2003-06-22 Andrew Cagney <cagney@redhat.com>
[deliverable/binutils-gdb.git] / gdb / NEWS
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1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
3
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4*** Changes since GDB 5.3:
5
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6* The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
7
8The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
9disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
10command.
11
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12* d10v `regs' command deprecated
13
14The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
15registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
16
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17* Profiling support
18
19A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
20be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
21session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
22"--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
23data, for more informative profiling results.
24
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25* Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
26
27The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
28option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
b68767c1 29"mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
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30
31Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
32removed.
33
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34Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
35Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
36Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
37 in a subsequent -var-update.
38
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39* Multi-arched targets.
40
41HP/PA HPUX11, 32bit ABI (partial) hppa*-*-hpux* except hppa*64*-*-hpux11*
42
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43* OBSOLETE configurations and files
44
45Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
46been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
47configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
48permanently REMOVED.
49
05d57f6f 50Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
8b0e5691 51Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
67f16606 52Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
fd2299bd 53H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
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54HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
55HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
56HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
78c43945 57PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
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58Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
59 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
60 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
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61Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
62Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
fd2299bd 63
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64* REMOVED configurations and files
65
66V850EA ISA
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67Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
68IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
69i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
70i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
71i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
72HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
73 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
74 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
75Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
76Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
77Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
78OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
79I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
5835abe7 80
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81* MIPS $fp behavior changed
82
83The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
84the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
85context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
86address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
87The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
88
299ffc64 89*** Changes in GDB 5.3:
37057839 90
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91* GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
92
93When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
94`/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
95in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
96library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
97shared libs like mad''.
98
b9d14705 99* ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
6da02953 100
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101Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
102the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
103arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
104powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
6da02953 105
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106* GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
107
108GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
109and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
110they expand.
111
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112The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
113invocations in expression, and shows the result.
114
115The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
116macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
117
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118Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
119information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
120your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
121information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
122
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123* Multi-arched targets.
124
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125DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
126DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
2250ee0c 127NEC V850 v850-*-*
6e3ba3b8 128National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
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129Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
130Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
2250ee0c 131
cd9bfe15 132* New targets.
e33ce519 133
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134Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
135
e33ce519 136
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137* New native configurations
138
139Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
029923d4 140SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
45888261 141MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
9ce5c36a 142UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
da8ca43d 143
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144* OBSOLETE configurations and files
145
146Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
147been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
148configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
149permanently REMOVED.
150
92eb23c5 151Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
a99a9e1b 152OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1c7cc583 153IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
7a3085c1 154Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
7fb623f7 155Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
eb4c54a2 156Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
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157i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
158i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
159i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
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160HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
161 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
162 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
4d210288 163I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
92eb23c5 164
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165* OBSOLETE languages
166
167CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
168
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169* REMOVED configurations and files
170
171AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
172A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
173AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
174AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
175AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
176
177testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
178
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179* New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
180
181This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
182commands. The default is 1024.
183
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184* Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
185
186Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
187
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188* New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
189
190These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
191to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
192from a file into memory (restore).
37057839 193
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194* Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
195
196The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
197including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
198of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
199
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200*** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
201
202* New targets.
203
204Atmel AVR avr*-*-*
205
206* Bug fixes
207
208gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
209mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
210Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
211
212gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
213dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
214Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
215
216Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
217Surprisingly enough, it works now.
218By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
219
220i386 hardware watchpoint support:
221avoid misses on second run for some targets.
222By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
223
37057839 224*** Changes in GDB 5.2:
eb7cedd9 225
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226* New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
227
228This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
229really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
230In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
231target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
232This can be a significant performance improvement on some
233(notably embedded) targets.
234
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235* New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
236
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237This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
238process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
239GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
240hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
cefd4ef5 241
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242* New command line option
243
244GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
245
246* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
247
248There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
249command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
250a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
251be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
252open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
253issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
254a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
255it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
256GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
257is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
258
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259* Changes in ARM configurations.
260
261Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
262configuration is fully multi-arch.
263
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264* New native configurations
265
fe419ffc 266ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
eb7cedd9 267x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
55241689 268AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
768f0842 269Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
eb7cedd9 270
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271* New targets
272
273Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
274
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275* OBSOLETE configurations and files
276
277Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
278been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
279configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
280permanently REMOVED.
281
282AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
283A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
284AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
285AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
286AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
287
b4ceaee6 288testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
9b4ff276 289
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290* REMOVED configurations and files
291
292TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
7bc65f05 293WDC 65816 w65-*-*
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294PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
295PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
296PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
5e734e1f 297Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
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298Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
299 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
7e24f0b1 300SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
9b567150 301Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
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302Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
303ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
a752853e 304Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
e2caac18 305
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306* Changes to command line processing
307
308The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
309for the inferior from gdb's command line.
310
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311* Changes to key bindings
312
313There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
314
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315*** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
316
317Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
318
319Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
320corrupted.
321
322Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
323
324Numerous documentation fixes.
325
326Numerous testsuite fixes.
327
34f47bc4 328*** Changes in GDB 5.1:
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329
330* New native configurations
331
332Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
333x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
55241689 334MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
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335MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
336ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
55241689 337s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
139760b7 338
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339* New targets
340
def90278 341Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
24be5c34 342CRIS cris-axis
55241689 343UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
def90278 344
17e78a56 345* OBSOLETE configurations and files
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346
347x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
9b9c068d 348Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
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349Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
350 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
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351TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
352WDC 65816 w65-*-*
4a1968f4 353Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
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354PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
355PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
356PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
24f89b68 357SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
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358Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
359ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
d036b4d9 360Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
bf64bfd6 361
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362stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
363kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
364
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365Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
366been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
367configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
368permanently REMOVED.
369
a196c81c 370* REMOVED configurations and files
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371
372Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
373Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
374Pyramid pyramid-*-*
375ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
376Tahoe tahoe-*-*
a196c81c 377ser-ocd.c *-*-*
bf64bfd6 378
6d6b80e5 379* GDB has been converted to ISO C.
e23194cb 380
6d6b80e5 381GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
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382sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
383present.
384
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385* Other news:
386
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387* "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
388
389* The MI enabled by default.
390
391The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
392revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
393engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
394using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
395which is now deprecated.
396
397* Support for debugging Pascal programs.
398
399GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
400main features are supported:
401
402 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
403
404 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
405 extension;
406
407 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
408
409 - a Pascal expression parser.
410
411However, some important features are not yet supported.
412
413 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
414
415 - there are some problems with boolean types;
416
417 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
418 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
419
420 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
421
422 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
423
424* Changes in completion.
425
426Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
427to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
428users expect at the shell prompt.
429
430Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
431`breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
432program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
433files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
434be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
435considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
436name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
437
438`set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
439
440* New platform-independent commands:
441
442It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
443hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
444documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
445
446* Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
447
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448Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
449revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
450many threads as your system allows you to have.
451
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452Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
453
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454Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
455multi-threaded programs though.
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456
457* Changes in MIPS configurations.
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458
459Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
460
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461GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
462debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
463supported.)
464
465* Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
466
467Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
468breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
469implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
470put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
471and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
472registers.
473
474The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
475debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
476watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
477
478* Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
479
480New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
481the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
482
483New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
484display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
485IDT.
486
487New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
488from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
489New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
490a given linear address.
491
492GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
493program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
494which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
495
496DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
497
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498It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
499
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500* Changes in documentation.
501
502All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
503Documentation License.
504
505Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
506manual.
507
508TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
509
510Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
511manual.
512
513The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
514documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
515hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
516
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517* GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
518
519The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
520``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
521contents of this file.
522
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523* gdba.el deleted
524
525GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
139760b7 526
9debab2f 527*** Changes in GDB 5.0:
7a292a7a 528
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529* Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
530
531Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
532programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
533displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
534greater level of detail.
535
536* Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
537
538It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
539bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
540on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
541written.
542
543* Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
544
545The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
546necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
547machines ``out of the box''.
548
549The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
550possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
551signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
552would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
553interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
554
555It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
556standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
557even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
558and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
559terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
560
561The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
562enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
563also works.
564
565DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
566GDB.
567
568It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
569directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
570times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
571breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
572
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573* New native configurations
574
575ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
afc05dd4 576PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
ed9a39eb 577
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578* New targets
579
96baa820 580Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
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JM
581x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
582PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
7a292a7a
SS
583TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
584
085dd6e6
JM
585* OBSOLETE configurations
586
587Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
588Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
9846de1b 589Pyramid pyramid-*-*
ed9a39eb 590ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
104c1213 591Tahoe tahoe-*-*
7a292a7a 592
9debab2f
AC
593Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
594but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
595these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
596be permanently REMOVED.
597
5330533d
SS
598* Gould support removed
599
600Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
601
bc9e5bbf
AC
602* New features for SVR4
603
604On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
605without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
606load symbols from the running process's executable file.
607
608* Many C++ enhancements
609
610C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
611in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
612
adf40b2e
JM
613* Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
614
615A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
616sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
617with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
618``|<program> <args>'' vis:
619
620 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
621 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
622
43e526b9
JM
623* MIPS 64 remote protocol
624
625A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
626expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
627instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
628
629The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
630added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
631
96baa820
JM
632* ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
633
634The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
635``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
636include ``set remote P-packet''.
637
11cf8741
JM
638* Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
639
640The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
641accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
642``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
643
7876dd43
DB
644* ``apropos'' command added.
645
646The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
647documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
648try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
649
bc9e5bbf
AC
650* New MI interface
651
652A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
653interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
7162c0ca
EZ
654process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
655"GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
656enabled by configuring with:
bc9e5bbf
AC
657
658 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
659
c906108c
SS
660*** Changes in GDB-4.18:
661
662* New native configurations
663
664HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
665HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
55241689 666M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
c906108c
SS
667
668* New targets
669
670Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
671Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
672Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
673
674* OBSOLETE configurations
675
676Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
677
678Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
679but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
680these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
681be permanently REMOVED.
682
683* ANSI/ISO C
684
685As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
686buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
687containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
688use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
689available. If this is not true, please report the affected
690configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
691information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
692already.
693
694* Readline 2.2
695
696GDB now uses readline 2.2.
697
698* set extension-language
699
700You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
701languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
702you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
703 set extension-language .c c++
704The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
705and their associated languages.
706
707* Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
708
709When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
710you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
711PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
712
713 set processor NAME
714
715sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
716following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
717
718 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
719 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
720 403 IBM PowerPC 403
721 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
722 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
723 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
724 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
725 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
726 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
727 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
728 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
729
730At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
731special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
732registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
733only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
734
735* HP-UX support
736
737Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
738more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
739library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
740support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
741for xdb and dbx commands.
742
743* Catchpoints
744
745HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
746generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
747to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
748
749This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
750argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
751output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
752
753* Debugging across forks
754
755On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
756in the inferior.
757
758* TUI
759
760HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
761it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
762configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
763
764* GDB remote protocol additions
765
766A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
767Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
768fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
769allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
770
771For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
772full 64-bit address. The command
773
774 set remoteaddresssize 32
775
776can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
777the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
778will be discarded.
779
780In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
781command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
782
783 maint packet heythere
784
785sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
786disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
787time.
788
789The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
790target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
791downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
792
793* Tracing can collect general expressions
794
795You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
796further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
797doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
798
799* mask-address variable for Mips
800
801For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
802a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
803of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
804
805* Higher serial baud rates
806
807GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
808230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
809to achieve all of these rates.)
810
811* i960 simulator
812
813The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
814builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
815
816
817*** Changes in GDB-4.17:
818
819* New native configurations
820
821Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
822Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
823Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
824PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
825PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
826Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
827Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
828
829* New targets
830
831Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
832Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
833Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
834Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
835MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
836MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
837MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
838Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
839Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
840Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
841NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
842
843* New debugging protocols
844
845ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
846M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
847DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
848PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
849PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
850Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
851
852* DWARF 2
853
854All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
855format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
856information.
857
858* Java frontend
859
860GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
861only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
862
863* solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
864
865For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
866loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
867locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
868
869* Live range splitting
870
871GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
872range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
873more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
874
875* Hurd support
876
877GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
878updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
879
880* ARM Thumb support
881
882GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
883instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
884instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
885accordingly.
886
887* MIPS16 support
888
889GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
890instruction set.
891
892* Overlay support
893
894GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
895linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
896will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
897control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
898additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
899in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
900
901* info symbol
902
903The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
904the symbol at the specified address.
905
906* Trace support
907
908The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
909asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
910extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
911includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
912file tracepoint.c for more details.
913
914* MIPS simulator
915
916Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
917by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
918of most MIPS variants.
919
920* Sparc simulator
921
922Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
923by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
924Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
925
926* set architecture
927
928For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
929basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
930architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
931the possible architectures.
932
933*** Changes in GDB-4.16:
934
935* New native configurations
936
937Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
938M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
939PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
940PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
941PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
942RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
943
944* New targets
945
946ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
947I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
948MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
949MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
950PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
951Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
952Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
953
954* PowerPC simulator
955
956The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
957contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
958PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
959basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
960performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
961
962* Solaris 2.5
963
964GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
965
966* Windows 95/NT native
967
968GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
969To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
970which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
971Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
972ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
973
974* dont-repeat command
975
976If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
977command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
978useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
979extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
980
981* Send break instead of ^C
982
983The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
984rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
985GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
986
987* Remote protocol timeout
988
989The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
990that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
991to read from the target. The default value is 2.
992
993* Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
994
995By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
996loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
997stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
998when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
999in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
1000
1001Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
1002/usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
1003automatically on hpux10.
1004
1005* Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
1006
1007Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
1008
1009* Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
1010
1011When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
1012may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
1013the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
1014every character. The default value is 1050.
1015
1016* Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
1017
1018If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
1019a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
1020replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
1021details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
1022remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
1023to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
1024
1025* Speedups for remote debugging
1026
1027GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
1028the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
1029and more efficient S-record downloading.
1030
1031* Memory use reductions and statistics collection
1032
1033GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
1034Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
1035
1036*** Changes in GDB-4.15:
1037
1038* Psymtabs for XCOFF
1039
1040The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
1041can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
1042
1043* Remote targets use caching
1044
1045Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
1046remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
1047it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
1048debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
1049off' turns the the data cache off.
1050
1051* Remote targets may have threads
1052
1053The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
1054in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
1055gdb/remote.c for details.
1056
1057* NetROM support
1058
1059If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
1060support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
1061acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
1062write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
1063support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
1064another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
1065sequence is something like
1066
1067 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
1068 load <prog>
1069 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
1070
1071* Macintosh host
1072
1073GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
1074may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
1075it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
1076available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
1077device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
1078directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
1079scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
1080mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
1081
1082* Autoconf
1083
1084GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
1085but does simplify configuration and building.
1086
1087* hpux10
1088
1089GDB now supports hpux10.
1090
1091*** Changes in GDB-4.14:
1092
1093* New native configurations
1094
1095x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
1096x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
1097NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
1098Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
1099
1100* New targets
1101
1102A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1103HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
1104CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
1105PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
1106WDC 65816 w65-*-*
1107
1108* Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
1109
1110GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
1111possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
1112filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
1113the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
1114if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
1115
1116* Arguments to user-defined commands
1117
1118User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
1119Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
1120trivial example:
1121define adder
1122 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
1123
1124To execute the command use:
1125adder 1 2 3
1126
1127Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
1128Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
1129use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
1130
1131* New `if' and `while' commands
1132
1133This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
1134commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
1135expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
1136execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
1137terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
1138`else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
1139if the expression is zero.
1140
1141* Fortran source language mode
1142
1143GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
1144Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
1145variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
1146with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
1147Fortran compilers.
1148
1149* Better HPUX support
1150
1151Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
1152running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
1153processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
1154for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
1155that behavior do the following before running the program:
1156
1157 adb -w a.out
1158 __dld_flags?W 0x5
1159 control-d
1160
1161This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
1162To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
1163
1164 adb -w a.out
1165 __dld_flags?W 0x4
1166 control-d
1167
1168You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
1169the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
1170external linkage.
1171
1172GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
1173HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
1174
1175* Target byte order now dynamically selectable
1176
1177You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
1178commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
1179current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
1180"set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
1181associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
1182configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
1183
1184* New DOS host serial code
1185
1186This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
1187no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
1188a PC's serial port.
1189
1190*** Changes in GDB-4.13:
1191
1192* New "complete" command
1193
1194This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
1195were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
1196
1197* Trailing space optional in prompt
1198
1199"set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
1200allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
1201
1202* Breakpoint hit counts
1203
1204"info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
1205has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
1206can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
1207to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
1208less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
1209that breakpoint.
1210
1211* Ability to stop printing at NULL character
1212
1213"set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
1214an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
1215arrays actually contain only short strings.
1216
1217* Shared library breakpoints
1218
1219In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
1220breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
1221
1222* Hardware watchpoints
1223
1224There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
1225targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
1226
55241689 1227Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
c906108c
SS
1228
1229* Annotations
1230
1231Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
1232and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
1233
1234* Improved Irix 5 support
1235
1236GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
1237
1238* Improved HPPA support
1239
1240GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
1241
1242* New native configurations
1243
1244Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
1245HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1246Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
1247RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
1248
1249* New targets
1250
1251OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1252MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
1253Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
1254
1255* Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
1256
1257There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
1258This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
1259
1260* Fixes
1261
1262As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
1263and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
1264
1265*** Changes in GDB-4.12:
1266
1267* Irix 5 is now supported
1268
1269* HPPA support
1270
1271GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
1272to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
1273GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
1274of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
1275can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
1276
1277
1278*** Changes in GDB-4.11:
1279
1280* User visible changes:
1281
1282* Remote Debugging
1283
1284The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
1285target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
1286debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
1287integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
1288debugging info for the mips target).
1289
1290* DEC Alpha native support
1291
1292GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
1293debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
1294work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
1295Alpha-specific notes.
1296
1297* Preliminary thread implementation
1298
1299GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
1300
1301* LynxOS native and target support for 386
1302
1303This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
1304to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
1305for details).
1306
1307* Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
1308
1309This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
1310mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
1311call methods, ...etc.
1312
1313*** Changes in GDB-4.10:
1314
1315 * User visible changes:
1316
1317Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
1318supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
1319other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
1320somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
1321
1322Filename completion now works.
1323
1324When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
1325arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
1326addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
1327
1328All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
1329vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
1330should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
1331your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
1332to be on the far side of a thin network line.
1333
1334 * DEC alpha support
1335
1336This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
1337cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
1338
1339
1340*** Changes in GDB-4.9:
1341
1342 * Testsuite
1343
1344This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
1345The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
1346via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
1347
1348 * C++ demangling
1349
1350'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
1351emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
1352Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
1353disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
1354use gdb with AT&T cfront.
1355
1356 * Simulators
1357
1358GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
1359So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
1360Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
1361
1362 * New targets supported
1363
1364H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1365H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1366SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
1367Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1368IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
1369
1370Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
1371version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
1372GO32 memory extender.
1373
1374 * New remote protocols
1375
1376MIPS remote debugging protocol.
1377
1378 * New source languages supported
1379
1380This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
1381used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
1382into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
1383
1384
1385*** Changes in GDB-4.8:
1386
1387 * HP Precision Architecture supported
1388
1389GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
1390version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
1391University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
1392compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
1393format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
1394(as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
1395
1396Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
1397
1398 * Faster and better demangling
1399
1400We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
1401demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
1402character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
1403only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
1404This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
1405increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
1406symbol lookups.
1407
1408`Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
1409from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
1410compiler does not actually implement.
1411
1412 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
1413
1414In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
1415inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
1416recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
1417very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
1418The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
1419circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
1420fix.
1421
1422The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
1423release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
1424
1425 * Improved configure script
1426
1427The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
1428you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
1429host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
1430done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
1431
1432We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
1433version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
1434`--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
1435The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
1436only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
1437We hope to make this the default in a future release.
1438
1439 * Documentation improvements
1440
1441There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
1442produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
1443before submitting changes.
1444
1445The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
1446M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
1447`info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
1448you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
1449a future texinfo-X.Y release.
1450
1451*NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
1452We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
1453been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
1454or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
1455`texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
1456around this problem.
1457
1458 * New features
1459
1460GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
1461the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
1462`print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
1463the target program.
1464
1465The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
1466how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
1467
1468 * New native hosts supported
1469
1470HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
1471386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
1472
1473 * New targets supported
1474
1475AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
1476
1477 * New file formats supported
1478
1479BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
1480HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
1481
1482 * Major bug fixes
1483
1484Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
1485
1486We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
1487printf_filtered("%s") problems.
1488
1489We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
1490for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
1491release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
1492
1493You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
1494will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
1495
1496We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
1497for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
1498especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
1499libraries.
1500
1501The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
1502information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
1503command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
1504any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
1505when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
1506
1507 * Internal improvements
1508
1509GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
1510debugging of multiple languages in the future.
1511
1512GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
1513Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
1514symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
1515contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
1516shared code that handles any of them.
1517
1518 * New command line options
1519
1520We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
1521
1522 * Mmalloc licensing
1523
1524The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
1525General Public License.
1526
1527*** Changes in GDB-4.7:
1528
1529 * Host/native/target split
1530
1531GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
1532hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
1533target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
1534local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
1535ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
1536
1537The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
1538GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
1539is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
1540code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
1541any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
1542built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
1543handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
1544
1545GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
1546It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
1547plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
1548
1549 * New hosts supported
1550
1551HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
1552386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1553386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
1554
1555 * New targets supported
1556
1557Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
155868030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
1559
1560 * New native hosts supported
1561
1562386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1563 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
1564386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
1565
1566 * New file formats supported
1567
1568BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
1569supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
1570format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
1571
1572 * New commands
1573
1574`show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
1575`show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
1576These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
1577
1578`info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
1579
1580You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
1581scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
1582prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
1583executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
1584
1585 * C++ improvements
1586
1587We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
1588info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
1589symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
1590
1591Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
1592
1593 * Major bug fixes
1594
1595The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
1596fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
1597by the compiler.
1598
1599We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
1600support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
1601
1602John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
1603slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
1604that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
1605purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
1606the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
1607mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
1608
1609Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
1610about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
1611completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
1612we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
1613
1614 * AMD 29k support
1615
1616A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
1617specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
1618calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
1619usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
1620in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
1621
1622We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
1623Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
1624of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
1625resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
1626
1627 * Remote interfaces
1628
1629We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
1630with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
1631message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
1632This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
1633needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
1634breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
1635each instruction being stepped through.
1636
1637The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
1638registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
1639
1640There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
1641find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
1642Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
1643processor with a serial port.
1644
1645 * Configuration
1646
1647Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
1648`table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
1649supported, and what files each one uses.
1650
1651 * Library changes
1652
1653There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
1654disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
1655Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
1656disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
1657
1658The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
1659Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
1660can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
1661grants all the rights from the General Public License.
1662
1663 * Documentation
1664
1665The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
1666reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
1667as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
1668encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
1669system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
1670bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
1671
1672And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
1673
1674
1675*** Changes in GDB-4.6:
1676
1677 * Better support for C++ function names
1678
1679GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
1680names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
1681(using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
1682single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
1683Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
1684
1685GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
1686the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
1687You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
1688lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
1689for the list of formats.
1690
1691 * G++ symbol mangling problem
1692
1693Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
1694C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
1695directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
1696can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
1697usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
1698about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
1699this problem.)
1700
1701 * New 'maintenance' command
1702
1703All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
1704the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
1705can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
1706
1707 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
1708 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
1709 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
1710 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
1711 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
1712 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
1713
1714The following commands are new:
1715
1716 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
1717 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
1718 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
1719
1720 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
1721
1722We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
1723(e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
1724be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
1725read after argv processing.
1726
1727 * New hosts supported
1728
1729Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
1730
55241689 1731GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
c906108c
SS
1732
1733We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
1734is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
1735for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
1736masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
1737fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
1738It costs extra.
1739
1740 * New targets supported
1741
1742Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1743
1744 * More smarts about finding #include files
1745
1746GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
1747all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
1748greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
1749especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
1750the one that contains your sources.
1751
1752We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
1753breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
1754try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
1755
1756 * Interesting infernals change
1757
1758GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
1759section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
1760target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
1761stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
1762
1763 * Bug fixes (of course!)
1764
1765There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
1766 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
1767 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
1768
1769See the ChangeLog for details.
1770
1771*** Changes in GDB-4.5:
1772
1773 * New machines supported (host and target)
1774
1775IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
1776
1777SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
1778
1779 * New malloc package
1780
1781GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
1782Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
1783capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
1784This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
1785pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
1786more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
1787
1788 * info proc
1789
1790The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
1791'help info proc' for details.
1792
1793 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
1794
1795The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
1796Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
1797possible.
1798
1799 * File name changes for MS-DOS
1800
1801Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
1802support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
1803conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
1804environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
1805that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
1806in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
1807
1808 * Cross byte order fixes
1809
1810Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
1811targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
1812
1813 * New -mapped and -readnow options
1814
1815If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
1816system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
1817`symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
1818program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
1819called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
1820Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
1821and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
1822the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
1823option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
1824starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
1825
1826You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
1827the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
1828information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
1829slower, but makes future operations faster.
1830
1831The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
1832build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
1833A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
1834use is:
1835
1836 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
1837
1838The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
1839It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
1840shared across multiple host platforms.
1841
1842 * longjmp() handling
1843
1844GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
1845siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
1846all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
1847platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
1848
1849 * Solaris 2.0
1850
1851Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
1852this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
1853reading symbols.
1854
1855 * Bug fixes
1856
1857As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
1858People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
1859crashes and trashed symbol tables.
1860
1861*** Changes in GDB-4.4:
1862
1863 * New machines supported (host and target)
1864
1865SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
1866 (except core files)
1867BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
1868Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
1869
1870 * New machines supported (target)
1871
1872AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1873
1874 * C++ support
1875
1876GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
1877The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
1878per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
1879
1880GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
1881`ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
1882extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
1883good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
1884will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
1885released.
1886
1887 * New features for SVR4
1888
1889GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
1890shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
1891only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
1892
1893The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
1894on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
1895it prints the address mappings of the process.
1896
1897If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
1898bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
1899
1900 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
1901
1902Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
1903now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
1904skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
1905make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
1906same code linked statically.
1907
1908 * New Getopt
1909
1910GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
1911version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
1912continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
1913Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
1914added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
1915future by other options that begin with the same letter.
1916
1917 * Bugs fixed
1918
1919The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
1920Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
1921See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
1922
1923
1924*** Changes in GDB-4.3:
1925
1926 * New machines supported (host and target)
1927
1928Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
1929NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
1930Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
1931
1932 * Almost SCO Unix support
1933
1934We had hoped to support:
1935SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
1936(except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
1937that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
1938about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
1939
1940 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
1941
1942GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
1943debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
1944is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
1945send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
1946reqired (if any).
1947
1948 * New Readline
1949
1950GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
1951is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
1952required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
1953
1954 * Bugs fixed
1955
1956The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
1957Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
1958See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
1959
1960 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
1961
1962GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
1963supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
1964symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
1965
1966Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
1967mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
1968debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
1969mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
1970version 2.
1971
1972Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
1973really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
1974line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
1975variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
1976situation somewhat.
1977
1978When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
1979However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
1980methods.
1981
1982We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
1983DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
1984encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
1985
1986
1987*** Changes in GDB-4.2:
1988
1989 * Improved configuration
1990
1991Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
1992Porting BFD is simpler.
1993
1994 * Stepping improved
1995
1996The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
1997of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
1998in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
1999function that has debugging information is called within the line.
2000
2001 * Bug fixing
2002
2003Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
2004
2005 * New host supported (not target)
2006
2007Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
2008
2009
2010*** Changes in GDB-4.1:
2011
2012 * Multiple source language support
2013
2014GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
2015It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
2016and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
2017language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
2018You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
2019`set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
2020
2021 * GDB and Modula-2
2022
2023GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
2024currently under development at the State University of New York at
2025Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
2026continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
2027
2028Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
2029debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
2030symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
2031
2032There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
2033in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
2034
2035 * set write on/off
2036
2037GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
2038a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
2039the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
2040by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
2041effect immediately.
2042
2043 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
2044
2045When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
2046shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
2047The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
2048examining core files.
2049
2050 * set listsize
2051
2052You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
2053The default is 10.
2054
2055 * New machines supported (host and target)
2056
2057SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
2058Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
2059Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
2060
2061 * New hosts supported (not targets)
2062
2063IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
2064
2065 * New targets supported (not hosts)
2066
2067AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2068AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2069Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
2070
2071 * New remote interfaces
2072
2073AMD 29000 Adapt
2074AMD 29000 Minimon
2075
2076
2077*** Changes in GDB-4.0:
2078
2079 * New Facilities
2080
2081Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
2082
2083Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
2084target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
2085is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
2086remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
2087remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
2088also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
2089using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
2090stub on the target system.
2091
2092New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
2093
2094GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
2095library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
2096object file types such as a.out and coff.
2097
2098There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
2099refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
2100
2101
2102 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
2103
2104All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
2105by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
2106
2107For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
2108``Show prompt'' produces the response:
2109Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
2110
2111What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
2112print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
2113will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
2114all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
2115
2116confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
2117 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
2118 it is already running. Default is ON.
2119
2120editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
2121 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
2122 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
2123 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
2124 Default is ON.
2125
2126history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
2127 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
2128 or the value of the environment variable
2129 GDBHISTFILE.
2130
2131history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
2132 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
2133 HISTSIZE.
2134
2135history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
2136 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
2137 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
2138
2139history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
2140 history expansion will be performed on
2141 command line input. The default is OFF.
2142
2143radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
2144 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
2145 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
2146
2147height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
2148 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
2149 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2150 variable TERM.
2151
2152width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
2153 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
2154 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2155 variable TERM.
2156
2157Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
2158``set width'' instead.
2159
2160print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
2161 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
2162 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
2163 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
2164
2165print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
2166 is OFF.
2167
2168print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
2169 "raw" form if off.
2170
2171print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
2172 like instructions.
2173
2174print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
2175
2176
2177 * Support for Epoch Environment.
2178
2179The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
2180new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
2181are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
2182window.
2183
2184
2185 * Support for Shared Libraries
2186
2187GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
2188Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
2189before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
2190happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
2191At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
2192from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
2193shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
2194It can be abbreviated ``share''.
2195
2196sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
2197 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
2198 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
2199
2200info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
2201
2202
2203 * Watchpoints
2204
2205A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
2206expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
2207tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
2208quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
2209problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
2210more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
2211
2212watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
2213
2214info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
2215
2216delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2217disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2218enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2219
2220
2221 * C++ multiple inheritance
2222
2223When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
2224for C++ programs.
2225
2226 * C++ exception handling
2227
2228Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
2229ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
2230the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
2231handler's context).
2232
2233catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
2234 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
2235 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
2236
2237info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
2238 current stack frame.
2239
2240
2241 * Minor command changes
2242
2243The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
2244command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
2245is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
2246
2247The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
2248at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
2249frames without printing.
2250
2251 * New directory command
2252
2253'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
2254The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
2255about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
2256with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
2257find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
2258
2259 * Configuring GDB for compilation
2260
2261For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
2262for more details.
2263
2264GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
2265two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
2266Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
2267where the program that you are debugging will run.
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