cache.c (bfd_cache_close_all): Add missing return statement.
[deliverable/binutils-gdb.git] / gdb / NEWS
CommitLineData
c906108c
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1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
3
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4*** Changes since GDB 6.1:
5
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6* New ``start'' command.
7
8This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
9
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10* Signal trampoline code overhauled
11
12Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
13These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
14of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
15call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
16signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
17
18These fixes were tested on i386 GNU/Linux systems that include a 2.4
19kernel.
20
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21* Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
22
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23* Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
24
25Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
26wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
27
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28* Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
29
30The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
31permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
32systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
33
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34* New native configurations
35
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36OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
37OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
d195bc9f 38OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 39NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
9f076e7a 40OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 41
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42* REMOVED configurations and files
43
44Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
45Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
46Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
47Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
48Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
49AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
50Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
51decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
52riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
53sonymips mips-sony-*
54sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
55
faae5abe 56*** Changes in GDB 6.1:
f2c06f52 57
9175c9a3
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58* Removed --with-mmalloc
59
60Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
61conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
62
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63* Changes in AMD64 configurations
64
65The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
66the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
67and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
68you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
69
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70* Revised SPARC target
71
72The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
73FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
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74support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
75from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
76(Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
f0424ef6 77
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78* New C++ demangler
79
80GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
81names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
82with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
83programs.
84
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85* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
86
87GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
88arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
89encountered these.
90
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91* C++ nested types and namespaces
92
93GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
94improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
95is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
96Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
97namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
98"Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
99frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
100if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
101GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
102
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103* New native configurations
104
105NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
27d1e716 106OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
2031c21a 107OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
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108OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
109OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
cced5e27 110
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111* New debugging protocols
112
113M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
114
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115* "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
116
117The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
118and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
119tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
120
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121* OBSOLETE configurations and files
122
123Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
124been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
125configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
126permanently REMOVED.
127
128Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
129Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
130Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
131Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
132Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
133AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
134Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
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135decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
136riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
137sonymips mips-sony-*
138sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
5994185b 139
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140* REMOVED configurations and files
141
142SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
143SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
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144Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
145Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
146H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
147HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
148HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
149HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
150PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
cf7c5c23 151386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
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152Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
153 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
154 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
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155SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
156SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
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157Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
158Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
0ddabb4c 159
c7f1390e
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160*** Changes in GDB 6.0:
161
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162* Objective-C
163
164Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
165integrated into GDB.
166
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167* New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
168
169DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
170information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
171By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
172backtraces.
173
174The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
175have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
176DWARF 2 CFI support.
177
178* Hosted file I/O.
179
180GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
181file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
182remote protocol documentation for details.
183
184* All targets using the new architecture framework.
185
186All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
187architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
188to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
189ppc32 on ppc64).
190
191* GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
192
193GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
194per-thread variables.
195
196* GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
197
198GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
199GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
200
201* Separate debug info.
202
203GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
204automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
205of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
206system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
207and optional debug files.
208
209* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
210
211DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
212describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
213debugger.
214
215GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
216for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
217
218* Java
219
220A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
221Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
222considered "useable".
223
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224* GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
225
226The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
227commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
228kernel.
229
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230* GDB supports logging output to a file
231
232There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
233used to capture GDB's output to a file.
f2c06f52 234
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235* The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
236
237The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
238disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
239command.
240
e286caf2 241* d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
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242
243The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
244registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
245
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246* Profiling support
247
248A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
249be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
250session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
251"--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
252data, for more informative profiling results.
253
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254* Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
255
256The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
257option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
b68767c1 258"mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
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259
260Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
261removed.
262
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263Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
264Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
265Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
266 in a subsequent -var-update.
267
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268* New native configurations.
269
270FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
271
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272* Multi-arched targets.
273
b4263afa 274HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
85a453d5 275Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
6760f9e6 276
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277* OBSOLETE configurations and files
278
279Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
280been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
281configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
282permanently REMOVED.
283
8b0e5691 284Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
67f16606 285Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
fd2299bd 286H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
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287HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
288HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
289HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
78c43945 290PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
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291Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
292 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
293 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
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294Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
295Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
fd2299bd 296
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297* REMOVED configurations and files
298
299V850EA ISA
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300Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
301IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
302i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
303i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
304i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
305HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
306 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
307 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
308Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
309Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
310Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
311OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
312I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
5835abe7 313
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314* MIPS $fp behavior changed
315
316The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
317the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
318context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
319address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
320The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
321
299ffc64 322*** Changes in GDB 5.3:
37057839 323
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324* GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
325
326When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
327`/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
328in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
329library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
330shared libs like mad''.
331
b9d14705 332* ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
6da02953 333
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334Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
335the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
336arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
337powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
6da02953 338
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339* GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
340
341GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
342and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
343they expand.
344
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345The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
346invocations in expression, and shows the result.
347
348The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
349macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
350
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351Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
352information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
353your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
354information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
355
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356* Multi-arched targets.
357
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358DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
359DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
2250ee0c 360NEC V850 v850-*-*
6e3ba3b8 361National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
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362Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
363Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
2250ee0c 364
cd9bfe15 365* New targets.
e33ce519 366
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367Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
368
e33ce519 369
da8ca43d
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370* New native configurations
371
372Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
029923d4 373SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
45888261 374MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
9ce5c36a 375UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
da8ca43d 376
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377* OBSOLETE configurations and files
378
379Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
380been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
381configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
382permanently REMOVED.
383
92eb23c5 384Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
a99a9e1b 385OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1c7cc583 386IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
7a3085c1 387Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
7fb623f7 388Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
eb4c54a2 389Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
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390i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
391i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
392i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
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393HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
394 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
395 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
4d210288 396I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
92eb23c5 397
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398* OBSOLETE languages
399
400CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
401
cd9bfe15
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402* REMOVED configurations and files
403
404AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
405A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
406AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
407AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
408AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
409
410testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
411
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412* New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
413
414This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
415commands. The default is 1024.
416
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417* Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
418
419Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
420
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MS
421* New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
422
423These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
424to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
425from a file into memory (restore).
37057839 426
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427* Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
428
429The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
430including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
431of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
432
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433*** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
434
435* New targets.
436
437Atmel AVR avr*-*-*
438
439* Bug fixes
440
441gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
442mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
443Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
444
445gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
446dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
447Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
448
449Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
450Surprisingly enough, it works now.
451By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
452
453i386 hardware watchpoint support:
454avoid misses on second run for some targets.
455By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
456
37057839 457*** Changes in GDB 5.2:
eb7cedd9 458
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MS
459* New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
460
461This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
462really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
463In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
464target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
465This can be a significant performance improvement on some
466(notably embedded) targets.
467
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468* New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
469
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470This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
471process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
472GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
473hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
cefd4ef5 474
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475* New command line option
476
477GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
478
479* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
480
481There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
482command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
483a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
484be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
485open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
486issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
487a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
488it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
489GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
490is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
491
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492* Changes in ARM configurations.
493
494Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
495configuration is fully multi-arch.
496
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497* New native configurations
498
fe419ffc 499ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
eb7cedd9 500x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
55241689 501AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
768f0842 502Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
eb7cedd9 503
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504* New targets
505
506Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
507
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508* OBSOLETE configurations and files
509
510Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
511been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
512configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
513permanently REMOVED.
514
515AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
516A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
517AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
518AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
519AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
520
b4ceaee6 521testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
9b4ff276 522
e2caac18
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523* REMOVED configurations and files
524
525TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
7bc65f05 526WDC 65816 w65-*-*
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AC
527PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
528PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
529PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
5e734e1f 530Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
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AC
531Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
532 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
7e24f0b1 533SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
9b567150 534Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
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AC
535Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
536ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
a752853e 537Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
e2caac18 538
c2a727fa
TT
539* Changes to command line processing
540
541The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
542for the inferior from gdb's command line.
543
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544* Changes to key bindings
545
546There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
547
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AC
548*** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
549
550Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
551
552Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
553corrupted.
554
555Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
556
557Numerous documentation fixes.
558
559Numerous testsuite fixes.
560
34f47bc4 561*** Changes in GDB 5.1:
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562
563* New native configurations
564
565Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
566x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
55241689 567MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
e23194cb
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568MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
569ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
55241689 570s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
139760b7 571
bf64bfd6
AC
572* New targets
573
def90278 574Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
24be5c34 575CRIS cris-axis
55241689 576UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
def90278 577
17e78a56 578* OBSOLETE configurations and files
bf64bfd6
AC
579
580x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
9b9c068d 581Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
bb19ff3b
AC
582Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
583 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
76f4ea53
AC
584TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
585WDC 65816 w65-*-*
4a1968f4 586Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1b2b2c16
AC
587PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
588PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
589PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
24f89b68 590SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
514e603d
AC
591Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
592ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
d036b4d9 593Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
bf64bfd6 594
17e78a56
AC
595stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
596kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
597
7fcca85b
AC
598Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
599been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
600configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
601permanently REMOVED.
602
a196c81c 603* REMOVED configurations and files
7fcca85b
AC
604
605Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
606Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
607Pyramid pyramid-*-*
608ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
609Tahoe tahoe-*-*
a196c81c 610ser-ocd.c *-*-*
bf64bfd6 611
6d6b80e5 612* GDB has been converted to ISO C.
e23194cb 613
6d6b80e5 614GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
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615sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
616present.
617
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618* Other news:
619
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620* "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
621
622* The MI enabled by default.
623
624The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
625revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
626engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
627using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
628which is now deprecated.
629
630* Support for debugging Pascal programs.
631
632GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
633main features are supported:
634
635 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
636
637 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
638 extension;
639
640 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
641
642 - a Pascal expression parser.
643
644However, some important features are not yet supported.
645
646 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
647
648 - there are some problems with boolean types;
649
650 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
651 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
652
653 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
654
655 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
656
657* Changes in completion.
658
659Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
660to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
661users expect at the shell prompt.
662
663Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
664`breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
665program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
666files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
667be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
668considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
669name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
670
671`set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
672
673* New platform-independent commands:
674
675It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
676hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
677documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
678
679* Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
680
d7275149
MK
681Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
682revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
683many threads as your system allows you to have.
684
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685Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
686
d7275149
MK
687Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
688multi-threaded programs though.
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689
690* Changes in MIPS configurations.
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AC
691
692Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
693
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694GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
695debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
696supported.)
697
698* Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
699
700Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
701breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
702implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
703put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
704and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
705registers.
706
707The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
708debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
709watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
710
711* Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
712
713New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
714the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
715
716New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
717display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
718IDT.
719
720New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
721from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
722New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
723a given linear address.
724
725GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
726program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
727which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
728
729DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
730
6c56c069
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731It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
732
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733* Changes in documentation.
734
735All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
736Documentation License.
737
738Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
739manual.
740
741TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
742
743Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
744manual.
745
746The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
747documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
748hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
749
5d6640b1
AC
750* GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
751
752The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
753``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
754contents of this file.
755
1a1d8446
AC
756* gdba.el deleted
757
758GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
139760b7 759
9debab2f 760*** Changes in GDB 5.0:
7a292a7a 761
c63ce875
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762* Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
763
764Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
765programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
766displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
767greater level of detail.
768
769* Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
770
771It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
772bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
773on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
774written.
775
776* Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
777
778The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
779necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
780machines ``out of the box''.
781
782The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
783possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
784signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
785would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
786interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
787
788It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
789standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
790even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
791and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
792terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
793
794The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
795enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
796also works.
797
798DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
799GDB.
800
801It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
802directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
803times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
804breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
805
ed9a39eb
JM
806* New native configurations
807
808ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
afc05dd4 809PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
ed9a39eb 810
7a292a7a
SS
811* New targets
812
96baa820 813Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
adf40b2e
JM
814x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
815PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
7a292a7a
SS
816TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
817
085dd6e6
JM
818* OBSOLETE configurations
819
820Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
821Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
9846de1b 822Pyramid pyramid-*-*
ed9a39eb 823ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
104c1213 824Tahoe tahoe-*-*
7a292a7a 825
9debab2f
AC
826Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
827but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
828these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
829be permanently REMOVED.
830
5330533d
SS
831* Gould support removed
832
833Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
834
bc9e5bbf
AC
835* New features for SVR4
836
837On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
838without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
839load symbols from the running process's executable file.
840
841* Many C++ enhancements
842
843C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
844in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
845
adf40b2e
JM
846* Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
847
848A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
849sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
850with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
851``|<program> <args>'' vis:
852
853 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
854 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
855
43e526b9
JM
856* MIPS 64 remote protocol
857
858A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
859expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
860instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
861
862The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
863added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
864
96baa820
JM
865* ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
866
867The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
868``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
869include ``set remote P-packet''.
870
11cf8741
JM
871* Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
872
873The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
874accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
875``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
876
7876dd43
DB
877* ``apropos'' command added.
878
879The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
880documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
881try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
882
bc9e5bbf
AC
883* New MI interface
884
885A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
886interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
7162c0ca
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887process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
888"GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
889enabled by configuring with:
bc9e5bbf
AC
890
891 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
892
c906108c
SS
893*** Changes in GDB-4.18:
894
895* New native configurations
896
897HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
898HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
55241689 899M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
c906108c
SS
900
901* New targets
902
903Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
904Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
905Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
906
907* OBSOLETE configurations
908
909Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
910
911Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
912but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
913these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
914be permanently REMOVED.
915
916* ANSI/ISO C
917
918As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
919buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
920containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
921use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
922available. If this is not true, please report the affected
923configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
924information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
925already.
926
927* Readline 2.2
928
929GDB now uses readline 2.2.
930
931* set extension-language
932
933You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
934languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
935you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
936 set extension-language .c c++
937The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
938and their associated languages.
939
940* Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
941
942When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
943you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
944PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
945
946 set processor NAME
947
948sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
949following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
950
951 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
952 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
953 403 IBM PowerPC 403
954 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
955 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
956 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
957 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
958 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
959 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
960 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
961 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
962
963At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
964special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
965registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
966only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
967
968* HP-UX support
969
970Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
971more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
972library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
973support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
974for xdb and dbx commands.
975
976* Catchpoints
977
978HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
979generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
980to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
981
982This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
983argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
984output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
985
986* Debugging across forks
987
988On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
989in the inferior.
990
991* TUI
992
993HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
994it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
995configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
996
997* GDB remote protocol additions
998
999A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
1000Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
1001fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
1002allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
1003
1004For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
1005full 64-bit address. The command
1006
1007 set remoteaddresssize 32
1008
1009can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
1010the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
1011will be discarded.
1012
1013In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
1014command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
1015
1016 maint packet heythere
1017
1018sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
1019disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
1020time.
1021
1022The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
1023target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
1024downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
1025
1026* Tracing can collect general expressions
1027
1028You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
1029further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
1030doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
1031
1032* mask-address variable for Mips
1033
1034For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
1035a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
1036of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
1037
1038* Higher serial baud rates
1039
1040GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
1041230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
1042to achieve all of these rates.)
1043
1044* i960 simulator
1045
1046The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
1047builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
1048
1049
1050*** Changes in GDB-4.17:
1051
1052* New native configurations
1053
1054Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
1055Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
1056Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
1057PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
1058PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1059Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
1060Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
1061
1062* New targets
1063
1064Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1065Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
1066Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1067Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
1068MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
1069MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
1070MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
1071Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
1072Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
1073Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1074NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
1075
1076* New debugging protocols
1077
1078ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
1079M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
1080DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
1081PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1082PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1083Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1084
1085* DWARF 2
1086
1087All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
1088format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
1089information.
1090
1091* Java frontend
1092
1093GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
1094only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
1095
1096* solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
1097
1098For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
1099loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
1100locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
1101
1102* Live range splitting
1103
1104GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
1105range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
1106more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
1107
1108* Hurd support
1109
1110GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
1111updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
1112
1113* ARM Thumb support
1114
1115GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
1116instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
1117instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
1118accordingly.
1119
1120* MIPS16 support
1121
1122GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
1123instruction set.
1124
1125* Overlay support
1126
1127GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
1128linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
1129will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
1130control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
1131additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
1132in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
1133
1134* info symbol
1135
1136The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
1137the symbol at the specified address.
1138
1139* Trace support
1140
1141The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
1142asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
1143extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
1144includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
1145file tracepoint.c for more details.
1146
1147* MIPS simulator
1148
1149Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
1150by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
1151of most MIPS variants.
1152
1153* Sparc simulator
1154
1155Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
1156by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
1157Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
1158
1159* set architecture
1160
1161For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
1162basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
1163architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
1164the possible architectures.
1165
1166*** Changes in GDB-4.16:
1167
1168* New native configurations
1169
1170Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
1171M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
1172PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
1173PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
1174PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1175RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
1176
1177* New targets
1178
1179ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
1180I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1181MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
1182MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
1183PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
1184Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
1185Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1186
1187* PowerPC simulator
1188
1189The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
1190contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
1191PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
1192basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
1193performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
1194
1195* Solaris 2.5
1196
1197GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
1198
1199* Windows 95/NT native
1200
1201GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
1202To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
1203which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
1204Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
1205ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
1206
1207* dont-repeat command
1208
1209If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
1210command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
1211useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
1212extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
1213
1214* Send break instead of ^C
1215
1216The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
1217rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
1218GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
1219
1220* Remote protocol timeout
1221
1222The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
1223that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
1224to read from the target. The default value is 2.
1225
1226* Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
1227
1228By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
1229loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
1230stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
1231when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
1232in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
1233
1234Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
1235/usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
1236automatically on hpux10.
1237
1238* Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
1239
1240Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
1241
1242* Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
1243
1244When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
1245may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
1246the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
1247every character. The default value is 1050.
1248
1249* Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
1250
1251If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
1252a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
1253replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
1254details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
1255remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
1256to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
1257
1258* Speedups for remote debugging
1259
1260GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
1261the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
1262and more efficient S-record downloading.
1263
1264* Memory use reductions and statistics collection
1265
1266GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
1267Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
1268
1269*** Changes in GDB-4.15:
1270
1271* Psymtabs for XCOFF
1272
1273The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
1274can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
1275
1276* Remote targets use caching
1277
1278Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
1279remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
1280it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
1281debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
1282off' turns the the data cache off.
1283
1284* Remote targets may have threads
1285
1286The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
1287in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
1288gdb/remote.c for details.
1289
1290* NetROM support
1291
1292If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
1293support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
1294acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
1295write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
1296support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
1297another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
1298sequence is something like
1299
1300 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
1301 load <prog>
1302 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
1303
1304* Macintosh host
1305
1306GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
1307may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
1308it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
1309available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
1310device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
1311directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
1312scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
1313mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
1314
1315* Autoconf
1316
1317GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
1318but does simplify configuration and building.
1319
1320* hpux10
1321
1322GDB now supports hpux10.
1323
1324*** Changes in GDB-4.14:
1325
1326* New native configurations
1327
1328x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
1329x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
1330NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
1331Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
1332
1333* New targets
1334
1335A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1336HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
1337CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
1338PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
1339WDC 65816 w65-*-*
1340
1341* Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
1342
1343GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
1344possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
1345filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
1346the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
1347if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
1348
1349* Arguments to user-defined commands
1350
1351User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
1352Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
1353trivial example:
1354define adder
1355 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
1356
1357To execute the command use:
1358adder 1 2 3
1359
1360Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
1361Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
1362use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
1363
1364* New `if' and `while' commands
1365
1366This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
1367commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
1368expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
1369execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
1370terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
1371`else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
1372if the expression is zero.
1373
1374* Fortran source language mode
1375
1376GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
1377Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
1378variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
1379with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
1380Fortran compilers.
1381
1382* Better HPUX support
1383
1384Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
1385running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
1386processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
1387for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
1388that behavior do the following before running the program:
1389
1390 adb -w a.out
1391 __dld_flags?W 0x5
1392 control-d
1393
1394This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
1395To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
1396
1397 adb -w a.out
1398 __dld_flags?W 0x4
1399 control-d
1400
1401You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
1402the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
1403external linkage.
1404
1405GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
1406HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
1407
1408* Target byte order now dynamically selectable
1409
1410You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
1411commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
1412current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
1413"set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
1414associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
1415configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
1416
1417* New DOS host serial code
1418
1419This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
1420no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
1421a PC's serial port.
1422
1423*** Changes in GDB-4.13:
1424
1425* New "complete" command
1426
1427This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
1428were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
1429
1430* Trailing space optional in prompt
1431
1432"set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
1433allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
1434
1435* Breakpoint hit counts
1436
1437"info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
1438has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
1439can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
1440to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
1441less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
1442that breakpoint.
1443
1444* Ability to stop printing at NULL character
1445
1446"set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
1447an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
1448arrays actually contain only short strings.
1449
1450* Shared library breakpoints
1451
1452In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
1453breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
1454
1455* Hardware watchpoints
1456
1457There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
1458targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
1459
55241689 1460Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
c906108c
SS
1461
1462* Annotations
1463
1464Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
1465and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
1466
1467* Improved Irix 5 support
1468
1469GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
1470
1471* Improved HPPA support
1472
1473GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
1474
1475* New native configurations
1476
1477Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
1478HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1479Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
1480RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
1481
1482* New targets
1483
1484OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1485MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
1486Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
1487
1488* Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
1489
1490There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
1491This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
1492
1493* Fixes
1494
1495As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
1496and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
1497
1498*** Changes in GDB-4.12:
1499
1500* Irix 5 is now supported
1501
1502* HPPA support
1503
1504GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
1505to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
1506GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
1507of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
1508can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
1509
1510
1511*** Changes in GDB-4.11:
1512
1513* User visible changes:
1514
1515* Remote Debugging
1516
1517The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
1518target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
1519debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
1520integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
1521debugging info for the mips target).
1522
1523* DEC Alpha native support
1524
1525GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
1526debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
1527work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
1528Alpha-specific notes.
1529
1530* Preliminary thread implementation
1531
1532GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
1533
1534* LynxOS native and target support for 386
1535
1536This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
1537to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
1538for details).
1539
1540* Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
1541
1542This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
1543mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
1544call methods, ...etc.
1545
1546*** Changes in GDB-4.10:
1547
1548 * User visible changes:
1549
1550Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
1551supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
1552other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
1553somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
1554
1555Filename completion now works.
1556
1557When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
1558arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
1559addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
1560
1561All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
1562vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
1563should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
1564your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
1565to be on the far side of a thin network line.
1566
1567 * DEC alpha support
1568
1569This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
1570cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
1571
1572
1573*** Changes in GDB-4.9:
1574
1575 * Testsuite
1576
1577This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
1578The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
1579via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
1580
1581 * C++ demangling
1582
1583'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
1584emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
1585Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
1586disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
1587use gdb with AT&T cfront.
1588
1589 * Simulators
1590
1591GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
1592So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
1593Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
1594
1595 * New targets supported
1596
1597H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1598H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1599SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
1600Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1601IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
1602
1603Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
1604version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
1605GO32 memory extender.
1606
1607 * New remote protocols
1608
1609MIPS remote debugging protocol.
1610
1611 * New source languages supported
1612
1613This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
1614used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
1615into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
1616
1617
1618*** Changes in GDB-4.8:
1619
1620 * HP Precision Architecture supported
1621
1622GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
1623version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
1624University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
1625compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
1626format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
1627(as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
1628
1629Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
1630
1631 * Faster and better demangling
1632
1633We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
1634demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
1635character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
1636only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
1637This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
1638increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
1639symbol lookups.
1640
1641`Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
1642from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
1643compiler does not actually implement.
1644
1645 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
1646
1647In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
1648inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
1649recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
1650very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
1651The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
1652circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
1653fix.
1654
1655The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
1656release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
1657
1658 * Improved configure script
1659
1660The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
1661you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
1662host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
1663done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
1664
1665We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
1666version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
1667`--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
1668The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
1669only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
1670We hope to make this the default in a future release.
1671
1672 * Documentation improvements
1673
1674There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
1675produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
1676before submitting changes.
1677
1678The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
1679M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
1680`info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
1681you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
1682a future texinfo-X.Y release.
1683
1684*NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
1685We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
1686been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
1687or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
1688`texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
1689around this problem.
1690
1691 * New features
1692
1693GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
1694the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
1695`print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
1696the target program.
1697
1698The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
1699how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
1700
1701 * New native hosts supported
1702
1703HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
1704386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
1705
1706 * New targets supported
1707
1708AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
1709
1710 * New file formats supported
1711
1712BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
1713HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
1714
1715 * Major bug fixes
1716
1717Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
1718
1719We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
1720printf_filtered("%s") problems.
1721
1722We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
1723for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
1724release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
1725
1726You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
1727will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
1728
1729We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
1730for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
1731especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
1732libraries.
1733
1734The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
1735information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
1736command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
1737any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
1738when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
1739
1740 * Internal improvements
1741
1742GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
1743debugging of multiple languages in the future.
1744
1745GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
1746Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
1747symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
1748contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
1749shared code that handles any of them.
1750
1751 * New command line options
1752
1753We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
1754
1755 * Mmalloc licensing
1756
1757The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
1758General Public License.
1759
1760*** Changes in GDB-4.7:
1761
1762 * Host/native/target split
1763
1764GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
1765hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
1766target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
1767local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
1768ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
1769
1770The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
1771GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
1772is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
1773code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
1774any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
1775built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
1776handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
1777
1778GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
1779It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
1780plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
1781
1782 * New hosts supported
1783
1784HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
1785386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1786386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
1787
1788 * New targets supported
1789
1790Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
179168030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
1792
1793 * New native hosts supported
1794
1795386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1796 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
1797386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
1798
1799 * New file formats supported
1800
1801BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
1802supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
1803format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
1804
1805 * New commands
1806
1807`show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
1808`show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
1809These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
1810
1811`info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
1812
1813You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
1814scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
1815prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
1816executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
1817
1818 * C++ improvements
1819
1820We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
1821info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
1822symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
1823
1824Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
1825
1826 * Major bug fixes
1827
1828The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
1829fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
1830by the compiler.
1831
1832We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
1833support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
1834
1835John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
1836slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
1837that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
1838purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
1839the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
1840mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
1841
1842Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
1843about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
1844completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
1845we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
1846
1847 * AMD 29k support
1848
1849A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
1850specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
1851calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
1852usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
1853in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
1854
1855We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
1856Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
1857of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
1858resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
1859
1860 * Remote interfaces
1861
1862We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
1863with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
1864message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
1865This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
1866needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
1867breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
1868each instruction being stepped through.
1869
1870The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
1871registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
1872
1873There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
1874find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
1875Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
1876processor with a serial port.
1877
1878 * Configuration
1879
1880Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
1881`table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
1882supported, and what files each one uses.
1883
1884 * Library changes
1885
1886There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
1887disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
1888Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
1889disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
1890
1891The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
1892Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
1893can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
1894grants all the rights from the General Public License.
1895
1896 * Documentation
1897
1898The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
1899reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
1900as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
1901encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
1902system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
1903bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
1904
1905And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
1906
1907
1908*** Changes in GDB-4.6:
1909
1910 * Better support for C++ function names
1911
1912GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
1913names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
1914(using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
1915single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
1916Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
1917
1918GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
1919the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
1920You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
1921lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
1922for the list of formats.
1923
1924 * G++ symbol mangling problem
1925
1926Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
1927C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
1928directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
1929can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
1930usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
1931about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
1932this problem.)
1933
1934 * New 'maintenance' command
1935
1936All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
1937the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
1938can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
1939
1940 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
1941 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
1942 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
1943 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
1944 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
1945 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
1946
1947The following commands are new:
1948
1949 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
1950 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
1951 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
1952
1953 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
1954
1955We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
1956(e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
1957be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
1958read after argv processing.
1959
1960 * New hosts supported
1961
1962Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
1963
55241689 1964GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
c906108c
SS
1965
1966We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
1967is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
1968for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
1969masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
1970fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
1971It costs extra.
1972
1973 * New targets supported
1974
1975Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1976
1977 * More smarts about finding #include files
1978
1979GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
1980all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
1981greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
1982especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
1983the one that contains your sources.
1984
1985We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
1986breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
1987try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
1988
1989 * Interesting infernals change
1990
1991GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
1992section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
1993target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
1994stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
1995
1996 * Bug fixes (of course!)
1997
1998There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
1999 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
2000 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
2001
2002See the ChangeLog for details.
2003
2004*** Changes in GDB-4.5:
2005
2006 * New machines supported (host and target)
2007
2008IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
2009
2010SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
2011
2012 * New malloc package
2013
2014GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
2015Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
2016capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
2017This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
2018pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
2019more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
2020
2021 * info proc
2022
2023The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
2024'help info proc' for details.
2025
2026 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
2027
2028The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
2029Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
2030possible.
2031
2032 * File name changes for MS-DOS
2033
2034Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
2035support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
2036conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
2037environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
2038that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
2039in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
2040
2041 * Cross byte order fixes
2042
2043Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
2044targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
2045
2046 * New -mapped and -readnow options
2047
2048If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
2049system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
2050`symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
2051program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
2052called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
2053Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
2054and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
2055the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
2056option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
2057starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
2058
2059You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
2060the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
2061information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
2062slower, but makes future operations faster.
2063
2064The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
2065build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
2066A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
2067use is:
2068
2069 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
2070
2071The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
2072It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
2073shared across multiple host platforms.
2074
2075 * longjmp() handling
2076
2077GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
2078siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
2079all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
2080platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
2081
2082 * Solaris 2.0
2083
2084Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
2085this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
2086reading symbols.
2087
2088 * Bug fixes
2089
2090As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
2091People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
2092crashes and trashed symbol tables.
2093
2094*** Changes in GDB-4.4:
2095
2096 * New machines supported (host and target)
2097
2098SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2099 (except core files)
2100BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
2101Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
2102
2103 * New machines supported (target)
2104
2105AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2106
2107 * C++ support
2108
2109GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
2110The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
2111per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
2112
2113GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
2114`ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
2115extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
2116good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
2117will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
2118released.
2119
2120 * New features for SVR4
2121
2122GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
2123shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
2124only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
2125
2126The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
2127on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
2128it prints the address mappings of the process.
2129
2130If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
2131bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
2132
2133 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
2134
2135Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
2136now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
2137skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
2138make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
2139same code linked statically.
2140
2141 * New Getopt
2142
2143GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
2144version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
2145continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
2146Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
2147added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
2148future by other options that begin with the same letter.
2149
2150 * Bugs fixed
2151
2152The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2153Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2154See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2155
2156
2157*** Changes in GDB-4.3:
2158
2159 * New machines supported (host and target)
2160
2161Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
2162NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
2163Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
2164
2165 * Almost SCO Unix support
2166
2167We had hoped to support:
2168SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2169(except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
2170that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
2171about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
2172
2173 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
2174
2175GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
2176debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
2177is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
2178send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
2179reqired (if any).
2180
2181 * New Readline
2182
2183GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
2184is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
2185required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
2186
2187 * Bugs fixed
2188
2189The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2190Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2191See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2192
2193 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
2194
2195GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
2196supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
2197symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
2198
2199Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
2200mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
2201debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
2202mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
2203version 2.
2204
2205Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
2206really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
2207line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
2208variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
2209situation somewhat.
2210
2211When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
2212However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
2213methods.
2214
2215We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
2216DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
2217encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
2218
2219
2220*** Changes in GDB-4.2:
2221
2222 * Improved configuration
2223
2224Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
2225Porting BFD is simpler.
2226
2227 * Stepping improved
2228
2229The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
2230of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
2231in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
2232function that has debugging information is called within the line.
2233
2234 * Bug fixing
2235
2236Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
2237
2238 * New host supported (not target)
2239
2240Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
2241
2242
2243*** Changes in GDB-4.1:
2244
2245 * Multiple source language support
2246
2247GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
2248It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
2249and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
2250language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
2251You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
2252`set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
2253
2254 * GDB and Modula-2
2255
2256GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
2257currently under development at the State University of New York at
2258Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
2259continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
2260
2261Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
2262debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
2263symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
2264
2265There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
2266in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
2267
2268 * set write on/off
2269
2270GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
2271a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
2272the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
2273by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
2274effect immediately.
2275
2276 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
2277
2278When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
2279shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
2280The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
2281examining core files.
2282
2283 * set listsize
2284
2285You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
2286The default is 10.
2287
2288 * New machines supported (host and target)
2289
2290SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
2291Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
2292Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
2293
2294 * New hosts supported (not targets)
2295
2296IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
2297
2298 * New targets supported (not hosts)
2299
2300AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2301AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2302Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
2303
2304 * New remote interfaces
2305
2306AMD 29000 Adapt
2307AMD 29000 Minimon
2308
2309
2310*** Changes in GDB-4.0:
2311
2312 * New Facilities
2313
2314Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
2315
2316Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
2317target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
2318is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
2319remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
2320remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
2321also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
2322using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
2323stub on the target system.
2324
2325New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
2326
2327GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
2328library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
2329object file types such as a.out and coff.
2330
2331There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
2332refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
2333
2334
2335 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
2336
2337All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
2338by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
2339
2340For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
2341``Show prompt'' produces the response:
2342Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
2343
2344What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
2345print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
2346will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
2347all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
2348
2349confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
2350 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
2351 it is already running. Default is ON.
2352
2353editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
2354 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
2355 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
2356 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
2357 Default is ON.
2358
2359history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
2360 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
2361 or the value of the environment variable
2362 GDBHISTFILE.
2363
2364history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
2365 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
2366 HISTSIZE.
2367
2368history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
2369 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
2370 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
2371
2372history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
2373 history expansion will be performed on
2374 command line input. The default is OFF.
2375
2376radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
2377 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
2378 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
2379
2380height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
2381 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
2382 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2383 variable TERM.
2384
2385width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
2386 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
2387 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2388 variable TERM.
2389
2390Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
2391``set width'' instead.
2392
2393print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
2394 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
2395 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
2396 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
2397
2398print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
2399 is OFF.
2400
2401print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
2402 "raw" form if off.
2403
2404print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
2405 like instructions.
2406
2407print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
2408
2409
2410 * Support for Epoch Environment.
2411
2412The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
2413new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
2414are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
2415window.
2416
2417
2418 * Support for Shared Libraries
2419
2420GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
2421Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
2422before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
2423happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
2424At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
2425from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
2426shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
2427It can be abbreviated ``share''.
2428
2429sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
2430 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
2431 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
2432
2433info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
2434
2435
2436 * Watchpoints
2437
2438A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
2439expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
2440tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
2441quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
2442problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
2443more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
2444
2445watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
2446
2447info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
2448
2449delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2450disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2451enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2452
2453
2454 * C++ multiple inheritance
2455
2456When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
2457for C++ programs.
2458
2459 * C++ exception handling
2460
2461Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
2462ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
2463the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
2464handler's context).
2465
2466catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
2467 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
2468 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
2469
2470info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
2471 current stack frame.
2472
2473
2474 * Minor command changes
2475
2476The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
2477command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
2478is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
2479
2480The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
2481at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
2482frames without printing.
2483
2484 * New directory command
2485
2486'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
2487The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
2488about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
2489with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
2490find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
2491
2492 * Configuring GDB for compilation
2493
2494For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
2495for more details.
2496
2497GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
2498two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
2499Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
2500where the program that you are debugging will run.
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