* go32-nat.c (go32_sysinfo): Check if the call to
[deliverable/binutils-gdb.git] / gdb / NEWS
CommitLineData
c906108c
SS
1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
3
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4*** Changes since GDB 6.8
5
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6* GDB now has support for multi-byte and wide character sets on the
7target. Strings whose character type is wchar_t, char16_t, or
8char32_t are now correctly printed. GDB supports wide- and unicode-
9literals in C, that is, L'x', L"string", u'x', u"string", U'x', and
10U"string" syntax. And, GDB allows the "%ls" and "%lc" formats in
11`printf'. This feature requires iconv to work properly; if your
12system does not have a working iconv, GDB can use GNU libiconv. See
13the installation instructions for more information.
14
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UW
15* GDB now supports automatic retrieval of shared library files from
16remote targets. To use this feature, specify a system root that begins
17with the `remote:' prefix, either via the `set sysroot' command or via
18the `--with-sysroot' configure-time option.
19
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20* Commands `set debug-file-directory', `set solib-search-path' and `set args'
21now complete on file names.
22
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23* When completing in expressions, gdb will attempt to limit
24completions to allowable structure or union fields, where appropriate.
25For instance, consider:
26
27 # struct example { int f1; double f2; };
28 # struct example variable;
29 (gdb) p variable.
30
31If the user types TAB at the end of this command line, the available
32completions will be "f1" and "f2".
33
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34* GDB now supports the token-splicing (##) and stringification (#)
35operators when expanding macros. It also supports variable-arity
36macros.
37
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38* GDB now supports inspecting extra signal information, exported by
39 the new $_siginfo convenience variable. The feature is currently
40 implemented on linux ARM, i386 and amd64.
41
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42* New remote packets
43
44qSearch:memory:
45 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
46
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47QStartNoAckMode
48 Turn off `+'/`-' protocol acknowledgments to permit more efficient
49 operation over reliable transport links. Use of this packet is
50 controlled by the `set remote noack-packet' command.
51
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52qXfer:osdata:read
53 Obtains additional operating system information
54
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PA
55qXfer:siginfo:read
56qXfer:siginfo:write
57 Read or write additional signal information.
58
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PA
59* Removed remote protocol undocumented extension
60
61 An undocumented extension to the remote protocol's `S' stop reply
62 packet that permited the stub to pass a process id was removed.
63 Remote servers should use the `T' stop reply packet instead.
64
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DE
65* The "disassemble" command now supports an optional /m modifier to print mixed
66source+assembly.
67
c055b101 68* GDB now supports multiple function calling conventions according to the
a0ef4274 69DWARF-2 DW_AT_calling_convention function attribute.
c055b101
CV
70
71* The SH target utilizes the aforementioned change to distinguish between gcc
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72and Renesas calling convention. It also adds the new CLI commands
73`set/show sh calling-convention'.
c055b101 74
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75* GDB can now read compressed debug sections, as produced by GNU gold
76with the --compress-debug-sections=zlib flag.
77
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78* 64-bit core files are now supported on AIX.
79
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80* Thread switching is now supported on Tru64.
81
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82* Watchpoints can now be set on unreadable memory locations, e.g. addresses
83which will be allocated using malloc later in program execution.
84
1fddbabb 85* The qXfer:libraries:read remote procotol packet now allows passing a
31fffb02 86list of section offsets.
1fddbabb 87
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88* On GNU/Linux, GDB can now attach to stopped processes. Several race
89conditions handling signals delivered during attach or thread creation
90have also been fixed.
91
bfb8797a 92* GDB now supports the use of DWARF boolean types for Ada's type Boolean.
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93From the user's standpoint, all unqualified instances of True and False
94are treated as the standard definitions, regardless of context.
bfb8797a 95
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96* GDB now parses C++ symbol and type names more flexibly. For
97example, given:
98
99 template<typename T> class C { };
100 C<char const *> c;
101
102GDB will now correctly handle all of:
103
104 ptype C<char const *>
105 ptype C<char const*>
106 ptype C<const char *>
107 ptype C<const char*>
108
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109* New features in the GDB remote stub, gdbserver
110
111 - The "--wrapper" command-line argument tells gdbserver to use a
112 wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
113
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114 - On PowerPC and S/390 targets, it is now possible to use a single
115 gdbserver executable to debug both 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
116 (This requires gdbserver itself to be built as a 64-bit executable.)
117
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118 - gdbserver uses the new noack protocol mode for TCP connections to
119 reduce communications latency, if also supported and enabled in GDB.
120
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121 - Support for the sparc64-linux-gnu target is now included in
122 gdbserver.
123
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124* Python scripting
125
126 GDB now has support for scripting using Python. Whether this is
127 available is determined at configure time.
128
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129 New GDB commands can now be written in Python.
130
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131* Ada tasking support
132
133 Ada tasks can now be inspected in GDB. The following commands have
134 been introduced:
135
136 info tasks
137 Print the list of Ada tasks.
138 info task N
139 Print detailed information about task number N.
140 task
141 Print the task number of the current task.
142 task N
143 Switch the context of debugging to task number N.
144
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145* Support for user-defined prefixed commands. The "define" command can
146add new commands to existing prefixes, e.g. "target".
147
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148* New commands
149
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150find [/size-char] [/max-count] start-address, end-address|+search-space-size,
151 val1 [, val2, ...]
152 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
153
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154maint set python print-stack
155maint show python print-stack
156 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Python script.
157
158python [CODE]
159 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Python interpreter.
160
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161set print symbol-loading
162show print symbol-loading
163 Control printing of symbol loading messages.
164
e0a3ce09 165set debug timestamp
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166show debug timestamp
167 Display timestamps with GDB debugging output.
168
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169set exec-wrapper
170show exec-wrapper
171unset exec-wrapper
172 Use a wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
fa4727a6 173
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174set multiple-symbols (all|ask|cancel)
175show multiple-symbols
176 The value of this variable can be changed to adjust the debugger behavior
177 when an expression or a breakpoint location contains an ambiguous symbol
178 name (an overloaded function name, for instance).
179
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180set breakpoint always-inserted
181show breakpoint always-inserted
182 Keep breakpoints always inserted in the target, as opposed to inserting
183 them when resuming the target, and removing them when the target stops.
184 This option can improve debugger performance on slow remote targets.
185
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186set arm fallback-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
187show arm fallback-mode
188set arm force-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
189show arm force-mode
190 These commands control how ARM GDB determines whether instructions
191 are ARM or Thumb. The default for both settings is auto, which uses
192 the current CPSR value for instructions without symbols; previous
193 versions of GDB behaved as if "set arm fallback-mode arm".
194
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195set disable-randomization
196show disable-randomization
197 Standalone programs run with the virtual address space randomization enabled
198 by default on some platforms. This option keeps the addresses stable across
199 multiple debugging sessions.
200
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201set target-async
202 Requests that asynchronous execution is enabled in the target, if available.
203 In this case, it's possible to resume target in the background, and interact
204 with GDB while the target is running. "show target-async" displays the
205 current state of asynchronous execution of the target.
206
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207set target-wide-charset
208show target-wide-charset
209 The target-wide-charset is the name of the character set that GDB
210 uses when printing characters whose type is wchar_t.
211
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212set tcp auto-retry (on|off)
213show tcp auto-retry
214set tcp connect-timeout
215show tcp connect-timeout
216 These commands allow GDB to retry failed TCP connections to a remote stub
217 with a specified timeout period; this is useful if the stub is launched
218 in parallel with GDB but may not be ready to accept connections immediately.
219
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220macro define
221macro list
222macro undef
223 These allow macros to be defined, undefined, and listed
224 interactively.
225
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226info os processes
227 Show operating system information about processes.
228
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229* New native configurations
230
231x86/x86_64 Darwin i[34567]86-*-darwin*
232
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233x86_64 MinGW x86_64-*-mingw*
234
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235* New targets
236
237x86 DICOS i[34567]86-*-dicos*
4c1d2973 238x86_64 DICOS x86_64-*-dicos*
75a2d5e7 239
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240* Removed commands
241
242catch load
243catch unload
244 These commands were actually not implemented on any target.
245
75feb17d 246*** Changes in GDB 6.8
f9ed52be 247
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248* New native configurations
249
250NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*netbsd*
94a0e877 251Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
af5ca30d
NH
252
253* New targets
254
255NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*-netbsd*
94a0e877 256Xtensa GNU/Lunux xtensa*-*-linux*
af5ca30d 257
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258* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
259
260 When the '-p NUMBER' or '--pid NUMBER' options are used, and
261 attaching to process NUMBER fails, GDB no longer attempts to open a
262 core file named NUMBER. Attaching to a program using the -c option
263 is no longer supported. Instead, use the '-p' or '--pid' options.
264
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265* GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
266(mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
267
fe6fbf8b 268* Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
8d5f9c6f 269is resolved.
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VP
270
271* GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
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272including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
273and in inlined functions.
fe6fbf8b 274
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275* GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
276accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
277more than one contiguous range of addresses.
278
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279* Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
280
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281* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
282registers on PowerPC targets.
283
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284* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
285targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
286
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287* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
288commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
289
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290* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports run and attach in
291extended-remote mode.
292
24a836bd 293* hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
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294The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
295error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
296The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
24a836bd 297
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298* GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
299building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
300target architectures.
301
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302* GDB now supports debugging C and C++ programs which use the
303Decimal Floating Point extension. In addition, the PowerPC target
304now has a set of pseudo-registers to inspect decimal float values
305stored in two consecutive float registers.
306
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307* The -break-insert MI command can optionally create pending
308breakpoints now.
309
b93b6ca7 310* Improved support for debugging Ada
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311Many improvements to the Ada language support have been made. These
312include:
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313 - Better support for Ada2005 interface types
314 - Improved handling of arrays and slices in general
315 - Better support for Taft-amendment types
316 - The '{type} ADDRESS' expression is now allowed on the left hand-side
317 of an assignment
318 - Improved command completion in Ada
319 - Several bug fixes
320
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321* GDB on GNU/Linux and HP/UX can now debug through "exec" of a new
322process.
323
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324* New commands
325
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326set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
327show print frame-arguments
328 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
329 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
330
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331remote put
332remote get
333remote delete
334 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
335
336* New MI commands
337
338-target-file-put
339-target-file-get
340-target-file-delete
341 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
342
343* New remote packets
344
345vFile:open:
346vFile:close:
347vFile:pread:
348vFile:pwrite:
349vFile:unlink:
350 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
d0c678e6 351
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352vAttach
353 Attach to an existing process on the remote system, in extended-remote
354 mode.
355
356vRun
357 Run a new process on the remote system, in extended-remote mode.
358
8d5f9c6f 359*** Changes in GDB 6.7
6dd09645 360
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MS
361* Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
362bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
363Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
364
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UW
365* When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
366symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
367-Bsymbolic linker option.
368
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369* When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
370recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
371is not supported.
372
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373* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
374frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
375
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376* GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
37732-bit or 64-bit register values.
378
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379* Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
380
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381* GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
382target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
383a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
384
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385* Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
386automatically displayed as character or string data.
387
388* The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
389arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
390as strings.
e1f48ead 391
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DJ
392* Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
393for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
8d5f9c6f 394only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
123dc839 395
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396* GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
397iWMMXt coprocessor.
fb1e4ffc 398
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399* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
400ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
401has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
402
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403* GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
404
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UW
405* GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
406
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407* The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
408layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
409segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
410
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411* The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
412immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
413
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414* The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
415"library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
416packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
417where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
418Windows and SymbianOS).
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419
420* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
421(DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
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422
423* GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
424according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
cfa9d6d9 425
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426* New commands
427
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428set remoteflow
429show remoteflow
430 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
431 when debugging using remote targets.
432
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433set mem inaccessible-by-default
434show mem inaccessible-by-default
435 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
436 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
437 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
438 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
439 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
440
441set breakpoint auto-hw
442show breakpoint auto-hw
443 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
444 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
445 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
446 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
447 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
448 including "next" and "finish".
449
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450catch exception
451catch exception unhandled
452 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
453
454catch assert
455 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
456
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457set sysroot
458show sysroot
459 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
460 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
461 an alias to "set sysroot".
462
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UW
463info spu
464 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
465 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
466 architecture.
467
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468* New native configurations
469
470OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
471
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472set tdesc filename
473unset tdesc filename
474show tdesc filename
475 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
476 not query the target for its built-in description.
477
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478* New targets
479
54fe9172 480OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
c9bb8148 481MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
c077150c 482Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
c9bb8148 483
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484* New remote packets
485
486QPassSignals:
487 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
488 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
489
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490qXfer:features:read:
491 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
492 features.
6dd09645 493
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UW
494qXfer:spu:read:
495qXfer:spu:write:
496 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
497 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
498
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499qXfer:libraries:read:
500 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
501 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
502 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
503 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
504
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505* Removed targets
506
507Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
508
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509alpha*-*-osf1*
510alpha*-*-osf2*
7ce59000 511d10v-*-*
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512hppa*-*-hiux*
513i[34567]86-ncr-*
514i[34567]86-*-dgux*
515i[34567]86-*-lynxos*
516i[34567]86-*-netware*
517i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
518i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
519i[34567]86-*-sco*
520i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
521i[34567]86-*-sysv4*
522i[34567]86-*-sysv5*
523i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
524i[34567]86-*-unixware*
525i[34567]86-*-sysv*
526i[34567]86-*-isc*
527m68*-cisco*-*
528m68*-tandem-*
ad527d2e 529mips*-*-pe
483367ee 530rs6000-*-lynxos*
ad527d2e 531sh*-*-pe
483367ee 532
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533* Other removed features
534
535target abug
536target cpu32bug
537target est
538target rom68k
539
540 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
541
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542target hms
543target e7000
544target sh3
545target sh3e
546
547 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
548 H8/300.
549
550target ocd
551
552 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
553 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
554 interfaces.
555
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556DWARF 1 support
557
558 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
559 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
560
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561Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
562
563 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
564 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
565 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
566 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
567
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568MIPS ".pdr" sections
569
570 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
571 in debugging information.
572
573Scheme support
574
575 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
576 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
577
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578set mips stack-arg-size
579set mips saved-gpreg-size
580
581 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
582
6dd09645 583*** Changes in GDB 6.6
e374b601 584
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585* New targets
586
587Xtensa xtensa-elf
9c309e77 588Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
ca3bf3bd 589
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590* GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
591(mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
592running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
593
594* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
595Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
596supported.
597
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598* The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
599broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
600
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601* The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
602stub provides the required support.
603
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604* Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
605longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
606
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607* New commands
608
609set substitute-path
610unset substitute-path
611show substitute-path
612 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
613 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
614 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
615 between compilation and debugging.
616
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617set trace-commands
618show trace-commands
619 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
620 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
621 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
622
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623* REMOVED features
624
625The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
626
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627Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
628an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
629
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630The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
631
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632* New remote packets
633
634qSupported:
635 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
636 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
637 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
638 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
639 target.
640
0876f84a
DJ
641qXfer:auxv:read:
642 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
643 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
644
9ebce043
DJ
645qXfer:memory-map:read:
646 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
647 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
648
649vFlashErase:
650vFlashWrite:
651vFlashDone:
652 Erase and program a flash memory device.
653
0876f84a
DJ
654* Removed remote packets
655
656qPart:auxv:read:
657 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
658 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
659
e374b601 660*** Changes in GDB 6.5
53e5f3cf 661
96309189
MS
662* New targets
663
664Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
665
666Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
667
53e5f3cf
AS
668* New commands
669
670init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
671 only if it doesn't already have a value.
672
ac264b3b
MS
673The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
674
675checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
676
677restart <n> Return the program state to a
678 previously saved state.
679
680info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
681
682delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
683
684set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
685 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
686
687info forks List forks of the user program that
688 are available to be debugged.
689
690fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
691 forks of the user program that are
692 available to be debugged.
693
694delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
695 that are available to be debugged (and
696 kill the forked process).
697
698detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
699 that are available to be debugged (and
700 allow the process to continue).
701
3950dc3f
NS
702* New architecture
703
704Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
705
0ea3f30e
DJ
706* Improved Windows host support
707
708GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
709native console support, and remote communications using either
710network sockets or serial ports.
711
f79daebb
GM
712* Improved Modula-2 language support
713
714GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
715basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
716pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
717printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
718written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
719GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
720
acab6ab2
MM
721* REMOVED features
722
723The ARM rdi-share module.
724
f4267320
DJ
725The Netware NLM debug server.
726
53e5f3cf 727*** Changes in GDB 6.4
156a53ca 728
e0ecbda1
MK
729* New native configurations
730
02a677ac 731OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
e0ecbda1
MK
732OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
733
d64a6579
KB
734* New targets
735
736Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
737
b33a6190
AS
738* New command line options
739
740--batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
741--return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
742 the child (debugged) program exited with.
743--eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
744 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
745 specified multiple times and in conjunction
746 with the --command (-x) option.
747
11dced61
AC
748* Deprecated commands removed
749
750The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
751removed:
752
753 Command Replacement
754 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
755 othernames set arm disassembler
756 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
757 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
758 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
759 regs info registers
760
6fe85783
MK
761* New BSD user-level threads support
762
763It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
764library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
765configurations are:
766
767FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
768FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
769OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
770
771Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
772are not yet supported.
773
5260ca71
MS
774* New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
775(Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
776
e84ecc99
AC
777* REMOVED configurations and files
778
779VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
9445aa30 780Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
9445aa30 781National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
156a53ca 782
31e35378
JB
783* New "set print array-indexes" command
784
785After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
786when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
787behavior.
788
e85e5c83
MK
789* VAX floating point support
790
791GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
792
d91e9901
AS
793* User-defined command support
794
795In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
796to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
797section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
798
f2cb65ca
MC
799*** Changes in GDB 6.3:
800
f47b1503
AS
801* New command line option
802
803GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
804debugging.
805
f2cb65ca
MC
806* GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
807
808GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
809information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
810by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
811proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
812to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
860660cb 813
d08c0230
AC
814* Internationalization
815
816When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
817internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
818continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
819
117ea3cf
PH
820* Ada
821
822Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
823implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
824into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
825
d08c0230
AC
826* New native configurations
827
828GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
829
830* Remote 'p' packet
831
832GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
833packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
834
835* END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
836
837GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
838The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
839features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
840i386 application).
841
842GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
843compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
844continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
845configurations:
846
847hppa-*-hpux
848ia64-*-aix
849mips-*-irix*
850*-*-lynx
851mips-*-linux-gnu
852sds protocol
853xdr protocol
854powerpc bdm protocol
855
856Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
857made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
858
859* OBSOLETE configurations and files
860
861Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
862been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
863configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
864permanently REMOVED.
865
866h8300-*-*
867mcore-*-*
868mn10300-*-*
869ns32k-*-*
870sh64-*-*
871v850-*-*
872
ebb7c577
AC
873*** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
874
875* MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
876
877When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
878heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
879been fixed.
880
881* MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
882
883When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
884fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
885IRIX long double values).
886
887* VAX and "next"
888
889A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
890command. This problem has been fixed.
891
860660cb 892*** Changes in GDB 6.2:
faae5abe 893
0dea2468
AC
894* Fix for ``many threads''
895
896On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
897rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
898error message:
899
900 ptrace: No such process.
901 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
902
903This problem has been fixed.
904
2c07db7a
AC
905* "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
906
907Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
908GDB to dump core).
909
c23968a2
JB
910* New ``start'' command.
911
912This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
913
71009278
MK
914* New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
915
916Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
917live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
918platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
919
920FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
921FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
922NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
923NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
924NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
925OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
926OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
927OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
928OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
929
3c0b7db2
AC
930* Signal trampoline code overhauled
931
932Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
933These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
934of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
935call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
936signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
937
73cc75f3
AC
938Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
939features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
940include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
3c0b7db2 941
7243600a
BF
942* Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
943
6f606e1c
MK
944* New native configurations
945
97dc871c 946GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
0e56aeaf 947OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
bf2ca189
MK
948OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
949OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
d195bc9f 950OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 951NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
9f076e7a 952OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 953
a1b461bf
AC
954* END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
955
956GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
957The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
958including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
959migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
960compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
961work, was also included.
962
963GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
964module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
965
966h8300-*-*
967mcore-*-*
968mn10300-*-*
969ns32k-*-*
970sh64-*-*
971v850-*-*
972xstormy16-*-*
973
974Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
975made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
976
3c7012f5
AC
977* REMOVED configurations and files
978
979Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
980Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
981Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
982Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
983Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
984AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
985Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
986decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
987riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
988sonymips mips-sony-*
989sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
990
e5fe55f7
AC
991*** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
992
993* TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
994
995The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
996GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
997command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
998program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
999with GDB".
1000
1001* Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
1002
1003Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
1004libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
1005cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
1006GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
1007shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
1008the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
1009are created.
1010
1011Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
1012
1013* Fixed ISO-C build problems
1014
1015The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
1016non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
1017compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
1018
1019* Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
1020
1021Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
1022wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
1023
1024* Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
1025
1026The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
1027permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
1028systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
1029
1030* Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
1031
1032Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
1033has been updated to use constant array sizes.
1034
1035* Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
1036
1037GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
1038its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
1039panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
1040
1041* Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
1042
1043When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
1044by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
1045not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
1046
faae5abe 1047*** Changes in GDB 6.1:
f2c06f52 1048
9175c9a3
MC
1049* Removed --with-mmalloc
1050
1051Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
1052conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
1053
3cc87ec0
MK
1054* Changes in AMD64 configurations
1055
1056The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
1057the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
1058and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
1059you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
1060
f0424ef6
MK
1061* Revised SPARC target
1062
1063The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
1064FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
03cebad2
MK
1065support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
1066from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
1067(Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
f0424ef6 1068
59659be2
ILT
1069* New C++ demangler
1070
1071GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
1072names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
1073with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
1074programs.
1075
9e08b29b
DJ
1076* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
1077
1078GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
1079arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
1080encountered these.
1081
8dfe8985
DC
1082* C++ nested types and namespaces
1083
1084GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
1085improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
1086is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
1087Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
1088namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
1089"Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
1090frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
1091if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
1092GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
1093
cced5e27
MK
1094* New native configurations
1095
1096NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
27d1e716 1097OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
2031c21a 1098OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
f2cab569
MK
1099OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
1100OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
cced5e27 1101
b4b4b794
KI
1102* New debugging protocols
1103
1104M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
1105
7989c619
AC
1106* "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
1107
1108The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
1109and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
1110tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
1111
5994185b
AC
1112* OBSOLETE configurations and files
1113
1114Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1115been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1116configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1117permanently REMOVED.
1118
1119Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
1120Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
1121Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
1122Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
1123Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
1124AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
1125Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
0748d941
AC
1126decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
1127riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
1128sonymips mips-sony-*
1129sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
5994185b 1130
0ddabb4c
AC
1131* REMOVED configurations and files
1132
1133SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
1134SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
4a8269c0
AC
1135Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1136Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1137H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1138HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
1139HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1140HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
1141PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
cf7c5c23 1142386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
4a8269c0
AC
1143Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
1144 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
1145 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
f0424ef6
MK
1146SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
1147SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
4a8269c0
AC
1148Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1149Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
0ddabb4c 1150
c7f1390e
DJ
1151*** Changes in GDB 6.0:
1152
1fe43d45
AC
1153* Objective-C
1154
1155Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
1156integrated into GDB.
1157
e6beb428
AC
1158* New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
1159
1160DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
1161information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
1162By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
1163backtraces.
1164
1165The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
1166have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
1167DWARF 2 CFI support.
1168
1169* Hosted file I/O.
1170
1171GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
1172file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
1173remote protocol documentation for details.
1174
1175* All targets using the new architecture framework.
1176
1177All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
1178architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
1179to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
1180ppc32 on ppc64).
1181
1182* GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
1183
1184GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
1185per-thread variables.
1186
1187* GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
1188
1189GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
1190GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
1191
1192* Separate debug info.
1193
1194GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
1195automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
1196of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
1197system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
1198and optional debug files.
1199
1200* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
1201
1202DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
1203describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
1204debugger.
1205
1206GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
1207for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
1208
1209* Java
1210
1211A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
1212Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
1213considered "useable".
1214
85f8f974
DJ
1215* GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
1216
1217The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
1218commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
1219kernel.
1220
0fac0b41
DJ
1221* GDB supports logging output to a file
1222
1223There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
1224used to capture GDB's output to a file.
f2c06f52 1225
6ad8ae5c
DJ
1226* The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
1227
1228The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
1229disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
1230command.
1231
e286caf2 1232* d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
5f601589
AC
1233
1234The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
1235registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
1236
d28f9cdf
DJ
1237* Profiling support
1238
1239A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
1240be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
1241session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
1242"--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
1243data, for more informative profiling results.
1244
da0f9dcd
AC
1245* Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
1246
1247The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
1248option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
b68767c1 1249"mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
da0f9dcd
AC
1250
1251Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
1252removed.
1253
fb9b6b35
JJ
1254Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
1255Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
1256Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
1257 in a subsequent -var-update.
1258
954a4db8
MK
1259* New native configurations.
1260
1261FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
1262
6760f9e6
JB
1263* Multi-arched targets.
1264
b4263afa 1265HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
85a453d5 1266Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
6760f9e6 1267
1b831c93
AC
1268* OBSOLETE configurations and files
1269
1270Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1271been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1272configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1273permanently REMOVED.
1274
8b0e5691 1275Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
67f16606 1276Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
fd2299bd 1277H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
56056df7
AC
1278HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
1279HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1280HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
78c43945 1281PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
2fbce691
AC
1282Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
1283 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
1284 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
f81824a9
AC
1285Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1286Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
fd2299bd 1287
5835abe7
NC
1288* REMOVED configurations and files
1289
1290V850EA ISA
1b831c93
AC
1291Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
1292IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
1293i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
1294i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
1295i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
1296HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
1297 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
1298 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
1299Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1300Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1301Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1302OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1303I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
5835abe7 1304
a094c6fb
AC
1305* MIPS $fp behavior changed
1306
1307The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
1308the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
1309context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
1310address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
1311The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
1312
299ffc64 1313*** Changes in GDB 5.3:
37057839 1314
46248966
AC
1315* GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
1316
1317When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
1318`/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
1319in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
1320library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
1321shared libs like mad''.
1322
b9d14705 1323* ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
6da02953 1324
b9d14705
DJ
1325Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
1326the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
1327arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
1328powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
6da02953 1329
e0e9281e
JB
1330* GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
1331
1332GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
1333and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
1334they expand.
1335
dd73b9bb
AC
1336The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
1337invocations in expression, and shows the result.
1338
1339The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
1340macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
1341
e0e9281e
JB
1342Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
1343information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
1344your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
1345information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
1346
2250ee0c
CV
1347* Multi-arched targets.
1348
6e3ba3b8
JT
1349DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
1350DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
2250ee0c 1351NEC V850 v850-*-*
6e3ba3b8 1352National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
a1789893
GS
1353Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
1354Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
2250ee0c 1355
cd9bfe15 1356* New targets.
e33ce519 1357
456f8b9d
DB
1358Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
1359
e33ce519 1360
da8ca43d
JT
1361* New native configurations
1362
1363Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
029923d4 1364SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
45888261 1365MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
9ce5c36a 1366UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
da8ca43d 1367
cd9bfe15
AC
1368* OBSOLETE configurations and files
1369
1370Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1371been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1372configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1373permanently REMOVED.
1374
92eb23c5 1375Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
a99a9e1b 1376OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1c7cc583 1377IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
7a3085c1 1378Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
7fb623f7 1379Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
eb4c54a2 1380Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
d8ee244c
MK
1381i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
1382i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
1383i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
822e978b
AC
1384HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
1385 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
1386 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
4d210288 1387I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
92eb23c5 1388
db034ac5
AC
1389* OBSOLETE languages
1390
1391CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
1392
cd9bfe15
AC
1393* REMOVED configurations and files
1394
1395AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
1396A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1397AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1398AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1399AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1400
1401testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
1402
20f01a46
DH
1403* New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
1404
1405This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
1406commands. The default is 1024.
1407
a5941fbf
MK
1408* Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
1409
1410Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
1411
89743e04
MS
1412* New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
1413
1414These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
1415to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
1416from a file into memory (restore).
37057839 1417
9fb14e79
JB
1418* Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
1419
1420The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
1421including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
1422of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
1423
2037aebb
AC
1424*** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
1425
1426* New targets.
1427
1428Atmel AVR avr*-*-*
1429
1430* Bug fixes
1431
1432gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
1433mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
1434Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
1435
1436gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
1437dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
1438Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
1439
1440Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
1441Surprisingly enough, it works now.
1442By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
1443
1444i386 hardware watchpoint support:
1445avoid misses on second run for some targets.
1446By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
1447
37057839 1448*** Changes in GDB 5.2:
eb7cedd9 1449
1a703748
MS
1450* New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
1451
1452This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
1453really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
1454In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
1455target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
1456This can be a significant performance improvement on some
1457(notably embedded) targets.
1458
cefd4ef5
MS
1459* New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
1460
55241689
AC
1461This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
1462process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
1463GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
1464hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
cefd4ef5 1465
352ed7b4
MS
1466* New command line option
1467
1468GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
1469
1470* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
1471
1472There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
1473command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
1474a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
1475be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
1476open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
1477issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
1478a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
1479it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
1480GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
1481is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
1482
fe419ffc
RE
1483* Changes in ARM configurations.
1484
1485Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
1486configuration is fully multi-arch.
1487
eb7cedd9
MK
1488* New native configurations
1489
fe419ffc 1490ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
eb7cedd9 1491x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
55241689 1492AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
768f0842 1493Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
eb7cedd9 1494
c9f63e6b
CV
1495* New targets
1496
1497Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
1498
9b4ff276
AC
1499* OBSOLETE configurations and files
1500
1501Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1502been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1503configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1504permanently REMOVED.
1505
1506AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
1507A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1508AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1509AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1510AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1511
b4ceaee6 1512testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
9b4ff276 1513
e2caac18
AC
1514* REMOVED configurations and files
1515
1516TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
7bc65f05 1517WDC 65816 w65-*-*
7768dd6c
AC
1518PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1519PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1520PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
5e734e1f 1521Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1406caf7
AC
1522Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
1523 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
7e24f0b1 1524SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
9b567150 1525Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
3680c638
AC
1526Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
1527ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
a752853e 1528Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
e2caac18 1529
c2a727fa
TT
1530* Changes to command line processing
1531
1532The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
1533for the inferior from gdb's command line.
1534
467d8519
TT
1535* Changes to key bindings
1536
1537There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
1538
7072a954
AC
1539*** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
1540
1541Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
1542
1543Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
1544corrupted.
1545
1546Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
1547
1548Numerous documentation fixes.
1549
1550Numerous testsuite fixes.
1551
34f47bc4 1552*** Changes in GDB 5.1:
139760b7
MK
1553
1554* New native configurations
1555
1556Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
1557x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
55241689 1558MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
e23194cb
EZ
1559MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
1560ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
55241689 1561s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
139760b7 1562
bf64bfd6
AC
1563* New targets
1564
def90278 1565Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
24be5c34 1566CRIS cris-axis
55241689 1567UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
def90278 1568
17e78a56 1569* OBSOLETE configurations and files
bf64bfd6
AC
1570
1571x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
9b9c068d 1572Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
bb19ff3b
AC
1573Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
1574 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
76f4ea53
AC
1575TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1576WDC 65816 w65-*-*
4a1968f4 1577Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1b2b2c16
AC
1578PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1579PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1580PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
24f89b68 1581SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
514e603d
AC
1582Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
1583ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
d036b4d9 1584Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
bf64bfd6 1585
17e78a56
AC
1586stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
1587kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
1588
7fcca85b
AC
1589Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1590been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1591configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1592permanently REMOVED.
1593
a196c81c 1594* REMOVED configurations and files
7fcca85b
AC
1595
1596Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
1597Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
1598Pyramid pyramid-*-*
1599ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
1600Tahoe tahoe-*-*
a196c81c 1601ser-ocd.c *-*-*
bf64bfd6 1602
6d6b80e5 1603* GDB has been converted to ISO C.
e23194cb 1604
6d6b80e5 1605GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
e23194cb
EZ
1606sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
1607present.
1608
bf64bfd6
AC
1609* Other news:
1610
e23194cb
EZ
1611* "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
1612
1613* The MI enabled by default.
1614
1615The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
1616revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
1617engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
1618using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
1619which is now deprecated.
1620
1621* Support for debugging Pascal programs.
1622
1623GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
1624main features are supported:
1625
1626 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
1627
1628 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
1629 extension;
1630
1631 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
1632
1633 - a Pascal expression parser.
1634
1635However, some important features are not yet supported.
1636
1637 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
1638
1639 - there are some problems with boolean types;
1640
1641 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
1642 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
1643
1644 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
1645
1646 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
1647
1648* Changes in completion.
1649
1650Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
1651to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
1652users expect at the shell prompt.
1653
1654Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
1655`breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
1656program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
1657files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
1658be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
1659considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
1660name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
1661
1662`set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
1663
1664* New platform-independent commands:
1665
1666It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
1667hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
1668documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
1669
1670* Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
1671
d7275149
MK
1672Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
1673revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
1674many threads as your system allows you to have.
1675
e23194cb
EZ
1676Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
1677
d7275149
MK
1678Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
1679multi-threaded programs though.
e23194cb
EZ
1680
1681* Changes in MIPS configurations.
bf64bfd6
AC
1682
1683Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
1684
e23194cb
EZ
1685GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
1686debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
1687supported.)
1688
1689* Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
1690
1691Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
1692breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
1693implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
1694put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
1695and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
1696registers.
1697
1698The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
1699debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
1700watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
1701
1702* Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
1703
1704New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
1705the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
1706
1707New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
1708display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
1709IDT.
1710
1711New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
1712from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
1713New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
1714a given linear address.
1715
1716GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
1717program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
1718which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
1719
1720DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
1721
6c56c069
EZ
1722It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
1723
e23194cb
EZ
1724* Changes in documentation.
1725
1726All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
1727Documentation License.
1728
1729Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1730manual.
1731
1732TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
1733
1734Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1735manual.
1736
1737The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
1738documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
1739hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
1740
5d6640b1
AC
1741* GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
1742
1743The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
1744``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
1745contents of this file.
1746
1a1d8446
AC
1747* gdba.el deleted
1748
1749GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
139760b7 1750
9debab2f 1751*** Changes in GDB 5.0:
7a292a7a 1752
c63ce875
EZ
1753* Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
1754
1755Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
1756programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
1757displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
1758greater level of detail.
1759
1760* Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
1761
1762It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
1763bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
1764on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
1765written.
1766
1767* Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
1768
1769The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
1770necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
1771machines ``out of the box''.
1772
1773The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
1774possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
1775signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
1776would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
1777interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
1778
1779It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
1780standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
1781even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
1782and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
1783terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
1784
1785The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
1786enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
1787also works.
1788
1789DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
1790GDB.
1791
1792It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
1793directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
1794times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
1795breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
1796
ed9a39eb
JM
1797* New native configurations
1798
1799ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
afc05dd4 1800PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
ed9a39eb 1801
7a292a7a
SS
1802* New targets
1803
96baa820 1804Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
adf40b2e
JM
1805x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
1806PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
7a292a7a
SS
1807TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1808
085dd6e6
JM
1809* OBSOLETE configurations
1810
1811Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
1812Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
9846de1b 1813Pyramid pyramid-*-*
ed9a39eb 1814ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
104c1213 1815Tahoe tahoe-*-*
7a292a7a 1816
9debab2f
AC
1817Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1818but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1819these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1820be permanently REMOVED.
1821
5330533d
SS
1822* Gould support removed
1823
1824Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
1825
bc9e5bbf
AC
1826* New features for SVR4
1827
1828On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
1829without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
1830load symbols from the running process's executable file.
1831
1832* Many C++ enhancements
1833
1834C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
1835in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
1836
adf40b2e
JM
1837* Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
1838
1839A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
1840sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
1841with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
1842``|<program> <args>'' vis:
1843
1844 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
1845 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
1846
43e526b9
JM
1847* MIPS 64 remote protocol
1848
1849A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
1850expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
1851instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
1852
1853The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
1854added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
1855
96baa820
JM
1856* ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
1857
1858The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
1859``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
1860include ``set remote P-packet''.
1861
11cf8741
JM
1862* Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
1863
1864The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
1865accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
1866``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
1867
7876dd43
DB
1868* ``apropos'' command added.
1869
1870The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
1871documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
1872try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
1873
bc9e5bbf
AC
1874* New MI interface
1875
1876A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
1877interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
7162c0ca
EZ
1878process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
1879"GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
1880enabled by configuring with:
bc9e5bbf
AC
1881
1882 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
1883
c906108c
SS
1884*** Changes in GDB-4.18:
1885
1886* New native configurations
1887
1888HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
1889HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
55241689 1890M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
c906108c
SS
1891
1892* New targets
1893
1894Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1895Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
1896Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1897
1898* OBSOLETE configurations
1899
1900Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
1901
1902Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1903but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1904these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1905be permanently REMOVED.
1906
1907* ANSI/ISO C
1908
1909As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
1910buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
1911containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
1912use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
1913available. If this is not true, please report the affected
1914configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
1915information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
1916already.
1917
1918* Readline 2.2
1919
1920GDB now uses readline 2.2.
1921
1922* set extension-language
1923
1924You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
1925languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
1926you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
1927 set extension-language .c c++
1928The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
1929and their associated languages.
1930
1931* Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
1932
1933When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
1934you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
1935PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
1936
1937 set processor NAME
1938
1939sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
1940following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
1941
1942 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
1943 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
1944 403 IBM PowerPC 403
1945 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
1946 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
1947 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
1948 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
1949 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
1950 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
1951 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
1952 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
1953
1954At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
1955special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
1956registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
1957only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
1958
1959* HP-UX support
1960
1961Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
1962more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
1963library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
1964support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
1965for xdb and dbx commands.
1966
1967* Catchpoints
1968
1969HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
1970generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
1971to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
1972
1973This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
1974argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
1975output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
1976
1977* Debugging across forks
1978
1979On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
1980in the inferior.
1981
1982* TUI
1983
1984HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
1985it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
1986configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
1987
1988* GDB remote protocol additions
1989
1990A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
1991Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
1992fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
1993allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
1994
1995For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
1996full 64-bit address. The command
1997
1998 set remoteaddresssize 32
1999
2000can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
2001the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
2002will be discarded.
2003
2004In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
2005command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
2006
2007 maint packet heythere
2008
2009sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
2010disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
2011time.
2012
2013The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
2014target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
2015downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
2016
2017* Tracing can collect general expressions
2018
2019You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
2020further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
2021doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
2022
2023* mask-address variable for Mips
2024
2025For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
2026a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
2027of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
2028
2029* Higher serial baud rates
2030
2031GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
2032230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
2033to achieve all of these rates.)
2034
2035* i960 simulator
2036
2037The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
2038builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
2039
2040
2041*** Changes in GDB-4.17:
2042
2043* New native configurations
2044
2045Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
2046Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
2047Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
2048PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
2049PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
2050Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
2051Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
2052
2053* New targets
2054
2055Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
2056Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
2057Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
2058Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
2059MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
2060MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
2061MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
2062Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
2063Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
2064Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2065NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
2066
2067* New debugging protocols
2068
2069ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
2070M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
2071DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
2072PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
2073PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
2074Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
2075
2076* DWARF 2
2077
2078All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
2079format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
2080information.
2081
2082* Java frontend
2083
2084GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
2085only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
2086
2087* solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
2088
2089For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
2090loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
2091locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
2092
2093* Live range splitting
2094
2095GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
2096range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
2097more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
2098
2099* Hurd support
2100
2101GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
2102updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
2103
2104* ARM Thumb support
2105
2106GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
2107instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
2108instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
2109accordingly.
2110
2111* MIPS16 support
2112
2113GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
2114instruction set.
2115
2116* Overlay support
2117
2118GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
2119linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
2120will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
2121control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
2122additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
2123in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
2124
2125* info symbol
2126
2127The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
2128the symbol at the specified address.
2129
2130* Trace support
2131
2132The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
2133asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
2134extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
2135includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
2136file tracepoint.c for more details.
2137
2138* MIPS simulator
2139
2140Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
2141by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
2142of most MIPS variants.
2143
2144* Sparc simulator
2145
2146Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
2147by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
2148Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
2149
2150* set architecture
2151
2152For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
2153basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
2154architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
2155the possible architectures.
2156
2157*** Changes in GDB-4.16:
2158
2159* New native configurations
2160
2161Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
2162M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
2163PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
2164PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
2165PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
2166RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
2167
2168* New targets
2169
2170ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
2171I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
2172MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
2173MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
2174PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
2175Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
2176Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2177
2178* PowerPC simulator
2179
2180The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
2181contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
2182PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
2183basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
2184performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
2185
2186* Solaris 2.5
2187
2188GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
2189
2190* Windows 95/NT native
2191
2192GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
2193To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
2194which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
2195Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
2196ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
2197
2198* dont-repeat command
2199
2200If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
2201command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
2202useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
2203extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
2204
2205* Send break instead of ^C
2206
2207The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
2208rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
2209GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
2210
2211* Remote protocol timeout
2212
2213The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
2214that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
2215to read from the target. The default value is 2.
2216
2217* Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
2218
2219By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
2220loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
2221stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
2222when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
2223in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
2224
2225Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
2226/usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
2227automatically on hpux10.
2228
2229* Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
2230
2231Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
2232
2233* Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
2234
2235When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
2236may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
2237the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
2238every character. The default value is 1050.
2239
2240* Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
2241
2242If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
2243a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
2244replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
2245details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
2246remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
2247to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
2248
2249* Speedups for remote debugging
2250
2251GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
2252the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
2253and more efficient S-record downloading.
2254
2255* Memory use reductions and statistics collection
2256
2257GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
2258Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
2259
2260*** Changes in GDB-4.15:
2261
2262* Psymtabs for XCOFF
2263
2264The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
2265can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
2266
2267* Remote targets use caching
2268
2269Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
2270remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
2271it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
2272debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
2273off' turns the the data cache off.
2274
2275* Remote targets may have threads
2276
2277The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
2278in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
2279gdb/remote.c for details.
2280
2281* NetROM support
2282
2283If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
2284support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
2285acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
2286write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
2287support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
2288another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
2289sequence is something like
2290
2291 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
2292 load <prog>
2293 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
2294
2295* Macintosh host
2296
2297GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
2298may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
2299it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
2300available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
2301device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
2302directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
2303scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
2304mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
2305
2306* Autoconf
2307
2308GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
2309but does simplify configuration and building.
2310
2311* hpux10
2312
2313GDB now supports hpux10.
2314
2315*** Changes in GDB-4.14:
2316
2317* New native configurations
2318
2319x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
2320x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
2321NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
2322Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
2323
2324* New targets
2325
2326A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
2327HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
2328CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
2329PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
2330WDC 65816 w65-*-*
2331
2332* Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
2333
2334GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
2335possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
2336filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
2337the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
2338if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
2339
2340* Arguments to user-defined commands
2341
2342User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
2343Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
2344trivial example:
2345define adder
2346 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
2347
2348To execute the command use:
2349adder 1 2 3
2350
2351Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
2352Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
2353use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
2354
2355* New `if' and `while' commands
2356
2357This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
2358commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
2359expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
2360execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
2361terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
2362`else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
2363if the expression is zero.
2364
2365* Fortran source language mode
2366
2367GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
2368Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
2369variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
2370with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
2371Fortran compilers.
2372
2373* Better HPUX support
2374
2375Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
2376running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
2377processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
2378for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
2379that behavior do the following before running the program:
2380
2381 adb -w a.out
2382 __dld_flags?W 0x5
2383 control-d
2384
2385This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
2386To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
2387
2388 adb -w a.out
2389 __dld_flags?W 0x4
2390 control-d
2391
2392You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
2393the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
2394external linkage.
2395
2396GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
2397HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
2398
2399* Target byte order now dynamically selectable
2400
2401You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
2402commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
2403current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
2404"set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
2405associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
2406configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
2407
2408* New DOS host serial code
2409
2410This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
2411no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
2412a PC's serial port.
2413
2414*** Changes in GDB-4.13:
2415
2416* New "complete" command
2417
2418This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
2419were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
2420
2421* Trailing space optional in prompt
2422
2423"set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
2424allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
2425
2426* Breakpoint hit counts
2427
2428"info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
2429has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
2430can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
2431to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
2432less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
2433that breakpoint.
2434
2435* Ability to stop printing at NULL character
2436
2437"set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
2438an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
2439arrays actually contain only short strings.
2440
2441* Shared library breakpoints
2442
2443In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
2444breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
2445
2446* Hardware watchpoints
2447
2448There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
2449targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
2450
55241689 2451Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
c906108c
SS
2452
2453* Annotations
2454
2455Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
2456and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
2457
2458* Improved Irix 5 support
2459
2460GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
2461
2462* Improved HPPA support
2463
2464GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
2465
2466* New native configurations
2467
2468Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
2469HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
2470Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
2471RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
2472
2473* New targets
2474
2475OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
2476MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
2477Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
2478
2479* Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
2480
2481There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
2482This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
2483
2484* Fixes
2485
2486As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
2487and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
2488
2489*** Changes in GDB-4.12:
2490
2491* Irix 5 is now supported
2492
2493* HPPA support
2494
2495GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
2496to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
2497GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
2498of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
2499can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
2500
2501
2502*** Changes in GDB-4.11:
2503
2504* User visible changes:
2505
2506* Remote Debugging
2507
2508The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
2509target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
2510debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
2511integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
2512debugging info for the mips target).
2513
2514* DEC Alpha native support
2515
2516GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
2517debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
2518work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
2519Alpha-specific notes.
2520
2521* Preliminary thread implementation
2522
2523GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
2524
2525* LynxOS native and target support for 386
2526
2527This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
2528to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
2529for details).
2530
2531* Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
2532
2533This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
2534mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
2535call methods, ...etc.
2536
2537*** Changes in GDB-4.10:
2538
2539 * User visible changes:
2540
2541Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
2542supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
2543other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
2544somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
2545
2546Filename completion now works.
2547
2548When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
2549arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
2550addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
2551
2552All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
2553vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
2554should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
2555your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
2556to be on the far side of a thin network line.
2557
2558 * DEC alpha support
2559
2560This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
2561cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
2562
2563
2564*** Changes in GDB-4.9:
2565
2566 * Testsuite
2567
2568This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
2569The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
2570via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
2571
2572 * C++ demangling
2573
2574'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
2575emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
2576Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
2577disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
2578use gdb with AT&T cfront.
2579
2580 * Simulators
2581
2582GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
2583So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
2584Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
2585
2586 * New targets supported
2587
2588H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
2589H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
2590SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
2591Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
2592IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
2593
2594Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
2595version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
2596GO32 memory extender.
2597
2598 * New remote protocols
2599
2600MIPS remote debugging protocol.
2601
2602 * New source languages supported
2603
2604This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
2605used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
2606into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
2607
2608
2609*** Changes in GDB-4.8:
2610
2611 * HP Precision Architecture supported
2612
2613GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
2614version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
2615University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
2616compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
2617format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
2618(as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
2619
2620Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
2621
2622 * Faster and better demangling
2623
2624We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
2625demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
2626character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
2627only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
2628This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
2629increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
2630symbol lookups.
2631
2632`Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
2633from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
2634compiler does not actually implement.
2635
2636 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
2637
2638In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
2639inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
2640recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
2641very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
2642The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
2643circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
2644fix.
2645
2646The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
2647release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
2648
2649 * Improved configure script
2650
2651The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
2652you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
2653host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
2654done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
2655
2656We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
2657version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
2658`--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
2659The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
2660only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
2661We hope to make this the default in a future release.
2662
2663 * Documentation improvements
2664
2665There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
2666produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
2667before submitting changes.
2668
2669The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
2670M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
2671`info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
2672you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
2673a future texinfo-X.Y release.
2674
2675*NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
2676We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
2677been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
2678or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
2679`texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
2680around this problem.
2681
2682 * New features
2683
2684GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
2685the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
2686`print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
2687the target program.
2688
2689The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
2690how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
2691
2692 * New native hosts supported
2693
2694HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
2695386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
2696
2697 * New targets supported
2698
2699AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
2700
2701 * New file formats supported
2702
2703BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
2704HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
2705
2706 * Major bug fixes
2707
2708Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
2709
2710We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
2711printf_filtered("%s") problems.
2712
2713We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
2714for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
2715release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
2716
2717You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
2718will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
2719
2720We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
2721for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
2722especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
2723libraries.
2724
2725The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
2726information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
2727command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
2728any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
2729when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
2730
2731 * Internal improvements
2732
2733GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
2734debugging of multiple languages in the future.
2735
2736GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
2737Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
2738symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
2739contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
2740shared code that handles any of them.
2741
2742 * New command line options
2743
2744We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
2745
2746 * Mmalloc licensing
2747
2748The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
2749General Public License.
2750
2751*** Changes in GDB-4.7:
2752
2753 * Host/native/target split
2754
2755GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
2756hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
2757target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
2758local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
2759ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
2760
2761The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
2762GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
2763is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
2764code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
2765any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
2766built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
2767handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
2768
2769GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
2770It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
2771plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
2772
2773 * New hosts supported
2774
2775HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
2776386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
2777386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
2778
2779 * New targets supported
2780
2781Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
278268030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
2783
2784 * New native hosts supported
2785
2786386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
2787 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
2788386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
2789
2790 * New file formats supported
2791
2792BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
2793supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
2794format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
2795
2796 * New commands
2797
2798`show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
2799`show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
2800These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
2801
2802`info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
2803
2804You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
2805scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
2806prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
2807executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
2808
2809 * C++ improvements
2810
2811We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
2812info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
2813symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
2814
2815Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
2816
2817 * Major bug fixes
2818
2819The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
2820fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
2821by the compiler.
2822
2823We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
2824support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
2825
2826John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
2827slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
2828that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
2829purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
2830the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
2831mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
2832
2833Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
2834about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
2835completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
2836we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
2837
2838 * AMD 29k support
2839
2840A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
2841specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
2842calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
2843usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
2844in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
2845
2846We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
2847Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
2848of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
2849resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
2850
2851 * Remote interfaces
2852
2853We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
2854with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
2855message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
2856This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
2857needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
2858breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
2859each instruction being stepped through.
2860
2861The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
2862registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
2863
2864There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
2865find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
2866Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
2867processor with a serial port.
2868
2869 * Configuration
2870
2871Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
2872`table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
2873supported, and what files each one uses.
2874
2875 * Library changes
2876
2877There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
2878disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
2879Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
2880disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
2881
2882The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
2883Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
2884can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
2885grants all the rights from the General Public License.
2886
2887 * Documentation
2888
2889The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
2890reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
2891as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
2892encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
2893system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
2894bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
2895
2896And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
2897
2898
2899*** Changes in GDB-4.6:
2900
2901 * Better support for C++ function names
2902
2903GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
2904names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
2905(using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
2906single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
2907Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
2908
2909GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
2910the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
2911You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
2912lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
2913for the list of formats.
2914
2915 * G++ symbol mangling problem
2916
2917Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
2918C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
2919directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
2920can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
2921usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
2922about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
2923this problem.)
2924
2925 * New 'maintenance' command
2926
2927All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
2928the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
2929can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
2930
2931 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
2932 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
2933 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
2934 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
2935 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
2936 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
2937
2938The following commands are new:
2939
2940 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
2941 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
2942 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
2943
2944 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
2945
2946We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
2947(e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
2948be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
2949read after argv processing.
2950
2951 * New hosts supported
2952
2953Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
2954
55241689 2955GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
c906108c
SS
2956
2957We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
2958is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
2959for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
2960masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
2961fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
2962It costs extra.
2963
2964 * New targets supported
2965
2966Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
2967
2968 * More smarts about finding #include files
2969
2970GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
2971all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
2972greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
2973especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
2974the one that contains your sources.
2975
2976We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
2977breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
2978try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
2979
2980 * Interesting infernals change
2981
2982GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
2983section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
2984target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
2985stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
2986
2987 * Bug fixes (of course!)
2988
2989There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
2990 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
2991 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
2992
2993See the ChangeLog for details.
2994
2995*** Changes in GDB-4.5:
2996
2997 * New machines supported (host and target)
2998
2999IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
3000
3001SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
3002
3003 * New malloc package
3004
3005GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
3006Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
3007capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
3008This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
3009pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
3010more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
3011
3012 * info proc
3013
3014The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
3015'help info proc' for details.
3016
3017 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
3018
3019The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
3020Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
3021possible.
3022
3023 * File name changes for MS-DOS
3024
3025Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
3026support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
3027conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
3028environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
3029that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
3030in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
3031
3032 * Cross byte order fixes
3033
3034Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
3035targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
3036
3037 * New -mapped and -readnow options
3038
3039If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
3040system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
3041`symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
3042program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
3043called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
3044Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
3045and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
3046the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
3047option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
3048starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
3049
3050You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
3051the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
3052information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
3053slower, but makes future operations faster.
3054
3055The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
3056build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
3057A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
3058use is:
3059
3060 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
3061
3062The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
3063It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
3064shared across multiple host platforms.
3065
3066 * longjmp() handling
3067
3068GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
3069siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
3070all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
3071platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
3072
3073 * Solaris 2.0
3074
3075Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
3076this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
3077reading symbols.
3078
3079 * Bug fixes
3080
3081As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
3082People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
3083crashes and trashed symbol tables.
3084
3085*** Changes in GDB-4.4:
3086
3087 * New machines supported (host and target)
3088
3089SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
3090 (except core files)
3091BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
3092Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
3093
3094 * New machines supported (target)
3095
3096AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
3097
3098 * C++ support
3099
3100GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
3101The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
3102per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
3103
3104GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
3105`ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
3106extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
3107good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
3108will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
3109released.
3110
3111 * New features for SVR4
3112
3113GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
3114shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
3115only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
3116
3117The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
3118on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
3119it prints the address mappings of the process.
3120
3121If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
3122bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
3123
3124 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
3125
3126Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
3127now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
3128skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
3129make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
3130same code linked statically.
3131
3132 * New Getopt
3133
3134GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
3135version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
3136continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
3137Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
3138added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
3139future by other options that begin with the same letter.
3140
3141 * Bugs fixed
3142
3143The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
3144Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
3145See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
3146
3147
3148*** Changes in GDB-4.3:
3149
3150 * New machines supported (host and target)
3151
3152Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
3153NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
3154Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
3155
3156 * Almost SCO Unix support
3157
3158We had hoped to support:
3159SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
3160(except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
3161that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
3162about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
3163
3164 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
3165
3166GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
3167debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
3168is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
3169send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
3170reqired (if any).
3171
3172 * New Readline
3173
3174GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
3175is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
3176required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
3177
3178 * Bugs fixed
3179
3180The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
3181Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
3182See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
3183
3184 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
3185
3186GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
3187supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
3188symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
3189
3190Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
3191mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
3192debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
3193mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
3194version 2.
3195
3196Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
3197really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
3198line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
3199variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
3200situation somewhat.
3201
3202When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
3203However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
3204methods.
3205
3206We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
3207DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
3208encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
3209
3210
3211*** Changes in GDB-4.2:
3212
3213 * Improved configuration
3214
3215Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
3216Porting BFD is simpler.
3217
3218 * Stepping improved
3219
3220The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
3221of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
3222in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
3223function that has debugging information is called within the line.
3224
3225 * Bug fixing
3226
3227Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
3228
3229 * New host supported (not target)
3230
3231Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
3232
3233
3234*** Changes in GDB-4.1:
3235
3236 * Multiple source language support
3237
3238GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
3239It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
3240and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
3241language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
3242You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
3243`set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
3244
3245 * GDB and Modula-2
3246
3247GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
3248currently under development at the State University of New York at
3249Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
3250continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
3251
3252Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
3253debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
3254symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
3255
3256There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
3257in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
3258
3259 * set write on/off
3260
3261GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
3262a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
3263the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
3264by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
3265effect immediately.
3266
3267 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
3268
3269When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
3270shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
3271The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
3272examining core files.
3273
3274 * set listsize
3275
3276You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
3277The default is 10.
3278
3279 * New machines supported (host and target)
3280
3281SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
3282Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
3283Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
3284
3285 * New hosts supported (not targets)
3286
3287IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
3288
3289 * New targets supported (not hosts)
3290
3291AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
3292AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
3293Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
3294
3295 * New remote interfaces
3296
3297AMD 29000 Adapt
3298AMD 29000 Minimon
3299
3300
3301*** Changes in GDB-4.0:
3302
3303 * New Facilities
3304
3305Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
3306
3307Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
3308target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
3309is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
3310remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
3311remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
3312also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
3313using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
3314stub on the target system.
3315
3316New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
3317
3318GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
3319library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
3320object file types such as a.out and coff.
3321
3322There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
3323refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
3324
3325
3326 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
3327
3328All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
3329by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
3330
3331For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
3332``Show prompt'' produces the response:
3333Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
3334
3335What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
3336print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
3337will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
3338all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
3339
3340confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
3341 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
3342 it is already running. Default is ON.
3343
3344editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
3345 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
3346 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
3347 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
3348 Default is ON.
3349
3350history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
3351 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
3352 or the value of the environment variable
3353 GDBHISTFILE.
3354
3355history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
3356 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
3357 HISTSIZE.
3358
3359history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
3360 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
3361 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
3362
3363history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
3364 history expansion will be performed on
3365 command line input. The default is OFF.
3366
3367radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
3368 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
3369 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
3370
3371height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
3372 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
3373 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
3374 variable TERM.
3375
3376width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
3377 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
3378 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
3379 variable TERM.
3380
3381Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
3382``set width'' instead.
3383
3384print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
3385 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
3386 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
3387 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
3388
3389print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
3390 is OFF.
3391
3392print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
3393 "raw" form if off.
3394
3395print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
3396 like instructions.
3397
3398print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
3399
3400
3401 * Support for Epoch Environment.
3402
3403The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
3404new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
3405are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
3406window.
3407
3408
3409 * Support for Shared Libraries
3410
3411GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
3412Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
3413before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
3414happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
3415At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
3416from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
3417shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
3418It can be abbreviated ``share''.
3419
3420sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
3421 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
3422 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
3423
3424info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
3425
3426
3427 * Watchpoints
3428
3429A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
3430expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
3431tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
3432quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
3433problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
3434more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
3435
3436watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
3437
3438info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
3439
3440delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3441disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3442enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3443
3444
3445 * C++ multiple inheritance
3446
3447When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
3448for C++ programs.
3449
3450 * C++ exception handling
3451
3452Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
3453ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
3454the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
3455handler's context).
3456
3457catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
3458 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
3459 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
3460
3461info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
3462 current stack frame.
3463
3464
3465 * Minor command changes
3466
3467The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
3468command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
3469is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
3470
3471The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
3472at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
3473frames without printing.
3474
3475 * New directory command
3476
3477'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
3478The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
3479about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
3480with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
3481find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
3482
3483 * Configuring GDB for compilation
3484
3485For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
3486for more details.
3487
3488GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
3489two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
3490Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
3491where the program that you are debugging will run.
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