779
TT
266 ** New function gdb.newest_frame returns the newest frame in the
267 selected thread.
268
4694da01
TT
269 ** The gdb.InferiorThread class has a new "name" attribute. This
270 holds the thread's name.
271
505500db
SW
272 ** Python Support for Inferior events.
273 Python scripts can add observers to be notified of events
824446ad 274 occurring in the process being debugged.
c17a9e46
HZ
275 The following events are currently supported:
276 - gdb.events.cont Continue event.
277 - gdb.events.exited Inferior exited event.
278 - gdb.events.stop Signal received, and Breakpoint hit events.
279
def98928
TT
280* C++ Improvements:
281
282 ** GDB now puts template parameters in scope when debugging in an
283 instantiation. For example, if you have:
284
285 template<int X> int func (void) { return X; }
286
287 then if you step into func<5>, "print X" will show "5". This
288 feature requires proper debuginfo support from the compiler; it
289 was added to GCC 4.5.
290
66cb8159
TT
291 ** The motion commands "next", "finish", "until", and "advance" now
292 work better when exceptions are thrown. In particular, GDB will
293 no longer lose control of the inferior; instead, the GDB will
294 stop the inferior at the point at which the exception is caught.
295 This functionality requires a change in the exception handling
296 code that was introduced in GCC 4.5.
297
4aac0db7
UW
298* GDB now follows GCC's rules on accessing volatile objects when
299 reading or writing target state during expression evaluation.
300 One notable difference to prior behavior is that "print x = 0"
301 no longer generates a read of x; the value of the assignment is
302 now always taken directly from the value being assigned.
303
283e6a52
TT
304* GDB now has some support for using labels in the program's source in
305 linespecs. For instance, you can use "advance label" to continue
306 execution to a label.
307
308* GDB now has support for reading and writing a new .gdb_index
309 section. This section holds a fast index of DWARF debugging
310 information and can be used to greatly speed up GDB startup and
311 operation. See the documentation for `save gdb-index' for details.
312
b56df873 313* The "watch" command now accepts an optional "-location" argument.
14c0d4e1 314 When used, this causes GDB to watch the memory referred to by the
b56df873
TT
315 expression. Such a watchpoint is never deleted due to it going out
316 of scope.
317
ae53ffa4
PA
318* GDB now supports thread debugging of core dumps on GNU/Linux.
319
320 GDB now activates thread debugging using the libthread_db library
321 when debugging GNU/Linux core dumps, similarly to when debugging
322 live processes. As a result, when debugging a core dump file, GDB
323 is now able to display pthread_t ids of threads. For example, "info
324 threads" shows the same output as when debugging the process when it
325 was live. In earlier releases, you'd see something like this:
326
327 (gdb) info threads
328 * 1 LWP 6780 main () at main.c:10
329
330 While now you see this:
331
332 (gdb) info threads
333 * 1 Thread 0x7f0f5712a700 (LWP 6780) main () at main.c:10
334
335 It is also now possible to inspect TLS variables when debugging core
336 dumps.
337
338 When debugging a core dump generated on a machine other than the one
339 used to run GDB, you may need to point GDB at the correct
340 libthread_db library with the "set libthread-db-search-path"
341 command. See the user manual for more details on this command.
342
f1310107
TJB
343* When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
344 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports ranged breakpoints,
345 which stop execution of the inferior whenever it executes an instruction
346 at any address within the specified range. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
347 section in the user manual for more details.
348
248c9dbc
JB
349* New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
350
1aee7009
JB
351 ** GDBserver is now supported on PowerPC LynxOS (versions 4.x and 5.x),
352 and i686 LynxOS (version 5.x).
248c9dbc 353
eb826dc6
MF
354 ** GDBserver is now supported on Blackfin Linux.
355
44603653
JB
356* New native configurations
357
358ia64 HP-UX ia64-*-hpux*
359
91021223
MF
360* New targets:
361
362Analog Devices, Inc. Blackfin Processor bfin-*
363
6e1bb179
JB
364* Ada task switching is now supported on sparc-elf targets when
365 debugging a program using the Ravenscar Profile. For more information,
366 see the "Tasking Support when using the Ravenscar Profile" section
367 in the GDB user manual.
368
50c97f38
TT
369* Guile support was removed.
370
448a92bf
MF
371* New features in the GNU simulator
372
373 ** The --map-info flag lists all known core mappings.
374
66ee2731
MF
375 ** CFI flashes may be simulated via the "cfi" device.
376
76b8507d 377*** Changes in GDB 7.2
bfbf3774 378
ba25b921
PA
379* Shared library support for remote targets by default
380
381 When GDB is configured for a generic, non-OS specific target, like
382 for example, --target=arm-eabi or one of the many *-*-elf targets,
383 GDB now queries remote stubs for loaded shared libraries using the
384 `qXfer:libraries:read' packet. Previously, shared library support
385 was always disabled for such configurations.
386
4656f5c6
SW
387* C++ Improvements:
388
389 ** Argument Dependent Lookup (ADL)
390
391 In C++ ADL lookup directs function search to the namespaces of its
392 arguments even if the namespace has not been imported.
393 For example:
394 namespace A
395 {
396 class B { };
397 void foo (B) { }
398 }
399 ...
400 A::B b
401 foo(b)
402 Here the compiler will search for `foo' in the namespace of 'b'
403 and find A::foo. GDB now supports this. This construct is commonly
404 used in the Standard Template Library for operators.
405
406 ** Improved User Defined Operator Support
407
408 In addition to member operators, GDB now supports lookup of operators
409 defined in a namespace and imported with a `using' directive, operators
410 defined in the global scope, operators imported implicitly from an
411 anonymous namespace, and the ADL operators mentioned in the previous
412 entry.
413 GDB now also supports proper overload resolution for all the previously
414 mentioned flavors of operators.
415
254e6b9e
DE
416 ** static const class members
417
418 Printing of static const class members that are initialized in the
419 class definition has been fixed.
420
711e434b
PM
421* Windows Thread Information Block access.
422
423 On Windows targets, GDB now supports displaying the Windows Thread
424 Information Block (TIB) structure. This structure is visible either
425 by using the new command `info w32 thread-information-block' or, by
426 dereferencing the new convenience variable named `$_tlb', a
427 thread-specific pointer to the TIB. This feature is also supported
428 when remote debugging using GDBserver.
429
0fb4aa4b
PA
430* Static tracepoints
431
432 Static tracepoints are calls in the user program into a tracing
433 library. One such library is a port of the LTTng kernel tracer to
434 userspace --- UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer, http://lttng.org/ust).
435 When debugging with GDBserver, GDB now supports combining the GDB
436 tracepoint machinery with such libraries. For example: the user can
437 use GDB to probe a static tracepoint marker (a call from the user
438 program into the tracing library) with the new "strace" command (see
439 "New commands" below). This creates a "static tracepoint" in the
440 breakpoint list, that can be manipulated with the same feature set
441 as fast and regular tracepoints. E.g., collect registers, local and
442 global variables, collect trace state variables, and define
443 tracepoint conditions. In addition, the user can collect extra
444 static tracepoint marker specific data, by collecting the new
445 $_sdata internal variable. When analyzing the trace buffer, you can
446 inspect $_sdata like any other variable available to GDB. For more
447 information, see the "Tracepoints" chapter in GDB user manual. New
448 remote packets have been defined to support static tracepoints, see
449 the "New remote packets" section below.
450
ca11e899
SS
451* Better reconstruction of tracepoints after disconnected tracing
452
453 GDB will attempt to download the original source form of tracepoint
454 definitions when starting a trace run, and then will upload these
455 upon reconnection to the target, resulting in a more accurate
456 reconstruction of the tracepoints that are in use on the target.
457
458* Observer mode
459
460 You can now exercise direct control over the ways that GDB can
461 affect your program. For instance, you can disallow the setting of
462 breakpoints, so that the program can run continuously (assuming
463 non-stop mode). In addition, the "observer" variable is available
464 to switch all of the different controls; in observer mode, GDB
465 cannot affect the target's behavior at all, which is useful for
466 tasks like diagnosing live systems in the field.
467
468* The new convenience variable $_thread holds the number of the
469 current thread.
470
711e434b
PM
471* New remote packets
472
473qGetTIBAddr
474
475 Return the address of the Windows Thread Information Block of a given thread.
476
dde08ee1
PA
477qRelocInsn
478
479 In response to several of the tracepoint packets, the target may now
480 also respond with a number of intermediate `qRelocInsn' request
481 packets before the final result packet, to have GDB handle
482 relocating an instruction to execute at a different address. This
483 is particularly useful for stubs that support fast tracepoints. GDB
484 reports support for this feature in the qSupported packet.
485
0fb4aa4b
PA
486qTfSTM, qTsSTM
487
488 List static tracepoint markers in the target program.
489
490qTSTMat
491
492 List static tracepoint markers at a given address in the target
493 program.
494
495qXfer:statictrace:read
496
497 Read the static trace data collected (by a `collect $_sdata'
498 tracepoint action). The remote stub reports support for this packet
499 to gdb's qSupported query.
500
ca11e899
SS
501QAllow
502
503 Send the current settings of GDB's permission flags.
504
505QTDPsrc
506
507 Send part of the source (textual) form of a tracepoint definition,
508 which includes location, conditional, and action list.
509
3f7b2faa
DE
510* The source command now accepts a -s option to force searching for the
511 script in the source search path even if the script name specifies
512 a directory.
513
d337e9f0
PA
514* New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
515
0fb4aa4b
PA
516 - GDBserver now support tracepoints (including fast tracepoints, and
517 static tracepoints). The feature is currently supported by the
518 i386-linux and amd64-linux builds. See the "Tracepoints support
519 in gdbserver" section in the manual for more information.
520
521 GDBserver JIT compiles the tracepoint's conditional agent
522 expression bytecode into native code whenever possible for low
523 overhead dynamic tracepoints conditionals. For such tracepoints,
524 an expression that examines program state is evaluated when the
525 tracepoint is reached, in order to determine whether to capture
526 trace data. If the condition is simple and false, processing the
527 tracepoint finishes very quickly and no data is gathered.
528
529 GDBserver interfaces with the UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer) library
530 for static tracepoints support.
d337e9f0 531
c24d0242
PM
532 - GDBserver now supports x86_64 Windows 64-bit debugging.
533
c8d5aac9
L
534* GDB now sends xmlRegisters= in qSupported packet to indicate that
535 it understands register description.
536
7c953934
TT
537* The --batch flag now disables pagination and queries.
538
8685c86f
L
539* X86 general purpose registers
540
541 GDB now supports reading/writing byte, word and double-word x86
542 general purpose registers directly. This means you can use, say,
543 $ah or $ax to refer, respectively, to the byte register AH and
544 16-bit word register AX that are actually portions of the 32-bit
545 register EAX or 64-bit register RAX.
546
95a42b64 547* The `commands' command now accepts a range of breakpoints to modify.
86b17b60
PA
548 A plain `commands' following a command that creates multiple
549 breakpoints affects all the breakpoints set by that command. This
550 applies to breakpoints set by `rbreak', and also applies when a
551 single `break' command creates multiple breakpoints (e.g.,
552 breakpoints on overloaded c++ functions).
95a42b64 553
8bd10a10
CM
554* The `rbreak' command now accepts a filename specification as part of
555 its argument, limiting the functions selected by the regex to those
556 in the specified file.
557
ab38a727
PA
558* Support for remote debugging Windows and SymbianOS shared libraries
559 from Unix hosts has been improved. Non Windows GDB builds now can
560 understand target reported file names that follow MS-DOS based file
561 system semantics, such as file names that include drive letters and
562 use the backslash character as directory separator. This makes it
563 possible to transparently use the "set sysroot" and "set
564 solib-search-path" on Unix hosts to point as host copies of the
565 target's shared libraries. See the new command "set
566 target-file-system-kind" described below, and the "Commands to
567 specify files" section in the user manual for more information.
568
6149aea9
PA
569* New commands
570
f1421989
HZ
571eval template, expressions...
572 Convert the values of one or more expressions under the control
573 of the string template to a command line, and call it.
574
ab38a727
PA
575set target-file-system-kind unix|dos-based|auto
576show target-file-system-kind
577 Set or show the assumed file system kind for target reported file
578 names.
579
6149aea9
PA
580save breakpoints <filename>
581 Save all current breakpoint definitions to a file suitable for use
582 in a later debugging session. To read the saved breakpoint
583 definitions, use the `source' command.
584
585`save tracepoints' is a new alias for `save-tracepoints'. The latter
586is now deprecated.
587
0fb4aa4b
PA
588info static-tracepoint-markers
589 Display information about static tracepoint markers in the target.
590
591strace FN | FILE:LINE | *ADDR | -m MARKER_ID
592 Define a static tracepoint by probing a marker at the given
593 function, line, address, or marker ID.
594
ca11e899
SS
595set observer on|off
596show observer
597 Enable and disable observer mode.
598
599set may-write-registers on|off
600set may-write-memory on|off
601set may-insert-breakpoints on|off
602set may-insert-tracepoints on|off
603set may-insert-fast-tracepoints on|off
604set may-interrupt on|off
605 Set individual permissions for GDB effects on the target. Note that
606 some of these settings can have undesirable or surprising
607 consequences, particularly when changed in the middle of a session.
608 For instance, disabling the writing of memory can prevent
609 breakpoints from being inserted, cause single-stepping to fail, or
610 even crash your program, if you disable after breakpoints have been
611 inserted. However, GDB should not crash.
612
613set record memory-query on|off
614show record memory-query
615 Control whether to stop the inferior if memory changes caused
616 by an instruction cannot be recorded.
617
53a71c06
CR
618* Changed commands
619
620disassemble
621 The disassemble command now supports "start,+length" form of two arguments.
622
f3e9a817
PM
623* Python scripting
624
9279c692
JB
625** GDB now provides a new directory location, called the python directory,
626 where Python scripts written for GDB can be installed. The location
627 of that directory is <data-directory>/python, where <data-directory>
628 is the GDB data directory. For more details, see section `Scripting
629 GDB using Python' in the manual.
630
adc36818 631** The GDB Python API now has access to breakpoints, symbols, symbol
595939de
PM
632 tables, program spaces, inferiors, threads and frame's code blocks.
633 Additionally, GDB Parameters can now be created from the API, and
634 manipulated via set/show in the CLI.
f870a310 635
fa33c3cd 636** New functions gdb.target_charset, gdb.target_wide_charset,
07ca107c
DE
637 gdb.progspaces, gdb.current_progspace, and gdb.string_to_argv.
638
639** New exception gdb.GdbError.
fa33c3cd
DE
640
641** Pretty-printers are now also looked up in the current program space.
f3e9a817 642
967cf477
DE
643** Pretty-printers can now be individually enabled and disabled.
644
8a1ea21f
DE
645** GDB now looks for names of Python scripts to auto-load in a
646 special section named `.debug_gdb_scripts', in addition to looking
647 for a OBJFILE-gdb.py script when OBJFILE is read by the debugger.
648
a7bdde9e
VP
649* Tracepoint actions were unified with breakpoint commands. In particular,
650there are no longer differences in "info break" output for breakpoints and
651tracepoints and the "commands" command can be used for both tracepoints and
652regular breakpoints.
653
05071a4d
PA
654* New targets
655
656ARM Symbian arm*-*-symbianelf*
657
6aecb9c2
JB
658* D language support.
659 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the D programming
660 language.
661
431e49aa
TJB
662* GDB now supports the extended ptrace interface for PowerPC which is
663 available since Linux kernel version 2.6.34. This automatically enables
664 any hardware breakpoints and additional hardware watchpoints available in
665 the processor. The old ptrace interface exposes just one hardware
666 watchpoint and no hardware breakpoints.
667
668* GDB is now able to use the Data Value Compare (DVC) register available on
669 embedded PowerPC processors to implement in hardware simple watchpoint
670 conditions of the form:
671
672 watch ADDRESS|VARIABLE if ADDRESS|VARIABLE == CONSTANT EXPRESSION
673
674 This works in native GDB running on Linux kernels with the extended ptrace
675 interface mentioned above.
676
bfbf3774 677*** Changes in GDB 7.1
abc7453d 678
4eef138c
TT
679* C++ Improvements
680
681 ** Namespace Support
71dee663
SW
682
683 GDB now supports importing of namespaces in C++. This enables the
684 user to inspect variables from imported namespaces. Support for
685 namepace aliasing has also been added. So, if a namespace is
686 aliased in the current scope (e.g. namepace C=A; ) the user can
687 print variables using the alias (e.g. (gdb) print C::x).
688
4eef138c
TT
689 ** Bug Fixes
690
691 All known bugs relating to the printing of virtual base class were
692 fixed. It is now possible to call overloaded static methods using a
693 qualified name.
694
695 ** Cast Operators
696
697 The C++ cast operators static_cast<>, dynamic_cast<>, const_cast<>,
698 and reinterpret_cast<> are now handled by the C++ expression parser.
699
2d1c1221
ME
700* New targets
701
702Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze-*-*
34207b9e 703Renesas RX rx-*-elf
2d1c1221
ME
704
705* New Simulators
706
707Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze
34207b9e 708Renesas RX rx
2d1c1221 709
6c95b8df
PA
710* Multi-program debugging.
711
712 GDB now has support for multi-program (a.k.a. multi-executable or
713 multi-exec) debugging. This allows for debugging multiple inferiors
714 simultaneously each running a different program under the same GDB
715 session. See "Debugging Multiple Inferiors and Programs" in the
716 manual for more information. This implied some user visible changes
717 in the multi-inferior support. For example, "info inferiors" now
718 lists inferiors that are not running yet or that have exited
719 already. See also "New commands" and "New options" below.
720
d5551862
SS
721* New tracing features
722
723 GDB's tracepoint facility now includes several new features:
724
725 ** Trace state variables
f61e138d
SS
726
727 GDB tracepoints now include support for trace state variables, which
728 are variables managed by the target agent during a tracing
729 experiment. They are useful for tracepoints that trigger each
730 other, so for instance one tracepoint can count hits in a variable,
731 and then a second tracepoint has a condition that is true when the
732 count reaches a particular value. Trace state variables share the
733 $-syntax of GDB convenience variables, and can appear in both
734 tracepoint actions and condition expressions. Use the "tvariable"
735 command to create, and "info tvariables" to view; see "Trace State
736 Variables" in the manual for more detail.
7a697b8d 737
d5551862 738 ** Fast tracepoints
7a697b8d
SS
739
740 GDB now includes an option for defining fast tracepoints, which
741 targets may implement more efficiently, such as by installing a jump
742 into the target agent rather than a trap instruction. The resulting
743 speedup can be by two orders of magnitude or more, although the
744 tradeoff is that some program locations on some target architectures
745 might not allow fast tracepoint installation, for instance if the
746 instruction to be replaced is shorter than the jump. To request a
747 fast tracepoint, use the "ftrace" command, with syntax identical to
748 the regular trace command.
749
d5551862
SS
750 ** Disconnected tracing
751
752 It is now possible to detach GDB from the target while it is running
753 a trace experiment, then reconnect later to see how the experiment
754 is going. In addition, a new variable disconnected-tracing lets you
755 tell the target agent whether to continue running a trace if the
756 connection is lost unexpectedly.
757
00bf0b85
SS
758 ** Trace files
759
760 GDB now has the ability to save the trace buffer into a file, and
761 then use that file as a target, similarly to you can do with
762 corefiles. You can select trace frames, print data that was
763 collected in them, and use tstatus to display the state of the
764 tracing run at the moment that it was saved. To create a trace
765 file, use "tsave <filename>", and to use it, do "target tfile
766 <name>".
4daf5ac0
SS
767
768 ** Circular trace buffer
769
770 You can ask the target agent to handle the trace buffer as a
771 circular buffer, discarding the oldest trace frames to make room for
772 newer ones, by setting circular-trace-buffer to on. This feature may
773 not be available for all target agents.
774
21a0512e
PP
775* Changed commands
776
777disassemble
778 The disassemble command, when invoked with two arguments, now requires
779 the arguments to be comma-separated.
780
0fe7935b
DJ
781info variables
782 The info variables command now displays variable definitions. Files
783 which only declare a variable are not shown.
784
fb2e7cb4
JB
785source
786 The source command is now capable of sourcing Python scripts.
787 This feature is dependent on the debugger being build with Python
788 support.
789
790 Related to this enhancement is also the introduction of a new command
791 "set script-extension" (see below).
792
6c95b8df
PA
793* New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
794
399cd161
MS
795record save [<FILENAME>]
796 Save a file (in core file format) containing the process record
797 execution log for replay debugging at a later time.
798
799record restore <FILENAME>
800 Restore the process record execution log that was saved at an
801 earlier time, for replay debugging.
802
6c95b8df
PA
803add-inferior [-copies <N>] [-exec <FILENAME>]
804 Add a new inferior.
805
806clone-inferior [-copies <N>] [ID]
807 Make a new inferior ready to execute the same program another
808 inferior has loaded.
809
810remove-inferior ID
811 Remove an inferior.
812
813maint info program-spaces
814 List the program spaces loaded into GDB.
815
9a7071a8
JB
816set remote interrupt-sequence [Ctrl-C | BREAK | BREAK-g]
817show remote interrupt-sequence
818 Allow the user to select one of ^C, a BREAK signal or BREAK-g
819 as the sequence to the remote target in order to interrupt the execution.
820 Ctrl-C is a default. Some system prefers BREAK which is high level of
821 serial line for some certain time. Linux kernel prefers BREAK-g, a.k.a
822 Magic SysRq g. It is BREAK signal and character 'g'.
823
824set remote interrupt-on-connect [on | off]
825show remote interrupt-on-connect
826 When interrupt-on-connect is ON, gdb sends interrupt-sequence to
827 remote target when gdb connects to it. This is needed when you debug
828 Linux kernel.
829
830set remotebreak [on | off]
831show remotebreak
832Deprecated. Use "set/show remote interrupt-sequence" instead.
833
f61e138d
SS
834tvariable $NAME [ = EXP ]
835 Create or modify a trace state variable.
836
837info tvariables
838 List trace state variables and their values.
839
840delete tvariable $NAME ...
841 Delete one or more trace state variables.
842
6da95a67
SS
843teval EXPR, ...
844 Evaluate the given expressions without collecting anything into the
845 trace buffer. (Valid in tracepoint actions only.)
846
7a697b8d
SS
847ftrace FN / FILE:LINE / *ADDR
848 Define a fast tracepoint at the given function, line, or address.
849
b0f02ee9
JK
850* New expression syntax
851
852 GDB now parses the 0b prefix of binary numbers the same way as GCC does.
853 GDB now parses 0b101010 identically with 42.
854
6c95b8df
PA
855* New options
856
857set follow-exec-mode new|same
858show follow-exec-mode
859 Control whether GDB reuses the same inferior across an exec call or
860 creates a new one. This is useful to be able to restart the old
861 executable after the inferior having done an exec call.
862
236f1d4d
SS
863set default-collect EXPR, ...
864show default-collect
865 Define a list of expressions to be collected at each tracepoint.
866 This is a useful way to ensure essential items are not overlooked,
867 such as registers or a critical global variable.
868
d5551862
SS
869set disconnected-tracing
870show disconnected-tracing
871 If set to 1, the target is instructed to continue tracing if it
872 loses its connection to GDB. If 0, the target is to stop tracing
873 upon disconnection.
874
4daf5ac0
SS
875set circular-trace-buffer
876show circular-trace-buffer
877 If set to on, the target is instructed to use a circular trace buffer
878 and discard the oldest trace frames instead of stopping the trace due
879 to a full trace buffer. If set to off, the trace stops when the buffer
880 fills up. Some targets may not support this.
881
fb2e7cb4
JB
882set script-extension off|soft|strict
883show script-extension
884 If set to "off", the debugger does not perform any script language
885 recognition, and all sourced files are assumed to be GDB scripts.
886 If set to "soft" (the default), files are sourced according to
887 filename extension, falling back to GDB scripts if the first
888 evaluation failed.
889 If set to "strict", files are sourced according to filename extension.
890
2b71fc8e
JB
891set ada trust-PAD-over-XVS on|off
892show ada trust-PAD-over-XVS
893 If off, activate a workaround against a bug in the debugging information
894 generated by the compiler for PAD types (see gcc/exp_dbug.ads in
895 the GCC sources for more information about the GNAT encoding and
896 PAD types in particular). It is always safe to set this option to
897 off, but this introduces a slight performance penalty. The default
898 is on.
899
de2e5182
TT
900* Python API Improvements
901
902 ** GDB provides the new class gdb.LazyString. This is useful in
903 some pretty-printing cases. The new method gdb.Value.lazy_string
904 provides a simple way to create objects of this type.
905
906 ** The fields returned by gdb.Type.fields now have an
907 `is_base_class' attribute.
908
909 ** The new method gdb.Type.range returns the range of an array type.
910
911 ** The new method gdb.parse_and_eval can be used to parse and
912 evaluate an expression.
913
f61e138d
SS
914* New remote packets
915
916QTDV
917 Define a trace state variable.
918
919qTV
920 Get the current value of a trace state variable.
921
d5551862
SS
922QTDisconnected
923 Set desired tracing behavior upon disconnection.
924
4daf5ac0
SS
925QTBuffer:circular
926 Set the trace buffer to be linear or circular.
927
d5551862
SS
928qTfP, qTsP
929 Get data about the tracepoints currently in use.
930
2d483d34
MS
931* Bug fixes
932
933Process record now works correctly with hardware watchpoints.
934
6e0e5977
JB
935Multiple bug fixes have been made to the mips-irix port, making it
936much more reliable. In particular:
937 - Debugging threaded applications is now possible again. Previously,
938 GDB would hang while starting the program, or while waiting for
939 the program to stop at a breakpoint.
940 - Attaching to a running process no longer hangs.
941 - An error occurring while loading a core file has been fixed.
942 - Changing the value of the PC register now works again. This fixes
943 problems observed when using the "jump" command, or when calling
944 a function from GDB, or even when assigning a new value to $pc.
945 - With the "finish" and "return" commands, the return value for functions
946 returning a small array is now correctly printed.
947 - It is now possible to break on shared library code which gets executed
948 during a shared library init phase (code executed while executing
949 their .init section). Previously, the breakpoint would have no effect.
950 - GDB is now able to backtrace through the signal handler for
951 non-threaded programs.
952
93c26624
JK
953PIE (Position Independent Executable) programs debugging is now supported.
954This includes debugging execution of PIC (Position Independent Code) shared
955libraries although for that, it should be possible to run such libraries as an
956executable program.
957
abc7453d 958*** Changes in GDB 7.0
75feb17d 959
4efc6507
DE
960* GDB now has an interface for JIT compilation. Applications that
961dynamically generate code can create symbol files in memory and register
962them with GDB. For users, the feature should work transparently, and
963for JIT developers, the interface is documented in the GDB manual in the
964"JIT Compilation Interface" chapter.
965
782b2b07
SS
966* Tracepoints may now be conditional. The syntax is as for
967breakpoints; either an "if" clause appended to the "trace" command,
968or the "condition" command is available. GDB sends the condition to
969the target for evaluation using the same bytecode format as is used
970for tracepoint actions.
971
53a71c06
CR
972* The disassemble command now supports: an optional /r modifier, print the
973raw instructions in hex as well as in symbolic form, and an optional /m
974modifier to print mixed source+assembly.
e6158f16 975
e7a8dbfb
HZ
976* Process record and replay
977
978 In a architecture environment that supports ``process record and
979 replay'', ``process record and replay'' target can record a log of
980 the process execution, and replay it with both forward and reverse
981 execute commands.
982
64644d9b
MS
983* Reverse debugging: GDB now has new commands reverse-continue, reverse-
984step, reverse-next, reverse-finish, reverse-stepi, reverse-nexti, and
985set execution-direction {forward|reverse}, for targets that support
986reverse execution.
987
b9412953
DD
988* GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on MIPS/Linux systems. This
989feature is available with a native GDB running on kernel version
9902.6.28 or later.
991
6c7a06a3
TT
992* GDB now has support for multi-byte and wide character sets on the
993target. Strings whose character type is wchar_t, char16_t, or
994char32_t are now correctly printed. GDB supports wide- and unicode-
995literals in C, that is, L'x', L"string", u'x', u"string", U'x', and
996U"string" syntax. And, GDB allows the "%ls" and "%lc" formats in
997`printf'. This feature requires iconv to work properly; if your
998system does not have a working iconv, GDB can use GNU libiconv. See
999the installation instructions for more information.
1000
f1838a98
UW
1001* GDB now supports automatic retrieval of shared library files from
1002remote targets. To use this feature, specify a system root that begins
1003with the `remote:' prefix, either via the `set sysroot' command or via
1004the `--with-sysroot' configure-time option.
1005
55333a84
DE
1006* "info sharedlibrary" now takes an optional regex of libraries to show,
1007and it now reports if a shared library has no debugging information.
1008
7f6a6314
PM
1009* Commands `set debug-file-directory', `set solib-search-path' and `set args'
1010now complete on file names.
1011
65d12d83
TT
1012* When completing in expressions, gdb will attempt to limit
1013completions to allowable structure or union fields, where appropriate.
1014For instance, consider:
1015
1016 # struct example { int f1; double f2; };
1017 # struct example variable;
1018 (gdb) p variable.
1019
1020If the user types TAB at the end of this command line, the available
1021completions will be "f1" and "f2".
1022
edb3359d
DJ
1023* Inlined functions are now supported. They show up in backtraces, and
1024the "step", "next", and "finish" commands handle them automatically.
1025
2fae03e8
TT
1026* GDB now supports the token-splicing (##) and stringification (#)
1027operators when expanding macros. It also supports variable-arity
1028macros.
1029
47a3467a 1030* GDB now supports inspecting extra signal information, exported by
58d6951d
DJ
1031the new $_siginfo convenience variable. The feature is currently
1032implemented on linux ARM, i386 and amd64.
1033
1034* GDB can now display the VFP floating point registers and NEON vector
1035registers on ARM targets. Both ARM GNU/Linux native GDB and gdbserver
1036can provide these registers (requires Linux 2.6.30 or later). Remote
1037and simulator targets may also provide them.
47a3467a 1038
08388c79
DE
1039* New remote packets
1040
1041qSearch:memory:
1042 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
1043
a6f3e723
SL
1044QStartNoAckMode
1045 Turn off `+'/`-' protocol acknowledgments to permit more efficient
1046 operation over reliable transport links. Use of this packet is
1047 controlled by the `set remote noack-packet' command.
1048
d7713ae0
EZ
1049vKill
1050 Kill the process with the specified process ID. Use this in preference
1051 to `k' when multiprocess protocol extensions are supported.
1052
07e059b5
VP
1053qXfer:osdata:read
1054 Obtains additional operating system information
1055
47a3467a
PA
1056qXfer:siginfo:read
1057qXfer:siginfo:write
1058 Read or write additional signal information.
1059
060871df
PA
1060* Removed remote protocol undocumented extension
1061
1062 An undocumented extension to the remote protocol's `S' stop reply
1063 packet that permited the stub to pass a process id was removed.
1064 Remote servers should use the `T' stop reply packet instead.
1065
c055b101 1066* GDB now supports multiple function calling conventions according to the
a0ef4274 1067DWARF-2 DW_AT_calling_convention function attribute.
c055b101
CV
1068
1069* The SH target utilizes the aforementioned change to distinguish between gcc
a0ef4274
DJ
1070and Renesas calling convention. It also adds the new CLI commands
1071`set/show sh calling-convention'.
c055b101 1072
31fffb02
CS
1073* GDB can now read compressed debug sections, as produced by GNU gold
1074with the --compress-debug-sections=zlib flag.
1075
88d8a8e0
JB
1076* 64-bit core files are now supported on AIX.
1077
7f99b190
JB
1078* Thread switching is now supported on Tru64.
1079
ccd213ac
DJ
1080* Watchpoints can now be set on unreadable memory locations, e.g. addresses
1081which will be allocated using malloc later in program execution.
1082
1fddbabb 1083* The qXfer:libraries:read remote procotol packet now allows passing a
31fffb02 1084list of section offsets.
1fddbabb 1085
a0ef4274
DJ
1086* On GNU/Linux, GDB can now attach to stopped processes. Several race
1087conditions handling signals delivered during attach or thread creation
1088have also been fixed.
1089
bfb8797a 1090* GDB now supports the use of DWARF boolean types for Ada's type Boolean.
158c7665
PH
1091From the user's standpoint, all unqualified instances of True and False
1092are treated as the standard definitions, regardless of context.
bfb8797a 1093
71c25dea
TT
1094* GDB now parses C++ symbol and type names more flexibly. For
1095example, given:
1096
1097 template<typename T> class C { };
1098 C<char const *> c;
1099
1100GDB will now correctly handle all of:
1101
1102 ptype C<char const *>
1103 ptype C<char const*>
1104 ptype C<const char *>
1105 ptype C<const char*>
1106
ccd213ac
DJ
1107* New features in the GDB remote stub, gdbserver
1108
1109 - The "--wrapper" command-line argument tells gdbserver to use a
1110 wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
1111
7ae0e2a2
UW
1112 - On PowerPC and S/390 targets, it is now possible to use a single
1113 gdbserver executable to debug both 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
1114 (This requires gdbserver itself to be built as a 64-bit executable.)
1115
a6f3e723
SL
1116 - gdbserver uses the new noack protocol mode for TCP connections to
1117 reduce communications latency, if also supported and enabled in GDB.
1118
da8bd9a3
DJ
1119 - Support for the sparc64-linux-gnu target is now included in
1120 gdbserver.
1121
d70e31dd
DE
1122 - The amd64-linux build of gdbserver now supports debugging both
1123 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
1124
1125 - The i386-linux, amd64-linux, and i386-win32 builds of gdbserver
1126 now support hardware watchpoints, and will use them automatically
1127 as appropriate.
1128
d57a3c85
TJB
1129* Python scripting
1130
1131 GDB now has support for scripting using Python. Whether this is
1132 available is determined at configure time.
1133
d8906c6f
TJB
1134 New GDB commands can now be written in Python.
1135
aadc346a
JB
1136* Ada tasking support
1137
1138 Ada tasks can now be inspected in GDB. The following commands have
1139 been introduced:
1140
1141 info tasks
1142 Print the list of Ada tasks.
1143 info task N
1144 Print detailed information about task number N.
1145 task
1146 Print the task number of the current task.
1147 task N
1148 Switch the context of debugging to task number N.
1149
adb483fe
DJ
1150* Support for user-defined prefixed commands. The "define" command can
1151add new commands to existing prefixes, e.g. "target".
1152
2277426b
PA
1153* Multi-inferior, multi-process debugging.
1154
1155 GDB now has generalized support for multi-inferior debugging. See
1156 "Debugging Multiple Inferiors" in the manual for more information.
1157 Although availability still depends on target support, the command
1158 set is more uniform now. The GNU/Linux specific multi-forks support
1159 has been migrated to this new framework. This implied some user
1160 visible changes; see "New commands" and also "Removed commands"
1161 below.
1162
08d16641
PA
1163* Target descriptions can now describe the target OS ABI. See the
1164"Target Description Format" section in the user manual for more
1165information.
1166
e35359c5
UW
1167* Target descriptions can now describe "compatible" architectures
1168to indicate that the target can execute applications for a different
1169architecture in addition to those for the main target architecture.
1170See the "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for
1171more information.
1172
85e747d2
UW
1173* Multi-architecture debugging.
1174
1175 GDB now includes general supports for debugging applications on
1176 hybrid systems that use more than one single processor architecture
1177 at the same time. Each such hybrid architecture still requires
1178 specific support to be added. The only hybrid architecture supported
1179 in this version of GDB is the Cell Broadband Engine.
1180
1181* GDB now supports integrated debugging of Cell/B.E. applications that
1182use both the PPU and SPU architectures. To enable support for hybrid
1183Cell/B.E. debugging, you need to configure GDB to support both the
1184powerpc-linux or powerpc64-linux and the spu-elf targets, using the
1185--enable-targets configure option.
1186
11ade57a
PA
1187* Non-stop mode debugging.
1188
1189 For some targets, GDB now supports an optional mode of operation in
1190 which you can examine stopped threads while other threads continue
1191 to execute freely. This is referred to as non-stop mode, with the
1192 old mode referred to as all-stop mode. See the "Non-Stop Mode"
1193 section in the user manual for more information.
1194
1195 To be able to support remote non-stop debugging, a remote stub needs
1196 to implement the non-stop mode remote protocol extensions, as
1197 described in the "Remote Non-Stop" section of the user manual. The
1198 GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been adjusted to support these
1199 extensions on linux targets.
1200
d7713ae0 1201* New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
75feb17d 1202
a96d9b2e
SDJ
1203catch syscall [NAME(S) | NUMBER(S)]
1204 Catch system calls. Arguments, which should be names of system
1205 calls or their numbers, mean catch only those syscalls. Without
1206 arguments, every syscall will be caught. When the inferior issues
1207 any of the specified syscalls, GDB will stop and announce the system
1208 call, both when it is called and when its call returns. This
1209 feature is currently available with a native GDB running on the
1210 Linux Kernel, under the following architectures: x86, x86_64,
1211 PowerPC and PowerPC64.
1212
08388c79
DE
1213find [/size-char] [/max-count] start-address, end-address|+search-space-size,
1214 val1 [, val2, ...]
1215 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
1216
d57a3c85
TJB
1217maint set python print-stack
1218maint show python print-stack
1219 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Python script.
1220
1221python [CODE]
1222 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Python interpreter.
1223
d7713ae0
EZ
1224macro define
1225macro list
1226macro undef
1227 These allow macros to be defined, undefined, and listed
1228 interactively.
1229
1230info os processes
1231 Show operating system information about processes.
1232
2277426b
PA
1233info inferiors
1234 List the inferiors currently under GDB's control.
1235
1236inferior NUM
1237 Switch focus to inferior number NUM.
1238
1239detach inferior NUM
1240 Detach from inferior number NUM.
1241
1242kill inferior NUM
1243 Kill inferior number NUM.
1244
d7713ae0
EZ
1245* New options
1246
3285f3fe
UW
1247set spu stop-on-load
1248show spu stop-on-load
1249 Control whether to stop for new SPE threads during Cell/B.E. debugging.
1250
ff1a52c6
UW
1251set spu auto-flush-cache
1252show spu auto-flush-cache
1253 Control whether to automatically flush the software-managed cache
1254 during Cell/B.E. debugging.
1255
d7713ae0
EZ
1256set sh calling-convention
1257show sh calling-convention
1258 Control the calling convention used when calling SH target functions.
1259
e0a3ce09 1260set debug timestamp
75feb17d 1261show debug timestamp
d7713ae0
EZ
1262 Control display of timestamps with GDB debugging output.
1263
1264set disassemble-next-line
1265show disassemble-next-line
1266 Control display of disassembled source lines or instructions when
1267 the debuggee stops.
1268
1269set remote noack-packet
1270show remote noack-packet
1271 Set/show the use of remote protocol QStartNoAckMode packet. See above
1272 under "New remote packets."
1273
1274set remote query-attached-packet
1275show remote query-attached-packet
1276 Control use of remote protocol `qAttached' (query-attached) packet.
1277
1278set remote read-siginfo-object
1279show remote read-siginfo-object
1280 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:read' (read-siginfo-object)
1281 packet.
1282
1283set remote write-siginfo-object
1284show remote write-siginfo-object
1285 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:write' (write-siginfo-object)
1286 packet.
1287
40ab02ce
MS
1288set remote reverse-continue
1289show remote reverse-continue
1290 Control use of remote protocol 'bc' (reverse-continue) packet.
1291
1292set remote reverse-step
1293show remote reverse-step
1294 Control use of remote protocol 'bs' (reverse-step) packet.
1295
d7713ae0
EZ
1296set displaced-stepping
1297show displaced-stepping
1298 Control displaced stepping mode. Displaced stepping is a way to
1299 single-step over breakpoints without removing them from the debuggee.
1300 Also known as "out-of-line single-stepping".
1301
1302set debug displaced
1303show debug displaced
1304 Control display of debugging info for displaced stepping.
1305
1306maint set internal-error
1307maint show internal-error
1308 Control what GDB does when an internal error is detected.
1309
1310maint set internal-warning
1311maint show internal-warning
1312 Control what GDB does when an internal warning is detected.
75feb17d 1313
ccd213ac
DJ
1314set exec-wrapper
1315show exec-wrapper
1316unset exec-wrapper
1317 Use a wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
fa4727a6 1318
aad4b048
JB
1319set multiple-symbols (all|ask|cancel)
1320show multiple-symbols
1321 The value of this variable can be changed to adjust the debugger behavior
1322 when an expression or a breakpoint location contains an ambiguous symbol
1323 name (an overloaded function name, for instance).
1324
74960c60
VP
1325set breakpoint always-inserted
1326show breakpoint always-inserted
1327 Keep breakpoints always inserted in the target, as opposed to inserting
1328 them when resuming the target, and removing them when the target stops.
1329 This option can improve debugger performance on slow remote targets.
1330
0428b8f5
DJ
1331set arm fallback-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
1332show arm fallback-mode
1333set arm force-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
1334show arm force-mode
1335 These commands control how ARM GDB determines whether instructions
1336 are ARM or Thumb. The default for both settings is auto, which uses
1337 the current CPSR value for instructions without symbols; previous
1338 versions of GDB behaved as if "set arm fallback-mode arm".
1339
10568435
JK
1340set disable-randomization
1341show disable-randomization
1342 Standalone programs run with the virtual address space randomization enabled
1343 by default on some platforms. This option keeps the addresses stable across
1344 multiple debugging sessions.
1345
d7713ae0
EZ
1346set non-stop
1347show non-stop
1348 Control whether other threads are stopped or not when some thread hits
1349 a breakpoint.
1350
b3eb342c 1351set target-async
d7713ae0 1352show target-async
b3eb342c
VP
1353 Requests that asynchronous execution is enabled in the target, if available.
1354 In this case, it's possible to resume target in the background, and interact
1355 with GDB while the target is running. "show target-async" displays the
1356 current state of asynchronous execution of the target.
1357
6c7a06a3
TT
1358set target-wide-charset
1359show target-wide-charset
1360 The target-wide-charset is the name of the character set that GDB
1361 uses when printing characters whose type is wchar_t.
1362
84603566
SL
1363set tcp auto-retry (on|off)
1364show tcp auto-retry
1365set tcp connect-timeout
1366show tcp connect-timeout
1367 These commands allow GDB to retry failed TCP connections to a remote stub
1368 with a specified timeout period; this is useful if the stub is launched
1369 in parallel with GDB but may not be ready to accept connections immediately.
1370
17a37d48
PP
1371set libthread-db-search-path
1372show libthread-db-search-path
1373 Control list of directories which GDB will search for appropriate
1374 libthread_db.
1375
d4db2f36
PA
1376set schedule-multiple (on|off)
1377show schedule-multiple
1378 Allow GDB to resume all threads of all processes or only threads of
1379 the current process.
1380
4e5d721f
DE
1381set stack-cache
1382show stack-cache
1383 Use more aggressive caching for accesses to the stack. This improves
1384 performance of remote debugging (particularly backtraces) without
1385 affecting correctness.
1386
910c5da8
JB
1387set interactive-mode (on|off|auto)
1388show interactive-mode
1389 Control whether GDB runs in interactive mode (on) or not (off).
1390 When in interactive mode, GDB waits for the user to answer all
1391 queries. Otherwise, GDB does not wait and assumes the default
1392 answer. When set to auto (the default), GDB determines which
1393 mode to use based on the stdin settings.
1394
2277426b
PA
1395* Removed commands
1396
1397info forks
1398 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `info
1399 inferiors' command. To list checkpoints, you can still use the
1400 `info checkpoints' command, which was an alias for the `info forks'
1401 command.
1402
1403fork NUM
1404 Replaced by the new `inferior' command. To switch between
1405 checkpoints, you can still use the `restart' command, which was an
1406 alias for the `fork' command.
1407
1408process PID
1409 This is removed, since some targets don't have a notion of
1410 processes. To switch between processes, you can still use the
1411 `inferior' command using GDB's own inferior number.
1412
1413delete fork NUM
1414 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `kill
1415 inferior' command. To delete a checkpoint, you can still use the
1416 `delete checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `delete
1417 fork' command.
1418
1419detach fork NUM
1420 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `detach
1421 inferior' command. To detach a checkpoint, you can still use the
1422 `detach checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `detach
1423 fork' command.
1424
a80b95ba
TG
1425* New native configurations
1426
1427x86/x86_64 Darwin i[34567]86-*-darwin*
1428
b8bfd3ed
JB
1429x86_64 MinGW x86_64-*-mingw*
1430
75a2d5e7
TT
1431* New targets
1432
c28c63d8 1433Lattice Mico32 lm32-*
75a2d5e7 1434x86 DICOS i[34567]86-*-dicos*
4c1d2973 1435x86_64 DICOS x86_64-*-dicos*
5f814c3b 1436S+core 3 score-*-*
75a2d5e7 1437
6de3146c
PA
1438* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports x86 Windows CE
1439 (mingw32ce) debugging.
1440
d5cbbe6e
JB
1441* Removed commands
1442
1443catch load
1444catch unload
1445 These commands were actually not implemented on any target.
1446
75feb17d 1447*** Changes in GDB 6.8
f9ed52be 1448
af5ca30d
NH
1449* New native configurations
1450
1451NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*netbsd*
94a0e877 1452Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
af5ca30d
NH
1453
1454* New targets
1455
1456NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*-netbsd*
94a0e877 1457Xtensa GNU/Lunux xtensa*-*-linux*
af5ca30d 1458
7a404eba
PA
1459* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
1460
1461 When the '-p NUMBER' or '--pid NUMBER' options are used, and
1462 attaching to process NUMBER fails, GDB no longer attempts to open a
1463 core file named NUMBER. Attaching to a program using the -c option
1464 is no longer supported. Instead, use the '-p' or '--pid' options.
1465
430ebac9
PA
1466* GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
1467(mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
1468
fe6fbf8b 1469* Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
8d5f9c6f 1470is resolved.
fe6fbf8b
VP
1471
1472* GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
8d5f9c6f
DJ
1473including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
1474and in inlined functions.
fe6fbf8b 1475
10665d76
JB
1476* GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
1477accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
1478more than one contiguous range of addresses.
1479
7cc46491
DJ
1480* Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
1481
d71340b8
DJ
1482* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
1483registers on PowerPC targets.
1484
523c4513
DJ
1485* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
1486targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
1487
a6b151f1
DJ
1488* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
1489commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
1490
2d717e4f
DJ
1491* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports run and attach in
1492extended-remote mode.
1493
24a836bd 1494* hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
d001be7a
DJ
1495The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
1496error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
1497The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
24a836bd 1498
d0c678e6
UW
1499* GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
1500building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
1501target architectures.
1502
d64a946d
TJB
1503* GDB now supports debugging C and C++ programs which use the
1504Decimal Floating Point extension. In addition, the PowerPC target
1505now has a set of pseudo-registers to inspect decimal float values
1506stored in two consecutive float registers.
1507
ee163bf5
VP
1508* The -break-insert MI command can optionally create pending
1509breakpoints now.
1510
b93b6ca7 1511* Improved support for debugging Ada
d001be7a
DJ
1512Many improvements to the Ada language support have been made. These
1513include:
b93b6ca7
JB
1514 - Better support for Ada2005 interface types
1515 - Improved handling of arrays and slices in general
1516 - Better support for Taft-amendment types
1517 - The '{type} ADDRESS' expression is now allowed on the left hand-side
1518 of an assignment
1519 - Improved command completion in Ada
1520 - Several bug fixes
1521
d001be7a
DJ
1522* GDB on GNU/Linux and HP/UX can now debug through "exec" of a new
1523process.
1524
a6b151f1
DJ
1525* New commands
1526
6d53d0af
JB
1527set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
1528show print frame-arguments
1529 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
1530 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
1531
a6b151f1
DJ
1532remote put
1533remote get
1534remote delete
1535 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
1536
1537* New MI commands
1538
1539-target-file-put
1540-target-file-get
1541-target-file-delete
1542 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
1543
1544* New remote packets
1545
1546vFile:open:
1547vFile:close:
1548vFile:pread:
1549vFile:pwrite:
1550vFile:unlink:
1551 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
d0c678e6 1552
2d717e4f
DJ
1553vAttach
1554 Attach to an existing process on the remote system, in extended-remote
1555 mode.
1556
1557vRun
1558 Run a new process on the remote system, in extended-remote mode.
1559
8d5f9c6f 1560*** Changes in GDB 6.7
6dd09645 1561
19d378fc
MS
1562* Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
1563bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
1564Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
1565
3a40aaa0
UW
1566* When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
1567symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
1568-Bsymbolic linker option.
1569
a6ec25f2
BW
1570* When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
1571recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
1572is not supported.
1573
6dd09645
JB
1574* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
1575frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
1576
c9bb8148
DJ
1577* GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
157832-bit or 64-bit register values.
1579
0d5de010
DJ
1580* Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
1581
23181151
DJ
1582* GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
1583target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
1584a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
1585
ea37ba09
DJ
1586* Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
1587automatically displayed as character or string data.
1588
1589* The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
1590arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
1591as strings.
e1f48ead 1592
123dc839
DJ
1593* Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
1594for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
8d5f9c6f 1595only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
123dc839 1596
05a4558a
DJ
1597* GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
1598iWMMXt coprocessor.
fb1e4ffc 1599
7c963485
PA
1600* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
1601ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
1602has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
1603
b18be20d
DJ
1604* GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
1605
0ca420ce
UW
1606* GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
1607
31d99776
DJ
1608* The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
1609layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
1610segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
1611
a4642986
MR
1612* The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
1613immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
1614
cfa9d6d9
DJ
1615* The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
1616"library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
1617packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
1618where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
1619Windows and SymbianOS).
255e7678
DJ
1620
1621* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
1622(DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
f5db8714
JK
1623
1624* GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
1625according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
cfa9d6d9 1626
c9bb8148
DJ
1627* New commands
1628
23776285
MR
1629set remoteflow
1630show remoteflow
1631 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
1632 when debugging using remote targets.
1633
c9bb8148
DJ
1634set mem inaccessible-by-default
1635show mem inaccessible-by-default
1636 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
1637 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
1638 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
1639 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
1640 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
1641
1642set breakpoint auto-hw
1643show breakpoint auto-hw
1644 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
1645 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
1646 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
1647 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
1648 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
1649 including "next" and "finish".
1650
0e420bd8
JB
1651catch exception
1652catch exception unhandled
1653 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
1654
1655catch assert
1656 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
1657
f822c95b
DJ
1658set sysroot
1659show sysroot
1660 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
1661 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
1662 an alias to "set sysroot".
1663
83cc5c53
UW
1664info spu
1665 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
1666 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
1667 architecture.
1668
bd372731
MK
1669* New native configurations
1670
1671OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
1672
23181151
DJ
1673set tdesc filename
1674unset tdesc filename
1675show tdesc filename
1676 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
1677 not query the target for its built-in description.
1678
c9bb8148
DJ
1679* New targets
1680
54fe9172 1681OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
c9bb8148 1682MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
c077150c 1683Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
c9bb8148 1684
6dd09645
JB
1685* New remote packets
1686
1687QPassSignals:
1688 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
1689 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
1690
23181151
DJ
1691qXfer:features:read:
1692 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
1693 features.
6dd09645 1694
83cc5c53
UW
1695qXfer:spu:read:
1696qXfer:spu:write:
1697 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
1698 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
1699
cfa9d6d9
DJ
1700qXfer:libraries:read:
1701 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
1702 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
1703 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
1704 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
1705
483367ee
DJ
1706* Removed targets
1707
1708Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
1709
d08950c4
UW
1710alpha*-*-osf1*
1711alpha*-*-osf2*
7ce59000 1712d10v-*-*
483367ee
DJ
1713hppa*-*-hiux*
1714i[34567]86-ncr-*
1715i[34567]86-*-dgux*
1716i[34567]86-*-lynxos*
1717i[34567]86-*-netware*
1718i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
1719i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
1720i[34567]86-*-sco*
1721i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
1722i[34567]86-*-sysv4*
1723i[34567]86-*-sysv5*
1724i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
1725i[34567]86-*-unixware*
1726i[34567]86-*-sysv*
1727i[34567]86-*-isc*
1728m68*-cisco*-*
1729m68*-tandem-*
ad527d2e 1730mips*-*-pe
483367ee 1731rs6000-*-lynxos*
ad527d2e 1732sh*-*-pe
483367ee 1733
7ce59000
DJ
1734* Other removed features
1735
1736target abug
1737target cpu32bug
1738target est
1739target rom68k
1740
1741 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
1742
ea35711c
DJ
1743target hms
1744target e7000
1745target sh3
1746target sh3e
1747
1748 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
1749 H8/300.
1750
1751target ocd
1752
1753 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
1754 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
1755 interfaces.
1756
7ce59000
DJ
1757DWARF 1 support
1758
1759 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
1760 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
1761
54d61198
DJ
1762Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
1763
1764 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
1765 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
1766 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
1767 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
1768
ea35711c
DJ
1769MIPS ".pdr" sections
1770
1771 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
1772 in debugging information.
1773
1774Scheme support
1775
1776 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
1777 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
1778
1a69e1e4
DJ
1779set mips stack-arg-size
1780set mips saved-gpreg-size
1781
1782 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
1783
6dd09645 1784*** Changes in GDB 6.6
e374b601 1785
ca3bf3bd
DJ
1786* New targets
1787
1788Xtensa xtensa-elf
9c309e77 1789Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
ca3bf3bd 1790
6aec2e11
DJ
1791* GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
1792(mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
1793running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
1794
1795* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
1796Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
1797supported.
1798
17218d91
DJ
1799* The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
1800broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
1801
9ebce043
DJ
1802* The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
1803stub provides the required support.
1804
7d3d3ece
DJ
1805* Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
1806longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
1807
4f8253f3
JB
1808* New commands
1809
1810set substitute-path
1811unset substitute-path
1812show substitute-path
1813 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
1814 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
1815 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
1816 between compilation and debugging.
1817
9fa66fd7
AS
1818set trace-commands
1819show trace-commands
1820 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
1821 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
1822 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
1823
1f5befc1
DJ
1824* REMOVED features
1825
1826The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
1827
2ec3381a
DJ
1828Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
1829an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
1830
3d00d119
DJ
1831The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
1832
be2a5f71
DJ
1833* New remote packets
1834
1835qSupported:
1836 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
1837 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
1838 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
1839 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
1840 target.
1841
0876f84a
DJ
1842qXfer:auxv:read:
1843 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
1844 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
1845
9ebce043
DJ
1846qXfer:memory-map:read:
1847 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
1848 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
1849
1850vFlashErase:
1851vFlashWrite:
1852vFlashDone:
1853 Erase and program a flash memory device.
1854
0876f84a
DJ
1855* Removed remote packets
1856
1857qPart:auxv:read:
1858 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
1859 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
1860
e374b601 1861*** Changes in GDB 6.5
53e5f3cf 1862
96309189
MS
1863* New targets
1864
1865Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
1866
1867Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
1868
53e5f3cf
AS
1869* New commands
1870
1871init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
1872 only if it doesn't already have a value.
1873
ac264b3b
MS
1874The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
1875
1876checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
1877
1878restart <n> Return the program state to a
1879 previously saved state.
1880
1881info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
1882
1883delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
1884
1885set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
1886 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
1887
1888info forks List forks of the user program that
1889 are available to be debugged.
1890
1891fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
1892 forks of the user program that are
1893 available to be debugged.
1894
1895delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
1896 that are available to be debugged (and
1897 kill the forked process).
1898
1899detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
1900 that are available to be debugged (and
1901 allow the process to continue).
1902
3950dc3f
NS
1903* New architecture
1904
1905Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
1906
0ea3f30e
DJ
1907* Improved Windows host support
1908
1909GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
1910native console support, and remote communications using either
1911network sockets or serial ports.
1912
f79daebb
GM
1913* Improved Modula-2 language support
1914
1915GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
1916basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
1917pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
1918printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
1919written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
1920GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
1921
acab6ab2
MM
1922* REMOVED features
1923
1924The ARM rdi-share module.
1925
f4267320
DJ
1926The Netware NLM debug server.
1927
53e5f3cf 1928*** Changes in GDB 6.4
156a53ca 1929
e0ecbda1
MK
1930* New native configurations
1931
02a677ac 1932OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
e0ecbda1
MK
1933OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
1934
d64a6579
KB
1935* New targets
1936
1937Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
1938
b33a6190
AS
1939* New command line options
1940
1941--batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
1942--return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
1943 the child (debugged) program exited with.
1944--eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
1945 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
1946 specified multiple times and in conjunction
1947 with the --command (-x) option.
1948
11dced61
AC
1949* Deprecated commands removed
1950
1951The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
1952removed:
1953
1954 Command Replacement
1955 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
1956 othernames set arm disassembler
1957 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
1958 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
1959 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
1960 regs info registers
1961
6fe85783
MK
1962* New BSD user-level threads support
1963
1964It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
1965library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
1966configurations are:
1967
1968FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
1969FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
1970OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
1971
1972Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
1973are not yet supported.
1974
5260ca71
MS
1975* New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
1976(Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
1977
e84ecc99
AC
1978* REMOVED configurations and files
1979
1980VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
9445aa30 1981Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
9445aa30 1982National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
156a53ca 1983
31e35378
JB
1984* New "set print array-indexes" command
1985
1986After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
1987when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
1988behavior.
1989
e85e5c83
MK
1990* VAX floating point support
1991
1992GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
1993
d91e9901
AS
1994* User-defined command support
1995
1996In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
1997to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
1998section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
1999
f2cb65ca
MC
2000*** Changes in GDB 6.3:
2001
f47b1503
AS
2002* New command line option
2003
2004GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
2005debugging.
2006
f2cb65ca
MC
2007* GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
2008
2009GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
2010information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
2011by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
2012proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
2013to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
860660cb 2014
d08c0230
AC
2015* Internationalization
2016
2017When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
2018internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
2019continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
2020
117ea3cf
PH
2021* Ada
2022
2023Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
2024implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
2025into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
2026
d08c0230
AC
2027* New native configurations
2028
2029GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
2030
2031* Remote 'p' packet
2032
2033GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
2034packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
2035
2036* END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
2037
2038GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
2039The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
2040features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
2041i386 application).
2042
2043GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
2044compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
2045continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
2046configurations:
2047
2048hppa-*-hpux
2049ia64-*-aix
2050mips-*-irix*
2051*-*-lynx
2052mips-*-linux-gnu
2053sds protocol
2054xdr protocol
2055powerpc bdm protocol
2056
2057Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
2058made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
2059
2060* OBSOLETE configurations and files
2061
2062Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2063been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2064configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2065permanently REMOVED.
2066
2067h8300-*-*
2068mcore-*-*
2069mn10300-*-*
2070ns32k-*-*
2071sh64-*-*
2072v850-*-*
2073
ebb7c577
AC
2074*** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
2075
2076* MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
2077
2078When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
2079heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
2080been fixed.
2081
2082* MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
2083
2084When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
2085fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
2086IRIX long double values).
2087
2088* VAX and "next"
2089
2090A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
2091command. This problem has been fixed.
2092
860660cb 2093*** Changes in GDB 6.2:
faae5abe 2094
0dea2468
AC
2095* Fix for ``many threads''
2096
2097On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
2098rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
2099error message:
2100
2101 ptrace: No such process.
2102 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
2103
2104This problem has been fixed.
2105
2c07db7a
AC
2106* "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
2107
2108Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
2109GDB to dump core).
2110
c23968a2
JB
2111* New ``start'' command.
2112
2113This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
2114
71009278
MK
2115* New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
2116
2117Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
2118live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
2119platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
2120
2121FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
2122FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
2123NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
2124NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
2125NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
2126OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
2127OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
2128OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
2129OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
2130
3c0b7db2
AC
2131* Signal trampoline code overhauled
2132
2133Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
2134These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
2135of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
2136call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
2137signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
2138
73cc75f3
AC
2139Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
2140features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
2141include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
3c0b7db2 2142
7243600a
BF
2143* Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
2144
6f606e1c
MK
2145* New native configurations
2146
97dc871c 2147GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
0e56aeaf 2148OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
bf2ca189
MK
2149OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
2150OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
d195bc9f 2151OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 2152NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
9f076e7a 2153OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 2154
a1b461bf
AC
2155* END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
2156
2157GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
2158The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
2159including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
2160migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
2161compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
2162work, was also included.
2163
2164GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
2165module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
2166
2167h8300-*-*
2168mcore-*-*
2169mn10300-*-*
2170ns32k-*-*
2171sh64-*-*
2172v850-*-*
2173xstormy16-*-*
2174
2175Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
2176made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
2177
3c7012f5
AC
2178* REMOVED configurations and files
2179
2180Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
2181Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
2182Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
2183Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
2184Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
2185AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
2186Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
2187decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
2188riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
2189sonymips mips-sony-*
2190sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
2191
e5fe55f7
AC
2192*** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
2193
2194* TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
2195
2196The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
2197GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
2198command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
2199program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
2200with GDB".
2201
2202* Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
2203
2204Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
2205libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
2206cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
2207GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
2208shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
2209the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
2210are created.
2211
2212Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
2213
2214* Fixed ISO-C build problems
2215
2216The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
2217non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
2218compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
2219
2220* Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
2221
2222Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
2223wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
2224
2225* Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
2226
2227The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
2228permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
2229systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
2230
2231* Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
2232
2233Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
2234has been updated to use constant array sizes.
2235
2236* Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
2237
2238GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
2239its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
2240panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
2241
2242* Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
2243
2244When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
2245by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
2246not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
2247
faae5abe 2248*** Changes in GDB 6.1:
f2c06f52 2249
9175c9a3
MC
2250* Removed --with-mmalloc
2251
2252Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
2253conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
2254
3cc87ec0
MK
2255* Changes in AMD64 configurations
2256
2257The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
2258the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
2259and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
2260you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
2261
f0424ef6
MK
2262* Revised SPARC target
2263
2264The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
2265FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
03cebad2
MK
2266support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
2267from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
2268(Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
f0424ef6 2269
59659be2
ILT
2270* New C++ demangler
2271
2272GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
2273names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
2274with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
2275programs.
2276
9e08b29b
DJ
2277* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
2278
2279GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
2280arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
2281encountered these.
2282
8dfe8985
DC
2283* C++ nested types and namespaces
2284
2285GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
2286improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
2287is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
2288Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
2289namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
2290"Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
2291frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
2292if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
2293GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
2294
cced5e27
MK
2295* New native configurations
2296
2297NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
27d1e716 2298OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
2031c21a 2299OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
f2cab569
MK
2300OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
2301OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
cced5e27 2302
b4b4b794
KI
2303* New debugging protocols
2304
2305M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
2306
7989c619
AC
2307* "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
2308
2309The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
2310and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
2311tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
2312
5994185b
AC
2313* OBSOLETE configurations and files
2314
2315Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2316been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2317configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2318permanently REMOVED.
2319
2320Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
2321Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
2322Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
2323Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
2324Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
2325AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
2326Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
0748d941
AC
2327decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
2328riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
2329sonymips mips-sony-*
2330sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
5994185b 2331
0ddabb4c
AC
2332* REMOVED configurations and files
2333
2334SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
2335SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
4a8269c0
AC
2336Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
2337Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
2338H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
2339HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
2340HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
2341HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
2342PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
cf7c5c23 2343386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
4a8269c0
AC
2344Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
2345 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
2346 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
f0424ef6
MK
2347SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
2348SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
4a8269c0
AC
2349Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2350Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
0ddabb4c 2351
c7f1390e
DJ
2352*** Changes in GDB 6.0:
2353
1fe43d45
AC
2354* Objective-C
2355
2356Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
2357integrated into GDB.
2358
e6beb428
AC
2359* New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
2360
2361DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
2362information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
2363By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
2364backtraces.
2365
2366The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
2367have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
2368DWARF 2 CFI support.
2369
2370* Hosted file I/O.
2371
2372GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
2373file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
2374remote protocol documentation for details.
2375
2376* All targets using the new architecture framework.
2377
2378All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
2379architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
2380to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
2381ppc32 on ppc64).
2382
2383* GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
2384
2385GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
2386per-thread variables.
2387
2388* GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
2389
2390GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
2391GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
2392
2393* Separate debug info.
2394
2395GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
2396automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
2397of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
2398system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
2399and optional debug files.
2400
2401* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
2402
2403DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
2404describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
2405debugger.
2406
2407GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
2408for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
2409
2410* Java
2411
2412A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
2413Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
2414considered "useable".
2415
85f8f974
DJ
2416* GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
2417
2418The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
2419commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
2420kernel.
2421
0fac0b41
DJ
2422* GDB supports logging output to a file
2423
2424There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
2425used to capture GDB's output to a file.
f2c06f52 2426
6ad8ae5c
DJ
2427* The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
2428
2429The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
2430disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
2431command.
2432
e286caf2 2433* d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
5f601589
AC
2434
2435The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
2436registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
2437
d28f9cdf
DJ
2438* Profiling support
2439
2440A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
2441be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
2442session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
2443"--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
2444data, for more informative profiling results.
2445
da0f9dcd
AC
2446* Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
2447
2448The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
2449option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
b68767c1 2450"mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
da0f9dcd
AC
2451
2452Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
2453removed.
2454
fb9b6b35
JJ
2455Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
2456Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
2457Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
2458 in a subsequent -var-update.
2459
954a4db8
MK
2460* New native configurations.
2461
2462FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
2463
6760f9e6
JB
2464* Multi-arched targets.
2465
b4263afa 2466HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
85a453d5 2467Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
6760f9e6 2468
1b831c93
AC
2469* OBSOLETE configurations and files
2470
2471Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2472been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2473configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2474permanently REMOVED.
2475
8b0e5691 2476Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
67f16606 2477Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
fd2299bd 2478H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
56056df7
AC
2479HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
2480HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
2481HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
78c43945 2482PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
2fbce691
AC
2483Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
2484 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
2485 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
f81824a9
AC
2486Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2487Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
fd2299bd 2488
5835abe7
NC
2489* REMOVED configurations and files
2490
2491V850EA ISA
1b831c93
AC
2492Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
2493IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
2494i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
2495i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
2496i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
2497HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
2498 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
2499 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
2500Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
2501Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
2502Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
2503OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
2504I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
5835abe7 2505
a094c6fb
AC
2506* MIPS $fp behavior changed
2507
2508The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
2509the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
2510context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
2511address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
2512The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
2513
299ffc64 2514*** Changes in GDB 5.3:
37057839 2515
46248966
AC
2516* GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
2517
2518When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
2519`/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
2520in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
2521library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
2522shared libs like mad''.
2523
b9d14705 2524* ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
6da02953 2525
b9d14705
DJ
2526Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
2527the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
2528arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
2529powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
6da02953 2530
e0e9281e
JB
2531* GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
2532
2533GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
2534and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
2535they expand.
2536
dd73b9bb
AC
2537The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
2538invocations in expression, and shows the result.
2539
2540The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
2541macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
2542
e0e9281e
JB
2543Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
2544information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
2545your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
2546information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
2547
2250ee0c
CV
2548* Multi-arched targets.
2549
6e3ba3b8
JT
2550DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
2551DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
2250ee0c 2552NEC V850 v850-*-*
6e3ba3b8 2553National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
a1789893
GS
2554Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
2555Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
2250ee0c 2556
cd9bfe15 2557* New targets.
e33ce519 2558
456f8b9d
DB
2559Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
2560
e33ce519 2561
da8ca43d
JT
2562* New native configurations
2563
2564Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
029923d4 2565SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
45888261 2566MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
9ce5c36a 2567UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
da8ca43d 2568
cd9bfe15
AC
2569* OBSOLETE configurations and files
2570
2571Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2572been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2573configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2574permanently REMOVED.
2575
92eb23c5 2576Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
a99a9e1b 2577OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1c7cc583 2578IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
7a3085c1 2579Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
7fb623f7 2580Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
eb4c54a2 2581Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
d8ee244c
MK
2582i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
2583i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
2584i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
822e978b
AC
2585HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
2586 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
2587 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
4d210288 2588I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
92eb23c5 2589
db034ac5
AC
2590* OBSOLETE languages
2591
2592CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
2593
cd9bfe15
AC
2594* REMOVED configurations and files
2595
2596AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
2597A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
2598AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2599AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2600AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2601
2602testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
2603
20f01a46
DH
2604* New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
2605
2606This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
2607commands. The default is 1024.
2608
a5941fbf
MK
2609* Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
2610
2611Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
2612
89743e04
MS
2613* New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
2614
2615These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
2616to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
2617from a file into memory (restore).
37057839 2618
9fb14e79
JB
2619* Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
2620
2621The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
2622including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
2623of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
2624
2037aebb
AC
2625*** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
2626
2627* New targets.
2628
2629Atmel AVR avr*-*-*
2630
2631* Bug fixes
2632
2633gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
2634mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
2635Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
2636
2637gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
2638dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
2639Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
2640
2641Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
2642Surprisingly enough, it works now.
2643By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
2644
2645i386 hardware watchpoint support:
2646avoid misses on second run for some targets.
2647By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
2648
37057839 2649*** Changes in GDB 5.2:
eb7cedd9 2650
1a703748
MS
2651* New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
2652
2653This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
2654really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
2655In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
2656target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
2657This can be a significant performance improvement on some
2658(notably embedded) targets.
2659
cefd4ef5
MS
2660* New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
2661
55241689
AC
2662This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
2663process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
2664GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
2665hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
cefd4ef5 2666
352ed7b4
MS
2667* New command line option
2668
2669GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
2670
2671* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
2672
2673There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
2674command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
2675a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
2676be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
2677open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
2678issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
2679a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
2680it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
2681GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
2682is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
2683
fe419ffc
RE
2684* Changes in ARM configurations.
2685
2686Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
2687configuration is fully multi-arch.
2688
eb7cedd9
MK
2689* New native configurations
2690
fe419ffc 2691ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
eb7cedd9 2692x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
55241689 2693AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
768f0842 2694Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
eb7cedd9 2695
c9f63e6b
CV
2696* New targets
2697
2698Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
2699
9b4ff276
AC
2700* OBSOLETE configurations and files
2701
2702Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2703been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2704configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2705permanently REMOVED.
2706
2707AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
2708A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
2709AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2710AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2711AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2712
b4ceaee6 2713testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
9b4ff276 2714
e2caac18
AC
2715* REMOVED configurations and files
2716
2717TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
7bc65f05 2718WDC 65816 w65-*-*
7768dd6c
AC
2719PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
2720PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
2721PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
5e734e1f 2722Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1406caf7
AC
2723Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
2724 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
7e24f0b1 2725SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
9b567150 2726Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
3680c638
AC
2727Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
2728ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
a752853e 2729Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
e2caac18 2730
c2a727fa
TT
2731* Changes to command line processing
2732
2733The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
2734for the inferior from gdb's command line.
2735
467d8519
TT
2736* Changes to key bindings
2737
2738There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
2739
7072a954
AC
2740*** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
2741
2742Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
2743
2744Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
2745corrupted.
2746
2747Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
2748
2749Numerous documentation fixes.
2750
2751Numerous testsuite fixes.
2752
34f47bc4 2753*** Changes in GDB 5.1:
139760b7
MK
2754
2755* New native configurations
2756
2757Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
2758x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
55241689 2759MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
e23194cb
EZ
2760MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
2761ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
55241689 2762s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
139760b7 2763
bf64bfd6
AC
2764* New targets
2765
def90278 2766Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
24be5c34 2767CRIS cris-axis
55241689 2768UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
def90278 2769
17e78a56 2770* OBSOLETE configurations and files
bf64bfd6
AC
2771
2772x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
9b9c068d 2773Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
bb19ff3b
AC
2774Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
2775 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
76f4ea53
AC
2776TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
2777WDC 65816 w65-*-*
4a1968f4 2778Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1b2b2c16
AC
2779PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
2780PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
2781PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
24f89b68 2782SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
514e603d
AC
2783Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
2784ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
d036b4d9 2785Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
bf64bfd6 2786
17e78a56
AC
2787stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
2788kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
2789
7fcca85b
AC
2790Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2791been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2792configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2793permanently REMOVED.
2794
a196c81c 2795* REMOVED configurations and files
7fcca85b
AC
2796
2797Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
2798Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
2799Pyramid pyramid-*-*
2800ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
2801Tahoe tahoe-*-*
a196c81c 2802ser-ocd.c *-*-*
bf64bfd6 2803
6d6b80e5 2804* GDB has been converted to ISO C.
e23194cb 2805
6d6b80e5 2806GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
e23194cb
EZ
2807sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
2808present.
2809
bf64bfd6
AC
2810* Other news:
2811
e23194cb
EZ
2812* "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
2813
2814* The MI enabled by default.
2815
2816The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
2817revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
2818engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
2819using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
2820which is now deprecated.
2821
2822* Support for debugging Pascal programs.
2823
2824GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
2825main features are supported:
2826
2827 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
2828
2829 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
2830 extension;
2831
2832 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
2833
2834 - a Pascal expression parser.
2835
2836However, some important features are not yet supported.
2837
2838 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
2839
2840 - there are some problems with boolean types;
2841
2842 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
2843 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
2844
2845 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
2846
2847 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
2848
2849* Changes in completion.
2850
2851Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
2852to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
2853users expect at the shell prompt.
2854
2855Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
2856`breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
2857program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
2858files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
2859be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
2860considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
2861name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
2862
2863`set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
2864
2865* New platform-independent commands:
2866
2867It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
2868hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
2869documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
2870
2871* Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
2872
d7275149
MK
2873Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
2874revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
2875many threads as your system allows you to have.
2876
e23194cb
EZ
2877Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
2878
d7275149
MK
2879Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
2880multi-threaded programs though.
e23194cb
EZ
2881
2882* Changes in MIPS configurations.
bf64bfd6
AC
2883
2884Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
2885
e23194cb
EZ
2886GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
2887debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
2888supported.)
2889
2890* Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
2891
2892Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
2893breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
2894implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
2895put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
2896and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
2897registers.
2898
2899The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
2900debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
2901watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
2902
2903* Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
2904
2905New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
2906the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
2907
2908New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
2909display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
2910IDT.
2911
2912New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
2913from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
2914New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
2915a given linear address.
2916
2917GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
2918program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
2919which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
2920
2921DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
2922
6c56c069
EZ
2923It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
2924
e23194cb
EZ
2925* Changes in documentation.
2926
2927All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
2928Documentation License.
2929
2930Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
2931manual.
2932
2933TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
2934
2935Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
2936manual.
2937
2938The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
2939documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
2940hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
2941
5d6640b1
AC
2942* GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
2943
2944The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
2945``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
2946contents of this file.
2947
1a1d8446
AC
2948* gdba.el deleted
2949
2950GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
139760b7 2951
9debab2f 2952*** Changes in GDB 5.0:
7a292a7a 2953
c63ce875
EZ
2954* Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
2955
2956Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
2957programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
2958displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
2959greater level of detail.
2960
2961* Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
2962
2963It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
2964bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
2965on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
2966written.
2967
2968* Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
2969
2970The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
2971necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
2972machines ``out of the box''.
2973
2974The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
2975possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
2976signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
2977would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
2978interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
2979
2980It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
2981standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
2982even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
2983and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
2984terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
2985
2986The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
2987enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
2988also works.
2989
2990DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
2991GDB.
2992
2993It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
2994directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
2995times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
2996breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
2997
ed9a39eb
JM
2998* New native configurations
2999
3000ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
afc05dd4 3001PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
ed9a39eb 3002
7a292a7a
SS
3003* New targets
3004
96baa820 3005Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
adf40b2e
JM
3006x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
3007PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
7a292a7a
SS
3008TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
3009
085dd6e6
JM
3010* OBSOLETE configurations
3011
3012Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
3013Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
9846de1b 3014Pyramid pyramid-*-*
ed9a39eb 3015ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
104c1213 3016Tahoe tahoe-*-*
7a292a7a 3017
9debab2f
AC
3018Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
3019but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
3020these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
3021be permanently REMOVED.
3022
5330533d
SS
3023* Gould support removed
3024
3025Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
3026
bc9e5bbf
AC
3027* New features for SVR4
3028
3029On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
3030without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
3031load symbols from the running process's executable file.
3032
3033* Many C++ enhancements
3034
3035C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
3036in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
3037
adf40b2e
JM
3038* Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
3039
3040A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
3041sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
3042with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
3043``|<program> <args>'' vis:
3044
3045 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
3046 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
3047
43e526b9
JM
3048* MIPS 64 remote protocol
3049
3050A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
3051expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
3052instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
3053
3054The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
3055added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
3056
96baa820
JM
3057* ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
3058
3059The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
3060``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
3061include ``set remote P-packet''.
3062
11cf8741
JM
3063* Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
3064
3065The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
3066accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
3067``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
3068
7876dd43
DB
3069* ``apropos'' command added.
3070
3071The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
3072documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
3073try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
3074
bc9e5bbf
AC
3075* New MI interface
3076
3077A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
3078interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
7162c0ca
EZ
3079process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
3080"GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
3081enabled by configuring with:
bc9e5bbf
AC
3082
3083 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
3084
c906108c
SS
3085*** Changes in GDB-4.18:
3086
3087* New native configurations
3088
3089HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
3090HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
55241689 3091M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
c906108c
SS
3092
3093* New targets
3094
3095Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
3096Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
3097Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
3098
3099* OBSOLETE configurations
3100
3101Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
3102
3103Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
3104but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
3105these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
3106be permanently REMOVED.
3107
3108* ANSI/ISO C
3109
3110As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
3111buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
3112containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
3113use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
3114available. If this is not true, please report the affected
3115configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
3116information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
3117already.
3118
3119* Readline 2.2
3120
3121GDB now uses readline 2.2.
3122
3123* set extension-language
3124
3125You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
3126languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
3127you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
3128 set extension-language .c c++
3129The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
3130and their associated languages.
3131
3132* Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
3133
3134When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
3135you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
3136PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
3137
3138 set processor NAME
3139
3140sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
3141following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
3142
3143 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
3144 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
3145 403 IBM PowerPC 403
3146 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
3147 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
3148 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
3149 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
3150 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
3151 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
3152 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
3153 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
3154
3155At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
3156special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
3157registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
3158only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
3159
3160* HP-UX support
3161
3162Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
3163more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
3164library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
3165support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
3166for xdb and dbx commands.
3167
3168* Catchpoints
3169
3170HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
3171generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
3172to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
3173
3174This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
3175argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
3176output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
3177
3178* Debugging across forks
3179
3180On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
3181in the inferior.
3182
3183* TUI
3184
3185HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
3186it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
3187configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
3188
3189* GDB remote protocol additions
3190
3191A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
3192Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
3193fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
3194allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
3195
3196For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
3197full 64-bit address. The command
3198
3199 set remoteaddresssize 32
3200
3201can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
3202the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
3203will be discarded.
3204
3205In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
3206command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
3207
3208 maint packet heythere
3209
3210sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
3211disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
3212time.
3213
3214The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
3215target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
3216downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
3217
3218* Tracing can collect general expressions
3219
3220You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
3221further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
3222doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
3223
3224* mask-address variable for Mips
3225
3226For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
3227a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
3228of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
3229
3230* Higher serial baud rates
3231
3232GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
3233230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
3234to achieve all of these rates.)
3235
3236* i960 simulator
3237
3238The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
3239builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
3240
3241
3242*** Changes in GDB-4.17:
3243
3244* New native configurations
3245
3246Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
3247Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
3248Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
3249PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
3250PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
3251Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
3252Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
3253
3254* New targets
3255
3256Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
3257Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
3258Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
3259Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
3260MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
3261MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
3262MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
3263Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
3264Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
3265Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
3266NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
3267
3268* New debugging protocols
3269
3270ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
3271M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
3272DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
3273PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
3274PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
3275Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
3276
3277* DWARF 2
3278
3279All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
3280format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
3281information.
3282
3283* Java frontend
3284
3285GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
3286only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
3287
3288* solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
3289
3290For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
3291loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
3292locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
3293
3294* Live range splitting
3295
3296GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
3297range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
3298more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
3299
3300* Hurd support
3301
3302GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
3303updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
3304
3305* ARM Thumb support
3306
3307GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
3308instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
3309instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
3310accordingly.
3311
3312* MIPS16 support
3313
3314GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
3315instruction set.
3316
3317* Overlay support
3318
3319GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
3320linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
3321will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
3322control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
3323additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
3324in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
3325
3326* info symbol
3327
3328The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
3329the symbol at the specified address.
3330
3331* Trace support
3332
3333The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
3334asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
3335extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
3336includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
3337file tracepoint.c for more details.
3338
3339* MIPS simulator
3340
3341Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
3342by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
3343of most MIPS variants.
3344
3345* Sparc simulator
3346
3347Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
3348by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
3349Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
3350
3351* set architecture
3352
3353For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
3354basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
3355architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
3356the possible architectures.
3357
3358*** Changes in GDB-4.16:
3359
3360* New native configurations
3361
3362Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
3363M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
3364PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
3365PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
3366PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
3367RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
3368
3369* New targets
3370
3371ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
3372I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
3373MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
3374MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
3375PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
3376Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
3377Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
3378
3379* PowerPC simulator
3380
3381The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
3382contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
3383PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
3384basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
3385performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
3386
3387* Solaris 2.5
3388
3389GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
3390
3391* Windows 95/NT native
3392
3393GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
3394To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
3395which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
3396Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
3397ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
3398
3399* dont-repeat command
3400
3401If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
3402command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
3403useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
3404extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
3405
3406* Send break instead of ^C
3407
3408The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
3409rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
3410GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
3411
3412* Remote protocol timeout
3413
3414The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
3415that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
3416to read from the target. The default value is 2.
3417
3418* Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
3419
3420By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
3421loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
3422stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
3423when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
3424in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
3425
3426Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
3427/usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
3428automatically on hpux10.
3429
3430* Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
3431
3432Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
3433
3434* Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
3435
3436When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
3437may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
3438the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
3439every character. The default value is 1050.
3440
3441* Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
3442
3443If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
3444a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
3445replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
3446details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
3447remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
3448to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
3449
3450* Speedups for remote debugging
3451
3452GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
3453the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
3454and more efficient S-record downloading.
3455
3456* Memory use reductions and statistics collection
3457
3458GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
3459Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
3460
3461*** Changes in GDB-4.15:
3462
3463* Psymtabs for XCOFF
3464
3465The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
3466can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
3467
3468* Remote targets use caching
3469
3470Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
3471remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
3472it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
3473debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
3474off' turns the the data cache off.
3475
3476* Remote targets may have threads
3477
3478The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
3479in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
3480gdb/remote.c for details.
3481
3482* NetROM support
3483
3484If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
3485support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
3486acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
3487write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
3488support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
3489another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
3490sequence is something like
3491
3492 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
3493 load <prog>
3494 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
3495
3496* Macintosh host
3497
3498GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
3499may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
3500it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
3501available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
3502device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
3503directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
3504scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
3505mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
3506
3507* Autoconf
3508
3509GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
3510but does simplify configuration and building.
3511
3512* hpux10
3513
3514GDB now supports hpux10.
3515
3516*** Changes in GDB-4.14:
3517
3518* New native configurations
3519
3520x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
3521x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
3522NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
3523Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
3524
3525* New targets
3526
3527A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
3528HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
3529CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
3530PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
3531WDC 65816 w65-*-*
3532
3533* Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
3534
3535GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
3536possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
3537filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
3538the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
3539if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
3540
3541* Arguments to user-defined commands
3542
3543User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
3544Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
3545trivial example:
3546define adder
3547 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
3548
3549To execute the command use:
3550adder 1 2 3
3551
3552Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
3553Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
3554use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
3555
3556* New `if' and `while' commands
3557
3558This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
3559commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
3560expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
3561execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
3562terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
3563`else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
3564if the expression is zero.
3565
3566* Fortran source language mode
3567
3568GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
3569Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
3570variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
3571with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
3572Fortran compilers.
3573
3574* Better HPUX support
3575
3576Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
3577running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
3578processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
3579for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
3580that behavior do the following before running the program:
3581
3582 adb -w a.out
3583 __dld_flags?W 0x5
3584 control-d
3585
3586This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
3587To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
3588
3589 adb -w a.out
3590 __dld_flags?W 0x4
3591 control-d
3592
3593You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
3594the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
3595external linkage.
3596
3597GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
3598HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
3599
3600* Target byte order now dynamically selectable
3601
3602You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
3603commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
3604current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
3605"set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
3606associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
3607configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
3608
3609* New DOS host serial code
3610
3611This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
3612no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
3613a PC's serial port.
3614
3615*** Changes in GDB-4.13:
3616
3617* New "complete" command
3618
3619This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
3620were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
3621
3622* Trailing space optional in prompt
3623
3624"set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
3625allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
3626
3627* Breakpoint hit counts
3628
3629"info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
3630has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
3631can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
3632to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
3633less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
3634that breakpoint.
3635
3636* Ability to stop printing at NULL character
3637
3638"set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
3639an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
3640arrays actually contain only short strings.
3641
3642* Shared library breakpoints
3643
3644In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
3645breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
3646
3647* Hardware watchpoints
3648
3649There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
3650targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
3651
55241689 3652Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
c906108c
SS
3653
3654* Annotations
3655
3656Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
3657and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
3658
3659* Improved Irix 5 support
3660
3661GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
3662
3663* Improved HPPA support
3664
3665GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
3666
3667* New native configurations
3668
3669Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
3670HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
3671Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
3672RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
3673
3674* New targets
3675
3676OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
3677MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
3678Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
3679
3680* Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
3681
3682There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
3683This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
3684
3685* Fixes
3686
3687As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
3688and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
3689
3690*** Changes in GDB-4.12:
3691
3692* Irix 5 is now supported
3693
3694* HPPA support
3695
3696GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
3697to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
3698GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
3699of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
3700can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
3701
3702
3703*** Changes in GDB-4.11:
3704
3705* User visible changes:
3706
3707* Remote Debugging
3708
3709The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
3710target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
3711debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
3712integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
3713debugging info for the mips target).
3714
3715* DEC Alpha native support
3716
3717GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
3718debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
3719work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
3720Alpha-specific notes.
3721
3722* Preliminary thread implementation
3723
3724GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
3725
3726* LynxOS native and target support for 386
3727
3728This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
3729to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
3730for details).
3731
3732* Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
3733
3734This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
3735mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
3736call methods, ...etc.
3737
3738*** Changes in GDB-4.10:
3739
3740 * User visible changes:
3741
3742Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
3743supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
3744other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
3745somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
3746
3747Filename completion now works.
3748
3749When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
3750arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
3751addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
3752
3753All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
3754vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
3755should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
3756your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
3757to be on the far side of a thin network line.
3758
3759 * DEC alpha support
3760
3761This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
3762cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
3763
3764
3765*** Changes in GDB-4.9:
3766
3767 * Testsuite
3768
3769This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
3770The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
3771via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
3772
3773 * C++ demangling
3774
3775'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
3776emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
3777Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
3778disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
3779use gdb with AT&T cfront.
3780
3781 * Simulators
3782
3783GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
3784So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
3785Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
3786
3787 * New targets supported
3788
3789H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
3790H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
3791SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
3792Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
3793IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
3794
3795Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
3796version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
3797GO32 memory extender.
3798
3799 * New remote protocols
3800
3801MIPS remote debugging protocol.
3802
3803 * New source languages supported
3804
3805This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
3806used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
3807into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
3808
3809
3810*** Changes in GDB-4.8:
3811
3812 * HP Precision Architecture supported
3813
3814GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
3815version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
3816University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
3817compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
3818format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
3819(as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
3820
3821Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
3822
3823 * Faster and better demangling
3824
3825We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
3826demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
3827character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
3828only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
3829This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
3830increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
3831symbol lookups.
3832
3833`Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
3834from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
3835compiler does not actually implement.
3836
3837 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
3838
3839In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
3840inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
3841recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
3842very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
3843The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
3844circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
3845fix.
3846
3847The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
3848release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
3849
3850 * Improved configure script
3851
3852The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
3853you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
3854host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
3855done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
3856
3857We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
3858version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
3859`--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
3860The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
3861only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
3862We hope to make this the default in a future release.
3863
3864 * Documentation improvements
3865
3866There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
3867produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
3868before submitting changes.
3869
3870The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
3871M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
3872`info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
3873you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
3874a future texinfo-X.Y release.
3875
3876*NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
3877We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
3878been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
3879or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
3880`texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
3881around this problem.
3882
3883 * New features
3884
3885GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
3886the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
3887`print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
3888the target program.
3889
3890The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
3891how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
3892
3893 * New native hosts supported
3894
3895HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
3896386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
3897
3898 * New targets supported
3899
3900AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
3901
3902 * New file formats supported
3903
3904BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
3905HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
3906
3907 * Major bug fixes
3908
3909Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
3910
3911We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
3912printf_filtered("%s") problems.
3913
3914We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
3915for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
3916release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
3917
3918You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
3919will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
3920
3921We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
3922for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
3923especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
3924libraries.
3925
3926The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
3927information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
3928command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
3929any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
3930when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
3931
3932 * Internal improvements
3933
3934GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
3935debugging of multiple languages in the future.
3936
3937GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
3938Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
3939symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
3940contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
3941shared code that handles any of them.
3942
3943 * New command line options
3944
3945We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
3946
3947 * Mmalloc licensing
3948
3949The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
3950General Public License.
3951
3952*** Changes in GDB-4.7:
3953
3954 * Host/native/target split
3955
3956GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
3957hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
3958target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
3959local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
3960ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
3961
3962The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
3963GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
3964is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
3965code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
3966any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
3967built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
3968handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
3969
3970GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
3971It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
3972plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
3973
3974 * New hosts supported
3975
3976HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
3977386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
3978386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
3979
3980 * New targets supported
3981
3982Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
398368030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
3984
3985 * New native hosts supported
3986
3987386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
3988 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
3989386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
3990
3991 * New file formats supported
3992
3993BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
3994supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
3995format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
3996
3997 * New commands
3998
3999`show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
4000`show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
4001These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
4002
4003`info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
4004
4005You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
4006scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
4007prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
4008executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
4009
4010 * C++ improvements
4011
4012We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
4013info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
4014symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
4015
4016Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
4017
4018 * Major bug fixes
4019
4020The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
4021fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
4022by the compiler.
4023
4024We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
4025support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
4026
4027John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
4028slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
4029that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
4030purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
4031the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
4032mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
4033
4034Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
4035about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
4036completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
4037we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
4038
4039 * AMD 29k support
4040
4041A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
4042specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
4043calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
4044usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
4045in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
4046
4047We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
4048Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
4049of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
4050resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
4051
4052 * Remote interfaces
4053
4054We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
4055with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
4056message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
4057This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
4058needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
4059breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
4060each instruction being stepped through.
4061
4062The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
4063registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
4064
4065There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
4066find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
4067Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
4068processor with a serial port.
4069
4070 * Configuration
4071
4072Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
4073`table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
4074supported, and what files each one uses.
4075
4076 * Library changes
4077
4078There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
4079disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
4080Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
4081disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
4082
4083The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
4084Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
4085can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
4086grants all the rights from the General Public License.
4087
4088 * Documentation
4089
4090The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
4091reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
4092as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
4093encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
4094system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
4095bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
4096
4097And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
4098
4099
4100*** Changes in GDB-4.6:
4101
4102 * Better support for C++ function names
4103
4104GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
4105names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
4106(using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
4107single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
4108Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
4109
4110GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
4111the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
4112You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
4113lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
4114for the list of formats.
4115
4116 * G++ symbol mangling problem
4117
4118Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
4119C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
4120directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
4121can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
4122usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
4123about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
4124this problem.)
4125
4126 * New 'maintenance' command
4127
4128All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
4129the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
4130can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
4131
4132 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
4133 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
4134 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
4135 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
4136 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
4137 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
4138
4139The following commands are new:
4140
4141 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
4142 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
4143 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
4144
4145 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
4146
4147We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
4148(e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
4149be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
4150read after argv processing.
4151
4152 * New hosts supported
4153
4154Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
4155
55241689 4156GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
c906108c
SS
4157
4158We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
4159is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
4160for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
4161masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
4162fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
4163It costs extra.
4164
4165 * New targets supported
4166
4167Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
4168
4169 * More smarts about finding #include files
4170
4171GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
4172all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
4173greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
4174especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
4175the one that contains your sources.
4176
4177We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
4178breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
4179try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
4180
4181 * Interesting infernals change
4182
4183GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
4184section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
4185target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
4186stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
4187
4188 * Bug fixes (of course!)
4189
4190There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
4191 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
4192 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
4193
4194See the ChangeLog for details.
4195
4196*** Changes in GDB-4.5:
4197
4198 * New machines supported (host and target)
4199
4200IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
4201
4202SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
4203
4204 * New malloc package
4205
4206GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
4207Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
4208capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
4209This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
4210pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
4211more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
4212
4213 * info proc
4214
4215The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
4216'help info proc' for details.
4217
4218 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
4219
4220The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
4221Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
4222possible.
4223
4224 * File name changes for MS-DOS
4225
4226Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
4227support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
4228conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
4229environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
4230that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
4231in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
4232
4233 * Cross byte order fixes
4234
4235Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
4236targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
4237
4238 * New -mapped and -readnow options
4239
4240If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
4241system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
4242`symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
4243program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
4244called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
4245Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
4246and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
4247the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
4248option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
4249starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
4250
4251You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
4252the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
4253information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
4254slower, but makes future operations faster.
4255
4256The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
4257build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
4258A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
4259use is:
4260
4261 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
4262
4263The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
4264It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
4265shared across multiple host platforms.
4266
4267 * longjmp() handling
4268
4269GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
4270siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
4271all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
4272platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
4273
4274 * Solaris 2.0
4275
4276Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
4277this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
4278reading symbols.
4279
4280 * Bug fixes
4281
4282As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
4283People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
4284crashes and trashed symbol tables.
4285
4286*** Changes in GDB-4.4:
4287
4288 * New machines supported (host and target)
4289
4290SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
4291 (except core files)
4292BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
4293Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
4294
4295 * New machines supported (target)
4296
4297AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
4298
4299 * C++ support
4300
4301GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
4302The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
4303per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
4304
4305GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
4306`ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
4307extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
4308good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
4309will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
4310released.
4311
4312 * New features for SVR4
4313
4314GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
4315shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
4316only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
4317
4318The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
4319on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
4320it prints the address mappings of the process.
4321
4322If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
4323bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
4324
4325 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
4326
4327Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
4328now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
4329skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
4330make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
4331same code linked statically.
4332
4333 * New Getopt
4334
4335GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
4336version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
4337continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
4338Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
4339added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
4340future by other options that begin with the same letter.
4341
4342 * Bugs fixed
4343
4344The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
4345Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
4346See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
4347
4348
4349*** Changes in GDB-4.3:
4350
4351 * New machines supported (host and target)
4352
4353Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
4354NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
4355Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
4356
4357 * Almost SCO Unix support
4358
4359We had hoped to support:
4360SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
4361(except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
4362that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
4363about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
4364
4365 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
4366
4367GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
4368debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
4369is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
4370send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
4371reqired (if any).
4372
4373 * New Readline
4374
4375GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
4376is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
4377required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
4378
4379 * Bugs fixed
4380
4381The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
4382Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
4383See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
4384
4385 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
4386
4387GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
4388supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
4389symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
4390
4391Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
4392mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
4393debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
4394mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
4395version 2.
4396
4397Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
4398really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
4399line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
4400variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
4401situation somewhat.
4402
4403When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
4404However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
4405methods.
4406
4407We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
4408DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
4409encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
4410
4411
4412*** Changes in GDB-4.2:
4413
4414 * Improved configuration
4415
4416Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
4417Porting BFD is simpler.
4418
4419 * Stepping improved
4420
4421The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
4422of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
4423in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
4424function that has debugging information is called within the line.
4425
4426 * Bug fixing
4427
4428Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
4429
4430 * New host supported (not target)
4431
4432Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
4433
4434
4435*** Changes in GDB-4.1:
4436
4437 * Multiple source language support
4438
4439GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
4440It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
4441and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
4442language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
4443You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
4444`set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
4445
4446 * GDB and Modula-2
4447
4448GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
4449currently under development at the State University of New York at
4450Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
4451continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
4452
4453Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
4454debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
4455symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
4456
4457There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
4458in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
4459
4460 * set write on/off
4461
4462GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
4463a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
4464the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
4465by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
4466effect immediately.
4467
4468 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
4469
4470When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
4471shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
4472The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
4473examining core files.
4474
4475 * set listsize
4476
4477You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
4478The default is 10.
4479
4480 * New machines supported (host and target)
4481
4482SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
4483Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
4484Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
4485
4486 * New hosts supported (not targets)
4487
4488IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
4489
4490 * New targets supported (not hosts)
4491
4492AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
4493AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
4494Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
4495
4496 * New remote interfaces
4497
4498AMD 29000 Adapt
4499AMD 29000 Minimon
4500
4501
4502*** Changes in GDB-4.0:
4503
4504 * New Facilities
4505
4506Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
4507
4508Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
4509target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
4510is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
4511remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
4512remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
4513also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
4514using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
4515stub on the target system.
4516
4517New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
4518
4519GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
4520library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
4521object file types such as a.out and coff.
4522
4523There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
4524refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
4525
4526
4527 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
4528
4529All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
4530by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
4531
4532For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
4533``Show prompt'' produces the response:
4534Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
4535
4536What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
4537print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
4538will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
4539all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
4540
4541confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
4542 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
4543 it is already running. Default is ON.
4544
4545editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
4546 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
4547 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
4548 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
4549 Default is ON.
4550
4551history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
4552 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
4553 or the value of the environment variable
4554 GDBHISTFILE.
4555
4556history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
4557 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
4558 HISTSIZE.
4559
4560history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
4561 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
4562 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
4563
4564history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
4565 history expansion will be performed on
4566 command line input. The default is OFF.
4567
4568radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
4569 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
4570 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
4571
4572height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
4573 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
4574 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
4575 variable TERM.
4576
4577width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
4578 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
4579 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
4580 variable TERM.
4581
4582Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
4583``set width'' instead.
4584
4585print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
4586 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
4587 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
4588 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
4589
4590print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
4591 is OFF.
4592
4593print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
4594 "raw" form if off.
4595
4596print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
4597 like instructions.
4598
4599print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
4600
4601
4602 * Support for Epoch Environment.
4603
4604The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
4605new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
4606are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
4607window.
4608
4609
4610 * Support for Shared Libraries
4611
4612GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
4613Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
4614before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
4615happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
4616At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
4617from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
4618shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
4619It can be abbreviated ``share''.
4620
4621sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
4622 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
4623 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
4624
4625info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
4626
4627
4628 * Watchpoints
4629
4630A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
4631expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
4632tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
4633quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
4634problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
4635more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
4636
4637watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
4638
4639info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
4640
4641delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
4642disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
4643enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
4644
4645
4646 * C++ multiple inheritance
4647
4648When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
4649for C++ programs.
4650
4651 * C++ exception handling
4652
4653Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
4654ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
4655the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
4656handler's context).
4657
4658catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
4659 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
4660 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
4661
4662info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
4663 current stack frame.
4664
4665
4666 * Minor command changes
4667
4668The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
4669command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
4670is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
4671
4672The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
4673at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
4674frames without printing.
4675
4676 * New directory command
4677
4678'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
4679The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
4680about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
4681with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
4682find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
4683
4684 * Configuring GDB for compilation
4685
4686For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
4687for more details.
4688
4689GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
4690two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
4691Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
4692where the program that you are debugging will run.
This page took 0.930123 seconds and 4 git commands to generate.