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[deliverable/binutils-gdb.git] / gdb / NEWS
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1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
3
e374b601
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4*** Changes since GDB 6.5
5
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6* New targets
7
8Xtensa xtensa-elf
9
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10* GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
11(mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
12running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
13
14* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
15Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
16supported.
17
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18* The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
19broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
20
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21* Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
22longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
23
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24* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
25frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
26
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27* New commands
28
29set substitute-path
30unset substitute-path
31show substitute-path
32 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
33 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
34 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
35 between compilation and debugging.
36
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37set trace-commands
38show trace-commands
39 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
40 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
41 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
42
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43* REMOVED features
44
45The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
46
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47Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
48an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
49
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50The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
51
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52* New remote packets
53
54qSupported:
55 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
56 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
57 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
58 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
59 target.
60
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61qXfer:auxv:read:
62 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
63 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
64
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65QPassSignals:
66 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
67 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
68
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69* Removed remote packets
70
71qPart:auxv:read:
72 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
73 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
74
e374b601 75*** Changes in GDB 6.5
53e5f3cf 76
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77* New targets
78
79Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
80
81Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
82
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83* New commands
84
85init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
86 only if it doesn't already have a value.
87
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88The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
89
90checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
91
92restart <n> Return the program state to a
93 previously saved state.
94
95info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
96
97delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
98
99set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
100 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
101
102info forks List forks of the user program that
103 are available to be debugged.
104
105fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
106 forks of the user program that are
107 available to be debugged.
108
109delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
110 that are available to be debugged (and
111 kill the forked process).
112
113detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
114 that are available to be debugged (and
115 allow the process to continue).
116
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117* New architecture
118
119Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
120
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121* Improved Windows host support
122
123GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
124native console support, and remote communications using either
125network sockets or serial ports.
126
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127* Improved Modula-2 language support
128
129GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
130basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
131pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
132printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
133written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
134GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
135
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136* REMOVED features
137
138The ARM rdi-share module.
139
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140The Netware NLM debug server.
141
53e5f3cf 142*** Changes in GDB 6.4
156a53ca 143
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144* New native configurations
145
02a677ac 146OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
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147OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
148
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149* New targets
150
151Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
152
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153* New command line options
154
155--batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
156--return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
157 the child (debugged) program exited with.
158--eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
159 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
160 specified multiple times and in conjunction
161 with the --command (-x) option.
162
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163* Deprecated commands removed
164
165The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
166removed:
167
168 Command Replacement
169 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
170 othernames set arm disassembler
171 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
172 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
173 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
174 regs info registers
175
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176* New BSD user-level threads support
177
178It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
179library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
180configurations are:
181
182FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
183FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
184OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
185
186Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
187are not yet supported.
188
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189* New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
190(Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
191
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192* REMOVED configurations and files
193
194VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
9445aa30 195Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
9445aa30 196National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
156a53ca 197
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198* New "set print array-indexes" command
199
200After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
201when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
202behavior.
203
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204* VAX floating point support
205
206GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
207
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208* User-defined command support
209
210In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
211to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
212section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
213
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214*** Changes in GDB 6.3:
215
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216* New command line option
217
218GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
219debugging.
220
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221* GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
222
223GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
224information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
225by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
226proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
227to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
860660cb 228
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229* Internationalization
230
231When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
232internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
233continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
234
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235* Ada
236
237Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
238implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
239into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
240
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241* New native configurations
242
243GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
244
245* Remote 'p' packet
246
247GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
248packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
249
250* END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
251
252GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
253The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
254features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
255i386 application).
256
257GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
258compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
259continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
260configurations:
261
262hppa-*-hpux
263ia64-*-aix
264mips-*-irix*
265*-*-lynx
266mips-*-linux-gnu
267sds protocol
268xdr protocol
269powerpc bdm protocol
270
271Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
272made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
273
274* OBSOLETE configurations and files
275
276Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
277been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
278configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
279permanently REMOVED.
280
281h8300-*-*
282mcore-*-*
283mn10300-*-*
284ns32k-*-*
285sh64-*-*
286v850-*-*
287
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288*** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
289
290* MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
291
292When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
293heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
294been fixed.
295
296* MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
297
298When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
299fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
300IRIX long double values).
301
302* VAX and "next"
303
304A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
305command. This problem has been fixed.
306
860660cb 307*** Changes in GDB 6.2:
faae5abe 308
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309* Fix for ``many threads''
310
311On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
312rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
313error message:
314
315 ptrace: No such process.
316 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
317
318This problem has been fixed.
319
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320* "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
321
322Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
323GDB to dump core).
324
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325* New ``start'' command.
326
327This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
328
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329* New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
330
331Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
332live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
333platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
334
335FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
336FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
337NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
338NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
339NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
340OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
341OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
342OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
343OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
344
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345* Signal trampoline code overhauled
346
347Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
348These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
349of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
350call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
351signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
352
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353Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
354features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
355include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
3c0b7db2 356
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357* Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
358
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359* New native configurations
360
97dc871c 361GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
0e56aeaf 362OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
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363OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
364OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
d195bc9f 365OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 366NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
9f076e7a 367OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 368
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369* END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
370
371GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
372The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
373including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
374migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
375compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
376work, was also included.
377
378GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
379module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
380
381h8300-*-*
382mcore-*-*
383mn10300-*-*
384ns32k-*-*
385sh64-*-*
386v850-*-*
387xstormy16-*-*
388
389Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
390made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
391
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392* REMOVED configurations and files
393
394Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
395Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
396Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
397Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
398Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
399AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
400Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
401decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
402riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
403sonymips mips-sony-*
404sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
405
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406*** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
407
408* TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
409
410The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
411GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
412command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
413program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
414with GDB".
415
416* Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
417
418Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
419libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
420cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
421GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
422shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
423the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
424are created.
425
426Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
427
428* Fixed ISO-C build problems
429
430The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
431non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
432compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
433
434* Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
435
436Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
437wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
438
439* Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
440
441The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
442permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
443systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
444
445* Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
446
447Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
448has been updated to use constant array sizes.
449
450* Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
451
452GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
453its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
454panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
455
456* Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
457
458When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
459by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
460not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
461
faae5abe 462*** Changes in GDB 6.1:
f2c06f52 463
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464* Removed --with-mmalloc
465
466Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
467conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
468
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469* Changes in AMD64 configurations
470
471The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
472the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
473and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
474you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
475
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476* Revised SPARC target
477
478The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
479FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
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480support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
481from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
482(Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
f0424ef6 483
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484* New C++ demangler
485
486GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
487names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
488with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
489programs.
490
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491* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
492
493GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
494arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
495encountered these.
496
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497* C++ nested types and namespaces
498
499GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
500improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
501is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
502Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
503namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
504"Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
505frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
506if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
507GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
508
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509* New native configurations
510
511NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
27d1e716 512OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
2031c21a 513OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
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514OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
515OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
cced5e27 516
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517* New debugging protocols
518
519M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
520
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521* "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
522
523The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
524and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
525tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
526
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527* OBSOLETE configurations and files
528
529Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
530been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
531configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
532permanently REMOVED.
533
534Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
535Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
536Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
537Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
538Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
539AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
540Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
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541decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
542riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
543sonymips mips-sony-*
544sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
5994185b 545
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546* REMOVED configurations and files
547
548SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
549SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
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550Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
551Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
552H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
553HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
554HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
555HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
556PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
cf7c5c23 557386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
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558Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
559 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
560 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
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561SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
562SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
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563Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
564Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
0ddabb4c 565
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566*** Changes in GDB 6.0:
567
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568* Objective-C
569
570Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
571integrated into GDB.
572
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573* New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
574
575DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
576information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
577By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
578backtraces.
579
580The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
581have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
582DWARF 2 CFI support.
583
584* Hosted file I/O.
585
586GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
587file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
588remote protocol documentation for details.
589
590* All targets using the new architecture framework.
591
592All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
593architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
594to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
595ppc32 on ppc64).
596
597* GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
598
599GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
600per-thread variables.
601
602* GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
603
604GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
605GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
606
607* Separate debug info.
608
609GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
610automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
611of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
612system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
613and optional debug files.
614
615* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
616
617DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
618describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
619debugger.
620
621GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
622for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
623
624* Java
625
626A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
627Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
628considered "useable".
629
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630* GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
631
632The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
633commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
634kernel.
635
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636* GDB supports logging output to a file
637
638There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
639used to capture GDB's output to a file.
f2c06f52 640
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641* The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
642
643The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
644disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
645command.
646
e286caf2 647* d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
5f601589
AC
648
649The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
650registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
651
d28f9cdf
DJ
652* Profiling support
653
654A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
655be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
656session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
657"--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
658data, for more informative profiling results.
659
da0f9dcd
AC
660* Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
661
662The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
663option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
b68767c1 664"mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
da0f9dcd
AC
665
666Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
667removed.
668
fb9b6b35
JJ
669Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
670Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
671Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
672 in a subsequent -var-update.
673
954a4db8
MK
674* New native configurations.
675
676FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
677
6760f9e6
JB
678* Multi-arched targets.
679
b4263afa 680HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
85a453d5 681Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
6760f9e6 682
1b831c93
AC
683* OBSOLETE configurations and files
684
685Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
686been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
687configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
688permanently REMOVED.
689
8b0e5691 690Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
67f16606 691Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
fd2299bd 692H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
56056df7
AC
693HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
694HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
695HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
78c43945 696PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
2fbce691
AC
697Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
698 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
699 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
f81824a9
AC
700Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
701Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
fd2299bd 702
5835abe7
NC
703* REMOVED configurations and files
704
705V850EA ISA
1b831c93
AC
706Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
707IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
708i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
709i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
710i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
711HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
712 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
713 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
714Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
715Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
716Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
717OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
718I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
5835abe7 719
a094c6fb
AC
720* MIPS $fp behavior changed
721
722The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
723the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
724context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
725address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
726The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
727
299ffc64 728*** Changes in GDB 5.3:
37057839 729
46248966
AC
730* GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
731
732When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
733`/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
734in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
735library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
736shared libs like mad''.
737
b9d14705 738* ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
6da02953 739
b9d14705
DJ
740Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
741the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
742arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
743powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
6da02953 744
e0e9281e
JB
745* GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
746
747GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
748and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
749they expand.
750
dd73b9bb
AC
751The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
752invocations in expression, and shows the result.
753
754The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
755macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
756
e0e9281e
JB
757Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
758information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
759your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
760information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
761
2250ee0c
CV
762* Multi-arched targets.
763
6e3ba3b8
JT
764DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
765DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
2250ee0c 766NEC V850 v850-*-*
6e3ba3b8 767National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
a1789893
GS
768Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
769Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
2250ee0c 770
cd9bfe15 771* New targets.
e33ce519 772
456f8b9d
DB
773Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
774
e33ce519 775
da8ca43d
JT
776* New native configurations
777
778Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
029923d4 779SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
45888261 780MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
9ce5c36a 781UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
da8ca43d 782
cd9bfe15
AC
783* OBSOLETE configurations and files
784
785Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
786been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
787configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
788permanently REMOVED.
789
92eb23c5 790Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
a99a9e1b 791OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1c7cc583 792IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
7a3085c1 793Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
7fb623f7 794Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
eb4c54a2 795Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
d8ee244c
MK
796i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
797i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
798i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
822e978b
AC
799HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
800 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
801 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
4d210288 802I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
92eb23c5 803
db034ac5
AC
804* OBSOLETE languages
805
806CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
807
cd9bfe15
AC
808* REMOVED configurations and files
809
810AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
811A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
812AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
813AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
814AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
815
816testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
817
20f01a46
DH
818* New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
819
820This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
821commands. The default is 1024.
822
a5941fbf
MK
823* Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
824
825Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
826
89743e04
MS
827* New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
828
829These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
830to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
831from a file into memory (restore).
37057839 832
9fb14e79
JB
833* Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
834
835The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
836including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
837of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
838
2037aebb
AC
839*** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
840
841* New targets.
842
843Atmel AVR avr*-*-*
844
845* Bug fixes
846
847gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
848mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
849Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
850
851gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
852dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
853Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
854
855Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
856Surprisingly enough, it works now.
857By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
858
859i386 hardware watchpoint support:
860avoid misses on second run for some targets.
861By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
862
37057839 863*** Changes in GDB 5.2:
eb7cedd9 864
1a703748
MS
865* New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
866
867This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
868really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
869In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
870target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
871This can be a significant performance improvement on some
872(notably embedded) targets.
873
cefd4ef5
MS
874* New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
875
55241689
AC
876This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
877process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
878GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
879hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
cefd4ef5 880
352ed7b4
MS
881* New command line option
882
883GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
884
885* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
886
887There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
888command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
889a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
890be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
891open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
892issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
893a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
894it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
895GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
896is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
897
fe419ffc
RE
898* Changes in ARM configurations.
899
900Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
901configuration is fully multi-arch.
902
eb7cedd9
MK
903* New native configurations
904
fe419ffc 905ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
eb7cedd9 906x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
55241689 907AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
768f0842 908Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
eb7cedd9 909
c9f63e6b
CV
910* New targets
911
912Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
913
9b4ff276
AC
914* OBSOLETE configurations and files
915
916Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
917been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
918configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
919permanently REMOVED.
920
921AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
922A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
923AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
924AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
925AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
926
b4ceaee6 927testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
9b4ff276 928
e2caac18
AC
929* REMOVED configurations and files
930
931TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
7bc65f05 932WDC 65816 w65-*-*
7768dd6c
AC
933PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
934PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
935PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
5e734e1f 936Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1406caf7
AC
937Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
938 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
7e24f0b1 939SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
9b567150 940Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
3680c638
AC
941Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
942ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
a752853e 943Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
e2caac18 944
c2a727fa
TT
945* Changes to command line processing
946
947The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
948for the inferior from gdb's command line.
949
467d8519
TT
950* Changes to key bindings
951
952There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
953
7072a954
AC
954*** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
955
956Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
957
958Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
959corrupted.
960
961Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
962
963Numerous documentation fixes.
964
965Numerous testsuite fixes.
966
34f47bc4 967*** Changes in GDB 5.1:
139760b7
MK
968
969* New native configurations
970
971Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
972x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
55241689 973MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
e23194cb
EZ
974MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
975ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
55241689 976s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
139760b7 977
bf64bfd6
AC
978* New targets
979
def90278 980Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
24be5c34 981CRIS cris-axis
55241689 982UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
def90278 983
17e78a56 984* OBSOLETE configurations and files
bf64bfd6
AC
985
986x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
9b9c068d 987Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
bb19ff3b
AC
988Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
989 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
76f4ea53
AC
990TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
991WDC 65816 w65-*-*
4a1968f4 992Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1b2b2c16
AC
993PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
994PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
995PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
24f89b68 996SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
514e603d
AC
997Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
998ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
d036b4d9 999Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
bf64bfd6 1000
17e78a56
AC
1001stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
1002kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
1003
7fcca85b
AC
1004Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1005been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1006configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1007permanently REMOVED.
1008
a196c81c 1009* REMOVED configurations and files
7fcca85b
AC
1010
1011Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
1012Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
1013Pyramid pyramid-*-*
1014ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
1015Tahoe tahoe-*-*
a196c81c 1016ser-ocd.c *-*-*
bf64bfd6 1017
6d6b80e5 1018* GDB has been converted to ISO C.
e23194cb 1019
6d6b80e5 1020GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
e23194cb
EZ
1021sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
1022present.
1023
bf64bfd6
AC
1024* Other news:
1025
e23194cb
EZ
1026* "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
1027
1028* The MI enabled by default.
1029
1030The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
1031revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
1032engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
1033using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
1034which is now deprecated.
1035
1036* Support for debugging Pascal programs.
1037
1038GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
1039main features are supported:
1040
1041 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
1042
1043 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
1044 extension;
1045
1046 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
1047
1048 - a Pascal expression parser.
1049
1050However, some important features are not yet supported.
1051
1052 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
1053
1054 - there are some problems with boolean types;
1055
1056 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
1057 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
1058
1059 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
1060
1061 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
1062
1063* Changes in completion.
1064
1065Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
1066to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
1067users expect at the shell prompt.
1068
1069Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
1070`breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
1071program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
1072files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
1073be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
1074considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
1075name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
1076
1077`set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
1078
1079* New platform-independent commands:
1080
1081It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
1082hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
1083documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
1084
1085* Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
1086
d7275149
MK
1087Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
1088revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
1089many threads as your system allows you to have.
1090
e23194cb
EZ
1091Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
1092
d7275149
MK
1093Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
1094multi-threaded programs though.
e23194cb
EZ
1095
1096* Changes in MIPS configurations.
bf64bfd6
AC
1097
1098Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
1099
e23194cb
EZ
1100GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
1101debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
1102supported.)
1103
1104* Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
1105
1106Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
1107breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
1108implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
1109put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
1110and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
1111registers.
1112
1113The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
1114debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
1115watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
1116
1117* Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
1118
1119New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
1120the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
1121
1122New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
1123display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
1124IDT.
1125
1126New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
1127from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
1128New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
1129a given linear address.
1130
1131GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
1132program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
1133which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
1134
1135DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
1136
6c56c069
EZ
1137It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
1138
e23194cb
EZ
1139* Changes in documentation.
1140
1141All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
1142Documentation License.
1143
1144Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1145manual.
1146
1147TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
1148
1149Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1150manual.
1151
1152The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
1153documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
1154hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
1155
5d6640b1
AC
1156* GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
1157
1158The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
1159``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
1160contents of this file.
1161
1a1d8446
AC
1162* gdba.el deleted
1163
1164GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
139760b7 1165
9debab2f 1166*** Changes in GDB 5.0:
7a292a7a 1167
c63ce875
EZ
1168* Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
1169
1170Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
1171programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
1172displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
1173greater level of detail.
1174
1175* Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
1176
1177It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
1178bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
1179on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
1180written.
1181
1182* Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
1183
1184The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
1185necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
1186machines ``out of the box''.
1187
1188The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
1189possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
1190signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
1191would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
1192interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
1193
1194It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
1195standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
1196even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
1197and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
1198terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
1199
1200The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
1201enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
1202also works.
1203
1204DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
1205GDB.
1206
1207It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
1208directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
1209times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
1210breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
1211
ed9a39eb
JM
1212* New native configurations
1213
1214ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
afc05dd4 1215PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
ed9a39eb 1216
7a292a7a
SS
1217* New targets
1218
96baa820 1219Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
adf40b2e
JM
1220x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
1221PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
7a292a7a
SS
1222TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1223
085dd6e6
JM
1224* OBSOLETE configurations
1225
1226Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
1227Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
9846de1b 1228Pyramid pyramid-*-*
ed9a39eb 1229ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
104c1213 1230Tahoe tahoe-*-*
7a292a7a 1231
9debab2f
AC
1232Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1233but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1234these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1235be permanently REMOVED.
1236
5330533d
SS
1237* Gould support removed
1238
1239Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
1240
bc9e5bbf
AC
1241* New features for SVR4
1242
1243On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
1244without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
1245load symbols from the running process's executable file.
1246
1247* Many C++ enhancements
1248
1249C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
1250in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
1251
adf40b2e
JM
1252* Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
1253
1254A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
1255sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
1256with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
1257``|<program> <args>'' vis:
1258
1259 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
1260 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
1261
43e526b9
JM
1262* MIPS 64 remote protocol
1263
1264A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
1265expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
1266instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
1267
1268The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
1269added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
1270
96baa820
JM
1271* ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
1272
1273The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
1274``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
1275include ``set remote P-packet''.
1276
11cf8741
JM
1277* Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
1278
1279The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
1280accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
1281``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
1282
7876dd43
DB
1283* ``apropos'' command added.
1284
1285The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
1286documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
1287try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
1288
bc9e5bbf
AC
1289* New MI interface
1290
1291A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
1292interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
7162c0ca
EZ
1293process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
1294"GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
1295enabled by configuring with:
bc9e5bbf
AC
1296
1297 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
1298
c906108c
SS
1299*** Changes in GDB-4.18:
1300
1301* New native configurations
1302
1303HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
1304HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
55241689 1305M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
c906108c
SS
1306
1307* New targets
1308
1309Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1310Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
1311Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1312
1313* OBSOLETE configurations
1314
1315Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
1316
1317Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1318but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1319these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1320be permanently REMOVED.
1321
1322* ANSI/ISO C
1323
1324As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
1325buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
1326containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
1327use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
1328available. If this is not true, please report the affected
1329configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
1330information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
1331already.
1332
1333* Readline 2.2
1334
1335GDB now uses readline 2.2.
1336
1337* set extension-language
1338
1339You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
1340languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
1341you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
1342 set extension-language .c c++
1343The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
1344and their associated languages.
1345
1346* Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
1347
1348When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
1349you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
1350PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
1351
1352 set processor NAME
1353
1354sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
1355following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
1356
1357 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
1358 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
1359 403 IBM PowerPC 403
1360 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
1361 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
1362 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
1363 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
1364 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
1365 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
1366 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
1367 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
1368
1369At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
1370special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
1371registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
1372only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
1373
1374* HP-UX support
1375
1376Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
1377more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
1378library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
1379support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
1380for xdb and dbx commands.
1381
1382* Catchpoints
1383
1384HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
1385generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
1386to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
1387
1388This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
1389argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
1390output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
1391
1392* Debugging across forks
1393
1394On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
1395in the inferior.
1396
1397* TUI
1398
1399HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
1400it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
1401configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
1402
1403* GDB remote protocol additions
1404
1405A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
1406Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
1407fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
1408allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
1409
1410For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
1411full 64-bit address. The command
1412
1413 set remoteaddresssize 32
1414
1415can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
1416the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
1417will be discarded.
1418
1419In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
1420command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
1421
1422 maint packet heythere
1423
1424sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
1425disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
1426time.
1427
1428The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
1429target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
1430downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
1431
1432* Tracing can collect general expressions
1433
1434You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
1435further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
1436doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
1437
1438* mask-address variable for Mips
1439
1440For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
1441a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
1442of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
1443
1444* Higher serial baud rates
1445
1446GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
1447230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
1448to achieve all of these rates.)
1449
1450* i960 simulator
1451
1452The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
1453builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
1454
1455
1456*** Changes in GDB-4.17:
1457
1458* New native configurations
1459
1460Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
1461Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
1462Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
1463PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
1464PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1465Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
1466Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
1467
1468* New targets
1469
1470Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1471Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
1472Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1473Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
1474MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
1475MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
1476MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
1477Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
1478Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
1479Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1480NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
1481
1482* New debugging protocols
1483
1484ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
1485M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
1486DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
1487PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1488PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1489Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1490
1491* DWARF 2
1492
1493All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
1494format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
1495information.
1496
1497* Java frontend
1498
1499GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
1500only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
1501
1502* solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
1503
1504For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
1505loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
1506locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
1507
1508* Live range splitting
1509
1510GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
1511range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
1512more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
1513
1514* Hurd support
1515
1516GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
1517updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
1518
1519* ARM Thumb support
1520
1521GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
1522instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
1523instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
1524accordingly.
1525
1526* MIPS16 support
1527
1528GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
1529instruction set.
1530
1531* Overlay support
1532
1533GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
1534linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
1535will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
1536control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
1537additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
1538in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
1539
1540* info symbol
1541
1542The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
1543the symbol at the specified address.
1544
1545* Trace support
1546
1547The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
1548asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
1549extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
1550includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
1551file tracepoint.c for more details.
1552
1553* MIPS simulator
1554
1555Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
1556by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
1557of most MIPS variants.
1558
1559* Sparc simulator
1560
1561Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
1562by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
1563Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
1564
1565* set architecture
1566
1567For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
1568basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
1569architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
1570the possible architectures.
1571
1572*** Changes in GDB-4.16:
1573
1574* New native configurations
1575
1576Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
1577M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
1578PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
1579PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
1580PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1581RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
1582
1583* New targets
1584
1585ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
1586I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1587MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
1588MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
1589PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
1590Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
1591Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1592
1593* PowerPC simulator
1594
1595The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
1596contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
1597PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
1598basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
1599performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
1600
1601* Solaris 2.5
1602
1603GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
1604
1605* Windows 95/NT native
1606
1607GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
1608To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
1609which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
1610Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
1611ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
1612
1613* dont-repeat command
1614
1615If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
1616command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
1617useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
1618extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
1619
1620* Send break instead of ^C
1621
1622The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
1623rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
1624GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
1625
1626* Remote protocol timeout
1627
1628The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
1629that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
1630to read from the target. The default value is 2.
1631
1632* Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
1633
1634By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
1635loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
1636stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
1637when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
1638in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
1639
1640Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
1641/usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
1642automatically on hpux10.
1643
1644* Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
1645
1646Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
1647
1648* Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
1649
1650When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
1651may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
1652the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
1653every character. The default value is 1050.
1654
1655* Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
1656
1657If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
1658a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
1659replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
1660details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
1661remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
1662to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
1663
1664* Speedups for remote debugging
1665
1666GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
1667the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
1668and more efficient S-record downloading.
1669
1670* Memory use reductions and statistics collection
1671
1672GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
1673Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
1674
1675*** Changes in GDB-4.15:
1676
1677* Psymtabs for XCOFF
1678
1679The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
1680can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
1681
1682* Remote targets use caching
1683
1684Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
1685remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
1686it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
1687debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
1688off' turns the the data cache off.
1689
1690* Remote targets may have threads
1691
1692The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
1693in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
1694gdb/remote.c for details.
1695
1696* NetROM support
1697
1698If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
1699support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
1700acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
1701write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
1702support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
1703another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
1704sequence is something like
1705
1706 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
1707 load <prog>
1708 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
1709
1710* Macintosh host
1711
1712GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
1713may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
1714it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
1715available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
1716device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
1717directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
1718scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
1719mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
1720
1721* Autoconf
1722
1723GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
1724but does simplify configuration and building.
1725
1726* hpux10
1727
1728GDB now supports hpux10.
1729
1730*** Changes in GDB-4.14:
1731
1732* New native configurations
1733
1734x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
1735x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
1736NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
1737Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
1738
1739* New targets
1740
1741A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1742HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
1743CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
1744PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
1745WDC 65816 w65-*-*
1746
1747* Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
1748
1749GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
1750possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
1751filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
1752the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
1753if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
1754
1755* Arguments to user-defined commands
1756
1757User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
1758Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
1759trivial example:
1760define adder
1761 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
1762
1763To execute the command use:
1764adder 1 2 3
1765
1766Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
1767Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
1768use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
1769
1770* New `if' and `while' commands
1771
1772This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
1773commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
1774expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
1775execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
1776terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
1777`else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
1778if the expression is zero.
1779
1780* Fortran source language mode
1781
1782GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
1783Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
1784variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
1785with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
1786Fortran compilers.
1787
1788* Better HPUX support
1789
1790Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
1791running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
1792processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
1793for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
1794that behavior do the following before running the program:
1795
1796 adb -w a.out
1797 __dld_flags?W 0x5
1798 control-d
1799
1800This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
1801To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
1802
1803 adb -w a.out
1804 __dld_flags?W 0x4
1805 control-d
1806
1807You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
1808the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
1809external linkage.
1810
1811GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
1812HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
1813
1814* Target byte order now dynamically selectable
1815
1816You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
1817commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
1818current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
1819"set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
1820associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
1821configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
1822
1823* New DOS host serial code
1824
1825This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
1826no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
1827a PC's serial port.
1828
1829*** Changes in GDB-4.13:
1830
1831* New "complete" command
1832
1833This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
1834were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
1835
1836* Trailing space optional in prompt
1837
1838"set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
1839allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
1840
1841* Breakpoint hit counts
1842
1843"info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
1844has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
1845can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
1846to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
1847less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
1848that breakpoint.
1849
1850* Ability to stop printing at NULL character
1851
1852"set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
1853an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
1854arrays actually contain only short strings.
1855
1856* Shared library breakpoints
1857
1858In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
1859breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
1860
1861* Hardware watchpoints
1862
1863There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
1864targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
1865
55241689 1866Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
c906108c
SS
1867
1868* Annotations
1869
1870Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
1871and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
1872
1873* Improved Irix 5 support
1874
1875GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
1876
1877* Improved HPPA support
1878
1879GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
1880
1881* New native configurations
1882
1883Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
1884HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1885Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
1886RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
1887
1888* New targets
1889
1890OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1891MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
1892Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
1893
1894* Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
1895
1896There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
1897This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
1898
1899* Fixes
1900
1901As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
1902and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
1903
1904*** Changes in GDB-4.12:
1905
1906* Irix 5 is now supported
1907
1908* HPPA support
1909
1910GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
1911to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
1912GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
1913of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
1914can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
1915
1916
1917*** Changes in GDB-4.11:
1918
1919* User visible changes:
1920
1921* Remote Debugging
1922
1923The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
1924target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
1925debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
1926integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
1927debugging info for the mips target).
1928
1929* DEC Alpha native support
1930
1931GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
1932debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
1933work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
1934Alpha-specific notes.
1935
1936* Preliminary thread implementation
1937
1938GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
1939
1940* LynxOS native and target support for 386
1941
1942This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
1943to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
1944for details).
1945
1946* Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
1947
1948This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
1949mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
1950call methods, ...etc.
1951
1952*** Changes in GDB-4.10:
1953
1954 * User visible changes:
1955
1956Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
1957supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
1958other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
1959somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
1960
1961Filename completion now works.
1962
1963When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
1964arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
1965addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
1966
1967All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
1968vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
1969should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
1970your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
1971to be on the far side of a thin network line.
1972
1973 * DEC alpha support
1974
1975This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
1976cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
1977
1978
1979*** Changes in GDB-4.9:
1980
1981 * Testsuite
1982
1983This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
1984The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
1985via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
1986
1987 * C++ demangling
1988
1989'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
1990emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
1991Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
1992disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
1993use gdb with AT&T cfront.
1994
1995 * Simulators
1996
1997GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
1998So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
1999Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
2000
2001 * New targets supported
2002
2003H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
2004H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
2005SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
2006Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
2007IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
2008
2009Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
2010version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
2011GO32 memory extender.
2012
2013 * New remote protocols
2014
2015MIPS remote debugging protocol.
2016
2017 * New source languages supported
2018
2019This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
2020used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
2021into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
2022
2023
2024*** Changes in GDB-4.8:
2025
2026 * HP Precision Architecture supported
2027
2028GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
2029version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
2030University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
2031compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
2032format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
2033(as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
2034
2035Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
2036
2037 * Faster and better demangling
2038
2039We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
2040demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
2041character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
2042only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
2043This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
2044increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
2045symbol lookups.
2046
2047`Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
2048from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
2049compiler does not actually implement.
2050
2051 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
2052
2053In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
2054inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
2055recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
2056very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
2057The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
2058circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
2059fix.
2060
2061The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
2062release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
2063
2064 * Improved configure script
2065
2066The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
2067you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
2068host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
2069done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
2070
2071We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
2072version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
2073`--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
2074The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
2075only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
2076We hope to make this the default in a future release.
2077
2078 * Documentation improvements
2079
2080There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
2081produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
2082before submitting changes.
2083
2084The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
2085M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
2086`info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
2087you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
2088a future texinfo-X.Y release.
2089
2090*NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
2091We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
2092been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
2093or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
2094`texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
2095around this problem.
2096
2097 * New features
2098
2099GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
2100the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
2101`print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
2102the target program.
2103
2104The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
2105how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
2106
2107 * New native hosts supported
2108
2109HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
2110386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
2111
2112 * New targets supported
2113
2114AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
2115
2116 * New file formats supported
2117
2118BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
2119HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
2120
2121 * Major bug fixes
2122
2123Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
2124
2125We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
2126printf_filtered("%s") problems.
2127
2128We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
2129for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
2130release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
2131
2132You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
2133will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
2134
2135We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
2136for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
2137especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
2138libraries.
2139
2140The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
2141information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
2142command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
2143any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
2144when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
2145
2146 * Internal improvements
2147
2148GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
2149debugging of multiple languages in the future.
2150
2151GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
2152Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
2153symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
2154contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
2155shared code that handles any of them.
2156
2157 * New command line options
2158
2159We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
2160
2161 * Mmalloc licensing
2162
2163The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
2164General Public License.
2165
2166*** Changes in GDB-4.7:
2167
2168 * Host/native/target split
2169
2170GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
2171hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
2172target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
2173local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
2174ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
2175
2176The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
2177GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
2178is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
2179code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
2180any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
2181built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
2182handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
2183
2184GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
2185It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
2186plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
2187
2188 * New hosts supported
2189
2190HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
2191386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
2192386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
2193
2194 * New targets supported
2195
2196Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
219768030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
2198
2199 * New native hosts supported
2200
2201386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
2202 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
2203386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
2204
2205 * New file formats supported
2206
2207BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
2208supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
2209format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
2210
2211 * New commands
2212
2213`show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
2214`show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
2215These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
2216
2217`info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
2218
2219You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
2220scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
2221prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
2222executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
2223
2224 * C++ improvements
2225
2226We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
2227info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
2228symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
2229
2230Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
2231
2232 * Major bug fixes
2233
2234The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
2235fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
2236by the compiler.
2237
2238We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
2239support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
2240
2241John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
2242slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
2243that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
2244purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
2245the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
2246mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
2247
2248Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
2249about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
2250completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
2251we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
2252
2253 * AMD 29k support
2254
2255A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
2256specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
2257calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
2258usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
2259in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
2260
2261We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
2262Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
2263of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
2264resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
2265
2266 * Remote interfaces
2267
2268We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
2269with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
2270message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
2271This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
2272needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
2273breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
2274each instruction being stepped through.
2275
2276The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
2277registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
2278
2279There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
2280find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
2281Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
2282processor with a serial port.
2283
2284 * Configuration
2285
2286Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
2287`table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
2288supported, and what files each one uses.
2289
2290 * Library changes
2291
2292There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
2293disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
2294Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
2295disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
2296
2297The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
2298Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
2299can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
2300grants all the rights from the General Public License.
2301
2302 * Documentation
2303
2304The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
2305reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
2306as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
2307encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
2308system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
2309bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
2310
2311And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
2312
2313
2314*** Changes in GDB-4.6:
2315
2316 * Better support for C++ function names
2317
2318GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
2319names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
2320(using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
2321single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
2322Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
2323
2324GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
2325the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
2326You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
2327lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
2328for the list of formats.
2329
2330 * G++ symbol mangling problem
2331
2332Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
2333C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
2334directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
2335can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
2336usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
2337about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
2338this problem.)
2339
2340 * New 'maintenance' command
2341
2342All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
2343the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
2344can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
2345
2346 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
2347 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
2348 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
2349 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
2350 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
2351 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
2352
2353The following commands are new:
2354
2355 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
2356 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
2357 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
2358
2359 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
2360
2361We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
2362(e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
2363be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
2364read after argv processing.
2365
2366 * New hosts supported
2367
2368Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
2369
55241689 2370GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
c906108c
SS
2371
2372We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
2373is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
2374for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
2375masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
2376fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
2377It costs extra.
2378
2379 * New targets supported
2380
2381Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
2382
2383 * More smarts about finding #include files
2384
2385GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
2386all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
2387greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
2388especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
2389the one that contains your sources.
2390
2391We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
2392breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
2393try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
2394
2395 * Interesting infernals change
2396
2397GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
2398section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
2399target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
2400stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
2401
2402 * Bug fixes (of course!)
2403
2404There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
2405 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
2406 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
2407
2408See the ChangeLog for details.
2409
2410*** Changes in GDB-4.5:
2411
2412 * New machines supported (host and target)
2413
2414IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
2415
2416SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
2417
2418 * New malloc package
2419
2420GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
2421Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
2422capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
2423This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
2424pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
2425more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
2426
2427 * info proc
2428
2429The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
2430'help info proc' for details.
2431
2432 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
2433
2434The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
2435Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
2436possible.
2437
2438 * File name changes for MS-DOS
2439
2440Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
2441support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
2442conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
2443environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
2444that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
2445in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
2446
2447 * Cross byte order fixes
2448
2449Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
2450targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
2451
2452 * New -mapped and -readnow options
2453
2454If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
2455system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
2456`symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
2457program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
2458called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
2459Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
2460and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
2461the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
2462option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
2463starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
2464
2465You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
2466the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
2467information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
2468slower, but makes future operations faster.
2469
2470The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
2471build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
2472A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
2473use is:
2474
2475 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
2476
2477The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
2478It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
2479shared across multiple host platforms.
2480
2481 * longjmp() handling
2482
2483GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
2484siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
2485all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
2486platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
2487
2488 * Solaris 2.0
2489
2490Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
2491this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
2492reading symbols.
2493
2494 * Bug fixes
2495
2496As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
2497People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
2498crashes and trashed symbol tables.
2499
2500*** Changes in GDB-4.4:
2501
2502 * New machines supported (host and target)
2503
2504SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2505 (except core files)
2506BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
2507Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
2508
2509 * New machines supported (target)
2510
2511AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2512
2513 * C++ support
2514
2515GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
2516The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
2517per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
2518
2519GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
2520`ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
2521extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
2522good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
2523will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
2524released.
2525
2526 * New features for SVR4
2527
2528GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
2529shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
2530only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
2531
2532The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
2533on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
2534it prints the address mappings of the process.
2535
2536If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
2537bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
2538
2539 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
2540
2541Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
2542now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
2543skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
2544make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
2545same code linked statically.
2546
2547 * New Getopt
2548
2549GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
2550version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
2551continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
2552Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
2553added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
2554future by other options that begin with the same letter.
2555
2556 * Bugs fixed
2557
2558The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2559Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2560See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2561
2562
2563*** Changes in GDB-4.3:
2564
2565 * New machines supported (host and target)
2566
2567Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
2568NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
2569Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
2570
2571 * Almost SCO Unix support
2572
2573We had hoped to support:
2574SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2575(except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
2576that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
2577about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
2578
2579 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
2580
2581GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
2582debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
2583is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
2584send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
2585reqired (if any).
2586
2587 * New Readline
2588
2589GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
2590is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
2591required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
2592
2593 * Bugs fixed
2594
2595The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2596Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2597See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2598
2599 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
2600
2601GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
2602supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
2603symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
2604
2605Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
2606mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
2607debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
2608mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
2609version 2.
2610
2611Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
2612really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
2613line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
2614variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
2615situation somewhat.
2616
2617When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
2618However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
2619methods.
2620
2621We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
2622DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
2623encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
2624
2625
2626*** Changes in GDB-4.2:
2627
2628 * Improved configuration
2629
2630Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
2631Porting BFD is simpler.
2632
2633 * Stepping improved
2634
2635The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
2636of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
2637in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
2638function that has debugging information is called within the line.
2639
2640 * Bug fixing
2641
2642Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
2643
2644 * New host supported (not target)
2645
2646Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
2647
2648
2649*** Changes in GDB-4.1:
2650
2651 * Multiple source language support
2652
2653GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
2654It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
2655and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
2656language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
2657You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
2658`set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
2659
2660 * GDB and Modula-2
2661
2662GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
2663currently under development at the State University of New York at
2664Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
2665continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
2666
2667Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
2668debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
2669symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
2670
2671There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
2672in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
2673
2674 * set write on/off
2675
2676GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
2677a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
2678the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
2679by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
2680effect immediately.
2681
2682 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
2683
2684When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
2685shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
2686The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
2687examining core files.
2688
2689 * set listsize
2690
2691You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
2692The default is 10.
2693
2694 * New machines supported (host and target)
2695
2696SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
2697Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
2698Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
2699
2700 * New hosts supported (not targets)
2701
2702IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
2703
2704 * New targets supported (not hosts)
2705
2706AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2707AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2708Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
2709
2710 * New remote interfaces
2711
2712AMD 29000 Adapt
2713AMD 29000 Minimon
2714
2715
2716*** Changes in GDB-4.0:
2717
2718 * New Facilities
2719
2720Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
2721
2722Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
2723target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
2724is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
2725remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
2726remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
2727also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
2728using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
2729stub on the target system.
2730
2731New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
2732
2733GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
2734library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
2735object file types such as a.out and coff.
2736
2737There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
2738refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
2739
2740
2741 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
2742
2743All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
2744by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
2745
2746For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
2747``Show prompt'' produces the response:
2748Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
2749
2750What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
2751print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
2752will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
2753all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
2754
2755confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
2756 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
2757 it is already running. Default is ON.
2758
2759editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
2760 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
2761 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
2762 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
2763 Default is ON.
2764
2765history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
2766 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
2767 or the value of the environment variable
2768 GDBHISTFILE.
2769
2770history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
2771 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
2772 HISTSIZE.
2773
2774history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
2775 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
2776 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
2777
2778history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
2779 history expansion will be performed on
2780 command line input. The default is OFF.
2781
2782radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
2783 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
2784 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
2785
2786height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
2787 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
2788 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2789 variable TERM.
2790
2791width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
2792 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
2793 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2794 variable TERM.
2795
2796Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
2797``set width'' instead.
2798
2799print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
2800 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
2801 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
2802 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
2803
2804print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
2805 is OFF.
2806
2807print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
2808 "raw" form if off.
2809
2810print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
2811 like instructions.
2812
2813print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
2814
2815
2816 * Support for Epoch Environment.
2817
2818The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
2819new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
2820are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
2821window.
2822
2823
2824 * Support for Shared Libraries
2825
2826GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
2827Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
2828before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
2829happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
2830At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
2831from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
2832shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
2833It can be abbreviated ``share''.
2834
2835sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
2836 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
2837 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
2838
2839info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
2840
2841
2842 * Watchpoints
2843
2844A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
2845expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
2846tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
2847quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
2848problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
2849more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
2850
2851watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
2852
2853info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
2854
2855delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2856disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2857enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2858
2859
2860 * C++ multiple inheritance
2861
2862When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
2863for C++ programs.
2864
2865 * C++ exception handling
2866
2867Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
2868ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
2869the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
2870handler's context).
2871
2872catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
2873 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
2874 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
2875
2876info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
2877 current stack frame.
2878
2879
2880 * Minor command changes
2881
2882The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
2883command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
2884is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
2885
2886The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
2887at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
2888frames without printing.
2889
2890 * New directory command
2891
2892'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
2893The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
2894about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
2895with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
2896find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
2897
2898 * Configuring GDB for compilation
2899
2900For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
2901for more details.
2902
2903GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
2904two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
2905Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
2906where the program that you are debugging will run.
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