Implement qXfer:exec-file:read in gdbserver
[deliverable/binutils-gdb.git] / gdb / NEWS
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1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
3
3b2f13ff 4*** Changes since GDB 7.9
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5=======
6
7* GDB now honors the content of the file /proc/PID/coredump_filter
8 (PID is the process ID) on GNU/Linux systems. This file can be used
9 to specify the types of memory mappings that will be included in a
10 corefile. For more information, please refer to the manual page of
11 "core(5)". GDB also has a new command: "set use-coredump-filter
12 on|off". It allows to set whether GDB will read the content of the
13 /proc/PID/coredump_filter file when generating a corefile.
3b2f13ff 14
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15* The "info os" command on GNU/Linux can now display information on
16 cpu information :
17 "info os cpus" Listing of all cpus/cores on the system
18
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19* GDB has two new commands: "set serial parity odd|even|none" and
20 "show serial parity". These allows to set or show parity for the
21 remote serial I/O.
22
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23* The "info source" command now displays the producer string if it was
24 present in the debug info. This typically includes the compiler version
25 and may include things like its command line arguments.
26
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27* Directory names supplied to the "set sysroot" commands may be
28 prefixed with "target:" to tell GDB to access shared libraries from
29 the target system, be it local or remote. This replaces the prefix
30 "remote:". The default sysroot has been changed from "" to
31 "target:". "remote:" is automatically converted to "target:" for
32 backward compatibility.
33
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34* The system root specified by "set sysroot" will be prepended to the
35 filename of the main executable (if reported to GDB as absolute by
36 the operating system) when starting processes remotely, and when
37 attaching to already-running local or remote processes.
38
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39* Python Scripting
40
41 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "username",
42 which is the name of the objfile as specified by the user,
43 without, for example, resolving symlinks.
d11916aa 44 ** You can now write frame unwinders in Python.
3a8b707a 45
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46* New commands
47
48maint print symbol-cache
49 Print the contents of the symbol cache.
50
51maint print symbol-cache-statistics
52 Print statistics of symbol cache usage.
53
54maint flush-symbol-cache
55 Flush the contents of the symbol cache.
56
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57record btrace bts
58record bts
59 Start branch trace recording using Branch Trace Store (BTS) format.
60
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61* New options
62
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63set max-completions
64show max-completions
65 Set the maximum number of candidates to be considered during
66 completion. The default value is 200. This limit allows GDB
67 to avoid generating large completion lists, the computation of
68 which can cause the debugger to become temporarily unresponsive.
69
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70maint set symbol-cache-size
71maint show symbol-cache-size
72 Control the size of the symbol cache.
73
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74set|show record btrace bts buffer-size
75 Set and show the size of the ring buffer used for branch tracing in
76 BTS format.
77 The obtained size may differ from the requested size. Use "info
78 record" to see the obtained buffer size.
79
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80* The command 'thread apply all' can now support new option '-ascending'
81 to call its specified command for all threads in ascending order.
82
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83* Python/Guile scripting
84
85 ** GDB now supports auto-loading of Python/Guile scripts contained in the
86 special section named `.debug_gdb_scripts'.
87
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88* New remote packets
89
90qXfer:btrace-conf:read
91 Return the branch trace configuration for the current thread.
92
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93Qbtrace-conf:bts:size
94 Set the requested ring buffer size for branch tracing in BTS format.
95
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96swbreak stop reason
97 Indicates a memory breakpoint instruction was executed, irrespective
98 of whether it was GDB that planted the breakpoint or the breakpoint
99 is hardcoded in the program. This is required for correct non-stop
100 mode operation.
101
102hwbreak stop reason
103 Indicates the target stopped for a hardware breakpoint. This is
104 required for correct non-stop mode operation.
105
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106vFile:fstat:
107 Return information about files on the remote system.
108
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109qXfer:exec-file:read
110 Return the full absolute name of the file that was executed to
111 create a process running on the remote system.
112
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113* The info record command now shows the recording format and the
114 branch tracing configuration for the current thread when using
115 the btrace record target.
116 For the BTS format, it shows the ring buffer size.
117
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118* GDB now has support for DTrace USDT (Userland Static Defined
119 Tracing) probes. The supported targets are x86_64-*-linux-gnu.
120
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121* GDB now supports access to vector registers on S/390 GNU/Linux
122 targets.
123
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124* Removed command line options
125
126-xdb HP-UX XDB compatibility mode.
127
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128* Removed targets and native configurations
129
130HP/PA running HP-UX hppa*-*-hpux*
131Itanium running HP-UX ia64-*-hpux*
132
3b2f13ff 133*** Changes in GDB 7.9
919b9a93 134
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135* GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on x86 GNU Hurd.
136
5f3b99cf 137* Python Scripting
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138
139 ** You can now access frame registers from Python scripts.
140 ** New attribute 'producer' for gdb.Symtab objects.
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141 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "progspace",
142 which is the gdb.Progspace object of the containing program space.
a0be3e44 143 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "owner".
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144 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "build_id",
145 which is the build ID generated when the file was built.
86e4ed39 146 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new method "add_separate_debug_file".
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147 ** A new event "gdb.clear_objfiles" has been added, triggered when
148 selecting a new file to debug.
02be9a71 149 ** You can now add attributes to gdb.Objfile and gdb.Progspace objects.
6dddd6a5 150 ** New function gdb.lookup_objfile.
5f3b99cf 151
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152 New events which are triggered when GDB modifies the state of the
153 inferior.
154
155 ** gdb.events.inferior_call_pre: Function call is about to be made.
156 ** gdb.events.inferior_call_post: Function call has just been made.
157 ** gdb.events.memory_changed: A memory location has been altered.
158 ** gdb.events.register_changed: A register has been altered.
159
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160* New Python-based convenience functions:
161
162 ** $_caller_is(name [, number_of_frames])
163 ** $_caller_matches(regexp [, number_of_frames])
164 ** $_any_caller_is(name [, number_of_frames])
165 ** $_any_caller_matches(regexp [, number_of_frames])
166
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167* GDB now supports the compilation and injection of source code into
168 the inferior. GDB will use GCC 5.0 or higher built with libcc1.so
169 to compile the source code to object code, and if successful, inject
170 and execute that code within the current context of the inferior.
171 Currently the C language is supported. The commands used to
172 interface with this new feature are:
173
174 compile code [-raw|-r] [--] [source code]
175 compile file [-raw|-r] filename
176
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177* New commands
178
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179demangle [-l language] [--] name
180 Demangle "name" in the specified language, or the current language
181 if elided. This command is renamed from the "maint demangle" command.
182 The latter is kept as a no-op to avoid "maint demangle" being interpreted
183 as "maint demangler-warning".
184
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185queue-signal signal-name-or-number
186 Queue a signal to be delivered to the thread when it is resumed.
187
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188add-auto-load-scripts-directory directory
189 Add entries to the list of directories from which to load auto-loaded
190 scripts.
191
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192maint print user-registers
193 List all currently available "user" registers.
194
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195compile code [-r|-raw] [--] [source code]
196 Compile, inject, and execute in the inferior the executable object
197 code produced by compiling the provided source code.
198
199compile file [-r|-raw] filename
200 Compile and inject into the inferior the executable object code
201 produced by compiling the source code stored in the filename
202 provided.
203
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204* On resume, GDB now always passes the signal the program had stopped
205 for to the thread the signal was sent to, even if the user changed
206 threads before resuming. Previously GDB would often (but not
207 always) deliver the signal to the thread that happens to be current
208 at resume time.
209
210* Conversely, the "signal" command now consistently delivers the
211 requested signal to the current thread. GDB now asks for
212 confirmation if the program had stopped for a signal and the user
213 switched threads meanwhile.
214
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215* "breakpoint always-inserted" modes "off" and "auto" merged.
216
217 Now, when 'breakpoint always-inserted mode' is set to "off", GDB
218 won't remove breakpoints from the target until all threads stop,
219 even in non-stop mode. The "auto" mode has been removed, and "off"
220 is now the default mode.
221
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222* New options
223
224set debug symbol-lookup
225show debug symbol-lookup
226 Control display of debugging info regarding symbol lookup.
227
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228* MI changes
229
230 ** The -list-thread-groups command outputs an exit-code field for
231 inferiors that have exited.
232
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233* New targets
234
235MIPS SDE mips*-sde*-elf*
236
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237* Removed targets
238
239Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
240
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241Alpha running OSF/1 (or Tru64) alpha*-*-osf*
242SGI Irix-5.x mips-*-irix5*
243SGI Irix-6.x mips-*-irix6*
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244VAX running (4.2 - 4.3 Reno) BSD vax-*-bsd*
245VAX running Ultrix vax-*-ultrix*
3831839c 246
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247* The "dll-symbols" command, and its two aliases ("add-shared-symbol-files"
248 and "assf"), have been removed. Use the "sharedlibrary" command, or
249 its alias "share", instead.
250
919b9a93 251*** Changes in GDB 7.8
e9475ead 252
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253* New command line options
254
255-D data-directory
256 This is an alias for the --data-directory option.
257
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258* GDB supports printing and modifying of variable length automatic arrays
259 as specified in ISO C99.
260
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261* The ARM simulator now supports instruction level tracing
262 with or without disassembly.
b7bba001 263
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264* Guile scripting
265
266 GDB now has support for scripting using Guile. Whether this is
267 available is determined at configure time.
268 Guile version 2.0 or greater is required.
269 Guile version 2.0.9 is well tested, earlier 2.0 versions are not.
270
271* New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
272
273guile [code]
274gu [code]
275 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Guile interpreter.
276
277guile-repl
278gr
279 Start a Guile interactive prompt (or "repl" for "read-eval-print loop").
280
281info auto-load guile-scripts [regexp]
282 Print the list of automatically loaded Guile scripts.
283
284* The source command is now capable of sourcing Guile scripts.
285 This feature is dependent on the debugger being built with Guile support.
286
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287* New options
288
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289set print symbol-loading (off|brief|full)
290show print symbol-loading
291 Control whether to print informational messages when loading symbol
292 information for a file. The default is "full", but when debugging
293 programs with large numbers of shared libraries the amount of output
294 becomes less useful.
295
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296set guile print-stack (none|message|full)
297show guile print-stack
298 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Guile script.
299
300set auto-load guile-scripts (on|off)
301show auto-load guile-scripts
302 Control auto-loading of Guile script files.
303
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304maint ada set ignore-descriptive-types (on|off)
305maint ada show ignore-descriptive-types
306 Control whether the debugger should ignore descriptive types in Ada
307 programs. The default is not to ignore the descriptive types. See
308 the user manual for more details on descriptive types and the intended
309 usage of this option.
310
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311set auto-connect-native-target
312
313 Control whether GDB is allowed to automatically connect to the
314 native target for the run, attach, etc. commands when not connected
315 to any target yet. See also "target native" below.
316
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317set record btrace replay-memory-access (read-only|read-write)
318show record btrace replay-memory-access
319 Control what memory accesses are allowed during replay.
320
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321maint set target-async (on|off)
322maint show target-async
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323 This controls whether GDB targets operate in synchronous or
324 asynchronous mode. Normally the default is asynchronous, if it is
329ea579 325 available; but this can be changed to more easily debug problems
5784b3ca 326 occurring only in synchronous mode.
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327
328set mi-async (on|off)
329show mi-async
330 Control whether MI asynchronous mode is preferred. This supersedes
331 "set target-async" of previous GDB versions.
332
333* "set target-async" is deprecated as a CLI option and is now an alias
334 for "set mi-async" (only puts MI into async mode).
335
336* Background execution commands (e.g., "c&", "s&", etc.) are now
337 possible ``out of the box'' if the target supports them. Previously
338 the user would need to explicitly enable the possibility with the
339 "set target-async on" command.
340
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341* New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
342
343 ** New option --debug-format=option1[,option2,...] allows one to add
344 additional text to each output. At present only timestamps
345 are supported: --debug-format=timestamps.
346 Timestamps can also be turned on with the
347 "monitor set debug-format timestamps" command from GDB.
348
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349* The 'record instruction-history' command now starts counting instructions
350 at one. This also affects the instruction ranges reported by the
351 'record function-call-history' command when given the /i modifier.
352
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353* The command 'record function-call-history' supports a new modifier '/c' to
354 indent the function names based on their call stack depth.
355 The fields for the '/i' and '/l' modifier have been reordered.
356 The source line range is now prefixed with 'at'.
357 The instruction range is now prefixed with 'inst'.
358 Both ranges are now printed as '<from>, <to>' to allow copy&paste to the
359 "record instruction-history" and "list" commands.
360
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361* The ranges given as arguments to the 'record function-call-history' and
362 'record instruction-history' commands are now inclusive.
363
066ce621 364* The btrace record target now supports the 'record goto' command.
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365 For locations inside the execution trace, the back trace is computed
366 based on the information stored in the execution trace.
066ce621 367
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368* The btrace record target supports limited reverse execution and replay.
369 The target does not record data and therefore does not allow reading
370 memory or registers.
371
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372* The "catch syscall" command now works on s390*-linux* targets.
373
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374* The "compare-sections" command is no longer specific to target
375 remote. It now works with all targets.
376
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377* All native targets are now consistently called "native".
378 Consequently, the "target child", "target GNU", "target djgpp",
379 "target procfs" (Solaris/Irix/OSF/AIX) and "target darwin-child"
380 commands have been replaced with "target native". The QNX/NTO port
381 leaves the "procfs" target in place and adds a "native" target for
382 consistency with other ports. The impact on users should be minimal
383 as these commands previously either throwed an error, or were
384 no-ops. The target's name is visible in the output of the following
385 commands: "help target", "info target", "info files", "maint print
386 target-stack".
387
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388* The "target native" command now connects to the native target. This
389 can be used to launch native programs even when "set
390 auto-connect-native-target" is set to off.
391
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392* GDB now supports access to Intel(R) MPX registers on GNU/Linux.
393
394* Support for Intel(R) AVX-512 registers on GNU/Linux.
395 Support displaying and modifying Intel(R) AVX-512 registers
396 $zmm0 - $zmm31 and $k0 - $k7 on GNU/Linux.
397
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398* New remote packets
399
400qXfer:btrace:read's annex
401 The qXfer:btrace:read packet supports a new annex 'delta' to read
402 branch trace incrementally.
403
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404* Python Scripting
405
406 ** Valid Python operations on gdb.Value objects representing
407 structs/classes invoke the corresponding overloaded operators if
408 available.
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409 ** New `Xmethods' feature in the Python API. Xmethods are
410 additional methods or replacements for existing methods of a C++
411 class. This feature is useful for those cases where a method
412 defined in C++ source code could be inlined or optimized out by
413 the compiler, making it unavailable to GDB.
f7bd0f78 414
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415* New targets
416PowerPC64 GNU/Linux little-endian powerpc64le-*-linux*
417
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418* The "dll-symbols" command, and its two aliases ("add-shared-symbol-files"
419 and "assf"), have been deprecated. Use the "sharedlibrary" command, or
420 its alias "share", instead.
421
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422* The commands "set remotebaud" and "show remotebaud" are no longer
423 supported. Use "set serial baud" and "show serial baud" (respectively)
424 instead.
425
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426* MI changes
427
428 ** A new option "-gdb-set mi-async" replaces "-gdb-set
429 target-async". The latter is left as a deprecated alias of the
430 former for backward compatibility. If the target supports it,
431 CLI background execution commands are now always possible by
432 default, independently of whether the frontend stated a
433 preference for asynchronous execution with "-gdb-set mi-async".
434 Previously "-gdb-set target-async off" affected both MI execution
435 commands and CLI execution commands.
436
b7bba001 437*** Changes in GDB 7.7
2d450646 438
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439* Improved support for process record-replay and reverse debugging on
440 arm*-linux* targets. Support for thumb32 and syscall instruction
441 recording has been added.
442
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443* GDB now supports SystemTap SDT probes on AArch64 GNU/Linux.
444
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445* GDB now supports Fission DWP file format version 2.
446 http://gcc.gnu.org/wiki/DebugFission
447
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448* New convenience function "$_isvoid", to check whether an expression
449 is void. A void expression is an expression where the type of the
450 result is "void". For example, some convenience variables may be
451 "void" when evaluated (e.g., "$_exitcode" before the execution of
452 the program being debugged; or an undefined convenience variable).
453 Another example, when calling a function whose return type is
454 "void".
455
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456* The "maintenance print objfiles" command now takes an optional regexp.
457
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458* The "catch syscall" command now works on arm*-linux* targets.
459
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460* GDB now consistently shows "<not saved>" when printing values of
461 registers the debug info indicates have not been saved in the frame
462 and there's nowhere to retrieve them from
463 (callee-saved/call-clobbered registers):
464
465 (gdb) p $rax
466 $1 = <not saved>
467
468 (gdb) info registers rax
469 rax <not saved>
470
471 Before, the former would print "<optimized out>", and the latter
472 "*value not available*".
473
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474* New script contrib/gdb-add-index.sh for adding .gdb_index sections
475 to binaries.
476
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477* Python scripting
478
479 ** Frame filters and frame decorators have been added.
f76c27b5 480 ** Temporary breakpoints are now supported.
bc79de95 481 ** Line tables representation has been added.
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482 ** New attribute 'parent_type' for gdb.Field objects.
483 ** gdb.Field objects can be used as subscripts on gdb.Value objects.
c0d48811 484 ** New attribute 'name' for gdb.Type objects.
1e611234 485
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486* New targets
487
488Nios II ELF nios2*-*-elf
489Nios II GNU/Linux nios2*-*-linux
42059f0e 490Texas Instruments MSP430 msp430*-*-elf
a1217d97 491
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492* Removed native configurations
493
494Support for these a.out NetBSD and OpenBSD obsolete configurations has
495been removed. ELF variants of these configurations are kept supported.
496
497arm*-*-netbsd* but arm*-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
498i[34567]86-*-netbsd* but i[34567]86-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
499i[34567]86-*-openbsd[0-2].* but i[34567]86-*-openbsd* is kept supported.
500i[34567]86-*-openbsd3.[0-3]
501m68*-*-netbsd* but m68*-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
502sparc-*-netbsd* but sparc-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
503vax-*-netbsd* but vax-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
504
bd712aed 505* New commands:
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506catch rethrow
507 Like "catch throw", but catches a re-thrown exception.
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508maint check-psymtabs
509 Renamed from old "maint check-symtabs".
510maint check-symtabs
511 Perform consistency checks on symtabs.
512maint expand-symtabs
513 Expand symtabs matching an optional regexp.
b340913d 514
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515show configuration
516 Display the details of GDB configure-time options.
517
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518maint set|show per-command
519maint set|show per-command space
520maint set|show per-command time
521maint set|show per-command symtab
522 Enable display of per-command gdb resource usage.
523
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524remove-symbol-file FILENAME
525remove-symbol-file -a ADDRESS
526 Remove a symbol file added via add-symbol-file. The file to remove
527 can be identified by its filename or by an address that lies within
528 the boundaries of this symbol file in memory.
529
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530info exceptions
531info exceptions REGEXP
532 Display the list of Ada exceptions defined in the program being
533 debugged. If provided, only the exceptions whose names match REGEXP
534 are listed.
535
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536* New options
537
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538set debug symfile off|on
539show debug symfile
540 Control display of debugging info regarding reading symbol files and
541 symbol tables within those files
542
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543set print raw frame-arguments
544show print raw frame-arguments
545 Set/show whether to print frame arguments in raw mode,
546 disregarding any defined pretty-printers.
547
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548set remote trace-status-packet
549show remote trace-status-packet
550 Set/show the use of remote protocol qTStatus packet.
551
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552set debug nios2
553show debug nios2
554 Control display of debugging messages related to Nios II targets.
555
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556set range-stepping
557show range-stepping
558 Control whether target-assisted range stepping is enabled.
559
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560set startup-with-shell
561show startup-with-shell
562 Specifies whether Unix child processes are started via a shell or
563 directly.
564
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565set code-cache
566show code-cache
567 Use the target memory cache for accesses to the code segment. This
568 improves performance of remote debugging (particularly disassembly).
569
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570* You can now use a literal value 'unlimited' for options that
571 interpret 0 or -1 as meaning "unlimited". E.g., "set
572 trace-buffer-size unlimited" is now an alias for "set
573 trace-buffer-size -1" and "set height unlimited" is now an alias for
574 "set height 0".
575
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576* The "set debug symtab-create" debugging option of GDB has been changed to
577 accept a verbosity level. 0 means "off", 1 provides basic debugging
578 output, and values of 2 or greater provides more verbose output.
579
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580* New command-line options
581--configuration
582 Display the details of GDB configure-time options.
583
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584* The command 'tsave' can now support new option '-ctf' to save trace
585 buffer in Common Trace Format.
586
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587* Newly installed $prefix/bin/gcore acts as a shell interface for the
588 GDB command gcore.
589
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590* GDB now implements the the C++ 'typeid' operator.
591
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592* The new convenience variable $_exception holds the exception being
593 thrown or caught at an exception-related catchpoint.
594
595* The exception-related catchpoints, like "catch throw", now accept a
596 regular expression which can be used to filter exceptions by type.
597
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598* The new convenience variable $_exitsignal is automatically set to
599 the terminating signal number when the program being debugged dies
600 due to an uncaught signal.
601
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602* MI changes
603
403cb6b1 604 ** All MI commands now accept an optional "--language" option.
4e35e808
JB
605 Support for this feature can be verified by using the "-list-features"
606 command, which should contain "language-option".
403cb6b1 607
6b7cbff1
JB
608 ** The new command -info-gdb-mi-command allows the user to determine
609 whether a GDB/MI command is supported or not.
610
2ea126fa
JB
611 ** The "^error" result record returned when trying to execute an undefined
612 GDB/MI command now provides a variable named "code" whose content is the
613 "undefined-command" error code. Support for this feature can be verified
614 by using the "-list-features" command, which should contain
615 "undefined-command-error-code".
616
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617 ** The -trace-save MI command can optionally save trace buffer in Common
618 Trace Format now.
619
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HZ
620 ** The new command -dprintf-insert sets a dynamic printf breakpoint.
621
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YQ
622 ** The command -data-list-register-values now accepts an optional
623 "--skip-unavailable" option. When used, only the available registers
624 are displayed.
625
dc673c81
YQ
626 ** The new command -trace-frame-collected dumps collected variables,
627 computed expressions, tvars, memory and registers in a traceframe.
628
6211c335
YQ
629 ** The commands -stack-list-locals, -stack-list-arguments and
630 -stack-list-variables now accept an option "--skip-unavailable".
631 When used, only the available locals or arguments are displayed.
632
5713b9b5
JB
633 ** The -exec-run command now accepts an optional "--start" option.
634 When used, the command follows the same semantics as the "start"
635 command, stopping the program's execution at the start of its
72bfa06c
JB
636 main subprogram. Support for this feature can be verified using
637 the "-list-features" command, which should contain
638 "exec-run-start-option".
5713b9b5 639
40555925
JB
640 ** The new commands -catch-assert and -catch-exceptions insert
641 catchpoints stopping the program when Ada exceptions are raised.
642
58d06528
JB
643 ** The new command -info-ada-exceptions provides the equivalent of
644 the new "info exceptions" command.
645
0201faac
JB
646* New system-wide configuration scripts
647 A GDB installation now provides scripts suitable for use as system-wide
648 configuration scripts for the following systems:
649 ** ElinOS
650 ** Wind River Linux
651
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PA
652* GDB now supports target-assigned range stepping with remote targets.
653 This improves the performance of stepping source lines by reducing
654 the number of control packets from/to GDB. See "New remote packets"
655 below.
656
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YQ
657* GDB now understands the element 'tvar' in the XML traceframe info.
658 It has the id of the collected trace state variables.
659
4ac33720
UW
660* On S/390 targets that provide the transactional-execution feature,
661 the program interruption transaction diagnostic block (TDB) is now
662 represented as a number of additional "registers" in GDB.
663
c1e36e3e
PA
664* New remote packets
665
666vCont;r
667
668 The vCont packet supports a new 'r' action, that tells the remote
669 stub to step through an address range itself, without GDB
670 involvemement at each single-step.
671
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GB
672qXfer:libraries-svr4:read's annex
673 The previously unused annex of the qXfer:libraries-svr4:read packet
674 is now used to support passing an argument list. The remote stub
675 reports support for this argument list to GDB's qSupported query.
676 The defined arguments are "start" and "prev", used to reduce work
677 necessary for library list updating, resulting in significant
678 speedup.
679
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PA
680* New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
681
682 ** GDBserver now supports target-assisted range stepping. Currently
683 enabled on x86/x86_64 GNU/Linux targets.
684
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YQ
685 ** GDBserver now adds element 'tvar' in the XML in the reply to
686 'qXfer:traceframe-info:read'. It has the id of the collected
687 trace state variables.
688
7a60ad40
YQ
689 ** GDBserver now supports hardware watchpoints on the MIPS GNU/Linux
690 target.
691
6fbe845e
AB
692* New 'z' formatter for printing and examining memory, this displays the
693 value as hexadecimal zero padded on the left to the size of the type.
694
9058cc3a
TG
695* GDB can now use Windows x64 unwinding data.
696
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JB
697* The "set remotebaud" command has been replaced by "set serial baud".
698 Similarly, "show remotebaud" has been replaced by "show serial baud".
699 The "set remotebaud" and "show remotebaud" commands are still available
700 to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
701
2d450646 702*** Changes in GDB 7.6
80c8d323 703
59ea5688
MM
704* Target record has been renamed to record-full.
705 Record/replay is now enabled with the "record full" command.
706 This also affects settings that are associated with full record/replay
707 that have been moved from "set/show record" to "set/show record full":
708
709set|show record full insn-number-max
710set|show record full stop-at-limit
711set|show record full memory-query
712
713* A new record target "record-btrace" has been added. The new target
714 uses hardware support to record the control-flow of a process. It
715 does not support replaying the execution, but it implements the
716 below new commands for investigating the recorded execution log.
717 This new recording method can be enabled using:
718
719record btrace
720
721 The "record-btrace" target is only available on Intel Atom processors
722 and requires a Linux kernel 2.6.32 or later.
723
724* Two new commands have been added for record/replay to give information
725 about the recorded execution without having to replay the execution.
726 The commands are only supported by "record btrace".
727
728record instruction-history prints the execution history at
729 instruction granularity
730
731record function-call-history prints the execution history at
732 function granularity
733
543bf33d
AT
734* New native configurations
735
51d66578 736ARM AArch64 GNU/Linux aarch64*-*-linux-gnu
543bf33d 737FreeBSD/powerpc powerpc*-*-freebsd
4f4352f7 738x86_64/Cygwin x86_64-*-cygwin*
ea5f3910 739Tilera TILE-Gx GNU/Linux tilegx*-*-linux-gnu
543bf33d 740
249729c4
JB
741* New targets
742
51d66578
MS
743ARM AArch64 aarch64*-*-elf
744ARM AArch64 GNU/Linux aarch64*-*-linux
249729c4 745Lynx 178 PowerPC powerpc-*-lynx*178
3c095f49 746x86_64/Cygwin x86_64-*-cygwin*
ea5f3910 747Tilera TILE-Gx GNU/Linux tilegx*-*-linux
249729c4 748
e64e0392
DE
749* If the configured location of system.gdbinit file (as given by the
750 --with-system-gdbinit option at configure time) is in the
751 data-directory (as specified by --with-gdb-datadir at configure
752 time) or in one of its subdirectories, then GDB will look for the
753 system-wide init file in the directory specified by the
754 --data-directory command-line option.
755
07540c15
DE
756* New command line options:
757
758-nh Disables auto-loading of ~/.gdbinit, but still executes all the
759 other initialization files, unlike -nx which disables all of them.
760
e93a8774
TT
761* Removed command line options
762
763-epoch This was used by the gdb mode in Epoch, an ancient fork of
764 Emacs.
765
53342f27
TT
766* The 'ptype' and 'whatis' commands now accept an argument to control
767 type formatting.
768
451b7c33
TT
769* 'info proc' now works on some core files.
770
a72c3253
DE
771* Python scripting
772
773 ** Vectors can be created with gdb.Type.vector.
774
d7de8e3c
TT
775 ** Python's atexit.register now works in GDB.
776
18a9fc12
TT
777 ** Types can be pretty-printed via a Python API.
778
9a27f2c6
PK
779 ** Python 3 is now supported (in addition to Python 2.4 or later)
780
bea883fd
SCR
781 ** New class gdb.Architecture exposes GDB's internal representation
782 of architecture in the Python API.
783
784 ** New method Frame.architecture returns the gdb.Architecture object
785 corresponding to the frame's architecture.
786
a72c3253
DE
787* New Python-based convenience functions:
788
789 ** $_memeq(buf1, buf2, length)
790 ** $_streq(str1, str2)
791 ** $_strlen(str)
792 ** $_regex(str, regex)
793
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JK
794* The 'cd' command now defaults to using '~' (the home directory) if not
795 given an argument.
796
1605ef26
TT
797* The C++ ABI now defaults to the GNU v3 ABI. This has been the
798 default for GCC since November 2000.
799
504b36fd
YQ
800* The command 'forward-search' can now be abbreviated as 'fo'.
801
f2a8bc8a
YQ
802* The command 'info tracepoints' can now display 'installed on target'
803 or 'not installed on target' for each non-pending location of tracepoint.
804
23a80689
JB
805* New configure options
806
807--enable-libmcheck/--disable-libmcheck
808 By default, development versions are built with -lmcheck on hosts
809 that support it, in order to help track memory corruption issues.
810 Release versions, on the other hand, are built without -lmcheck
811 by default. The --enable-libmcheck/--disable-libmcheck configure
812 options allow the user to override that default.
393fd4c3
YQ
813--with-babeltrace/--with-babeltrace-include/--with-babeltrace-lib
814 This configure option allows the user to build GDB with
815 libbabeltrace using which GDB can read Common Trace Format data.
23a80689 816
d6b28940
TT
817* New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
818
ab04a2af
TT
819catch signal
820 Catch signals. This is similar to "handle", but allows commands and
821 conditions to be attached.
822
d6b28940
TT
823maint info bfds
824 List the BFDs known to GDB.
825
8315665e
YPK
826python-interactive [command]
827pi [command]
828 Start a Python interactive prompt, or evaluate the optional command
829 and print the result of expressions.
830
831py [command]
832 "py" is a new alias for "python".
833
18a9fc12
TT
834enable type-printer [name]...
835disable type-printer [name]...
836 Enable or disable type printers.
837
aa9259cc
TS
838* Removed commands
839
840 ** For the Renesas Super-H architecture, the "regs" command has been removed
841 (has been deprecated in GDB 7.5), and "info all-registers" should be used
842 instead.
843
53342f27
TT
844* New options
845
846set print type methods (on|off)
847show print type methods
848 Control whether method declarations are displayed by "ptype".
849 The default is to show them.
850
851set print type typedefs (on|off)
852show print type typedefs
853 Control whether typedef definitions are displayed by "ptype".
854 The default is to show them.
855
1b56eb55
JK
856set filename-display basename|relative|absolute
857show filename-display
858 Control the way in which filenames is displayed.
859 The default is "relative", which preserves previous behavior.
860
e9f1758d
PA
861set trace-buffer-size
862show trace-buffer-size
863 Request target to change the size of trace buffer.
864
a46c1e42
PA
865set remote trace-buffer-size-packet auto|on|off
866show remote trace-buffer-size-packet
867 Control the use of the remote protocol `QTBuffer:size' packet.
868
be9a8770
PA
869set debug aarch64
870show debug aarch64
871 Control display of debugging messages related to ARM AArch64.
872 The default is off.
873
874set debug coff-pe-read
875show debug coff-pe-read
876 Control display of debugging messages related to reading of COFF/PE
877 exported symbols.
878
879set debug mach-o
880show debug mach-o
881 Control display of debugging messages related to Mach-O symbols
882 processing.
883
884set debug notification
885show debug notification
886 Control display of debugging info for async remote notification.
887
5b9afe8a
YQ
888* MI changes
889
890 ** Command parameter changes are now notified using new async record
891 "=cmd-param-changed".
201b4506
YQ
892 ** Trace frame changes caused by command "tfind" are now notified using
893 new async record "=traceframe-changed".
134a2066
YQ
894 ** The creation, deletion and modification of trace state variables
895 are now notified using new async records "=tsv-created",
896 "=tsv-deleted" and "=tsv-modified".
82a90ccf
YQ
897 ** The start and stop of process record are now notified using new
898 async record "=record-started" and "=record-stopped".
8de0566d
YQ
899 ** Memory changes are now notified using new async record
900 "=memory-changed".
ed8a1c2d 901 ** The data-disassemble command response will include a "fullname" field
ec83d211 902 containing the absolute file name when source has been requested.
62747a60
TT
903 ** New optional parameter COUNT added to the "-data-write-memory-bytes"
904 command, to allow pattern filling of memory areas.
3fa7bf06
MG
905 ** New commands "-catch-load"/"-catch-unload" added for intercepting
906 library load/unload events.
f2a8bc8a
YQ
907 ** The response to breakpoint commands and breakpoint async records
908 includes an "installed" field containing a boolean state about each
909 non-pending tracepoint location is whether installed on target or not.
f5911ea1
HAQ
910 ** Output of the "-trace-status" command includes a "trace-file" field
911 containing the name of the trace file being examined. This field is
912 optional, and only present when examining a trace file.
ec83d211
JK
913 ** The "fullname" field is now always present along with the "file" field,
914 even if the file cannot be found by GDB.
5b9afe8a 915
608e2dbb
TT
916* GDB now supports the "mini debuginfo" section, .gnu_debugdata.
917 You must have the LZMA library available when configuring GDB for this
918 feature to be enabled. For more information, see:
919 http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/MiniDebugInfo
920
f6f899bf
HAQ
921* New remote packets
922
923QTBuffer:size
924 Set the size of trace buffer. The remote stub reports support for this
925 packet to gdb's qSupported query.
926
10782d74
MM
927Qbtrace:bts
928 Enable Branch Trace Store (BTS)-based branch tracing for the current
929 thread. The remote stub reports support for this packet to gdb's
930 qSupported query.
931
932Qbtrace:off
933 Disable branch tracing for the current thread. The remote stub reports
934 support for this packet to gdb's qSupported query.
935
936qXfer:btrace:read
937 Read the traced branches for the current thread. The remote stub
938 reports support for this packet to gdb's qSupported query.
939
80c8d323 940*** Changes in GDB 7.5
d6e00af6 941
1b3371b1
L
942* GDB now supports x32 ABI. Visit <http://sites.google.com/site/x32abi/>
943 for more x32 ABI info.
944
d0e64392
MR
945* GDB now supports access to MIPS DSP registers on Linux targets.
946
4cc0665f
MR
947* GDB now supports debugging microMIPS binaries.
948
85d4a676
SS
949* The "info os" command on GNU/Linux can now display information on
950 several new classes of objects managed by the operating system:
951 "info os procgroups" lists process groups
952 "info os files" lists file descriptors
953 "info os sockets" lists internet-domain sockets
954 "info os shm" lists shared-memory regions
955 "info os semaphores" lists semaphores
956 "info os msg" lists message queues
957 "info os modules" lists loaded kernel modules
958
55aa24fb
SDJ
959* GDB now has support for SDT (Static Defined Tracing) probes. Currently,
960 the only implemented backend is for SystemTap probes (<sys/sdt.h>). You
961 can set a breakpoint using the new "-probe, "-pstap" or "-probe-stap"
962 options and inspect the probe arguments using the new $_probe_arg family
963 of convenience variables. You can obtain more information about SystemTap
964 in <http://sourceware.org/systemtap/>.
965
72508ac0
PO
966* GDB now supports reversible debugging on ARM, it allows you to
967 debug basic ARM and THUMB instructions, and provides
968 record/replay support.
969
16899756
DE
970* The option "symbol-reloading" has been deleted as it is no longer used.
971
4795f398
DE
972* Python scripting
973
7d74f244
DE
974 ** GDB commands implemented in Python can now be put in command class
975 "gdb.COMMAND_USER".
976
4795f398
DE
977 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" is now deleted.
978
50897289
TT
979 ** A new class, gdb.printing.FlagEnumerationPrinter, can be used to
980 apply "flag enum"-style pretty-printing to any enum.
981
64e7d9dd
TT
982 ** gdb.lookup_symbol can now work when there is no current frame.
983
984 ** gdb.Symbol now has a 'line' attribute, holding the line number in
985 the source at which the symbol was defined.
986
f0823d2c
TT
987 ** gdb.Symbol now has the new attribute 'needs_frame' and the new
988 method 'value'. The former indicates whether the symbol needs a
989 frame in order to compute its value, and the latter computes the
990 symbol's value.
991
7b282c5a
SCR
992 ** A new method 'referenced_value' on gdb.Value objects which can
993 dereference pointer as well as C++ reference values.
994
a20ee7a4
SCR
995 ** New methods 'global_block' and 'static_block' on gdb.Symtab objects
996 which return the global and static blocks (as gdb.Block objects),
997 of the underlying symbol table, respectively.
998
7efc75aa
SCR
999 ** New function gdb.find_pc_line which returns the gdb.Symtab_and_line
1000 object associated with a PC value.
1001
ee0bf529
SCR
1002 ** gdb.Symtab_and_line has new attribute 'last' which holds the end
1003 of the address range occupied by code for the current source line.
1004
a766d390
DE
1005* Go language support.
1006 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the Go programming
1007 language.
1008
e0f9f062
DE
1009* GDBserver now supports stdio connections.
1010 E.g. (gdb) target remote | ssh myhost gdbserver - hello
1011
217bff3e
JK
1012* The binary "gdbtui" can no longer be built or installed.
1013 Use "gdb -tui" instead.
1014
cafec441
TT
1015* GDB will now print "flag" enums specially. A flag enum is one where
1016 all the enumerator values have no bits in common when pairwise
1017 "and"ed. When printing a value whose type is a flag enum, GDB will
1018 show all the constants, e.g., for enum E { ONE = 1, TWO = 2}:
1019 (gdb) print (enum E) 3
1020 $1 = (ONE | TWO)
1021
4aac40c8
TT
1022* The filename part of a linespec will now match trailing components
1023 of a source file name. For example, "break gcc/expr.c:1000" will
1024 now set a breakpoint in build/gcc/expr.c, but not
1025 build/libcpp/expr.c.
1026
d99bd577
UW
1027* The "info proc" and "generate-core-file" commands will now also
1028 work on remote targets connected to GDBserver on Linux.
1029
53fe1783
GB
1030* The command "info catch" has been removed. It has been disabled
1031 since December 2007.
1032
e41eec66
JB
1033* The "catch exception" and "catch assert" commands now accept
1034 a condition at the end of the command, much like the "break"
1035 command does. For instance:
1036
1037 (gdb) catch exception Constraint_Error if Barrier = True
1038
1039 Previously, it was possible to add a condition to such catchpoints,
1040 but it had to be done as a second step, after the catchpoint had been
1041 created, using the "condition" command.
1042
5808517f
YQ
1043* The "info static-tracepoint-marker" command will now also work on
1044 native Linux targets with in-process agent.
1045
481860b3
GB
1046* GDB can now set breakpoints on inlined functions.
1047
1048* The .gdb_index section has been updated to include symbols for
1049 inlined functions. GDB will ignore older .gdb_index sections by
1050 default, which could cause symbol files to be loaded more slowly
e615022a
DE
1051 until their .gdb_index sections can be recreated. The new command
1052 "set use-deprecated-index-sections on" will cause GDB to use any older
1053 .gdb_index sections it finds. This will restore performance, but the
1054 ability to set breakpoints on inlined functions will be lost in symbol
1055 files with older .gdb_index sections.
481860b3 1056
156942c7
DE
1057 The .gdb_index section has also been updated to record more information
1058 about each symbol. This speeds up the "info variables", "info functions"
1059 and "info types" commands when used with programs having the .gdb_index
1060 section, as well as speeding up debugging with shared libraries using
1061 the .gdb_index section.
1062
927fbba6
JB
1063* Ada support for GDB/MI Variable Objects has been added.
1064
20388dd6
YQ
1065* GDB can now support 'breakpoint always-inserted mode' in 'record'
1066 target.
1067
f3e0e960
SS
1068* MI changes
1069
1070 ** New command -info-os is the MI equivalent of "info os".
1071
37ce89eb
SS
1072 ** Output logs ("set logging" and related) now include MI output.
1073
edcc5120
TT
1074* New commands
1075
e615022a
DE
1076 ** "set use-deprecated-index-sections on|off"
1077 "show use-deprecated-index-sections on|off"
1078 Controls the use of deprecated .gdb_index sections.
1079
edcc5120
TT
1080 ** "catch load" and "catch unload" can be used to stop when a shared
1081 library is loaded or unloaded, respectively.
1082
816338b5
SS
1083 ** "enable count" can be used to auto-disable a breakpoint after
1084 several hits.
1085
57651221 1086 ** "info vtbl" can be used to show the virtual method tables for
c4aeac85
TT
1087 C++ and Java objects.
1088
06fc020f 1089 ** "explore" and its sub commands "explore value" and "explore type"
6ea71545 1090 can be used to recursively explore values and types of
06fc020f
SCR
1091 expressions. These commands are available only if GDB is
1092 configured with '--with-python'.
1093
bf88dd68
JK
1094 ** "info auto-load" shows status of all kinds of auto-loaded files,
1095 "info auto-load gdb-scripts" shows status of auto-loading GDB canned
1096 sequences of commands files, "info auto-load python-scripts"
1097 shows status of auto-loading Python script files,
1098 "info auto-load local-gdbinit" shows status of loading init file
1099 (.gdbinit) from current directory and "info auto-load libthread-db" shows
1100 status of inferior specific thread debugging shared library loading.
1101
1102 ** "info auto-load-scripts", "set auto-load-scripts on|off"
1103 and "show auto-load-scripts" commands have been deprecated, use their
1104 "info auto-load python-scripts", "set auto-load python-scripts on|off"
1105 and "show auto-load python-scripts" counterparts instead.
1106
e7e0cddf
SS
1107 ** "dprintf location,format,args..." creates a dynamic printf, which
1108 is basically a breakpoint that does a printf and immediately
1109 resumes your program's execution, so it is like a printf that you
1110 can insert dynamically at runtime instead of at compiletime.
1111
9cb709b6
TT
1112 ** "set print symbol"
1113 "show print symbol"
1114 Controls whether GDB attempts to display the symbol, if any,
1115 corresponding to addresses it prints. This defaults to "on", but
1116 you can set it to "off" to restore GDB's previous behavior.
1117
2d4c29c5
TS
1118* Deprecated commands
1119
1120 ** For the Renesas Super-H architecture, the "regs" command has been
1121 deprecated, and "info all-registers" should be used instead.
1122
a58b110a
KB
1123* New targets
1124
1125Renesas RL78 rl78-*-elf
60c9a3c0 1126HP OpenVMS ia64 ia64-hp-openvms*
a58b110a 1127
72895ff6
LM
1128* GDBserver supports evaluation of breakpoint conditions. When
1129 support is advertised by GDBserver, GDB may be told to send the
1130 breakpoint conditions in bytecode form to GDBserver. GDBserver
1131 will only report the breakpoint trigger to GDB when its condition
1132 evaluates to true.
1133
1134* New options
1135
4cc0665f
MR
1136set mips compression
1137show mips compression
1138 Select the compressed ISA encoding used in functions that have no symbol
1139 information available. The encoding can be set to either of:
1140 mips16
1141 micromips
1142 and is updated automatically from ELF file flags if available.
1143
72895ff6
LM
1144set breakpoint condition-evaluation
1145show breakpoint condition-evaluation
cf65ecd3 1146 Control whether breakpoint conditions are evaluated by GDB ("host") or by
5b43fab2
JK
1147 GDBserver ("target"). Default option "auto" chooses the most efficient
1148 available mode.
72895ff6
LM
1149 This option can improve debugger efficiency depending on the speed of the
1150 target.
1151
bf88dd68
JK
1152set auto-load off
1153 Disable auto-loading globally.
1154
1155show auto-load
1156 Show auto-loading setting of all kinds of auto-loaded files.
1157
1158set auto-load gdb-scripts on|off
1159show auto-load gdb-scripts
1160 Control auto-loading of GDB canned sequences of commands files.
1161
1162set auto-load python-scripts on|off
1163show auto-load python-scripts
1164 Control auto-loading of Python script files.
1165
1166set auto-load local-gdbinit on|off
1167show auto-load local-gdbinit
1168 Control loading of init file (.gdbinit) from current directory.
1169
1170set auto-load libthread-db on|off
1171show auto-load libthread-db
1172 Control auto-loading of inferior specific thread debugging shared library.
1173
7349ff92 1174set auto-load scripts-directory <dir1>[:<dir2>...]
9cc815f5 1175show auto-load scripts-directory
7349ff92
JK
1176 Set a list of directories from which to load auto-loaded scripts.
1177 Automatically loaded Python scripts and GDB scripts are located in one
1178 of the directories listed by this option.
1179 The delimiter (':' above) may differ according to the host platform.
1180
bccbefd2
JK
1181set auto-load safe-path <dir1>[:<dir2>...]
1182show auto-load safe-path
1183 Set a list of directories from which it is safe to auto-load files.
1184 The delimiter (':' above) may differ according to the host platform.
1185
4dc84fd1
JK
1186set debug auto-load on|off
1187show debug auto-load
1188 Control display of debugging info for auto-loading the files above.
1189
d3ce09f5 1190set dprintf-style gdb|call|agent
e7e0cddf 1191show dprintf-style
d3ce09f5
SS
1192 Control the way in which a dynamic printf is performed; "gdb"
1193 requests a GDB printf command, while "call" causes dprintf to call a
1194 function in the inferior. "agent" requests that the target agent
1195 (such as GDBserver) do the printing.
e7e0cddf
SS
1196
1197set dprintf-function <expr>
1198show dprintf-function
1199set dprintf-channel <expr>
1200show dprintf-channel
1201 Set the function and optional first argument to the call when using
1202 the "call" style of dynamic printf.
1203
d3ce09f5
SS
1204set disconnected-dprintf on|off
1205show disconnected-dprintf
1206 Control whether agent-style dynamic printfs continue to be in effect
1207 after GDB disconnects.
1208
6dea1fbd
JK
1209* New configure options
1210
7349ff92
JK
1211--with-auto-load-dir
1212 Configure default value for the 'set auto-load scripts-directory'
1564a261
JK
1213 setting above. It defaults to '$debugdir:$datadir/auto-load',
1214 $debugdir representing global debugging info directories (available
1215 via 'show debug-file-directory') and $datadir representing GDB's data
1216 directory (available via 'show data-directory').
7349ff92 1217
6dea1fbd
JK
1218--with-auto-load-safe-path
1219 Configure default value for the 'set auto-load safe-path' setting
7349ff92 1220 above. It defaults to the --with-auto-load-dir setting.
6dea1fbd
JK
1221
1222--without-auto-load-safe-path
1223 Set 'set auto-load safe-path' to '/', effectively disabling this
1224 security feature.
1225
72895ff6
LM
1226* New remote packets
1227
74c48cbb
PA
1228z0/z1 conditional breakpoints extension
1229
72895ff6
LM
1230 The z0/z1 breakpoint insertion packets have been extended to carry
1231 a list of conditional expressions over to the remote stub depending on the
1232 condition evaluation mode. The use of this extension can be controlled
1233 via the "set remote conditional-breakpoints-packet" command.
1234
9b224c5e
PA
1235QProgramSignals:
1236
1237 Specify the signals which the remote stub may pass to the debugged
1238 program without GDB involvement.
1239
8320cc4f
JK
1240* New command line options
1241
1242--init-command=FILE, -ix Like --command, -x but execute it
1243 before loading inferior.
1244--init-eval-command=COMMAND, -iex Like --eval-command=COMMAND, -ex but
1245 execute it before loading inferior.
1246
8837a20f
JB
1247*** Changes in GDB 7.4
1248
f8eba3c6
TT
1249* GDB now handles ambiguous linespecs more consistently; the existing
1250 FILE:LINE support has been expanded to other types of linespecs. A
1251 breakpoint will now be set on all matching locations in all
1252 inferiors, and locations will be added or removed according to
1253 inferior changes.
1254
1bfeeb0f
JL
1255* GDB now allows you to skip uninteresting functions and files when
1256 stepping with the "skip function" and "skip file" commands.
1257
480a3f21
PW
1258* GDB has two new commands: "set remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit"
1259 and "show remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit". These allows to
1260 set or show the maximum length limit (in bytes) of a remote
1261 target hardware watchpoint.
1262
1263 This allows e.g. to use "unlimited" hardware watchpoints with the
1264 gdbserver integrated in Valgrind version >= 3.7.0. Such Valgrind
1265 watchpoints are slower than real hardware watchpoints but are
1266 significantly faster than gdb software watchpoints.
1267
3a7bf607
PM
1268* Python scripting
1269
32d1c362 1270 ** The register_pretty_printer function in module gdb.printing now takes
7d0aff21 1271 an optional `replace' argument. If True, the new printer replaces any
32d1c362
DE
1272 existing one.
1273
3a7bf607 1274 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" command has been
4795f398
DE
1275 deprecated and will be deleted in GDB 7.5.
1276 A new command: "set python print-stack none|full|message" has
1277 replaced it. Additionally, the default for "print-stack" is
1278 now "message", which just prints the error message without
1279 the stack trace.
3a7bf607 1280
baacfb07 1281 ** A prompt substitution hook (prompt_hook) is now available to the
3a7bf607 1282 Python API.
713389e0 1283
fa3a4f15
PM
1284 ** A new Python module, gdb.prompt has been added to the GDB Python
1285 modules library. This module provides functionality for
baacfb07 1286 escape sequences in prompts (used by set/show
fa3a4f15
PM
1287 extended-prompt). These escape sequences are replaced by their
1288 corresponding value.
1289
5e239b84
PM
1290 ** Python commands and convenience-functions located in
1291 'data-directory'/python/gdb/command and
1292 'data-directory'/python/gdb/function are now automatically loaded
1293 on GDB start-up.
1294
9df2fbc4
PM
1295 ** Blocks now provide four new attributes. global_block and
1296 static_block will return the global and static blocks
1297 respectively. is_static and is_global are boolean attributes
1298 that indicate if the block is one of those two types.
1299
457e09f0
DE
1300 ** Symbols now provide the "type" attribute, the type of the symbol.
1301
6839b47f
KP
1302 ** The "gdb.breakpoint" function has been deprecated in favor of
1303 "gdb.breakpoints".
1304
cc72b2a2
KP
1305 ** A new class "gdb.FinishBreakpoint" is provided to catch the return
1306 of a function. This class is based on the "finish" command
1307 available in the CLI.
1308
84ad80e6
PK
1309 ** Type objects for struct and union types now allow access to
1310 the fields using standard Python dictionary (mapping) methods.
1311 For example, "some_type['myfield']" now works, as does
1312 "some_type.items()".
1313
20c168b5
KP
1314 ** A new event "gdb.new_objfile" has been added, triggered by loading a
1315 new object file.
1316
03c3051a
PK
1317 ** A new function, "deep_items" has been added to the gdb.types
1318 module in the GDB Python modules library. This function returns
1319 an iterator over the fields of a struct or union type. Unlike
1320 the standard Python "iteritems" method, it will recursively traverse
1321 any anonymous fields.
1322
7376e450
TT
1323* MI changes
1324
1325 ** "*stopped" events can report several new "reason"s, such as
1326 "solib-event".
1327
1328 ** Breakpoint changes are now notified using new async records, like
1329 "=breakpoint-modified".
1330
1331 ** New command -ada-task-info.
1332
98a5dd13
DE
1333* libthread-db-search-path now supports two special values: $sdir and $pdir.
1334 $sdir specifies the default system locations of shared libraries.
1335 $pdir specifies the directory where the libpthread used by the application
1336 lives.
1337
1338 GDB no longer looks in $sdir and $pdir after it has searched the directories
1339 mentioned in libthread-db-search-path. If you want to search those
1340 directories, they must be specified in libthread-db-search-path.
1341 The default value of libthread-db-search-path on GNU/Linux and Solaris
1342 systems is now "$sdir:$pdir".
1343
1344 $pdir is not supported by gdbserver, it is currently ignored.
1345 $sdir is supported by gdbserver.
1346
478aac75
DE
1347* New configure option --with-iconv-bin.
1348 When using the internationalization support like the one in the GNU C
1349 library, GDB will invoke the "iconv" program to get a list of supported
1350 character sets. If this program lives in a non-standard location, one can
1351 use this option to specify where to find it.
1352
9c06b0b4
TJB
1353* When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
1354 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports masked hardware
1355 watchpoints, which specify a mask in addition to an address to watch.
1356 The mask specifies that some bits of an address (the bits which are
1357 reset in the mask) should be ignored when matching the address accessed
1358 by the inferior against the watchpoint address. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
1359 section in the user manual for more details.
1360
03f2bd59
JK
1361* The new option --once causes GDBserver to stop listening for connections once
1362 the first connection is made. The listening port used by GDBserver will
1363 become available after that.
1364
71eba9c2 1365* New commands "info macros" and "alias" have been added.
edc84990 1366
2bda9cc5
JK
1367* New function parameters suffix @entry specifies value of function parameter
1368 at the time the function got called. Entry values are available only since
1369 gcc version 4.7.
1370
ed59ded5
DE
1371* New commands
1372
1373!SHELL COMMAND
1374 "!" is now an alias of the "shell" command.
1375 Note that no space is needed between "!" and SHELL COMMAND.
1376
9c06b0b4
TJB
1377* Changed commands
1378
1379watch EXPRESSION mask MASK_VALUE
1380 The watch command now supports the mask argument which allows creation
1381 of masked watchpoints, if the current architecture supports this feature.
1382
dbaefcf7
DE
1383info auto-load-scripts [REGEXP]
1384 This command was formerly named "maintenance print section-scripts".
1385 It is now generally useful and is no longer a maintenance-only command.
1386
71eba9c2 1387info macro [-all] [--] MACRO
1388 The info macro command has new options `-all' and `--'. The first for
1389 printing all definitions of a macro. The second for explicitly specifying
1390 the end of arguments and the beginning of the macro name in case the macro
1391 name starts with a hyphen.
1392
3065dfb6
SS
1393collect[/s] EXPRESSIONS
1394 The tracepoint collect command now takes an optional modifier "/s"
1395 that directs it to dereference pointer-to-character types and
1396 collect the bytes of memory up to a zero byte. The behavior is
1397 similar to what you see when you use the regular print command on a
1398 string. An optional integer following the "/s" sets a bound on the
1399 number of bytes that will be collected.
1400
f196051f
SS
1401tstart [NOTES]
1402 The trace start command now interprets any supplied arguments as a
1403 note to be recorded with the trace run, with an effect similar to
1404 setting the variable trace-notes.
1405
1406tstop [NOTES]
1407 The trace stop command now interprets any arguments as a note to be
1408 mentioned along with the tstatus report that the trace was stopped
1409 with a command. The effect is similar to setting the variable
1410 trace-stop-notes.
1411
d248b706
KY
1412* Tracepoints can now be enabled and disabled at any time after a trace
1413 experiment has been started using the standard "enable" and "disable"
1414 commands. It is now possible to start a trace experiment with no enabled
1415 tracepoints; GDB will display a warning, but will allow the experiment to
1416 begin, assuming that tracepoints will be enabled as needed while the trace
1417 is running.
1418
405f8e94
SS
1419* Fast tracepoints on 32-bit x86-architectures can now be placed at
1420 locations with 4-byte instructions, when they were previously
1421 limited to locations with instructions of 5 bytes or longer.
1422
2bda9cc5
JK
1423* New options
1424
45cfd468
DE
1425set debug dwarf2-read
1426show debug dwarf2-read
1427 Turns on or off display of debugging messages related to reading
1428 DWARF debug info. The default is off.
1429
1430set debug symtab-create
1431show debug symtab-create
1432 Turns on or off display of debugging messages related to symbol table
1433 creation. The default is off.
1434
baacfb07
PM
1435set extended-prompt
1436show extended-prompt
1437 Set the GDB prompt, and allow escape sequences to be inserted to
1438 display miscellaneous information (see 'help set extended-prompt'
1439 for the list of sequences). This prompt (and any information
1440 accessed through the escape sequences) is updated every time the
1441 prompt is displayed.
1442
2bda9cc5
JK
1443set print entry-values (both|compact|default|if-needed|no|only|preferred)
1444show print entry-values
1445 Set printing of frame argument values at function entry. In some cases
1446 GDB can determine the value of function argument which was passed by the
1447 function caller, even if the value was modified inside the called function.
1448
1449set debug entry-values
1450show debug entry-values
1451 Control display of debugging info for determining frame argument values at
1452 function entry and virtual tail call frames.
1453
c011a4f4
DE
1454set basenames-may-differ
1455show basenames-may-differ
1456 Set whether a source file may have multiple base names.
1457 (A "base name" is the name of a file with the directory part removed.
1458 Example: The base name of "/home/user/hello.c" is "hello.c".)
1459 If set, GDB will canonicalize file names (e.g., expand symlinks)
1460 before comparing them. Canonicalization is an expensive operation,
1461 but it allows the same file be known by more than one base name.
1462 If not set (the default), all source files are assumed to have just
1463 one base name, and gdb will do file name comparisons more efficiently.
1464
f196051f
SS
1465set trace-user
1466show trace-user
1467set trace-notes
1468show trace-notes
1469 Set a user name and notes for the current and any future trace runs.
1470 This is useful for long-running and/or disconnected traces, to
1471 inform others (or yourself) as to who is running the trace, supply
1472 contact information, or otherwise explain what is going on.
1473
1474set trace-stop-notes
1475show trace-stop-notes
1476 Set a note attached to the trace run, that is displayed when the
1477 trace has been stopped by a tstop command. This is useful for
1478 instance as an explanation, if you are stopping a trace run that was
1479 started by someone else.
1480
d248b706
KY
1481* New remote packets
1482
1483QTEnable
1484
1485 Dynamically enable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
1486
1487QTDisable
1488
1489 Dynamically disable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
1490
f196051f
SS
1491QTNotes
1492
1493 Set the user and notes of the trace run.
1494
1495qTP
1496
1497 Query the current status of a tracepoint.
1498
405f8e94
SS
1499qTMinFTPILen
1500
1501 Query the minimum length of instruction at which a fast tracepoint may
1502 be placed.
1503
1a532630
PP
1504* Dcache size (number of lines) and line-size are now runtime-configurable
1505 via "set dcache line" and "set dcache line-size" commands.
1506
11315641
YQ
1507* New targets
1508
1509Texas Instruments TMS320C6x tic6x-*-*
1510
87326c78
DD
1511* New Simulators
1512
1513Renesas RL78 rl78-*-elf
1514
e8d56f18
JB
1515*** Changes in GDB 7.3.1
1516
1517* The build failure for NetBSD and OpenBSD targets have now been fixed.
1518
d6e00af6 1519*** Changes in GDB 7.3
797054e6 1520
60f98dde
MS
1521* GDB has a new command: "thread find [REGEXP]".
1522 It finds the thread id whose name, target id, or thread extra info
1523 matches the given regular expression.
1524
eee5b35e
DD
1525* The "catch syscall" command now works on mips*-linux* targets.
1526
b716877b
AB
1527* The -data-disassemble MI command now supports modes 2 and 3 for
1528 dumping the instruction opcodes.
1529
aae1c79a
DE
1530* New command line options
1531
1532-data-directory DIR Specify DIR as the "data-directory".
1533 This is mostly for testing purposes.
1534
a86caf66
DE
1535* The "maint set python auto-load on|off" command has been renamed to
1536 "set auto-load-scripts on|off".
1537
99e7ae30
DE
1538* GDB has a new command: "set directories".
1539 It is like the "dir" command except that it replaces the
1540 source path list instead of augmenting it.
1541
4694da01
TT
1542* GDB now understands thread names.
1543
1544 On GNU/Linux, "info threads" will display the thread name as set by
1545 prctl or pthread_setname_np.
1546
1547 There is also a new command, "thread name", which can be used to
1548 assign a name internally for GDB to display.
1549
f4b8a18d
KW
1550* OpenCL C
1551 Initial support for the OpenCL C language (http://www.khronos.org/opencl)
1552 has been integrated into GDB.
1553
585d1eb8
PM
1554* Python scripting
1555
da5d4055
PM
1556 ** The function gdb.Write now accepts an optional keyword 'stream'.
1557 This keyword, when provided, will direct the output to either
1558 stdout, stderr, or GDB's logging output.
1559
9a6f1302
PM
1560 ** Parameters can now be be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
1561 you may implement the get_set_doc and get_show_doc functions.
1562 This improves how Parameter set/show documentation is processed
1563 and allows for more dynamic content.
1564
29703da4
PM
1565 ** Symbols, Symbol Table, Symbol Table and Line, Object Files,
1566 Inferior, Inferior Thread, Blocks, and Block Iterator APIs now
1567 have an is_valid method.
1568
350c6c65
PM
1569 ** Breakpoints can now be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
1570 you may implement a 'stop' function that is executed each time
1571 the inferior reaches that breakpoint.
1572
6e6fbe60
DE
1573 ** New function gdb.lookup_global_symbol looks up a global symbol.
1574
585d1eb8
PM
1575 ** GDB values in Python are now callable if the value represents a
1576 function. For example, if 'some_value' represents a function that
1577 takes two integer parameters and returns a value, you can call
1578 that function like so:
1579
1580 result = some_value (10,20)
1581
0e3509db
DE
1582 ** Module gdb.types has been added.
1583 It contains a collection of utilities for working with gdb.Types objects:
1584 get_basic_type, has_field, make_enum_dict.
1585
7b51bc51
DE
1586 ** Module gdb.printing has been added.
1587 It contains utilities for writing and registering pretty-printers.
1588 New classes: PrettyPrinter, SubPrettyPrinter,
1589 RegexpCollectionPrettyPrinter.
1590 New function: register_pretty_printer.
1591
1592 ** New commands "info pretty-printers", "enable pretty-printer" and
1593 "disable pretty-printer" have been added.
1594
99e7ae30
DE
1595 ** gdb.parameter("directories") is now available.
1596
d8e22779
TT
1597 ** New function gdb.newest_frame returns the newest frame in the
1598 selected thread.
1599
4694da01
TT
1600 ** The gdb.InferiorThread class has a new "name" attribute. This
1601 holds the thread's name.
1602
505500db
SW
1603 ** Python Support for Inferior events.
1604 Python scripts can add observers to be notified of events
824446ad 1605 occurring in the process being debugged.
c17a9e46
HZ
1606 The following events are currently supported:
1607 - gdb.events.cont Continue event.
1608 - gdb.events.exited Inferior exited event.
1609 - gdb.events.stop Signal received, and Breakpoint hit events.
1610
def98928
TT
1611* C++ Improvements:
1612
1613 ** GDB now puts template parameters in scope when debugging in an
1614 instantiation. For example, if you have:
1615
1616 template<int X> int func (void) { return X; }
1617
1618 then if you step into func<5>, "print X" will show "5". This
1619 feature requires proper debuginfo support from the compiler; it
1620 was added to GCC 4.5.
1621
66cb8159
TT
1622 ** The motion commands "next", "finish", "until", and "advance" now
1623 work better when exceptions are thrown. In particular, GDB will
1624 no longer lose control of the inferior; instead, the GDB will
1625 stop the inferior at the point at which the exception is caught.
1626 This functionality requires a change in the exception handling
1627 code that was introduced in GCC 4.5.
1628
4aac0db7
UW
1629* GDB now follows GCC's rules on accessing volatile objects when
1630 reading or writing target state during expression evaluation.
1631 One notable difference to prior behavior is that "print x = 0"
1632 no longer generates a read of x; the value of the assignment is
1633 now always taken directly from the value being assigned.
1634
283e6a52
TT
1635* GDB now has some support for using labels in the program's source in
1636 linespecs. For instance, you can use "advance label" to continue
1637 execution to a label.
1638
1639* GDB now has support for reading and writing a new .gdb_index
1640 section. This section holds a fast index of DWARF debugging
1641 information and can be used to greatly speed up GDB startup and
1642 operation. See the documentation for `save gdb-index' for details.
1643
b56df873 1644* The "watch" command now accepts an optional "-location" argument.
14c0d4e1 1645 When used, this causes GDB to watch the memory referred to by the
b56df873
TT
1646 expression. Such a watchpoint is never deleted due to it going out
1647 of scope.
1648
ae53ffa4
PA
1649* GDB now supports thread debugging of core dumps on GNU/Linux.
1650
1651 GDB now activates thread debugging using the libthread_db library
1652 when debugging GNU/Linux core dumps, similarly to when debugging
1653 live processes. As a result, when debugging a core dump file, GDB
1654 is now able to display pthread_t ids of threads. For example, "info
1655 threads" shows the same output as when debugging the process when it
1656 was live. In earlier releases, you'd see something like this:
1657
1658 (gdb) info threads
1659 * 1 LWP 6780 main () at main.c:10
1660
1661 While now you see this:
1662
1663 (gdb) info threads
1664 * 1 Thread 0x7f0f5712a700 (LWP 6780) main () at main.c:10
1665
1666 It is also now possible to inspect TLS variables when debugging core
1667 dumps.
1668
1669 When debugging a core dump generated on a machine other than the one
1670 used to run GDB, you may need to point GDB at the correct
1671 libthread_db library with the "set libthread-db-search-path"
1672 command. See the user manual for more details on this command.
1673
f1310107
TJB
1674* When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
1675 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports ranged breakpoints,
1676 which stop execution of the inferior whenever it executes an instruction
1677 at any address within the specified range. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
1678 section in the user manual for more details.
1679
248c9dbc
JB
1680* New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
1681
1aee7009
JB
1682 ** GDBserver is now supported on PowerPC LynxOS (versions 4.x and 5.x),
1683 and i686 LynxOS (version 5.x).
248c9dbc 1684
eb826dc6
MF
1685 ** GDBserver is now supported on Blackfin Linux.
1686
44603653
JB
1687* New native configurations
1688
1689ia64 HP-UX ia64-*-hpux*
1690
91021223
MF
1691* New targets:
1692
1693Analog Devices, Inc. Blackfin Processor bfin-*
1694
6e1bb179
JB
1695* Ada task switching is now supported on sparc-elf targets when
1696 debugging a program using the Ravenscar Profile. For more information,
1697 see the "Tasking Support when using the Ravenscar Profile" section
1698 in the GDB user manual.
1699
50c97f38
TT
1700* Guile support was removed.
1701
448a92bf
MF
1702* New features in the GNU simulator
1703
1704 ** The --map-info flag lists all known core mappings.
1705
66ee2731
MF
1706 ** CFI flashes may be simulated via the "cfi" device.
1707
76b8507d 1708*** Changes in GDB 7.2
bfbf3774 1709
ba25b921
PA
1710* Shared library support for remote targets by default
1711
1712 When GDB is configured for a generic, non-OS specific target, like
1713 for example, --target=arm-eabi or one of the many *-*-elf targets,
1714 GDB now queries remote stubs for loaded shared libraries using the
1715 `qXfer:libraries:read' packet. Previously, shared library support
1716 was always disabled for such configurations.
1717
4656f5c6
SW
1718* C++ Improvements:
1719
1720 ** Argument Dependent Lookup (ADL)
1721
1722 In C++ ADL lookup directs function search to the namespaces of its
1723 arguments even if the namespace has not been imported.
1724 For example:
1725 namespace A
1726 {
1727 class B { };
1728 void foo (B) { }
1729 }
1730 ...
1731 A::B b
1732 foo(b)
1733 Here the compiler will search for `foo' in the namespace of 'b'
1734 and find A::foo. GDB now supports this. This construct is commonly
1735 used in the Standard Template Library for operators.
1736
1737 ** Improved User Defined Operator Support
1738
1739 In addition to member operators, GDB now supports lookup of operators
1740 defined in a namespace and imported with a `using' directive, operators
1741 defined in the global scope, operators imported implicitly from an
1742 anonymous namespace, and the ADL operators mentioned in the previous
1743 entry.
1744 GDB now also supports proper overload resolution for all the previously
1745 mentioned flavors of operators.
1746
254e6b9e
DE
1747 ** static const class members
1748
1749 Printing of static const class members that are initialized in the
1750 class definition has been fixed.
1751
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PM
1752* Windows Thread Information Block access.
1753
1754 On Windows targets, GDB now supports displaying the Windows Thread
1755 Information Block (TIB) structure. This structure is visible either
1756 by using the new command `info w32 thread-information-block' or, by
1757 dereferencing the new convenience variable named `$_tlb', a
1758 thread-specific pointer to the TIB. This feature is also supported
1759 when remote debugging using GDBserver.
1760
0fb4aa4b
PA
1761* Static tracepoints
1762
1763 Static tracepoints are calls in the user program into a tracing
1764 library. One such library is a port of the LTTng kernel tracer to
1765 userspace --- UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer, http://lttng.org/ust).
1766 When debugging with GDBserver, GDB now supports combining the GDB
1767 tracepoint machinery with such libraries. For example: the user can
1768 use GDB to probe a static tracepoint marker (a call from the user
1769 program into the tracing library) with the new "strace" command (see
1770 "New commands" below). This creates a "static tracepoint" in the
1771 breakpoint list, that can be manipulated with the same feature set
1772 as fast and regular tracepoints. E.g., collect registers, local and
1773 global variables, collect trace state variables, and define
1774 tracepoint conditions. In addition, the user can collect extra
1775 static tracepoint marker specific data, by collecting the new
1776 $_sdata internal variable. When analyzing the trace buffer, you can
1777 inspect $_sdata like any other variable available to GDB. For more
1778 information, see the "Tracepoints" chapter in GDB user manual. New
1779 remote packets have been defined to support static tracepoints, see
1780 the "New remote packets" section below.
1781
ca11e899
SS
1782* Better reconstruction of tracepoints after disconnected tracing
1783
1784 GDB will attempt to download the original source form of tracepoint
1785 definitions when starting a trace run, and then will upload these
1786 upon reconnection to the target, resulting in a more accurate
1787 reconstruction of the tracepoints that are in use on the target.
1788
1789* Observer mode
1790
1791 You can now exercise direct control over the ways that GDB can
1792 affect your program. For instance, you can disallow the setting of
1793 breakpoints, so that the program can run continuously (assuming
1794 non-stop mode). In addition, the "observer" variable is available
1795 to switch all of the different controls; in observer mode, GDB
1796 cannot affect the target's behavior at all, which is useful for
1797 tasks like diagnosing live systems in the field.
1798
1799* The new convenience variable $_thread holds the number of the
1800 current thread.
1801
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PM
1802* New remote packets
1803
1804qGetTIBAddr
1805
1806 Return the address of the Windows Thread Information Block of a given thread.
1807
dde08ee1
PA
1808qRelocInsn
1809
1810 In response to several of the tracepoint packets, the target may now
1811 also respond with a number of intermediate `qRelocInsn' request
1812 packets before the final result packet, to have GDB handle
1813 relocating an instruction to execute at a different address. This
1814 is particularly useful for stubs that support fast tracepoints. GDB
1815 reports support for this feature in the qSupported packet.
1816
0fb4aa4b
PA
1817qTfSTM, qTsSTM
1818
1819 List static tracepoint markers in the target program.
1820
1821qTSTMat
1822
1823 List static tracepoint markers at a given address in the target
1824 program.
1825
1826qXfer:statictrace:read
1827
1828 Read the static trace data collected (by a `collect $_sdata'
1829 tracepoint action). The remote stub reports support for this packet
1830 to gdb's qSupported query.
1831
ca11e899
SS
1832QAllow
1833
1834 Send the current settings of GDB's permission flags.
1835
1836QTDPsrc
1837
1838 Send part of the source (textual) form of a tracepoint definition,
1839 which includes location, conditional, and action list.
1840
3f7b2faa
DE
1841* The source command now accepts a -s option to force searching for the
1842 script in the source search path even if the script name specifies
1843 a directory.
1844
d337e9f0
PA
1845* New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
1846
0fb4aa4b
PA
1847 - GDBserver now support tracepoints (including fast tracepoints, and
1848 static tracepoints). The feature is currently supported by the
1849 i386-linux and amd64-linux builds. See the "Tracepoints support
1850 in gdbserver" section in the manual for more information.
1851
1852 GDBserver JIT compiles the tracepoint's conditional agent
1853 expression bytecode into native code whenever possible for low
1854 overhead dynamic tracepoints conditionals. For such tracepoints,
1855 an expression that examines program state is evaluated when the
1856 tracepoint is reached, in order to determine whether to capture
1857 trace data. If the condition is simple and false, processing the
1858 tracepoint finishes very quickly and no data is gathered.
1859
1860 GDBserver interfaces with the UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer) library
1861 for static tracepoints support.
d337e9f0 1862
c24d0242
PM
1863 - GDBserver now supports x86_64 Windows 64-bit debugging.
1864
c8d5aac9
L
1865* GDB now sends xmlRegisters= in qSupported packet to indicate that
1866 it understands register description.
1867
7c953934
TT
1868* The --batch flag now disables pagination and queries.
1869
8685c86f
L
1870* X86 general purpose registers
1871
1872 GDB now supports reading/writing byte, word and double-word x86
1873 general purpose registers directly. This means you can use, say,
1874 $ah or $ax to refer, respectively, to the byte register AH and
1875 16-bit word register AX that are actually portions of the 32-bit
1876 register EAX or 64-bit register RAX.
1877
95a42b64 1878* The `commands' command now accepts a range of breakpoints to modify.
86b17b60
PA
1879 A plain `commands' following a command that creates multiple
1880 breakpoints affects all the breakpoints set by that command. This
1881 applies to breakpoints set by `rbreak', and also applies when a
1882 single `break' command creates multiple breakpoints (e.g.,
1883 breakpoints on overloaded c++ functions).
95a42b64 1884
8bd10a10
CM
1885* The `rbreak' command now accepts a filename specification as part of
1886 its argument, limiting the functions selected by the regex to those
1887 in the specified file.
1888
ab38a727
PA
1889* Support for remote debugging Windows and SymbianOS shared libraries
1890 from Unix hosts has been improved. Non Windows GDB builds now can
1891 understand target reported file names that follow MS-DOS based file
1892 system semantics, such as file names that include drive letters and
1893 use the backslash character as directory separator. This makes it
1894 possible to transparently use the "set sysroot" and "set
1895 solib-search-path" on Unix hosts to point as host copies of the
1896 target's shared libraries. See the new command "set
1897 target-file-system-kind" described below, and the "Commands to
1898 specify files" section in the user manual for more information.
1899
6149aea9
PA
1900* New commands
1901
f1421989
HZ
1902eval template, expressions...
1903 Convert the values of one or more expressions under the control
1904 of the string template to a command line, and call it.
1905
ab38a727
PA
1906set target-file-system-kind unix|dos-based|auto
1907show target-file-system-kind
1908 Set or show the assumed file system kind for target reported file
1909 names.
1910
6149aea9
PA
1911save breakpoints <filename>
1912 Save all current breakpoint definitions to a file suitable for use
1913 in a later debugging session. To read the saved breakpoint
1914 definitions, use the `source' command.
1915
1916`save tracepoints' is a new alias for `save-tracepoints'. The latter
1917is now deprecated.
1918
0fb4aa4b
PA
1919info static-tracepoint-markers
1920 Display information about static tracepoint markers in the target.
1921
1922strace FN | FILE:LINE | *ADDR | -m MARKER_ID
1923 Define a static tracepoint by probing a marker at the given
1924 function, line, address, or marker ID.
1925
ca11e899
SS
1926set observer on|off
1927show observer
1928 Enable and disable observer mode.
1929
1930set may-write-registers on|off
1931set may-write-memory on|off
1932set may-insert-breakpoints on|off
1933set may-insert-tracepoints on|off
1934set may-insert-fast-tracepoints on|off
1935set may-interrupt on|off
1936 Set individual permissions for GDB effects on the target. Note that
1937 some of these settings can have undesirable or surprising
1938 consequences, particularly when changed in the middle of a session.
1939 For instance, disabling the writing of memory can prevent
1940 breakpoints from being inserted, cause single-stepping to fail, or
1941 even crash your program, if you disable after breakpoints have been
1942 inserted. However, GDB should not crash.
1943
1944set record memory-query on|off
1945show record memory-query
1946 Control whether to stop the inferior if memory changes caused
1947 by an instruction cannot be recorded.
1948
53a71c06
CR
1949* Changed commands
1950
1951disassemble
1952 The disassemble command now supports "start,+length" form of two arguments.
1953
f3e9a817
PM
1954* Python scripting
1955
9279c692
JB
1956** GDB now provides a new directory location, called the python directory,
1957 where Python scripts written for GDB can be installed. The location
1958 of that directory is <data-directory>/python, where <data-directory>
1959 is the GDB data directory. For more details, see section `Scripting
1960 GDB using Python' in the manual.
1961
adc36818 1962** The GDB Python API now has access to breakpoints, symbols, symbol
595939de
PM
1963 tables, program spaces, inferiors, threads and frame's code blocks.
1964 Additionally, GDB Parameters can now be created from the API, and
1965 manipulated via set/show in the CLI.
f870a310 1966
fa33c3cd 1967** New functions gdb.target_charset, gdb.target_wide_charset,
07ca107c
DE
1968 gdb.progspaces, gdb.current_progspace, and gdb.string_to_argv.
1969
1970** New exception gdb.GdbError.
fa33c3cd
DE
1971
1972** Pretty-printers are now also looked up in the current program space.
f3e9a817 1973
967cf477
DE
1974** Pretty-printers can now be individually enabled and disabled.
1975
8a1ea21f
DE
1976** GDB now looks for names of Python scripts to auto-load in a
1977 special section named `.debug_gdb_scripts', in addition to looking
1978 for a OBJFILE-gdb.py script when OBJFILE is read by the debugger.
1979
a7bdde9e
VP
1980* Tracepoint actions were unified with breakpoint commands. In particular,
1981there are no longer differences in "info break" output for breakpoints and
1982tracepoints and the "commands" command can be used for both tracepoints and
1983regular breakpoints.
1984
05071a4d
PA
1985* New targets
1986
1987ARM Symbian arm*-*-symbianelf*
1988
6aecb9c2
JB
1989* D language support.
1990 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the D programming
1991 language.
1992
431e49aa
TJB
1993* GDB now supports the extended ptrace interface for PowerPC which is
1994 available since Linux kernel version 2.6.34. This automatically enables
1995 any hardware breakpoints and additional hardware watchpoints available in
1996 the processor. The old ptrace interface exposes just one hardware
1997 watchpoint and no hardware breakpoints.
1998
1999* GDB is now able to use the Data Value Compare (DVC) register available on
2000 embedded PowerPC processors to implement in hardware simple watchpoint
2001 conditions of the form:
2002
2003 watch ADDRESS|VARIABLE if ADDRESS|VARIABLE == CONSTANT EXPRESSION
2004
2005 This works in native GDB running on Linux kernels with the extended ptrace
2006 interface mentioned above.
2007
bfbf3774 2008*** Changes in GDB 7.1
abc7453d 2009
4eef138c
TT
2010* C++ Improvements
2011
2012 ** Namespace Support
71dee663
SW
2013
2014 GDB now supports importing of namespaces in C++. This enables the
2015 user to inspect variables from imported namespaces. Support for
2016 namepace aliasing has also been added. So, if a namespace is
2017 aliased in the current scope (e.g. namepace C=A; ) the user can
2018 print variables using the alias (e.g. (gdb) print C::x).
2019
4eef138c
TT
2020 ** Bug Fixes
2021
2022 All known bugs relating to the printing of virtual base class were
2023 fixed. It is now possible to call overloaded static methods using a
2024 qualified name.
2025
2026 ** Cast Operators
2027
2028 The C++ cast operators static_cast<>, dynamic_cast<>, const_cast<>,
2029 and reinterpret_cast<> are now handled by the C++ expression parser.
2030
2d1c1221
ME
2031* New targets
2032
2033Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze-*-*
34207b9e 2034Renesas RX rx-*-elf
2d1c1221
ME
2035
2036* New Simulators
2037
2038Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze
34207b9e 2039Renesas RX rx
2d1c1221 2040
6c95b8df
PA
2041* Multi-program debugging.
2042
2043 GDB now has support for multi-program (a.k.a. multi-executable or
2044 multi-exec) debugging. This allows for debugging multiple inferiors
2045 simultaneously each running a different program under the same GDB
2046 session. See "Debugging Multiple Inferiors and Programs" in the
2047 manual for more information. This implied some user visible changes
2048 in the multi-inferior support. For example, "info inferiors" now
2049 lists inferiors that are not running yet or that have exited
2050 already. See also "New commands" and "New options" below.
2051
d5551862
SS
2052* New tracing features
2053
2054 GDB's tracepoint facility now includes several new features:
2055
2056 ** Trace state variables
f61e138d
SS
2057
2058 GDB tracepoints now include support for trace state variables, which
2059 are variables managed by the target agent during a tracing
2060 experiment. They are useful for tracepoints that trigger each
2061 other, so for instance one tracepoint can count hits in a variable,
2062 and then a second tracepoint has a condition that is true when the
2063 count reaches a particular value. Trace state variables share the
2064 $-syntax of GDB convenience variables, and can appear in both
2065 tracepoint actions and condition expressions. Use the "tvariable"
2066 command to create, and "info tvariables" to view; see "Trace State
2067 Variables" in the manual for more detail.
7a697b8d 2068
d5551862 2069 ** Fast tracepoints
7a697b8d
SS
2070
2071 GDB now includes an option for defining fast tracepoints, which
2072 targets may implement more efficiently, such as by installing a jump
2073 into the target agent rather than a trap instruction. The resulting
2074 speedup can be by two orders of magnitude or more, although the
2075 tradeoff is that some program locations on some target architectures
2076 might not allow fast tracepoint installation, for instance if the
2077 instruction to be replaced is shorter than the jump. To request a
2078 fast tracepoint, use the "ftrace" command, with syntax identical to
2079 the regular trace command.
2080
d5551862
SS
2081 ** Disconnected tracing
2082
2083 It is now possible to detach GDB from the target while it is running
2084 a trace experiment, then reconnect later to see how the experiment
2085 is going. In addition, a new variable disconnected-tracing lets you
2086 tell the target agent whether to continue running a trace if the
2087 connection is lost unexpectedly.
2088
00bf0b85
SS
2089 ** Trace files
2090
2091 GDB now has the ability to save the trace buffer into a file, and
2092 then use that file as a target, similarly to you can do with
2093 corefiles. You can select trace frames, print data that was
2094 collected in them, and use tstatus to display the state of the
2095 tracing run at the moment that it was saved. To create a trace
2096 file, use "tsave <filename>", and to use it, do "target tfile
2097 <name>".
4daf5ac0
SS
2098
2099 ** Circular trace buffer
2100
2101 You can ask the target agent to handle the trace buffer as a
2102 circular buffer, discarding the oldest trace frames to make room for
2103 newer ones, by setting circular-trace-buffer to on. This feature may
2104 not be available for all target agents.
2105
21a0512e
PP
2106* Changed commands
2107
2108disassemble
2109 The disassemble command, when invoked with two arguments, now requires
2110 the arguments to be comma-separated.
2111
0fe7935b
DJ
2112info variables
2113 The info variables command now displays variable definitions. Files
2114 which only declare a variable are not shown.
2115
fb2e7cb4
JB
2116source
2117 The source command is now capable of sourcing Python scripts.
2118 This feature is dependent on the debugger being build with Python
2119 support.
2120
2121 Related to this enhancement is also the introduction of a new command
2122 "set script-extension" (see below).
2123
6c95b8df
PA
2124* New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
2125
399cd161
MS
2126record save [<FILENAME>]
2127 Save a file (in core file format) containing the process record
2128 execution log for replay debugging at a later time.
2129
2130record restore <FILENAME>
2131 Restore the process record execution log that was saved at an
2132 earlier time, for replay debugging.
2133
6c95b8df
PA
2134add-inferior [-copies <N>] [-exec <FILENAME>]
2135 Add a new inferior.
2136
2137clone-inferior [-copies <N>] [ID]
2138 Make a new inferior ready to execute the same program another
2139 inferior has loaded.
2140
2141remove-inferior ID
2142 Remove an inferior.
2143
2144maint info program-spaces
2145 List the program spaces loaded into GDB.
2146
9a7071a8
JB
2147set remote interrupt-sequence [Ctrl-C | BREAK | BREAK-g]
2148show remote interrupt-sequence
2149 Allow the user to select one of ^C, a BREAK signal or BREAK-g
2150 as the sequence to the remote target in order to interrupt the execution.
2151 Ctrl-C is a default. Some system prefers BREAK which is high level of
2152 serial line for some certain time. Linux kernel prefers BREAK-g, a.k.a
2153 Magic SysRq g. It is BREAK signal and character 'g'.
2154
2155set remote interrupt-on-connect [on | off]
2156show remote interrupt-on-connect
2157 When interrupt-on-connect is ON, gdb sends interrupt-sequence to
2158 remote target when gdb connects to it. This is needed when you debug
2159 Linux kernel.
2160
2161set remotebreak [on | off]
2162show remotebreak
2163Deprecated. Use "set/show remote interrupt-sequence" instead.
2164
f61e138d
SS
2165tvariable $NAME [ = EXP ]
2166 Create or modify a trace state variable.
2167
2168info tvariables
2169 List trace state variables and their values.
2170
2171delete tvariable $NAME ...
2172 Delete one or more trace state variables.
2173
6da95a67
SS
2174teval EXPR, ...
2175 Evaluate the given expressions without collecting anything into the
2176 trace buffer. (Valid in tracepoint actions only.)
2177
7a697b8d
SS
2178ftrace FN / FILE:LINE / *ADDR
2179 Define a fast tracepoint at the given function, line, or address.
2180
b0f02ee9
JK
2181* New expression syntax
2182
2183 GDB now parses the 0b prefix of binary numbers the same way as GCC does.
2184 GDB now parses 0b101010 identically with 42.
2185
6c95b8df
PA
2186* New options
2187
2188set follow-exec-mode new|same
2189show follow-exec-mode
2190 Control whether GDB reuses the same inferior across an exec call or
2191 creates a new one. This is useful to be able to restart the old
2192 executable after the inferior having done an exec call.
2193
236f1d4d
SS
2194set default-collect EXPR, ...
2195show default-collect
2196 Define a list of expressions to be collected at each tracepoint.
2197 This is a useful way to ensure essential items are not overlooked,
2198 such as registers or a critical global variable.
2199
d5551862
SS
2200set disconnected-tracing
2201show disconnected-tracing
2202 If set to 1, the target is instructed to continue tracing if it
2203 loses its connection to GDB. If 0, the target is to stop tracing
2204 upon disconnection.
2205
4daf5ac0
SS
2206set circular-trace-buffer
2207show circular-trace-buffer
2208 If set to on, the target is instructed to use a circular trace buffer
2209 and discard the oldest trace frames instead of stopping the trace due
2210 to a full trace buffer. If set to off, the trace stops when the buffer
2211 fills up. Some targets may not support this.
2212
fb2e7cb4
JB
2213set script-extension off|soft|strict
2214show script-extension
2215 If set to "off", the debugger does not perform any script language
2216 recognition, and all sourced files are assumed to be GDB scripts.
2217 If set to "soft" (the default), files are sourced according to
2218 filename extension, falling back to GDB scripts if the first
2219 evaluation failed.
2220 If set to "strict", files are sourced according to filename extension.
2221
2b71fc8e
JB
2222set ada trust-PAD-over-XVS on|off
2223show ada trust-PAD-over-XVS
2224 If off, activate a workaround against a bug in the debugging information
2225 generated by the compiler for PAD types (see gcc/exp_dbug.ads in
2226 the GCC sources for more information about the GNAT encoding and
2227 PAD types in particular). It is always safe to set this option to
2228 off, but this introduces a slight performance penalty. The default
2229 is on.
2230
de2e5182
TT
2231* Python API Improvements
2232
2233 ** GDB provides the new class gdb.LazyString. This is useful in
2234 some pretty-printing cases. The new method gdb.Value.lazy_string
2235 provides a simple way to create objects of this type.
2236
2237 ** The fields returned by gdb.Type.fields now have an
2238 `is_base_class' attribute.
2239
2240 ** The new method gdb.Type.range returns the range of an array type.
2241
2242 ** The new method gdb.parse_and_eval can be used to parse and
2243 evaluate an expression.
2244
f61e138d
SS
2245* New remote packets
2246
2247QTDV
2248 Define a trace state variable.
2249
2250qTV
2251 Get the current value of a trace state variable.
2252
d5551862
SS
2253QTDisconnected
2254 Set desired tracing behavior upon disconnection.
2255
4daf5ac0
SS
2256QTBuffer:circular
2257 Set the trace buffer to be linear or circular.
2258
d5551862
SS
2259qTfP, qTsP
2260 Get data about the tracepoints currently in use.
2261
2d483d34
MS
2262* Bug fixes
2263
2264Process record now works correctly with hardware watchpoints.
2265
6e0e5977
JB
2266Multiple bug fixes have been made to the mips-irix port, making it
2267much more reliable. In particular:
2268 - Debugging threaded applications is now possible again. Previously,
2269 GDB would hang while starting the program, or while waiting for
2270 the program to stop at a breakpoint.
2271 - Attaching to a running process no longer hangs.
2272 - An error occurring while loading a core file has been fixed.
2273 - Changing the value of the PC register now works again. This fixes
2274 problems observed when using the "jump" command, or when calling
2275 a function from GDB, or even when assigning a new value to $pc.
2276 - With the "finish" and "return" commands, the return value for functions
2277 returning a small array is now correctly printed.
2278 - It is now possible to break on shared library code which gets executed
2279 during a shared library init phase (code executed while executing
2280 their .init section). Previously, the breakpoint would have no effect.
2281 - GDB is now able to backtrace through the signal handler for
2282 non-threaded programs.
2283
93c26624
JK
2284PIE (Position Independent Executable) programs debugging is now supported.
2285This includes debugging execution of PIC (Position Independent Code) shared
2286libraries although for that, it should be possible to run such libraries as an
2287executable program.
2288
abc7453d 2289*** Changes in GDB 7.0
75feb17d 2290
4efc6507
DE
2291* GDB now has an interface for JIT compilation. Applications that
2292dynamically generate code can create symbol files in memory and register
2293them with GDB. For users, the feature should work transparently, and
2294for JIT developers, the interface is documented in the GDB manual in the
2295"JIT Compilation Interface" chapter.
2296
782b2b07
SS
2297* Tracepoints may now be conditional. The syntax is as for
2298breakpoints; either an "if" clause appended to the "trace" command,
2299or the "condition" command is available. GDB sends the condition to
2300the target for evaluation using the same bytecode format as is used
2301for tracepoint actions.
2302
53a71c06
CR
2303* The disassemble command now supports: an optional /r modifier, print the
2304raw instructions in hex as well as in symbolic form, and an optional /m
2305modifier to print mixed source+assembly.
e6158f16 2306
e7a8dbfb
HZ
2307* Process record and replay
2308
2309 In a architecture environment that supports ``process record and
2310 replay'', ``process record and replay'' target can record a log of
2311 the process execution, and replay it with both forward and reverse
2312 execute commands.
2313
64644d9b
MS
2314* Reverse debugging: GDB now has new commands reverse-continue, reverse-
2315step, reverse-next, reverse-finish, reverse-stepi, reverse-nexti, and
2316set execution-direction {forward|reverse}, for targets that support
2317reverse execution.
2318
b9412953
DD
2319* GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on MIPS/Linux systems. This
2320feature is available with a native GDB running on kernel version
23212.6.28 or later.
2322
6c7a06a3
TT
2323* GDB now has support for multi-byte and wide character sets on the
2324target. Strings whose character type is wchar_t, char16_t, or
2325char32_t are now correctly printed. GDB supports wide- and unicode-
2326literals in C, that is, L'x', L"string", u'x', u"string", U'x', and
2327U"string" syntax. And, GDB allows the "%ls" and "%lc" formats in
2328`printf'. This feature requires iconv to work properly; if your
2329system does not have a working iconv, GDB can use GNU libiconv. See
2330the installation instructions for more information.
2331
f1838a98
UW
2332* GDB now supports automatic retrieval of shared library files from
2333remote targets. To use this feature, specify a system root that begins
2334with the `remote:' prefix, either via the `set sysroot' command or via
2335the `--with-sysroot' configure-time option.
2336
55333a84
DE
2337* "info sharedlibrary" now takes an optional regex of libraries to show,
2338and it now reports if a shared library has no debugging information.
2339
7f6a6314
PM
2340* Commands `set debug-file-directory', `set solib-search-path' and `set args'
2341now complete on file names.
2342
65d12d83
TT
2343* When completing in expressions, gdb will attempt to limit
2344completions to allowable structure or union fields, where appropriate.
2345For instance, consider:
2346
2347 # struct example { int f1; double f2; };
2348 # struct example variable;
2349 (gdb) p variable.
2350
2351If the user types TAB at the end of this command line, the available
2352completions will be "f1" and "f2".
2353
edb3359d
DJ
2354* Inlined functions are now supported. They show up in backtraces, and
2355the "step", "next", and "finish" commands handle them automatically.
2356
2fae03e8
TT
2357* GDB now supports the token-splicing (##) and stringification (#)
2358operators when expanding macros. It also supports variable-arity
2359macros.
2360
47a3467a 2361* GDB now supports inspecting extra signal information, exported by
58d6951d
DJ
2362the new $_siginfo convenience variable. The feature is currently
2363implemented on linux ARM, i386 and amd64.
2364
2365* GDB can now display the VFP floating point registers and NEON vector
2366registers on ARM targets. Both ARM GNU/Linux native GDB and gdbserver
2367can provide these registers (requires Linux 2.6.30 or later). Remote
2368and simulator targets may also provide them.
47a3467a 2369
08388c79
DE
2370* New remote packets
2371
2372qSearch:memory:
2373 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
2374
a6f3e723
SL
2375QStartNoAckMode
2376 Turn off `+'/`-' protocol acknowledgments to permit more efficient
2377 operation over reliable transport links. Use of this packet is
2378 controlled by the `set remote noack-packet' command.
2379
d7713ae0
EZ
2380vKill
2381 Kill the process with the specified process ID. Use this in preference
2382 to `k' when multiprocess protocol extensions are supported.
2383
07e059b5
VP
2384qXfer:osdata:read
2385 Obtains additional operating system information
2386
47a3467a
PA
2387qXfer:siginfo:read
2388qXfer:siginfo:write
2389 Read or write additional signal information.
2390
060871df
PA
2391* Removed remote protocol undocumented extension
2392
2393 An undocumented extension to the remote protocol's `S' stop reply
2394 packet that permited the stub to pass a process id was removed.
2395 Remote servers should use the `T' stop reply packet instead.
2396
c055b101 2397* GDB now supports multiple function calling conventions according to the
a0ef4274 2398DWARF-2 DW_AT_calling_convention function attribute.
c055b101
CV
2399
2400* The SH target utilizes the aforementioned change to distinguish between gcc
a0ef4274
DJ
2401and Renesas calling convention. It also adds the new CLI commands
2402`set/show sh calling-convention'.
c055b101 2403
31fffb02
CS
2404* GDB can now read compressed debug sections, as produced by GNU gold
2405with the --compress-debug-sections=zlib flag.
2406
88d8a8e0
JB
2407* 64-bit core files are now supported on AIX.
2408
7f99b190
JB
2409* Thread switching is now supported on Tru64.
2410
ccd213ac
DJ
2411* Watchpoints can now be set on unreadable memory locations, e.g. addresses
2412which will be allocated using malloc later in program execution.
2413
1fddbabb 2414* The qXfer:libraries:read remote procotol packet now allows passing a
31fffb02 2415list of section offsets.
1fddbabb 2416
a0ef4274
DJ
2417* On GNU/Linux, GDB can now attach to stopped processes. Several race
2418conditions handling signals delivered during attach or thread creation
2419have also been fixed.
2420
bfb8797a 2421* GDB now supports the use of DWARF boolean types for Ada's type Boolean.
158c7665
PH
2422From the user's standpoint, all unqualified instances of True and False
2423are treated as the standard definitions, regardless of context.
bfb8797a 2424
71c25dea
TT
2425* GDB now parses C++ symbol and type names more flexibly. For
2426example, given:
2427
2428 template<typename T> class C { };
2429 C<char const *> c;
2430
2431GDB will now correctly handle all of:
2432
2433 ptype C<char const *>
2434 ptype C<char const*>
2435 ptype C<const char *>
2436 ptype C<const char*>
2437
ccd213ac
DJ
2438* New features in the GDB remote stub, gdbserver
2439
2440 - The "--wrapper" command-line argument tells gdbserver to use a
2441 wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
2442
7ae0e2a2
UW
2443 - On PowerPC and S/390 targets, it is now possible to use a single
2444 gdbserver executable to debug both 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
2445 (This requires gdbserver itself to be built as a 64-bit executable.)
2446
a6f3e723
SL
2447 - gdbserver uses the new noack protocol mode for TCP connections to
2448 reduce communications latency, if also supported and enabled in GDB.
2449
da8bd9a3
DJ
2450 - Support for the sparc64-linux-gnu target is now included in
2451 gdbserver.
2452
d70e31dd
DE
2453 - The amd64-linux build of gdbserver now supports debugging both
2454 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
2455
2456 - The i386-linux, amd64-linux, and i386-win32 builds of gdbserver
2457 now support hardware watchpoints, and will use them automatically
2458 as appropriate.
2459
d57a3c85
TJB
2460* Python scripting
2461
2462 GDB now has support for scripting using Python. Whether this is
2463 available is determined at configure time.
2464
d8906c6f
TJB
2465 New GDB commands can now be written in Python.
2466
aadc346a
JB
2467* Ada tasking support
2468
2469 Ada tasks can now be inspected in GDB. The following commands have
2470 been introduced:
2471
2472 info tasks
2473 Print the list of Ada tasks.
2474 info task N
2475 Print detailed information about task number N.
2476 task
2477 Print the task number of the current task.
2478 task N
2479 Switch the context of debugging to task number N.
2480
adb483fe
DJ
2481* Support for user-defined prefixed commands. The "define" command can
2482add new commands to existing prefixes, e.g. "target".
2483
2277426b
PA
2484* Multi-inferior, multi-process debugging.
2485
2486 GDB now has generalized support for multi-inferior debugging. See
2487 "Debugging Multiple Inferiors" in the manual for more information.
2488 Although availability still depends on target support, the command
2489 set is more uniform now. The GNU/Linux specific multi-forks support
2490 has been migrated to this new framework. This implied some user
2491 visible changes; see "New commands" and also "Removed commands"
2492 below.
2493
08d16641
PA
2494* Target descriptions can now describe the target OS ABI. See the
2495"Target Description Format" section in the user manual for more
2496information.
2497
e35359c5
UW
2498* Target descriptions can now describe "compatible" architectures
2499to indicate that the target can execute applications for a different
2500architecture in addition to those for the main target architecture.
2501See the "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for
2502more information.
2503
85e747d2
UW
2504* Multi-architecture debugging.
2505
2506 GDB now includes general supports for debugging applications on
2507 hybrid systems that use more than one single processor architecture
2508 at the same time. Each such hybrid architecture still requires
2509 specific support to be added. The only hybrid architecture supported
2510 in this version of GDB is the Cell Broadband Engine.
2511
2512* GDB now supports integrated debugging of Cell/B.E. applications that
2513use both the PPU and SPU architectures. To enable support for hybrid
2514Cell/B.E. debugging, you need to configure GDB to support both the
2515powerpc-linux or powerpc64-linux and the spu-elf targets, using the
2516--enable-targets configure option.
2517
11ade57a
PA
2518* Non-stop mode debugging.
2519
2520 For some targets, GDB now supports an optional mode of operation in
2521 which you can examine stopped threads while other threads continue
2522 to execute freely. This is referred to as non-stop mode, with the
2523 old mode referred to as all-stop mode. See the "Non-Stop Mode"
2524 section in the user manual for more information.
2525
2526 To be able to support remote non-stop debugging, a remote stub needs
2527 to implement the non-stop mode remote protocol extensions, as
2528 described in the "Remote Non-Stop" section of the user manual. The
2529 GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been adjusted to support these
2530 extensions on linux targets.
2531
d7713ae0 2532* New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
75feb17d 2533
a96d9b2e
SDJ
2534catch syscall [NAME(S) | NUMBER(S)]
2535 Catch system calls. Arguments, which should be names of system
2536 calls or their numbers, mean catch only those syscalls. Without
2537 arguments, every syscall will be caught. When the inferior issues
2538 any of the specified syscalls, GDB will stop and announce the system
2539 call, both when it is called and when its call returns. This
2540 feature is currently available with a native GDB running on the
2541 Linux Kernel, under the following architectures: x86, x86_64,
2542 PowerPC and PowerPC64.
2543
08388c79
DE
2544find [/size-char] [/max-count] start-address, end-address|+search-space-size,
2545 val1 [, val2, ...]
2546 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
2547
d57a3c85
TJB
2548maint set python print-stack
2549maint show python print-stack
2550 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Python script.
2551
2552python [CODE]
2553 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Python interpreter.
2554
d7713ae0
EZ
2555macro define
2556macro list
2557macro undef
2558 These allow macros to be defined, undefined, and listed
2559 interactively.
2560
2561info os processes
2562 Show operating system information about processes.
2563
2277426b
PA
2564info inferiors
2565 List the inferiors currently under GDB's control.
2566
2567inferior NUM
2568 Switch focus to inferior number NUM.
2569
2570detach inferior NUM
2571 Detach from inferior number NUM.
2572
2573kill inferior NUM
2574 Kill inferior number NUM.
2575
d7713ae0
EZ
2576* New options
2577
3285f3fe
UW
2578set spu stop-on-load
2579show spu stop-on-load
2580 Control whether to stop for new SPE threads during Cell/B.E. debugging.
2581
ff1a52c6
UW
2582set spu auto-flush-cache
2583show spu auto-flush-cache
2584 Control whether to automatically flush the software-managed cache
2585 during Cell/B.E. debugging.
2586
d7713ae0
EZ
2587set sh calling-convention
2588show sh calling-convention
2589 Control the calling convention used when calling SH target functions.
2590
e0a3ce09 2591set debug timestamp
75feb17d 2592show debug timestamp
d7713ae0
EZ
2593 Control display of timestamps with GDB debugging output.
2594
2595set disassemble-next-line
2596show disassemble-next-line
2597 Control display of disassembled source lines or instructions when
2598 the debuggee stops.
2599
2600set remote noack-packet
2601show remote noack-packet
2602 Set/show the use of remote protocol QStartNoAckMode packet. See above
2603 under "New remote packets."
2604
2605set remote query-attached-packet
2606show remote query-attached-packet
2607 Control use of remote protocol `qAttached' (query-attached) packet.
2608
2609set remote read-siginfo-object
2610show remote read-siginfo-object
2611 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:read' (read-siginfo-object)
2612 packet.
2613
2614set remote write-siginfo-object
2615show remote write-siginfo-object
2616 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:write' (write-siginfo-object)
2617 packet.
2618
40ab02ce
MS
2619set remote reverse-continue
2620show remote reverse-continue
2621 Control use of remote protocol 'bc' (reverse-continue) packet.
2622
2623set remote reverse-step
2624show remote reverse-step
2625 Control use of remote protocol 'bs' (reverse-step) packet.
2626
d7713ae0
EZ
2627set displaced-stepping
2628show displaced-stepping
2629 Control displaced stepping mode. Displaced stepping is a way to
2630 single-step over breakpoints without removing them from the debuggee.
2631 Also known as "out-of-line single-stepping".
2632
2633set debug displaced
2634show debug displaced
2635 Control display of debugging info for displaced stepping.
2636
2637maint set internal-error
2638maint show internal-error
2639 Control what GDB does when an internal error is detected.
2640
2641maint set internal-warning
2642maint show internal-warning
2643 Control what GDB does when an internal warning is detected.
75feb17d 2644
ccd213ac
DJ
2645set exec-wrapper
2646show exec-wrapper
2647unset exec-wrapper
2648 Use a wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
fa4727a6 2649
aad4b048
JB
2650set multiple-symbols (all|ask|cancel)
2651show multiple-symbols
2652 The value of this variable can be changed to adjust the debugger behavior
2653 when an expression or a breakpoint location contains an ambiguous symbol
2654 name (an overloaded function name, for instance).
2655
74960c60
VP
2656set breakpoint always-inserted
2657show breakpoint always-inserted
2658 Keep breakpoints always inserted in the target, as opposed to inserting
2659 them when resuming the target, and removing them when the target stops.
2660 This option can improve debugger performance on slow remote targets.
2661
0428b8f5
DJ
2662set arm fallback-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
2663show arm fallback-mode
2664set arm force-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
2665show arm force-mode
2666 These commands control how ARM GDB determines whether instructions
2667 are ARM or Thumb. The default for both settings is auto, which uses
2668 the current CPSR value for instructions without symbols; previous
2669 versions of GDB behaved as if "set arm fallback-mode arm".
2670
10568435
JK
2671set disable-randomization
2672show disable-randomization
2673 Standalone programs run with the virtual address space randomization enabled
2674 by default on some platforms. This option keeps the addresses stable across
2675 multiple debugging sessions.
2676
d7713ae0
EZ
2677set non-stop
2678show non-stop
2679 Control whether other threads are stopped or not when some thread hits
2680 a breakpoint.
2681
b3eb342c 2682set target-async
d7713ae0 2683show target-async
b3eb342c
VP
2684 Requests that asynchronous execution is enabled in the target, if available.
2685 In this case, it's possible to resume target in the background, and interact
2686 with GDB while the target is running. "show target-async" displays the
2687 current state of asynchronous execution of the target.
2688
6c7a06a3
TT
2689set target-wide-charset
2690show target-wide-charset
2691 The target-wide-charset is the name of the character set that GDB
2692 uses when printing characters whose type is wchar_t.
2693
84603566
SL
2694set tcp auto-retry (on|off)
2695show tcp auto-retry
2696set tcp connect-timeout
2697show tcp connect-timeout
2698 These commands allow GDB to retry failed TCP connections to a remote stub
2699 with a specified timeout period; this is useful if the stub is launched
2700 in parallel with GDB but may not be ready to accept connections immediately.
2701
17a37d48
PP
2702set libthread-db-search-path
2703show libthread-db-search-path
2704 Control list of directories which GDB will search for appropriate
2705 libthread_db.
2706
d4db2f36
PA
2707set schedule-multiple (on|off)
2708show schedule-multiple
2709 Allow GDB to resume all threads of all processes or only threads of
2710 the current process.
2711
4e5d721f
DE
2712set stack-cache
2713show stack-cache
2714 Use more aggressive caching for accesses to the stack. This improves
2715 performance of remote debugging (particularly backtraces) without
2716 affecting correctness.
2717
910c5da8
JB
2718set interactive-mode (on|off|auto)
2719show interactive-mode
2720 Control whether GDB runs in interactive mode (on) or not (off).
2721 When in interactive mode, GDB waits for the user to answer all
2722 queries. Otherwise, GDB does not wait and assumes the default
2723 answer. When set to auto (the default), GDB determines which
2724 mode to use based on the stdin settings.
2725
2277426b
PA
2726* Removed commands
2727
2728info forks
2729 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `info
2730 inferiors' command. To list checkpoints, you can still use the
2731 `info checkpoints' command, which was an alias for the `info forks'
2732 command.
2733
2734fork NUM
2735 Replaced by the new `inferior' command. To switch between
2736 checkpoints, you can still use the `restart' command, which was an
2737 alias for the `fork' command.
2738
2739process PID
2740 This is removed, since some targets don't have a notion of
2741 processes. To switch between processes, you can still use the
2742 `inferior' command using GDB's own inferior number.
2743
2744delete fork NUM
2745 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `kill
2746 inferior' command. To delete a checkpoint, you can still use the
2747 `delete checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `delete
2748 fork' command.
2749
2750detach fork NUM
2751 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `detach
2752 inferior' command. To detach a checkpoint, you can still use the
2753 `detach checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `detach
2754 fork' command.
2755
a80b95ba
TG
2756* New native configurations
2757
2758x86/x86_64 Darwin i[34567]86-*-darwin*
2759
b8bfd3ed
JB
2760x86_64 MinGW x86_64-*-mingw*
2761
75a2d5e7
TT
2762* New targets
2763
c28c63d8 2764Lattice Mico32 lm32-*
75a2d5e7 2765x86 DICOS i[34567]86-*-dicos*
4c1d2973 2766x86_64 DICOS x86_64-*-dicos*
5f814c3b 2767S+core 3 score-*-*
75a2d5e7 2768
6de3146c
PA
2769* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports x86 Windows CE
2770 (mingw32ce) debugging.
2771
d5cbbe6e
JB
2772* Removed commands
2773
2774catch load
2775catch unload
2776 These commands were actually not implemented on any target.
2777
75feb17d 2778*** Changes in GDB 6.8
f9ed52be 2779
af5ca30d
NH
2780* New native configurations
2781
2782NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*netbsd*
94a0e877 2783Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
af5ca30d
NH
2784
2785* New targets
2786
2787NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*-netbsd*
94a0e877 2788Xtensa GNU/Lunux xtensa*-*-linux*
af5ca30d 2789
7a404eba
PA
2790* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
2791
2792 When the '-p NUMBER' or '--pid NUMBER' options are used, and
2793 attaching to process NUMBER fails, GDB no longer attempts to open a
2794 core file named NUMBER. Attaching to a program using the -c option
2795 is no longer supported. Instead, use the '-p' or '--pid' options.
2796
430ebac9
PA
2797* GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
2798(mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
2799
fe6fbf8b 2800* Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
8d5f9c6f 2801is resolved.
fe6fbf8b
VP
2802
2803* GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
8d5f9c6f
DJ
2804including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
2805and in inlined functions.
fe6fbf8b 2806
10665d76
JB
2807* GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
2808accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
2809more than one contiguous range of addresses.
2810
7cc46491
DJ
2811* Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
2812
d71340b8
DJ
2813* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
2814registers on PowerPC targets.
2815
523c4513
DJ
2816* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
2817targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
2818
a6b151f1
DJ
2819* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
2820commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
2821
2d717e4f
DJ
2822* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports run and attach in
2823extended-remote mode.
2824
24a836bd 2825* hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
d001be7a
DJ
2826The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
2827error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
2828The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
24a836bd 2829
d0c678e6
UW
2830* GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
2831building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
2832target architectures.
2833
d64a946d
TJB
2834* GDB now supports debugging C and C++ programs which use the
2835Decimal Floating Point extension. In addition, the PowerPC target
2836now has a set of pseudo-registers to inspect decimal float values
2837stored in two consecutive float registers.
2838
ee163bf5
VP
2839* The -break-insert MI command can optionally create pending
2840breakpoints now.
2841
b93b6ca7 2842* Improved support for debugging Ada
d001be7a
DJ
2843Many improvements to the Ada language support have been made. These
2844include:
b93b6ca7
JB
2845 - Better support for Ada2005 interface types
2846 - Improved handling of arrays and slices in general
2847 - Better support for Taft-amendment types
2848 - The '{type} ADDRESS' expression is now allowed on the left hand-side
2849 of an assignment
2850 - Improved command completion in Ada
2851 - Several bug fixes
2852
d001be7a
DJ
2853* GDB on GNU/Linux and HP/UX can now debug through "exec" of a new
2854process.
2855
a6b151f1
DJ
2856* New commands
2857
6d53d0af
JB
2858set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
2859show print frame-arguments
2860 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
2861 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
2862
a6b151f1
DJ
2863remote put
2864remote get
2865remote delete
2866 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
2867
2868* New MI commands
2869
2870-target-file-put
2871-target-file-get
2872-target-file-delete
2873 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
2874
2875* New remote packets
2876
2877vFile:open:
2878vFile:close:
2879vFile:pread:
2880vFile:pwrite:
2881vFile:unlink:
2882 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
d0c678e6 2883
2d717e4f
DJ
2884vAttach
2885 Attach to an existing process on the remote system, in extended-remote
2886 mode.
2887
2888vRun
2889 Run a new process on the remote system, in extended-remote mode.
2890
8d5f9c6f 2891*** Changes in GDB 6.7
6dd09645 2892
19d378fc
MS
2893* Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
2894bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
2895Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
2896
3a40aaa0
UW
2897* When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
2898symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
2899-Bsymbolic linker option.
2900
a6ec25f2
BW
2901* When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
2902recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
2903is not supported.
2904
6dd09645
JB
2905* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
2906frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
2907
c9bb8148
DJ
2908* GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
290932-bit or 64-bit register values.
2910
0d5de010
DJ
2911* Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
2912
23181151
DJ
2913* GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
2914target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
2915a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
2916
ea37ba09
DJ
2917* Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
2918automatically displayed as character or string data.
2919
2920* The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
2921arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
2922as strings.
e1f48ead 2923
123dc839
DJ
2924* Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
2925for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
8d5f9c6f 2926only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
123dc839 2927
05a4558a
DJ
2928* GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
2929iWMMXt coprocessor.
fb1e4ffc 2930
7c963485
PA
2931* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
2932ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
2933has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
2934
b18be20d
DJ
2935* GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
2936
0ca420ce
UW
2937* GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
2938
31d99776
DJ
2939* The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
2940layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
2941segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
2942
a4642986
MR
2943* The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
2944immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
2945
cfa9d6d9
DJ
2946* The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
2947"library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
2948packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
2949where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
2950Windows and SymbianOS).
255e7678
DJ
2951
2952* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
2953(DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
f5db8714
JK
2954
2955* GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
2956according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
cfa9d6d9 2957
c9bb8148
DJ
2958* New commands
2959
23776285
MR
2960set remoteflow
2961show remoteflow
2962 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
2963 when debugging using remote targets.
2964
c9bb8148
DJ
2965set mem inaccessible-by-default
2966show mem inaccessible-by-default
2967 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
2968 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
2969 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
2970 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
2971 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
2972
2973set breakpoint auto-hw
2974show breakpoint auto-hw
2975 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
2976 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
2977 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
2978 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
2979 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
2980 including "next" and "finish".
2981
0e420bd8
JB
2982catch exception
2983catch exception unhandled
2984 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
2985
2986catch assert
2987 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
2988
f822c95b
DJ
2989set sysroot
2990show sysroot
2991 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
2992 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
2993 an alias to "set sysroot".
2994
83cc5c53
UW
2995info spu
2996 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
2997 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
2998 architecture.
2999
bd372731
MK
3000* New native configurations
3001
3002OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
3003
23181151
DJ
3004set tdesc filename
3005unset tdesc filename
3006show tdesc filename
3007 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
3008 not query the target for its built-in description.
3009
c9bb8148
DJ
3010* New targets
3011
54fe9172 3012OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
c9bb8148 3013MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
c077150c 3014Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
c9bb8148 3015
6dd09645
JB
3016* New remote packets
3017
3018QPassSignals:
3019 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
3020 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
3021
23181151
DJ
3022qXfer:features:read:
3023 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
3024 features.
6dd09645 3025
83cc5c53
UW
3026qXfer:spu:read:
3027qXfer:spu:write:
3028 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
3029 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
3030
cfa9d6d9
DJ
3031qXfer:libraries:read:
3032 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
3033 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
3034 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
3035 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
3036
483367ee
DJ
3037* Removed targets
3038
3039Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
3040
d08950c4
UW
3041alpha*-*-osf1*
3042alpha*-*-osf2*
7ce59000 3043d10v-*-*
483367ee
DJ
3044hppa*-*-hiux*
3045i[34567]86-ncr-*
3046i[34567]86-*-dgux*
3047i[34567]86-*-lynxos*
3048i[34567]86-*-netware*
3049i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
3050i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
3051i[34567]86-*-sco*
3052i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
3053i[34567]86-*-sysv4*
3054i[34567]86-*-sysv5*
3055i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
3056i[34567]86-*-unixware*
3057i[34567]86-*-sysv*
3058i[34567]86-*-isc*
3059m68*-cisco*-*
3060m68*-tandem-*
ad527d2e 3061mips*-*-pe
483367ee 3062rs6000-*-lynxos*
ad527d2e 3063sh*-*-pe
483367ee 3064
7ce59000
DJ
3065* Other removed features
3066
3067target abug
3068target cpu32bug
3069target est
3070target rom68k
3071
3072 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
3073
ea35711c
DJ
3074target hms
3075target e7000
3076target sh3
3077target sh3e
3078
3079 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
3080 H8/300.
3081
3082target ocd
3083
3084 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
3085 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
3086 interfaces.
3087
7ce59000
DJ
3088DWARF 1 support
3089
3090 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
3091 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
3092
54d61198
DJ
3093Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
3094
3095 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
3096 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
3097 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
3098 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
3099
ea35711c
DJ
3100MIPS ".pdr" sections
3101
3102 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
3103 in debugging information.
3104
3105Scheme support
3106
3107 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
3108 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
3109
1a69e1e4
DJ
3110set mips stack-arg-size
3111set mips saved-gpreg-size
3112
3113 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
3114
6dd09645 3115*** Changes in GDB 6.6
e374b601 3116
ca3bf3bd
DJ
3117* New targets
3118
3119Xtensa xtensa-elf
9c309e77 3120Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
ca3bf3bd 3121
6aec2e11
DJ
3122* GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
3123(mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
3124running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
3125
3126* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
3127Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
3128supported.
3129
17218d91
DJ
3130* The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
3131broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
3132
9ebce043
DJ
3133* The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
3134stub provides the required support.
3135
7d3d3ece
DJ
3136* Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
3137longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
3138
4f8253f3
JB
3139* New commands
3140
3141set substitute-path
3142unset substitute-path
3143show substitute-path
3144 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
3145 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
3146 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
3147 between compilation and debugging.
3148
9fa66fd7
AS
3149set trace-commands
3150show trace-commands
3151 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
3152 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
3153 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
3154
1f5befc1
DJ
3155* REMOVED features
3156
3157The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
3158
2ec3381a
DJ
3159Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
3160an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
3161
3d00d119
DJ
3162The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
3163
be2a5f71
DJ
3164* New remote packets
3165
3166qSupported:
3167 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
3168 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
3169 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
3170 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
3171 target.
3172
0876f84a
DJ
3173qXfer:auxv:read:
3174 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
3175 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
3176
9ebce043
DJ
3177qXfer:memory-map:read:
3178 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
3179 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
3180
3181vFlashErase:
3182vFlashWrite:
3183vFlashDone:
3184 Erase and program a flash memory device.
3185
0876f84a
DJ
3186* Removed remote packets
3187
3188qPart:auxv:read:
3189 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
3190 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
3191
e374b601 3192*** Changes in GDB 6.5
53e5f3cf 3193
96309189
MS
3194* New targets
3195
3196Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
3197
3198Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
3199
53e5f3cf
AS
3200* New commands
3201
3202init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
3203 only if it doesn't already have a value.
3204
ac264b3b
MS
3205The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
3206
3207checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
3208
3209restart <n> Return the program state to a
3210 previously saved state.
3211
3212info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
3213
3214delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
3215
3216set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
3217 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
3218
3219info forks List forks of the user program that
3220 are available to be debugged.
3221
3222fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
3223 forks of the user program that are
3224 available to be debugged.
3225
3226delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
3227 that are available to be debugged (and
3228 kill the forked process).
3229
3230detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
3231 that are available to be debugged (and
3232 allow the process to continue).
3233
3950dc3f
NS
3234* New architecture
3235
3236Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
3237
0ea3f30e
DJ
3238* Improved Windows host support
3239
3240GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
3241native console support, and remote communications using either
3242network sockets or serial ports.
3243
f79daebb
GM
3244* Improved Modula-2 language support
3245
3246GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
3247basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
3248pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
3249printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
3250written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
3251GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
3252
acab6ab2
MM
3253* REMOVED features
3254
3255The ARM rdi-share module.
3256
f4267320
DJ
3257The Netware NLM debug server.
3258
53e5f3cf 3259*** Changes in GDB 6.4
156a53ca 3260
e0ecbda1
MK
3261* New native configurations
3262
02a677ac 3263OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
e0ecbda1
MK
3264OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
3265
d64a6579
KB
3266* New targets
3267
3268Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
3269
b33a6190
AS
3270* New command line options
3271
3272--batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
3273--return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
3274 the child (debugged) program exited with.
3275--eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
3276 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
3277 specified multiple times and in conjunction
3278 with the --command (-x) option.
3279
11dced61
AC
3280* Deprecated commands removed
3281
3282The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
3283removed:
3284
3285 Command Replacement
3286 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
3287 othernames set arm disassembler
3288 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
3289 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
3290 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
3291 regs info registers
3292
6fe85783
MK
3293* New BSD user-level threads support
3294
3295It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
3296library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
3297configurations are:
3298
3299FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
3300FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
3301OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
3302
3303Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
3304are not yet supported.
3305
5260ca71
MS
3306* New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
3307(Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
3308
e84ecc99
AC
3309* REMOVED configurations and files
3310
3311VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
9445aa30 3312Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
9445aa30 3313National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
156a53ca 3314
31e35378
JB
3315* New "set print array-indexes" command
3316
3317After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
3318when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
3319behavior.
3320
e85e5c83
MK
3321* VAX floating point support
3322
3323GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
3324
d91e9901
AS
3325* User-defined command support
3326
3327In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
3328to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
3329section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
3330
f2cb65ca
MC
3331*** Changes in GDB 6.3:
3332
f47b1503
AS
3333* New command line option
3334
3335GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
3336debugging.
3337
f2cb65ca
MC
3338* GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
3339
3340GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
3341information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
3342by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
3343proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
3344to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
860660cb 3345
d08c0230
AC
3346* Internationalization
3347
3348When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
3349internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
3350continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
3351
117ea3cf
PH
3352* Ada
3353
3354Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
3355implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
3356into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
3357
d08c0230
AC
3358* New native configurations
3359
3360GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
3361
3362* Remote 'p' packet
3363
3364GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
3365packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
3366
3367* END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
3368
3369GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
3370The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
3371features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
3372i386 application).
3373
3374GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
3375compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
3376continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
3377configurations:
3378
3379hppa-*-hpux
3380ia64-*-aix
3381mips-*-irix*
3382*-*-lynx
3383mips-*-linux-gnu
3384sds protocol
3385xdr protocol
3386powerpc bdm protocol
3387
3388Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
3389made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
3390
3391* OBSOLETE configurations and files
3392
3393Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
3394been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
3395configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
3396permanently REMOVED.
3397
3398h8300-*-*
3399mcore-*-*
3400mn10300-*-*
3401ns32k-*-*
3402sh64-*-*
3403v850-*-*
3404
ebb7c577
AC
3405*** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
3406
3407* MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
3408
3409When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
3410heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
3411been fixed.
3412
3413* MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
3414
3415When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
3416fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
3417IRIX long double values).
3418
3419* VAX and "next"
3420
3421A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
3422command. This problem has been fixed.
3423
860660cb 3424*** Changes in GDB 6.2:
faae5abe 3425
0dea2468
AC
3426* Fix for ``many threads''
3427
3428On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
3429rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
3430error message:
3431
3432 ptrace: No such process.
3433 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
3434
3435This problem has been fixed.
3436
2c07db7a
AC
3437* "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
3438
3439Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
3440GDB to dump core).
3441
c23968a2
JB
3442* New ``start'' command.
3443
3444This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
3445
71009278
MK
3446* New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
3447
3448Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
3449live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
3450platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
3451
3452FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
3453FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
3454NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
3455NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
3456NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
3457OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
3458OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
3459OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
3460OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
3461
3c0b7db2
AC
3462* Signal trampoline code overhauled
3463
3464Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
3465These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
3466of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
3467call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
3468signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
3469
73cc75f3
AC
3470Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
3471features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
3472include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
3c0b7db2 3473
7243600a
BF
3474* Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
3475
6f606e1c
MK
3476* New native configurations
3477
97dc871c 3478GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
0e56aeaf 3479OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
bf2ca189
MK
3480OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
3481OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
d195bc9f 3482OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 3483NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
9f076e7a 3484OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 3485
a1b461bf
AC
3486* END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
3487
3488GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
3489The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
3490including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
3491migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
3492compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
3493work, was also included.
3494
3495GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
3496module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
3497
3498h8300-*-*
3499mcore-*-*
3500mn10300-*-*
3501ns32k-*-*
3502sh64-*-*
3503v850-*-*
3504xstormy16-*-*
3505
3506Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
3507made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
3508
3c7012f5
AC
3509* REMOVED configurations and files
3510
3511Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
3512Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
3513Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
3514Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
3515Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
3516AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
3517Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
3518decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
3519riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
3520sonymips mips-sony-*
3521sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
3522
e5fe55f7
AC
3523*** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
3524
3525* TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
3526
3527The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
3528GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
3529command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
3530program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
3531with GDB".
3532
3533* Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
3534
3535Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
3536libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
3537cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
3538GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
3539shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
3540the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
3541are created.
3542
3543Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
3544
3545* Fixed ISO-C build problems
3546
3547The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
3548non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
3549compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
3550
3551* Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
3552
3553Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
3554wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
3555
3556* Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
3557
3558The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
3559permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
3560systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
3561
3562* Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
3563
3564Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
3565has been updated to use constant array sizes.
3566
3567* Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
3568
3569GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
3570its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
3571panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
3572
3573* Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
3574
3575When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
3576by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
3577not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
3578
faae5abe 3579*** Changes in GDB 6.1:
f2c06f52 3580
9175c9a3
MC
3581* Removed --with-mmalloc
3582
3583Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
3584conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
3585
3cc87ec0
MK
3586* Changes in AMD64 configurations
3587
3588The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
3589the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
3590and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
3591you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
3592
f0424ef6
MK
3593* Revised SPARC target
3594
3595The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
3596FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
03cebad2
MK
3597support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
3598from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
3599(Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
f0424ef6 3600
59659be2
ILT
3601* New C++ demangler
3602
3603GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
3604names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
3605with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
3606programs.
3607
9e08b29b
DJ
3608* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
3609
3610GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
3611arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
3612encountered these.
3613
8dfe8985
DC
3614* C++ nested types and namespaces
3615
3616GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
3617improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
3618is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
3619Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
3620namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
3621"Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
3622frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
3623if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
3624GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
3625
cced5e27
MK
3626* New native configurations
3627
3628NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
27d1e716 3629OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
2031c21a 3630OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
f2cab569
MK
3631OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
3632OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
cced5e27 3633
b4b4b794
KI
3634* New debugging protocols
3635
3636M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
3637
7989c619
AC
3638* "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
3639
3640The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
3641and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
3642tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
3643
5994185b
AC
3644* OBSOLETE configurations and files
3645
3646Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
3647been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
3648configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
3649permanently REMOVED.
3650
3651Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
3652Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
3653Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
3654Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
3655Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
3656AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
3657Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
0748d941
AC
3658decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
3659riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
3660sonymips mips-sony-*
3661sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
5994185b 3662
0ddabb4c
AC
3663* REMOVED configurations and files
3664
3665SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
3666SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
4a8269c0
AC
3667Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
3668Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
3669H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
3670HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
3671HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
3672HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
3673PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
cf7c5c23 3674386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
4a8269c0
AC
3675Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
3676 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
3677 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
f0424ef6
MK
3678SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
3679SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
4a8269c0
AC
3680Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
3681Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
0ddabb4c 3682
c7f1390e
DJ
3683*** Changes in GDB 6.0:
3684
1fe43d45
AC
3685* Objective-C
3686
3687Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
3688integrated into GDB.
3689
e6beb428
AC
3690* New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
3691
3692DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
3693information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
3694By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
3695backtraces.
3696
3697The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
3698have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
3699DWARF 2 CFI support.
3700
3701* Hosted file I/O.
3702
3703GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
3704file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
3705remote protocol documentation for details.
3706
3707* All targets using the new architecture framework.
3708
3709All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
3710architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
3711to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
3712ppc32 on ppc64).
3713
3714* GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
3715
3716GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
3717per-thread variables.
3718
3719* GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
3720
3721GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
3722GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
3723
3724* Separate debug info.
3725
3726GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
3727automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
3728of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
3729system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
3730and optional debug files.
3731
3732* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
3733
3734DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
3735describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
3736debugger.
3737
3738GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
3739for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
3740
3741* Java
3742
3743A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
3744Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
3745considered "useable".
3746
85f8f974
DJ
3747* GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
3748
3749The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
3750commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
3751kernel.
3752
0fac0b41
DJ
3753* GDB supports logging output to a file
3754
3755There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
3756used to capture GDB's output to a file.
f2c06f52 3757
6ad8ae5c
DJ
3758* The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
3759
3760The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
3761disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
3762command.
3763
e286caf2 3764* d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
5f601589
AC
3765
3766The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
3767registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
3768
d28f9cdf
DJ
3769* Profiling support
3770
3771A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
3772be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
3773session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
3774"--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
3775data, for more informative profiling results.
3776
da0f9dcd
AC
3777* Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
3778
3779The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
3780option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
b68767c1 3781"mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
da0f9dcd
AC
3782
3783Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
3784removed.
3785
fb9b6b35
JJ
3786Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
3787Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
3788Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
3789 in a subsequent -var-update.
3790
954a4db8
MK
3791* New native configurations.
3792
3793FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
3794
6760f9e6
JB
3795* Multi-arched targets.
3796
b4263afa 3797HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
85a453d5 3798Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
6760f9e6 3799
1b831c93
AC
3800* OBSOLETE configurations and files
3801
3802Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
3803been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
3804configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
3805permanently REMOVED.
3806
8b0e5691 3807Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
67f16606 3808Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
fd2299bd 3809H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
56056df7
AC
3810HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
3811HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
3812HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
78c43945 3813PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
2fbce691
AC
3814Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
3815 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
3816 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
f81824a9
AC
3817Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
3818Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
fd2299bd 3819
5835abe7
NC
3820* REMOVED configurations and files
3821
3822V850EA ISA
1b831c93
AC
3823Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
3824IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
3825i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
3826i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
3827i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
3828HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
3829 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
3830 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
3831Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
3832Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
3833Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
3834OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
3835I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
5835abe7 3836
a094c6fb
AC
3837* MIPS $fp behavior changed
3838
3839The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
3840the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
3841context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
3842address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
3843The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
3844
299ffc64 3845*** Changes in GDB 5.3:
37057839 3846
46248966
AC
3847* GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
3848
3849When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
3850`/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
3851in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
3852library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
3853shared libs like mad''.
3854
b9d14705 3855* ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
6da02953 3856
b9d14705
DJ
3857Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
3858the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
3859arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
3860powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
6da02953 3861
e0e9281e
JB
3862* GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
3863
3864GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
3865and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
3866they expand.
3867
dd73b9bb
AC
3868The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
3869invocations in expression, and shows the result.
3870
3871The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
3872macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
3873
e0e9281e
JB
3874Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
3875information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
3876your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
3877information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
3878
2250ee0c
CV
3879* Multi-arched targets.
3880
6e3ba3b8
JT
3881DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
3882DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
2250ee0c 3883NEC V850 v850-*-*
6e3ba3b8 3884National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
a1789893
GS
3885Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
3886Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
2250ee0c 3887
cd9bfe15 3888* New targets.
e33ce519 3889
456f8b9d
DB
3890Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
3891
e33ce519 3892
da8ca43d
JT
3893* New native configurations
3894
3895Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
029923d4 3896SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
45888261 3897MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
9ce5c36a 3898UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
da8ca43d 3899
cd9bfe15
AC
3900* OBSOLETE configurations and files
3901
3902Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
3903been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
3904configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
3905permanently REMOVED.
3906
92eb23c5 3907Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
a99a9e1b 3908OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1c7cc583 3909IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
7a3085c1 3910Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
7fb623f7 3911Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
eb4c54a2 3912Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
d8ee244c
MK
3913i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
3914i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
3915i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
822e978b
AC
3916HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
3917 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
3918 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
4d210288 3919I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
92eb23c5 3920
db034ac5
AC
3921* OBSOLETE languages
3922
3923CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
3924
cd9bfe15
AC
3925* REMOVED configurations and files
3926
3927AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
3928A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
3929AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
3930AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
3931AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
3932
3933testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
3934
20f01a46
DH
3935* New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
3936
3937This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
3938commands. The default is 1024.
3939
a5941fbf
MK
3940* Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
3941
3942Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
3943
89743e04
MS
3944* New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
3945
3946These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
3947to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
3948from a file into memory (restore).
37057839 3949
9fb14e79
JB
3950* Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
3951
3952The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
3953including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
3954of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
3955
2037aebb
AC
3956*** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
3957
3958* New targets.
3959
3960Atmel AVR avr*-*-*
3961
3962* Bug fixes
3963
3964gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
3965mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
3966Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
3967
3968gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
3969dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
3970Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
3971
3972Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
3973Surprisingly enough, it works now.
3974By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
3975
3976i386 hardware watchpoint support:
3977avoid misses on second run for some targets.
3978By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
3979
37057839 3980*** Changes in GDB 5.2:
eb7cedd9 3981
1a703748
MS
3982* New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
3983
3984This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
3985really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
3986In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
3987target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
3988This can be a significant performance improvement on some
3989(notably embedded) targets.
3990
cefd4ef5
MS
3991* New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
3992
55241689
AC
3993This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
3994process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
3995GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
3996hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
cefd4ef5 3997
352ed7b4
MS
3998* New command line option
3999
4000GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
4001
4002* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
4003
4004There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
4005command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
4006a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
4007be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
4008open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
4009issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
4010a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
4011it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
4012GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
4013is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
4014
fe419ffc
RE
4015* Changes in ARM configurations.
4016
4017Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
4018configuration is fully multi-arch.
4019
eb7cedd9
MK
4020* New native configurations
4021
fe419ffc 4022ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
eb7cedd9 4023x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
55241689 4024AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
768f0842 4025Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
eb7cedd9 4026
c9f63e6b
CV
4027* New targets
4028
4029Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
4030
9b4ff276
AC
4031* OBSOLETE configurations and files
4032
4033Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
4034been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
4035configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
4036permanently REMOVED.
4037
4038AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
4039A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
4040AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
4041AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
4042AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
4043
b4ceaee6 4044testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
9b4ff276 4045
e2caac18
AC
4046* REMOVED configurations and files
4047
4048TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
7bc65f05 4049WDC 65816 w65-*-*
7768dd6c
AC
4050PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
4051PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
4052PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
5e734e1f 4053Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1406caf7
AC
4054Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
4055 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
7e24f0b1 4056SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
9b567150 4057Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
3680c638
AC
4058Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
4059ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
a752853e 4060Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
e2caac18 4061
c2a727fa
TT
4062* Changes to command line processing
4063
4064The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
4065for the inferior from gdb's command line.
4066
467d8519
TT
4067* Changes to key bindings
4068
4069There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
4070
7072a954
AC
4071*** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
4072
4073Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
4074
4075Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
4076corrupted.
4077
4078Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
4079
4080Numerous documentation fixes.
4081
4082Numerous testsuite fixes.
4083
34f47bc4 4084*** Changes in GDB 5.1:
139760b7
MK
4085
4086* New native configurations
4087
4088Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
4089x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
55241689 4090MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
e23194cb
EZ
4091MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
4092ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
55241689 4093s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
139760b7 4094
bf64bfd6
AC
4095* New targets
4096
def90278 4097Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
24be5c34 4098CRIS cris-axis
55241689 4099UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
def90278 4100
17e78a56 4101* OBSOLETE configurations and files
bf64bfd6
AC
4102
4103x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
9b9c068d 4104Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
bb19ff3b
AC
4105Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
4106 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
76f4ea53
AC
4107TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
4108WDC 65816 w65-*-*
4a1968f4 4109Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1b2b2c16
AC
4110PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
4111PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
4112PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
24f89b68 4113SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
514e603d
AC
4114Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
4115ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
d036b4d9 4116Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
bf64bfd6 4117
17e78a56
AC
4118stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
4119kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
4120
7fcca85b
AC
4121Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
4122been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
4123configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
4124permanently REMOVED.
4125
a196c81c 4126* REMOVED configurations and files
7fcca85b
AC
4127
4128Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
4129Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
4130Pyramid pyramid-*-*
4131ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
4132Tahoe tahoe-*-*
a196c81c 4133ser-ocd.c *-*-*
bf64bfd6 4134
6d6b80e5 4135* GDB has been converted to ISO C.
e23194cb 4136
6d6b80e5 4137GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
e23194cb
EZ
4138sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
4139present.
4140
bf64bfd6
AC
4141* Other news:
4142
e23194cb
EZ
4143* "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
4144
4145* The MI enabled by default.
4146
4147The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
4148revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
4149engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
4150using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
4151which is now deprecated.
4152
4153* Support for debugging Pascal programs.
4154
4155GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
4156main features are supported:
4157
4158 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
4159
4160 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
4161 extension;
4162
4163 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
4164
4165 - a Pascal expression parser.
4166
4167However, some important features are not yet supported.
4168
4169 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
4170
4171 - there are some problems with boolean types;
4172
4173 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
4174 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
4175
4176 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
4177
4178 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
4179
4180* Changes in completion.
4181
4182Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
4183to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
4184users expect at the shell prompt.
4185
4186Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
4187`breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
4188program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
4189files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
4190be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
4191considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
4192name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
4193
4194`set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
4195
4196* New platform-independent commands:
4197
4198It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
4199hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
4200documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
4201
4202* Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
4203
d7275149
MK
4204Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
4205revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
4206many threads as your system allows you to have.
4207
e23194cb
EZ
4208Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
4209
d7275149
MK
4210Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
4211multi-threaded programs though.
e23194cb
EZ
4212
4213* Changes in MIPS configurations.
bf64bfd6
AC
4214
4215Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
4216
e23194cb
EZ
4217GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
4218debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
4219supported.)
4220
4221* Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
4222
4223Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
4224breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
4225implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
4226put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
4227and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
4228registers.
4229
4230The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
4231debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
4232watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
4233
4234* Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
4235
4236New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
4237the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
4238
4239New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
4240display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
4241IDT.
4242
4243New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
4244from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
4245New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
4246a given linear address.
4247
4248GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
4249program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
4250which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
4251
4252DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
4253
6c56c069
EZ
4254It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
4255
e23194cb
EZ
4256* Changes in documentation.
4257
4258All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
4259Documentation License.
4260
4261Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
4262manual.
4263
4264TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
4265
4266Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
4267manual.
4268
4269The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
4270documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
4271hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
4272
5d6640b1
AC
4273* GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
4274
4275The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
4276``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
4277contents of this file.
4278
1a1d8446
AC
4279* gdba.el deleted
4280
4281GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
139760b7 4282
9debab2f 4283*** Changes in GDB 5.0:
7a292a7a 4284
c63ce875
EZ
4285* Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
4286
4287Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
4288programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
4289displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
4290greater level of detail.
4291
4292* Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
4293
4294It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
4295bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
4296on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
4297written.
4298
4299* Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
4300
4301The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
4302necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
4303machines ``out of the box''.
4304
4305The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
4306possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
4307signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
4308would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
4309interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
4310
4311It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
4312standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
4313even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
4314and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
4315terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
4316
4317The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
4318enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
4319also works.
4320
4321DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
4322GDB.
4323
4324It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
4325directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
4326times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
4327breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
4328
ed9a39eb
JM
4329* New native configurations
4330
4331ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
afc05dd4 4332PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
ed9a39eb 4333
7a292a7a
SS
4334* New targets
4335
96baa820 4336Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
adf40b2e
JM
4337x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
4338PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
7a292a7a
SS
4339TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
4340
085dd6e6
JM
4341* OBSOLETE configurations
4342
4343Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
4344Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
9846de1b 4345Pyramid pyramid-*-*
ed9a39eb 4346ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
104c1213 4347Tahoe tahoe-*-*
7a292a7a 4348
9debab2f
AC
4349Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
4350but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
4351these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
4352be permanently REMOVED.
4353
5330533d
SS
4354* Gould support removed
4355
4356Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
4357
bc9e5bbf
AC
4358* New features for SVR4
4359
4360On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
4361without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
4362load symbols from the running process's executable file.
4363
4364* Many C++ enhancements
4365
4366C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
4367in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
4368
adf40b2e
JM
4369* Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
4370
4371A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
4372sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
4373with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
4374``|<program> <args>'' vis:
4375
4376 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
4377 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
4378
43e526b9
JM
4379* MIPS 64 remote protocol
4380
4381A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
4382expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
4383instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
4384
4385The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
4386added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
4387
96baa820
JM
4388* ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
4389
4390The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
4391``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
4392include ``set remote P-packet''.
4393
11cf8741
JM
4394* Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
4395
4396The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
4397accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
4398``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
4399
7876dd43
DB
4400* ``apropos'' command added.
4401
4402The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
4403documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
4404try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
4405
bc9e5bbf
AC
4406* New MI interface
4407
4408A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
4409interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
7162c0ca
EZ
4410process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
4411"GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
4412enabled by configuring with:
bc9e5bbf
AC
4413
4414 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
4415
c906108c
SS
4416*** Changes in GDB-4.18:
4417
4418* New native configurations
4419
4420HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
4421HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
55241689 4422M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
c906108c
SS
4423
4424* New targets
4425
4426Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
4427Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
4428Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
4429
4430* OBSOLETE configurations
4431
4432Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
4433
4434Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
4435but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
4436these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
4437be permanently REMOVED.
4438
4439* ANSI/ISO C
4440
4441As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
4442buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
4443containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
4444use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
4445available. If this is not true, please report the affected
4446configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
4447information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
4448already.
4449
4450* Readline 2.2
4451
4452GDB now uses readline 2.2.
4453
4454* set extension-language
4455
4456You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
4457languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
4458you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
4459 set extension-language .c c++
4460The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
4461and their associated languages.
4462
4463* Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
4464
4465When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
4466you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
4467PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
4468
4469 set processor NAME
4470
4471sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
4472following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
4473
4474 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
4475 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
4476 403 IBM PowerPC 403
4477 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
4478 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
4479 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
4480 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
4481 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
4482 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
4483 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
4484 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
4485
4486At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
4487special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
4488registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
4489only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
4490
4491* HP-UX support
4492
4493Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
4494more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
4495library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
4496support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
4497for xdb and dbx commands.
4498
4499* Catchpoints
4500
4501HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
4502generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
4503to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
4504
4505This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
4506argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
4507output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
4508
4509* Debugging across forks
4510
4511On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
4512in the inferior.
4513
4514* TUI
4515
4516HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
4517it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
4518configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
4519
4520* GDB remote protocol additions
4521
4522A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
4523Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
4524fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
4525allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
4526
4527For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
4528full 64-bit address. The command
4529
4530 set remoteaddresssize 32
4531
4532can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
4533the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
4534will be discarded.
4535
4536In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
4537command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
4538
4539 maint packet heythere
4540
4541sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
4542disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
4543time.
4544
4545The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
4546target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
4547downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
4548
4549* Tracing can collect general expressions
4550
4551You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
4552further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
4553doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
4554
4555* mask-address variable for Mips
4556
4557For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
4558a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
4559of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
4560
4561* Higher serial baud rates
4562
4563GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
4564230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
4565to achieve all of these rates.)
4566
4567* i960 simulator
4568
4569The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
4570builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
4571
4572
4573*** Changes in GDB-4.17:
4574
4575* New native configurations
4576
4577Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
4578Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
4579Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
4580PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
4581PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
4582Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
4583Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
4584
4585* New targets
4586
4587Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
4588Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
4589Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
4590Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
4591MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
4592MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
4593MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
4594Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
4595Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
4596Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
4597NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
4598
4599* New debugging protocols
4600
4601ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
4602M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
4603DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
4604PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
4605PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
4606Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
4607
4608* DWARF 2
4609
4610All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
4611format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
4612information.
4613
4614* Java frontend
4615
4616GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
4617only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
4618
4619* solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
4620
4621For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
4622loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
4623locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
4624
4625* Live range splitting
4626
4627GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
4628range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
4629more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
4630
4631* Hurd support
4632
4633GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
4634updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
4635
4636* ARM Thumb support
4637
4638GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
4639instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
4640instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
4641accordingly.
4642
4643* MIPS16 support
4644
4645GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
4646instruction set.
4647
4648* Overlay support
4649
4650GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
4651linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
4652will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
4653control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
4654additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
4655in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
4656
4657* info symbol
4658
4659The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
4660the symbol at the specified address.
4661
4662* Trace support
4663
4664The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
4665asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
4666extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
4667includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
4668file tracepoint.c for more details.
4669
4670* MIPS simulator
4671
4672Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
4673by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
4674of most MIPS variants.
4675
4676* Sparc simulator
4677
4678Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
4679by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
4680Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
4681
4682* set architecture
4683
4684For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
4685basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
4686architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
4687the possible architectures.
4688
4689*** Changes in GDB-4.16:
4690
4691* New native configurations
4692
4693Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
4694M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
4695PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
4696PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
4697PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
4698RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
4699
4700* New targets
4701
4702ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
4703I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
4704MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
4705MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
4706PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
4707Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
4708Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
4709
4710* PowerPC simulator
4711
4712The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
4713contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
4714PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
4715basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
4716performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
4717
4718* Solaris 2.5
4719
4720GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
4721
4722* Windows 95/NT native
4723
4724GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
4725To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
4726which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
4727Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
4728ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
4729
4730* dont-repeat command
4731
4732If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
4733command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
4734useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
4735extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
4736
4737* Send break instead of ^C
4738
4739The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
4740rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
4741GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
4742
4743* Remote protocol timeout
4744
4745The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
4746that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
4747to read from the target. The default value is 2.
4748
4749* Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
4750
4751By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
4752loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
4753stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
4754when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
4755in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
4756
4757Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
4758/usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
4759automatically on hpux10.
4760
4761* Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
4762
4763Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
4764
4765* Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
4766
4767When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
4768may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
4769the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
4770every character. The default value is 1050.
4771
4772* Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
4773
4774If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
4775a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
4776replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
4777details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
4778remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
4779to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
4780
4781* Speedups for remote debugging
4782
4783GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
4784the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
4785and more efficient S-record downloading.
4786
4787* Memory use reductions and statistics collection
4788
4789GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
4790Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
4791
4792*** Changes in GDB-4.15:
4793
4794* Psymtabs for XCOFF
4795
4796The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
4797can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
4798
4799* Remote targets use caching
4800
4801Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
4802remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
4803it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
4804debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
4805off' turns the the data cache off.
4806
4807* Remote targets may have threads
4808
4809The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
4810in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
4811gdb/remote.c for details.
4812
4813* NetROM support
4814
4815If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
4816support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
4817acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
4818write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
4819support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
4820another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
4821sequence is something like
4822
4823 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
4824 load <prog>
4825 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
4826
4827* Macintosh host
4828
4829GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
4830may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
4831it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
4832available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
4833device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
4834directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
4835scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
4836mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
4837
4838* Autoconf
4839
4840GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
4841but does simplify configuration and building.
4842
4843* hpux10
4844
4845GDB now supports hpux10.
4846
4847*** Changes in GDB-4.14:
4848
4849* New native configurations
4850
4851x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
4852x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
4853NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
4854Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
4855
4856* New targets
4857
4858A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
4859HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
4860CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
4861PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
4862WDC 65816 w65-*-*
4863
4864* Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
4865
4866GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
4867possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
4868filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
4869the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
4870if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
4871
4872* Arguments to user-defined commands
4873
4874User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
4875Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
4876trivial example:
4877define adder
4878 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
4879
4880To execute the command use:
4881adder 1 2 3
4882
4883Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
4884Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
4885use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
4886
4887* New `if' and `while' commands
4888
4889This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
4890commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
4891expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
4892execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
4893terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
4894`else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
4895if the expression is zero.
4896
4897* Fortran source language mode
4898
4899GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
4900Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
4901variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
4902with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
4903Fortran compilers.
4904
4905* Better HPUX support
4906
4907Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
4908running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
4909processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
4910for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
4911that behavior do the following before running the program:
4912
4913 adb -w a.out
4914 __dld_flags?W 0x5
4915 control-d
4916
4917This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
4918To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
4919
4920 adb -w a.out
4921 __dld_flags?W 0x4
4922 control-d
4923
4924You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
4925the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
4926external linkage.
4927
4928GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
4929HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
4930
4931* Target byte order now dynamically selectable
4932
4933You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
4934commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
4935current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
4936"set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
4937associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
4938configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
4939
4940* New DOS host serial code
4941
4942This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
4943no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
4944a PC's serial port.
4945
4946*** Changes in GDB-4.13:
4947
4948* New "complete" command
4949
4950This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
4951were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
4952
4953* Trailing space optional in prompt
4954
4955"set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
4956allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
4957
4958* Breakpoint hit counts
4959
4960"info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
4961has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
4962can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
4963to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
4964less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
4965that breakpoint.
4966
4967* Ability to stop printing at NULL character
4968
4969"set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
4970an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
4971arrays actually contain only short strings.
4972
4973* Shared library breakpoints
4974
4975In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
4976breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
4977
4978* Hardware watchpoints
4979
4980There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
4981targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
4982
55241689 4983Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
c906108c
SS
4984
4985* Annotations
4986
4987Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
4988and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
4989
4990* Improved Irix 5 support
4991
4992GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
4993
4994* Improved HPPA support
4995
4996GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
4997
4998* New native configurations
4999
5000Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
5001HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
5002Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
5003RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
5004
5005* New targets
5006
5007OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
5008MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
5009Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
5010
5011* Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
5012
5013There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
5014This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
5015
5016* Fixes
5017
5018As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
5019and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
5020
5021*** Changes in GDB-4.12:
5022
5023* Irix 5 is now supported
5024
5025* HPPA support
5026
5027GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
5028to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
5029GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
5030of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
5031can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
5032
5033
5034*** Changes in GDB-4.11:
5035
5036* User visible changes:
5037
5038* Remote Debugging
5039
5040The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
5041target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
5042debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
5043integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
5044debugging info for the mips target).
5045
5046* DEC Alpha native support
5047
5048GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
5049debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
5050work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
5051Alpha-specific notes.
5052
5053* Preliminary thread implementation
5054
5055GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
5056
5057* LynxOS native and target support for 386
5058
5059This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
5060to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
5061for details).
5062
5063* Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
5064
5065This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
5066mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
5067call methods, ...etc.
5068
5069*** Changes in GDB-4.10:
5070
5071 * User visible changes:
5072
5073Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
5074supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
5075other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
5076somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
5077
5078Filename completion now works.
5079
5080When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
5081arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
5082addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
5083
5084All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
5085vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
5086should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
5087your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
5088to be on the far side of a thin network line.
5089
5090 * DEC alpha support
5091
5092This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
5093cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
5094
5095
5096*** Changes in GDB-4.9:
5097
5098 * Testsuite
5099
5100This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
5101The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
5102via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
5103
5104 * C++ demangling
5105
5106'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
5107emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
5108Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
5109disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
5110use gdb with AT&T cfront.
5111
5112 * Simulators
5113
5114GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
5115So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
5116Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
5117
5118 * New targets supported
5119
5120H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
5121H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
5122SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
5123Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
5124IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
5125
5126Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
5127version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
5128GO32 memory extender.
5129
5130 * New remote protocols
5131
5132MIPS remote debugging protocol.
5133
5134 * New source languages supported
5135
5136This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
5137used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
5138into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
5139
5140
5141*** Changes in GDB-4.8:
5142
5143 * HP Precision Architecture supported
5144
5145GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
5146version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
5147University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
5148compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
5149format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
5150(as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
5151
5152Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
5153
5154 * Faster and better demangling
5155
5156We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
5157demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
5158character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
5159only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
5160This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
5161increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
5162symbol lookups.
5163
5164`Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
5165from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
5166compiler does not actually implement.
5167
5168 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
5169
5170In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
5171inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
5172recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
5173very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
5174The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
5175circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
5176fix.
5177
5178The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
5179release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
5180
5181 * Improved configure script
5182
5183The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
5184you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
5185host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
5186done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
5187
5188We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
5189version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
5190`--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
5191The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
5192only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
5193We hope to make this the default in a future release.
5194
5195 * Documentation improvements
5196
5197There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
5198produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
5199before submitting changes.
5200
5201The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
5202M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
5203`info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
5204you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
5205a future texinfo-X.Y release.
5206
5207*NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
5208We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
5209been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
5210or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
5211`texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
5212around this problem.
5213
5214 * New features
5215
5216GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
5217the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
5218`print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
5219the target program.
5220
5221The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
5222how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
5223
5224 * New native hosts supported
5225
5226HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
5227386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
5228
5229 * New targets supported
5230
5231AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
5232
5233 * New file formats supported
5234
5235BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
5236HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
5237
5238 * Major bug fixes
5239
5240Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
5241
5242We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
5243printf_filtered("%s") problems.
5244
5245We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
5246for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
5247release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
5248
5249You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
5250will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
5251
5252We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
5253for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
5254especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
5255libraries.
5256
5257The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
5258information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
5259command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
5260any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
5261when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
5262
5263 * Internal improvements
5264
5265GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
5266debugging of multiple languages in the future.
5267
5268GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
5269Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
5270symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
5271contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
5272shared code that handles any of them.
5273
5274 * New command line options
5275
5276We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
5277
5278 * Mmalloc licensing
5279
5280The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
5281General Public License.
5282
5283*** Changes in GDB-4.7:
5284
5285 * Host/native/target split
5286
5287GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
5288hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
5289target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
5290local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
5291ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
5292
5293The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
5294GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
5295is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
5296code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
5297any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
5298built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
5299handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
5300
5301GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
5302It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
5303plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
5304
5305 * New hosts supported
5306
5307HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
5308386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
5309386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
5310
5311 * New targets supported
5312
5313Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
531468030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
5315
5316 * New native hosts supported
5317
5318386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
5319 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
5320386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
5321
5322 * New file formats supported
5323
5324BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
5325supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
5326format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
5327
5328 * New commands
5329
5330`show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
5331`show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
5332These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
5333
5334`info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
5335
5336You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
5337scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
5338prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
5339executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
5340
5341 * C++ improvements
5342
5343We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
5344info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
5345symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
5346
5347Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
5348
5349 * Major bug fixes
5350
5351The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
5352fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
5353by the compiler.
5354
5355We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
5356support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
5357
5358John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
5359slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
5360that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
5361purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
5362the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
5363mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
5364
5365Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
5366about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
5367completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
5368we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
5369
5370 * AMD 29k support
5371
5372A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
5373specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
5374calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
5375usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
5376in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
5377
5378We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
5379Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
5380of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
5381resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
5382
5383 * Remote interfaces
5384
5385We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
5386with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
5387message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
5388This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
5389needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
5390breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
5391each instruction being stepped through.
5392
5393The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
5394registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
5395
5396There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
5397find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
5398Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
5399processor with a serial port.
5400
5401 * Configuration
5402
5403Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
5404`table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
5405supported, and what files each one uses.
5406
5407 * Library changes
5408
5409There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
5410disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
5411Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
5412disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
5413
5414The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
5415Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
5416can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
5417grants all the rights from the General Public License.
5418
5419 * Documentation
5420
5421The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
5422reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
5423as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
5424encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
5425system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
5426bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
5427
5428And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
5429
5430
5431*** Changes in GDB-4.6:
5432
5433 * Better support for C++ function names
5434
5435GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
5436names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
5437(using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
5438single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
5439Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
5440
5441GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
5442the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
5443You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
5444lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
5445for the list of formats.
5446
5447 * G++ symbol mangling problem
5448
5449Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
5450C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
5451directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
5452can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
5453usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
5454about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
5455this problem.)
5456
5457 * New 'maintenance' command
5458
5459All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
5460the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
5461can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
5462
5463 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
5464 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
5465 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
5466 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
5467 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
5468 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
5469
5470The following commands are new:
5471
5472 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
5473 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
5474 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
5475
5476 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
5477
5478We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
5479(e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
5480be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
5481read after argv processing.
5482
5483 * New hosts supported
5484
5485Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
5486
55241689 5487GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
c906108c
SS
5488
5489We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
5490is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
5491for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
5492masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
5493fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
5494It costs extra.
5495
5496 * New targets supported
5497
5498Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
5499
5500 * More smarts about finding #include files
5501
5502GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
5503all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
5504greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
5505especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
5506the one that contains your sources.
5507
5508We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
5509breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
5510try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
5511
5512 * Interesting infernals change
5513
5514GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
5515section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
5516target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
5517stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
5518
5519 * Bug fixes (of course!)
5520
5521There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
5522 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
5523 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
5524
5525See the ChangeLog for details.
5526
5527*** Changes in GDB-4.5:
5528
5529 * New machines supported (host and target)
5530
5531IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
5532
5533SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
5534
5535 * New malloc package
5536
5537GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
5538Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
5539capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
5540This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
5541pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
5542more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
5543
5544 * info proc
5545
5546The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
5547'help info proc' for details.
5548
5549 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
5550
5551The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
5552Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
5553possible.
5554
5555 * File name changes for MS-DOS
5556
5557Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
5558support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
5559conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
5560environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
5561that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
5562in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
5563
5564 * Cross byte order fixes
5565
5566Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
5567targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
5568
5569 * New -mapped and -readnow options
5570
5571If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
5572system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
5573`symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
5574program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
5575called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
5576Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
5577and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
5578the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
5579option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
5580starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
5581
5582You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
5583the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
5584information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
5585slower, but makes future operations faster.
5586
5587The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
5588build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
5589A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
5590use is:
5591
5592 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
5593
5594The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
5595It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
5596shared across multiple host platforms.
5597
5598 * longjmp() handling
5599
5600GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
5601siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
5602all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
5603platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
5604
5605 * Solaris 2.0
5606
5607Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
5608this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
5609reading symbols.
5610
5611 * Bug fixes
5612
5613As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
5614People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
5615crashes and trashed symbol tables.
5616
5617*** Changes in GDB-4.4:
5618
5619 * New machines supported (host and target)
5620
5621SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
5622 (except core files)
5623BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
5624Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
5625
5626 * New machines supported (target)
5627
5628AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
5629
5630 * C++ support
5631
5632GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
5633The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
5634per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
5635
5636GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
5637`ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
5638extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
5639good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
5640will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
5641released.
5642
5643 * New features for SVR4
5644
5645GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
5646shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
5647only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
5648
5649The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
5650on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
5651it prints the address mappings of the process.
5652
5653If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
5654bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
5655
5656 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
5657
5658Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
5659now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
5660skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
5661make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
5662same code linked statically.
5663
5664 * New Getopt
5665
5666GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
5667version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
5668continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
5669Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
5670added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
5671future by other options that begin with the same letter.
5672
5673 * Bugs fixed
5674
5675The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
5676Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
5677See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
5678
5679
5680*** Changes in GDB-4.3:
5681
5682 * New machines supported (host and target)
5683
5684Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
5685NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
5686Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
5687
5688 * Almost SCO Unix support
5689
5690We had hoped to support:
5691SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
5692(except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
5693that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
5694about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
5695
5696 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
5697
5698GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
5699debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
5700is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
5701send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
5702reqired (if any).
5703
5704 * New Readline
5705
5706GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
5707is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
5708required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
5709
5710 * Bugs fixed
5711
5712The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
5713Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
5714See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
5715
5716 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
5717
5718GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
5719supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
5720symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
5721
5722Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
5723mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
5724debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
5725mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
5726version 2.
5727
5728Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
5729really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
5730line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
5731variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
5732situation somewhat.
5733
5734When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
5735However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
5736methods.
5737
5738We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
5739DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
5740encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
5741
5742
5743*** Changes in GDB-4.2:
5744
5745 * Improved configuration
5746
5747Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
5748Porting BFD is simpler.
5749
5750 * Stepping improved
5751
5752The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
5753of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
5754in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
5755function that has debugging information is called within the line.
5756
5757 * Bug fixing
5758
5759Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
5760
5761 * New host supported (not target)
5762
5763Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
5764
5765
5766*** Changes in GDB-4.1:
5767
5768 * Multiple source language support
5769
5770GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
5771It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
5772and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
5773language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
5774You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
5775`set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
5776
5777 * GDB and Modula-2
5778
5779GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
5780currently under development at the State University of New York at
5781Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
5782continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
5783
5784Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
5785debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
5786symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
5787
5788There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
5789in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
5790
5791 * set write on/off
5792
5793GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
5794a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
5795the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
5796by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
5797effect immediately.
5798
5799 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
5800
5801When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
5802shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
5803The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
5804examining core files.
5805
5806 * set listsize
5807
5808You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
5809The default is 10.
5810
5811 * New machines supported (host and target)
5812
5813SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
5814Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
5815Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
5816
5817 * New hosts supported (not targets)
5818
5819IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
5820
5821 * New targets supported (not hosts)
5822
5823AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
5824AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
5825Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
5826
5827 * New remote interfaces
5828
5829AMD 29000 Adapt
5830AMD 29000 Minimon
5831
5832
5833*** Changes in GDB-4.0:
5834
5835 * New Facilities
5836
5837Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
5838
5839Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
5840target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
5841is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
5842remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
5843remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
5844also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
5845using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
5846stub on the target system.
5847
5848New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
5849
5850GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
5851library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
5852object file types such as a.out and coff.
5853
5854There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
5855refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
5856
5857
5858 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
5859
5860All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
5861by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
5862
5863For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
5864``Show prompt'' produces the response:
5865Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
5866
5867What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
5868print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
5869will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
5870all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
5871
5872confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
5873 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
5874 it is already running. Default is ON.
5875
5876editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
5877 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
5878 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
5879 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
5880 Default is ON.
5881
5882history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
5883 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
5884 or the value of the environment variable
5885 GDBHISTFILE.
5886
5887history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
5888 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
5889 HISTSIZE.
5890
5891history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
5892 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
5893 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
5894
5895history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
5896 history expansion will be performed on
5897 command line input. The default is OFF.
5898
5899radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
5900 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
5901 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
5902
5903height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
5904 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
5905 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
5906 variable TERM.
5907
5908width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
5909 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
5910 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
5911 variable TERM.
5912
5913Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
5914``set width'' instead.
5915
5916print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
5917 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
5918 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
5919 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
5920
5921print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
5922 is OFF.
5923
5924print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
5925 "raw" form if off.
5926
5927print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
5928 like instructions.
5929
5930print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
5931
5932
5933 * Support for Epoch Environment.
5934
5935The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
5936new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
5937are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
5938window.
5939
5940
5941 * Support for Shared Libraries
5942
5943GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
5944Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
5945before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
5946happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
5947At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
5948from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
5949shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
5950It can be abbreviated ``share''.
5951
5952sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
5953 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
5954 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
5955
5956info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
5957
5958
5959 * Watchpoints
5960
5961A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
5962expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
5963tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
5964quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
5965problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
5966more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
5967
5968watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
5969
5970info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
5971
5972delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
5973disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
5974enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
5975
5976
5977 * C++ multiple inheritance
5978
5979When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
5980for C++ programs.
5981
5982 * C++ exception handling
5983
5984Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
5985ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
5986the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
5987handler's context).
5988
5989catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
5990 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
5991 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
5992
5993info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
5994 current stack frame.
5995
5996
5997 * Minor command changes
5998
5999The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
6000command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
6001is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
6002
6003The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
6004at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
6005frames without printing.
6006
6007 * New directory command
6008
6009'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
6010The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
6011about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
6012with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
6013find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
6014
6015 * Configuring GDB for compilation
6016
6017For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
6018for more details.
6019
6020GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
6021two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
6022Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
6023where the program that you are debugging will run.
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