2007-09-04 Michael Snyder <msnyder@access-company.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 6.6
5
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6* Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
7bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
8Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
9
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10* When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
11symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
12-Bsymbolic linker option.
13
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14* When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
15recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
16is not supported.
17
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18* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
19frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
20
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21* GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
2232-bit or 64-bit register values.
23
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24* Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
25
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26* GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
27target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
28a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
29
e1f48ead 30* Arrays of explicitly SIGNED or UNSIGNED CHARs are now printed as arrays
f8b73d13 31of numbers.
e1f48ead 32
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33* Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
34for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
f8b73d13 35only ARM and MIPS).
123dc839 36
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37* GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
38iWMMXt coprocessor.
fb1e4ffc 39
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40* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
41ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
42has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
43
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44* GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
45
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46* GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
47
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48* The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
49layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
50segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
51
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52* The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
53immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
54
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55* The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
56"library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
57packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
58where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
59Windows and SymbianOS).
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60
61* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
62(DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
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63
64* GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
65according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
cfa9d6d9 66
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67* New commands
68
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69set remoteflow
70show remoteflow
71 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
72 when debugging using remote targets.
73
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74set mem inaccessible-by-default
75show mem inaccessible-by-default
76 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
77 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
78 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
79 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
80 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
81
82set breakpoint auto-hw
83show breakpoint auto-hw
84 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
85 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
86 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
87 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
88 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
89 including "next" and "finish".
90
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91catch exception
92catch exception unhandled
93 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
94
95catch assert
96 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
97
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98set sysroot
99show sysroot
100 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
101 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
102 an alias to "set sysroot".
103
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104info spu
105 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
106 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
107 architecture.
108
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109* New native configurations
110
111OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
112
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113set tdesc filename
114unset tdesc filename
115show tdesc filename
116 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
117 not query the target for its built-in description.
118
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119* New targets
120
54fe9172 121OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
c9bb8148 122MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
c077150c 123Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
c9bb8148 124
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125* New remote packets
126
127QPassSignals:
128 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
129 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
130
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131qXfer:features:read:
132 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
133 features.
6dd09645 134
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135qXfer:spu:read:
136qXfer:spu:write:
137 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
138 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
139
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140qXfer:libraries:read:
141 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
142 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
143 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
144 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
145
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146* Removed targets
147
148Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
149
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150alpha*-*-osf1*
151alpha*-*-osf2*
7ce59000 152d10v-*-*
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153hppa*-*-hiux*
154i[34567]86-ncr-*
155i[34567]86-*-dgux*
156i[34567]86-*-lynxos*
157i[34567]86-*-netware*
158i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
159i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
160i[34567]86-*-sco*
161i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
162i[34567]86-*-sysv4*
163i[34567]86-*-sysv5*
164i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
165i[34567]86-*-unixware*
166i[34567]86-*-sysv*
167i[34567]86-*-isc*
168m68*-cisco*-*
169m68*-tandem-*
ad527d2e 170mips*-*-pe
483367ee 171rs6000-*-lynxos*
ad527d2e 172sh*-*-pe
483367ee 173
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174* Other removed features
175
176target abug
177target cpu32bug
178target est
179target rom68k
180
181 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
182
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183target hms
184target e7000
185target sh3
186target sh3e
187
188 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
189 H8/300.
190
191target ocd
192
193 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
194 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
195 interfaces.
196
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197DWARF 1 support
198
199 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
200 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
201
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202Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
203
204 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
205 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
206 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
207 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
208
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209MIPS ".pdr" sections
210
211 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
212 in debugging information.
213
214Scheme support
215
216 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
217 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
218
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219set mips stack-arg-size
220set mips saved-gpreg-size
221
222 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
223
6dd09645 224*** Changes in GDB 6.6
e374b601 225
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226* New targets
227
228Xtensa xtensa-elf
9c309e77 229Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
ca3bf3bd 230
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231* GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
232(mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
233running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
234
235* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
236Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
237supported.
238
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239* The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
240broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
241
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242* The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
243stub provides the required support.
244
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245* Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
246longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
247
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248* New commands
249
250set substitute-path
251unset substitute-path
252show substitute-path
253 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
254 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
255 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
256 between compilation and debugging.
257
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258set trace-commands
259show trace-commands
260 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
261 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
262 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
263
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264* REMOVED features
265
266The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
267
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268Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
269an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
270
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271The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
272
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273* New remote packets
274
275qSupported:
276 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
277 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
278 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
279 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
280 target.
281
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282qXfer:auxv:read:
283 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
284 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
285
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286qXfer:memory-map:read:
287 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
288 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
289
290vFlashErase:
291vFlashWrite:
292vFlashDone:
293 Erase and program a flash memory device.
294
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295* Removed remote packets
296
297qPart:auxv:read:
298 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
299 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
300
e374b601 301*** Changes in GDB 6.5
53e5f3cf 302
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303* New targets
304
305Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
306
307Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
308
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309* New commands
310
311init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
312 only if it doesn't already have a value.
313
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314The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
315
316checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
317
318restart <n> Return the program state to a
319 previously saved state.
320
321info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
322
323delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
324
325set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
326 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
327
328info forks List forks of the user program that
329 are available to be debugged.
330
331fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
332 forks of the user program that are
333 available to be debugged.
334
335delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
336 that are available to be debugged (and
337 kill the forked process).
338
339detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
340 that are available to be debugged (and
341 allow the process to continue).
342
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343* New architecture
344
345Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
346
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347* Improved Windows host support
348
349GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
350native console support, and remote communications using either
351network sockets or serial ports.
352
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353* Improved Modula-2 language support
354
355GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
356basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
357pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
358printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
359written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
360GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
361
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362* REMOVED features
363
364The ARM rdi-share module.
365
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366The Netware NLM debug server.
367
53e5f3cf 368*** Changes in GDB 6.4
156a53ca 369
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370* New native configurations
371
02a677ac 372OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
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373OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
374
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375* New targets
376
377Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
378
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379* New command line options
380
381--batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
382--return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
383 the child (debugged) program exited with.
384--eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
385 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
386 specified multiple times and in conjunction
387 with the --command (-x) option.
388
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389* Deprecated commands removed
390
391The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
392removed:
393
394 Command Replacement
395 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
396 othernames set arm disassembler
397 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
398 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
399 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
400 regs info registers
401
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402* New BSD user-level threads support
403
404It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
405library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
406configurations are:
407
408FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
409FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
410OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
411
412Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
413are not yet supported.
414
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415* New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
416(Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
417
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418* REMOVED configurations and files
419
420VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
9445aa30 421Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
9445aa30 422National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
156a53ca 423
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424* New "set print array-indexes" command
425
426After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
427when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
428behavior.
429
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430* VAX floating point support
431
432GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
433
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434* User-defined command support
435
436In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
437to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
438section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
439
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440*** Changes in GDB 6.3:
441
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442* New command line option
443
444GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
445debugging.
446
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447* GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
448
449GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
450information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
451by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
452proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
453to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
860660cb 454
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455* Internationalization
456
457When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
458internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
459continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
460
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461* Ada
462
463Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
464implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
465into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
466
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467* New native configurations
468
469GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
470
471* Remote 'p' packet
472
473GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
474packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
475
476* END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
477
478GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
479The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
480features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
481i386 application).
482
483GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
484compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
485continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
486configurations:
487
488hppa-*-hpux
489ia64-*-aix
490mips-*-irix*
491*-*-lynx
492mips-*-linux-gnu
493sds protocol
494xdr protocol
495powerpc bdm protocol
496
497Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
498made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
499
500* OBSOLETE configurations and files
501
502Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
503been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
504configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
505permanently REMOVED.
506
507h8300-*-*
508mcore-*-*
509mn10300-*-*
510ns32k-*-*
511sh64-*-*
512v850-*-*
513
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514*** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
515
516* MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
517
518When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
519heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
520been fixed.
521
522* MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
523
524When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
525fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
526IRIX long double values).
527
528* VAX and "next"
529
530A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
531command. This problem has been fixed.
532
860660cb 533*** Changes in GDB 6.2:
faae5abe 534
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535* Fix for ``many threads''
536
537On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
538rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
539error message:
540
541 ptrace: No such process.
542 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
543
544This problem has been fixed.
545
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546* "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
547
548Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
549GDB to dump core).
550
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551* New ``start'' command.
552
553This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
554
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555* New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
556
557Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
558live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
559platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
560
561FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
562FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
563NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
564NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
565NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
566OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
567OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
568OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
569OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
570
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571* Signal trampoline code overhauled
572
573Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
574These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
575of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
576call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
577signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
578
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579Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
580features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
581include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
3c0b7db2 582
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583* Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
584
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585* New native configurations
586
97dc871c 587GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
0e56aeaf 588OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
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589OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
590OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
d195bc9f 591OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 592NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
9f076e7a 593OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 594
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595* END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
596
597GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
598The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
599including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
600migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
601compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
602work, was also included.
603
604GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
605module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
606
607h8300-*-*
608mcore-*-*
609mn10300-*-*
610ns32k-*-*
611sh64-*-*
612v850-*-*
613xstormy16-*-*
614
615Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
616made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
617
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618* REMOVED configurations and files
619
620Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
621Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
622Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
623Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
624Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
625AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
626Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
627decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
628riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
629sonymips mips-sony-*
630sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
631
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632*** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
633
634* TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
635
636The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
637GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
638command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
639program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
640with GDB".
641
642* Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
643
644Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
645libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
646cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
647GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
648shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
649the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
650are created.
651
652Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
653
654* Fixed ISO-C build problems
655
656The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
657non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
658compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
659
660* Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
661
662Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
663wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
664
665* Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
666
667The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
668permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
669systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
670
671* Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
672
673Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
674has been updated to use constant array sizes.
675
676* Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
677
678GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
679its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
680panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
681
682* Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
683
684When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
685by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
686not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
687
faae5abe 688*** Changes in GDB 6.1:
f2c06f52 689
9175c9a3
MC
690* Removed --with-mmalloc
691
692Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
693conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
694
3cc87ec0
MK
695* Changes in AMD64 configurations
696
697The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
698the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
699and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
700you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
701
f0424ef6
MK
702* Revised SPARC target
703
704The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
705FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
03cebad2
MK
706support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
707from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
708(Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
f0424ef6 709
59659be2
ILT
710* New C++ demangler
711
712GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
713names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
714with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
715programs.
716
9e08b29b
DJ
717* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
718
719GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
720arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
721encountered these.
722
8dfe8985
DC
723* C++ nested types and namespaces
724
725GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
726improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
727is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
728Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
729namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
730"Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
731frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
732if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
733GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
734
cced5e27
MK
735* New native configurations
736
737NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
27d1e716 738OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
2031c21a 739OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
f2cab569
MK
740OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
741OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
cced5e27 742
b4b4b794
KI
743* New debugging protocols
744
745M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
746
7989c619
AC
747* "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
748
749The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
750and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
751tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
752
5994185b
AC
753* OBSOLETE configurations and files
754
755Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
756been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
757configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
758permanently REMOVED.
759
760Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
761Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
762Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
763Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
764Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
765AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
766Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
0748d941
AC
767decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
768riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
769sonymips mips-sony-*
770sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
5994185b 771
0ddabb4c
AC
772* REMOVED configurations and files
773
774SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
775SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
4a8269c0
AC
776Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
777Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
778H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
779HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
780HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
781HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
782PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
cf7c5c23 783386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
4a8269c0
AC
784Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
785 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
786 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
f0424ef6
MK
787SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
788SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
4a8269c0
AC
789Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
790Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
0ddabb4c 791
c7f1390e
DJ
792*** Changes in GDB 6.0:
793
1fe43d45
AC
794* Objective-C
795
796Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
797integrated into GDB.
798
e6beb428
AC
799* New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
800
801DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
802information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
803By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
804backtraces.
805
806The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
807have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
808DWARF 2 CFI support.
809
810* Hosted file I/O.
811
812GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
813file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
814remote protocol documentation for details.
815
816* All targets using the new architecture framework.
817
818All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
819architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
820to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
821ppc32 on ppc64).
822
823* GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
824
825GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
826per-thread variables.
827
828* GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
829
830GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
831GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
832
833* Separate debug info.
834
835GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
836automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
837of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
838system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
839and optional debug files.
840
841* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
842
843DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
844describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
845debugger.
846
847GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
848for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
849
850* Java
851
852A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
853Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
854considered "useable".
855
85f8f974
DJ
856* GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
857
858The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
859commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
860kernel.
861
0fac0b41
DJ
862* GDB supports logging output to a file
863
864There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
865used to capture GDB's output to a file.
f2c06f52 866
6ad8ae5c
DJ
867* The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
868
869The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
870disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
871command.
872
e286caf2 873* d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
5f601589
AC
874
875The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
876registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
877
d28f9cdf
DJ
878* Profiling support
879
880A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
881be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
882session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
883"--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
884data, for more informative profiling results.
885
da0f9dcd
AC
886* Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
887
888The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
889option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
b68767c1 890"mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
da0f9dcd
AC
891
892Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
893removed.
894
fb9b6b35
JJ
895Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
896Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
897Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
898 in a subsequent -var-update.
899
954a4db8
MK
900* New native configurations.
901
902FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
903
6760f9e6
JB
904* Multi-arched targets.
905
b4263afa 906HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
85a453d5 907Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
6760f9e6 908
1b831c93
AC
909* OBSOLETE configurations and files
910
911Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
912been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
913configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
914permanently REMOVED.
915
8b0e5691 916Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
67f16606 917Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
fd2299bd 918H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
56056df7
AC
919HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
920HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
921HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
78c43945 922PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
2fbce691
AC
923Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
924 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
925 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
f81824a9
AC
926Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
927Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
fd2299bd 928
5835abe7
NC
929* REMOVED configurations and files
930
931V850EA ISA
1b831c93
AC
932Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
933IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
934i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
935i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
936i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
937HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
938 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
939 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
940Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
941Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
942Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
943OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
944I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
5835abe7 945
a094c6fb
AC
946* MIPS $fp behavior changed
947
948The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
949the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
950context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
951address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
952The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
953
299ffc64 954*** Changes in GDB 5.3:
37057839 955
46248966
AC
956* GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
957
958When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
959`/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
960in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
961library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
962shared libs like mad''.
963
b9d14705 964* ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
6da02953 965
b9d14705
DJ
966Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
967the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
968arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
969powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
6da02953 970
e0e9281e
JB
971* GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
972
973GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
974and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
975they expand.
976
dd73b9bb
AC
977The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
978invocations in expression, and shows the result.
979
980The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
981macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
982
e0e9281e
JB
983Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
984information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
985your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
986information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
987
2250ee0c
CV
988* Multi-arched targets.
989
6e3ba3b8
JT
990DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
991DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
2250ee0c 992NEC V850 v850-*-*
6e3ba3b8 993National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
a1789893
GS
994Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
995Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
2250ee0c 996
cd9bfe15 997* New targets.
e33ce519 998
456f8b9d
DB
999Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
1000
e33ce519 1001
da8ca43d
JT
1002* New native configurations
1003
1004Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
029923d4 1005SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
45888261 1006MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
9ce5c36a 1007UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
da8ca43d 1008
cd9bfe15
AC
1009* OBSOLETE configurations and files
1010
1011Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1012been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1013configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1014permanently REMOVED.
1015
92eb23c5 1016Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
a99a9e1b 1017OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1c7cc583 1018IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
7a3085c1 1019Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
7fb623f7 1020Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
eb4c54a2 1021Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
d8ee244c
MK
1022i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
1023i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
1024i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
822e978b
AC
1025HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
1026 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
1027 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
4d210288 1028I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
92eb23c5 1029
db034ac5
AC
1030* OBSOLETE languages
1031
1032CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
1033
cd9bfe15
AC
1034* REMOVED configurations and files
1035
1036AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
1037A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1038AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1039AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1040AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1041
1042testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
1043
20f01a46
DH
1044* New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
1045
1046This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
1047commands. The default is 1024.
1048
a5941fbf
MK
1049* Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
1050
1051Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
1052
89743e04
MS
1053* New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
1054
1055These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
1056to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
1057from a file into memory (restore).
37057839 1058
9fb14e79
JB
1059* Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
1060
1061The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
1062including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
1063of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
1064
2037aebb
AC
1065*** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
1066
1067* New targets.
1068
1069Atmel AVR avr*-*-*
1070
1071* Bug fixes
1072
1073gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
1074mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
1075Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
1076
1077gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
1078dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
1079Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
1080
1081Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
1082Surprisingly enough, it works now.
1083By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
1084
1085i386 hardware watchpoint support:
1086avoid misses on second run for some targets.
1087By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
1088
37057839 1089*** Changes in GDB 5.2:
eb7cedd9 1090
1a703748
MS
1091* New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
1092
1093This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
1094really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
1095In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
1096target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
1097This can be a significant performance improvement on some
1098(notably embedded) targets.
1099
cefd4ef5
MS
1100* New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
1101
55241689
AC
1102This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
1103process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
1104GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
1105hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
cefd4ef5 1106
352ed7b4
MS
1107* New command line option
1108
1109GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
1110
1111* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
1112
1113There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
1114command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
1115a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
1116be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
1117open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
1118issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
1119a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
1120it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
1121GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
1122is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
1123
fe419ffc
RE
1124* Changes in ARM configurations.
1125
1126Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
1127configuration is fully multi-arch.
1128
eb7cedd9
MK
1129* New native configurations
1130
fe419ffc 1131ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
eb7cedd9 1132x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
55241689 1133AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
768f0842 1134Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
eb7cedd9 1135
c9f63e6b
CV
1136* New targets
1137
1138Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
1139
9b4ff276
AC
1140* OBSOLETE configurations and files
1141
1142Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1143been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1144configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1145permanently REMOVED.
1146
1147AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
1148A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1149AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1150AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1151AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1152
b4ceaee6 1153testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
9b4ff276 1154
e2caac18
AC
1155* REMOVED configurations and files
1156
1157TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
7bc65f05 1158WDC 65816 w65-*-*
7768dd6c
AC
1159PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1160PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1161PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
5e734e1f 1162Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1406caf7
AC
1163Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
1164 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
7e24f0b1 1165SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
9b567150 1166Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
3680c638
AC
1167Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
1168ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
a752853e 1169Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
e2caac18 1170
c2a727fa
TT
1171* Changes to command line processing
1172
1173The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
1174for the inferior from gdb's command line.
1175
467d8519
TT
1176* Changes to key bindings
1177
1178There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
1179
7072a954
AC
1180*** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
1181
1182Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
1183
1184Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
1185corrupted.
1186
1187Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
1188
1189Numerous documentation fixes.
1190
1191Numerous testsuite fixes.
1192
34f47bc4 1193*** Changes in GDB 5.1:
139760b7
MK
1194
1195* New native configurations
1196
1197Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
1198x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
55241689 1199MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
e23194cb
EZ
1200MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
1201ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
55241689 1202s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
139760b7 1203
bf64bfd6
AC
1204* New targets
1205
def90278 1206Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
24be5c34 1207CRIS cris-axis
55241689 1208UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
def90278 1209
17e78a56 1210* OBSOLETE configurations and files
bf64bfd6
AC
1211
1212x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
9b9c068d 1213Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
bb19ff3b
AC
1214Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
1215 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
76f4ea53
AC
1216TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1217WDC 65816 w65-*-*
4a1968f4 1218Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1b2b2c16
AC
1219PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1220PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1221PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
24f89b68 1222SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
514e603d
AC
1223Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
1224ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
d036b4d9 1225Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
bf64bfd6 1226
17e78a56
AC
1227stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
1228kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
1229
7fcca85b
AC
1230Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1231been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1232configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1233permanently REMOVED.
1234
a196c81c 1235* REMOVED configurations and files
7fcca85b
AC
1236
1237Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
1238Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
1239Pyramid pyramid-*-*
1240ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
1241Tahoe tahoe-*-*
a196c81c 1242ser-ocd.c *-*-*
bf64bfd6 1243
6d6b80e5 1244* GDB has been converted to ISO C.
e23194cb 1245
6d6b80e5 1246GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
e23194cb
EZ
1247sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
1248present.
1249
bf64bfd6
AC
1250* Other news:
1251
e23194cb
EZ
1252* "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
1253
1254* The MI enabled by default.
1255
1256The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
1257revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
1258engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
1259using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
1260which is now deprecated.
1261
1262* Support for debugging Pascal programs.
1263
1264GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
1265main features are supported:
1266
1267 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
1268
1269 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
1270 extension;
1271
1272 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
1273
1274 - a Pascal expression parser.
1275
1276However, some important features are not yet supported.
1277
1278 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
1279
1280 - there are some problems with boolean types;
1281
1282 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
1283 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
1284
1285 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
1286
1287 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
1288
1289* Changes in completion.
1290
1291Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
1292to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
1293users expect at the shell prompt.
1294
1295Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
1296`breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
1297program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
1298files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
1299be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
1300considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
1301name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
1302
1303`set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
1304
1305* New platform-independent commands:
1306
1307It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
1308hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
1309documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
1310
1311* Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
1312
d7275149
MK
1313Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
1314revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
1315many threads as your system allows you to have.
1316
e23194cb
EZ
1317Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
1318
d7275149
MK
1319Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
1320multi-threaded programs though.
e23194cb
EZ
1321
1322* Changes in MIPS configurations.
bf64bfd6
AC
1323
1324Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
1325
e23194cb
EZ
1326GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
1327debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
1328supported.)
1329
1330* Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
1331
1332Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
1333breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
1334implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
1335put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
1336and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
1337registers.
1338
1339The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
1340debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
1341watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
1342
1343* Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
1344
1345New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
1346the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
1347
1348New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
1349display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
1350IDT.
1351
1352New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
1353from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
1354New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
1355a given linear address.
1356
1357GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
1358program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
1359which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
1360
1361DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
1362
6c56c069
EZ
1363It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
1364
e23194cb
EZ
1365* Changes in documentation.
1366
1367All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
1368Documentation License.
1369
1370Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1371manual.
1372
1373TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
1374
1375Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1376manual.
1377
1378The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
1379documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
1380hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
1381
5d6640b1
AC
1382* GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
1383
1384The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
1385``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
1386contents of this file.
1387
1a1d8446
AC
1388* gdba.el deleted
1389
1390GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
139760b7 1391
9debab2f 1392*** Changes in GDB 5.0:
7a292a7a 1393
c63ce875
EZ
1394* Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
1395
1396Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
1397programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
1398displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
1399greater level of detail.
1400
1401* Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
1402
1403It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
1404bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
1405on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
1406written.
1407
1408* Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
1409
1410The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
1411necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
1412machines ``out of the box''.
1413
1414The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
1415possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
1416signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
1417would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
1418interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
1419
1420It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
1421standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
1422even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
1423and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
1424terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
1425
1426The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
1427enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
1428also works.
1429
1430DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
1431GDB.
1432
1433It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
1434directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
1435times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
1436breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
1437
ed9a39eb
JM
1438* New native configurations
1439
1440ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
afc05dd4 1441PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
ed9a39eb 1442
7a292a7a
SS
1443* New targets
1444
96baa820 1445Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
adf40b2e
JM
1446x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
1447PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
7a292a7a
SS
1448TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1449
085dd6e6
JM
1450* OBSOLETE configurations
1451
1452Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
1453Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
9846de1b 1454Pyramid pyramid-*-*
ed9a39eb 1455ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
104c1213 1456Tahoe tahoe-*-*
7a292a7a 1457
9debab2f
AC
1458Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1459but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1460these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1461be permanently REMOVED.
1462
5330533d
SS
1463* Gould support removed
1464
1465Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
1466
bc9e5bbf
AC
1467* New features for SVR4
1468
1469On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
1470without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
1471load symbols from the running process's executable file.
1472
1473* Many C++ enhancements
1474
1475C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
1476in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
1477
adf40b2e
JM
1478* Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
1479
1480A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
1481sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
1482with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
1483``|<program> <args>'' vis:
1484
1485 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
1486 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
1487
43e526b9
JM
1488* MIPS 64 remote protocol
1489
1490A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
1491expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
1492instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
1493
1494The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
1495added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
1496
96baa820
JM
1497* ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
1498
1499The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
1500``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
1501include ``set remote P-packet''.
1502
11cf8741
JM
1503* Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
1504
1505The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
1506accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
1507``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
1508
7876dd43
DB
1509* ``apropos'' command added.
1510
1511The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
1512documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
1513try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
1514
bc9e5bbf
AC
1515* New MI interface
1516
1517A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
1518interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
7162c0ca
EZ
1519process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
1520"GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
1521enabled by configuring with:
bc9e5bbf
AC
1522
1523 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
1524
c906108c
SS
1525*** Changes in GDB-4.18:
1526
1527* New native configurations
1528
1529HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
1530HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
55241689 1531M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
c906108c
SS
1532
1533* New targets
1534
1535Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1536Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
1537Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1538
1539* OBSOLETE configurations
1540
1541Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
1542
1543Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1544but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1545these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1546be permanently REMOVED.
1547
1548* ANSI/ISO C
1549
1550As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
1551buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
1552containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
1553use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
1554available. If this is not true, please report the affected
1555configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
1556information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
1557already.
1558
1559* Readline 2.2
1560
1561GDB now uses readline 2.2.
1562
1563* set extension-language
1564
1565You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
1566languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
1567you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
1568 set extension-language .c c++
1569The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
1570and their associated languages.
1571
1572* Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
1573
1574When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
1575you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
1576PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
1577
1578 set processor NAME
1579
1580sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
1581following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
1582
1583 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
1584 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
1585 403 IBM PowerPC 403
1586 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
1587 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
1588 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
1589 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
1590 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
1591 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
1592 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
1593 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
1594
1595At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
1596special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
1597registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
1598only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
1599
1600* HP-UX support
1601
1602Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
1603more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
1604library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
1605support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
1606for xdb and dbx commands.
1607
1608* Catchpoints
1609
1610HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
1611generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
1612to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
1613
1614This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
1615argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
1616output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
1617
1618* Debugging across forks
1619
1620On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
1621in the inferior.
1622
1623* TUI
1624
1625HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
1626it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
1627configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
1628
1629* GDB remote protocol additions
1630
1631A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
1632Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
1633fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
1634allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
1635
1636For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
1637full 64-bit address. The command
1638
1639 set remoteaddresssize 32
1640
1641can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
1642the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
1643will be discarded.
1644
1645In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
1646command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
1647
1648 maint packet heythere
1649
1650sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
1651disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
1652time.
1653
1654The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
1655target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
1656downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
1657
1658* Tracing can collect general expressions
1659
1660You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
1661further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
1662doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
1663
1664* mask-address variable for Mips
1665
1666For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
1667a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
1668of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
1669
1670* Higher serial baud rates
1671
1672GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
1673230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
1674to achieve all of these rates.)
1675
1676* i960 simulator
1677
1678The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
1679builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
1680
1681
1682*** Changes in GDB-4.17:
1683
1684* New native configurations
1685
1686Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
1687Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
1688Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
1689PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
1690PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1691Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
1692Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
1693
1694* New targets
1695
1696Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1697Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
1698Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1699Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
1700MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
1701MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
1702MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
1703Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
1704Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
1705Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1706NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
1707
1708* New debugging protocols
1709
1710ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
1711M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
1712DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
1713PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1714PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1715Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1716
1717* DWARF 2
1718
1719All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
1720format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
1721information.
1722
1723* Java frontend
1724
1725GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
1726only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
1727
1728* solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
1729
1730For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
1731loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
1732locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
1733
1734* Live range splitting
1735
1736GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
1737range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
1738more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
1739
1740* Hurd support
1741
1742GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
1743updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
1744
1745* ARM Thumb support
1746
1747GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
1748instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
1749instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
1750accordingly.
1751
1752* MIPS16 support
1753
1754GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
1755instruction set.
1756
1757* Overlay support
1758
1759GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
1760linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
1761will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
1762control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
1763additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
1764in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
1765
1766* info symbol
1767
1768The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
1769the symbol at the specified address.
1770
1771* Trace support
1772
1773The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
1774asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
1775extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
1776includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
1777file tracepoint.c for more details.
1778
1779* MIPS simulator
1780
1781Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
1782by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
1783of most MIPS variants.
1784
1785* Sparc simulator
1786
1787Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
1788by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
1789Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
1790
1791* set architecture
1792
1793For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
1794basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
1795architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
1796the possible architectures.
1797
1798*** Changes in GDB-4.16:
1799
1800* New native configurations
1801
1802Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
1803M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
1804PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
1805PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
1806PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1807RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
1808
1809* New targets
1810
1811ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
1812I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1813MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
1814MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
1815PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
1816Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
1817Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1818
1819* PowerPC simulator
1820
1821The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
1822contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
1823PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
1824basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
1825performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
1826
1827* Solaris 2.5
1828
1829GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
1830
1831* Windows 95/NT native
1832
1833GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
1834To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
1835which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
1836Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
1837ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
1838
1839* dont-repeat command
1840
1841If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
1842command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
1843useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
1844extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
1845
1846* Send break instead of ^C
1847
1848The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
1849rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
1850GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
1851
1852* Remote protocol timeout
1853
1854The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
1855that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
1856to read from the target. The default value is 2.
1857
1858* Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
1859
1860By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
1861loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
1862stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
1863when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
1864in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
1865
1866Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
1867/usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
1868automatically on hpux10.
1869
1870* Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
1871
1872Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
1873
1874* Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
1875
1876When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
1877may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
1878the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
1879every character. The default value is 1050.
1880
1881* Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
1882
1883If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
1884a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
1885replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
1886details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
1887remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
1888to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
1889
1890* Speedups for remote debugging
1891
1892GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
1893the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
1894and more efficient S-record downloading.
1895
1896* Memory use reductions and statistics collection
1897
1898GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
1899Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
1900
1901*** Changes in GDB-4.15:
1902
1903* Psymtabs for XCOFF
1904
1905The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
1906can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
1907
1908* Remote targets use caching
1909
1910Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
1911remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
1912it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
1913debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
1914off' turns the the data cache off.
1915
1916* Remote targets may have threads
1917
1918The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
1919in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
1920gdb/remote.c for details.
1921
1922* NetROM support
1923
1924If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
1925support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
1926acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
1927write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
1928support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
1929another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
1930sequence is something like
1931
1932 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
1933 load <prog>
1934 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
1935
1936* Macintosh host
1937
1938GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
1939may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
1940it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
1941available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
1942device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
1943directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
1944scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
1945mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
1946
1947* Autoconf
1948
1949GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
1950but does simplify configuration and building.
1951
1952* hpux10
1953
1954GDB now supports hpux10.
1955
1956*** Changes in GDB-4.14:
1957
1958* New native configurations
1959
1960x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
1961x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
1962NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
1963Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
1964
1965* New targets
1966
1967A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1968HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
1969CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
1970PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
1971WDC 65816 w65-*-*
1972
1973* Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
1974
1975GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
1976possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
1977filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
1978the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
1979if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
1980
1981* Arguments to user-defined commands
1982
1983User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
1984Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
1985trivial example:
1986define adder
1987 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
1988
1989To execute the command use:
1990adder 1 2 3
1991
1992Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
1993Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
1994use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
1995
1996* New `if' and `while' commands
1997
1998This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
1999commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
2000expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
2001execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
2002terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
2003`else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
2004if the expression is zero.
2005
2006* Fortran source language mode
2007
2008GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
2009Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
2010variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
2011with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
2012Fortran compilers.
2013
2014* Better HPUX support
2015
2016Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
2017running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
2018processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
2019for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
2020that behavior do the following before running the program:
2021
2022 adb -w a.out
2023 __dld_flags?W 0x5
2024 control-d
2025
2026This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
2027To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
2028
2029 adb -w a.out
2030 __dld_flags?W 0x4
2031 control-d
2032
2033You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
2034the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
2035external linkage.
2036
2037GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
2038HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
2039
2040* Target byte order now dynamically selectable
2041
2042You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
2043commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
2044current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
2045"set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
2046associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
2047configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
2048
2049* New DOS host serial code
2050
2051This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
2052no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
2053a PC's serial port.
2054
2055*** Changes in GDB-4.13:
2056
2057* New "complete" command
2058
2059This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
2060were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
2061
2062* Trailing space optional in prompt
2063
2064"set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
2065allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
2066
2067* Breakpoint hit counts
2068
2069"info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
2070has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
2071can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
2072to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
2073less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
2074that breakpoint.
2075
2076* Ability to stop printing at NULL character
2077
2078"set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
2079an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
2080arrays actually contain only short strings.
2081
2082* Shared library breakpoints
2083
2084In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
2085breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
2086
2087* Hardware watchpoints
2088
2089There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
2090targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
2091
55241689 2092Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
c906108c
SS
2093
2094* Annotations
2095
2096Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
2097and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
2098
2099* Improved Irix 5 support
2100
2101GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
2102
2103* Improved HPPA support
2104
2105GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
2106
2107* New native configurations
2108
2109Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
2110HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
2111Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
2112RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
2113
2114* New targets
2115
2116OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
2117MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
2118Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
2119
2120* Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
2121
2122There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
2123This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
2124
2125* Fixes
2126
2127As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
2128and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
2129
2130*** Changes in GDB-4.12:
2131
2132* Irix 5 is now supported
2133
2134* HPPA support
2135
2136GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
2137to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
2138GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
2139of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
2140can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
2141
2142
2143*** Changes in GDB-4.11:
2144
2145* User visible changes:
2146
2147* Remote Debugging
2148
2149The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
2150target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
2151debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
2152integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
2153debugging info for the mips target).
2154
2155* DEC Alpha native support
2156
2157GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
2158debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
2159work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
2160Alpha-specific notes.
2161
2162* Preliminary thread implementation
2163
2164GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
2165
2166* LynxOS native and target support for 386
2167
2168This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
2169to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
2170for details).
2171
2172* Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
2173
2174This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
2175mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
2176call methods, ...etc.
2177
2178*** Changes in GDB-4.10:
2179
2180 * User visible changes:
2181
2182Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
2183supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
2184other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
2185somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
2186
2187Filename completion now works.
2188
2189When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
2190arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
2191addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
2192
2193All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
2194vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
2195should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
2196your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
2197to be on the far side of a thin network line.
2198
2199 * DEC alpha support
2200
2201This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
2202cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
2203
2204
2205*** Changes in GDB-4.9:
2206
2207 * Testsuite
2208
2209This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
2210The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
2211via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
2212
2213 * C++ demangling
2214
2215'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
2216emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
2217Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
2218disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
2219use gdb with AT&T cfront.
2220
2221 * Simulators
2222
2223GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
2224So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
2225Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
2226
2227 * New targets supported
2228
2229H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
2230H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
2231SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
2232Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
2233IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
2234
2235Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
2236version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
2237GO32 memory extender.
2238
2239 * New remote protocols
2240
2241MIPS remote debugging protocol.
2242
2243 * New source languages supported
2244
2245This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
2246used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
2247into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
2248
2249
2250*** Changes in GDB-4.8:
2251
2252 * HP Precision Architecture supported
2253
2254GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
2255version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
2256University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
2257compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
2258format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
2259(as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
2260
2261Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
2262
2263 * Faster and better demangling
2264
2265We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
2266demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
2267character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
2268only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
2269This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
2270increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
2271symbol lookups.
2272
2273`Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
2274from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
2275compiler does not actually implement.
2276
2277 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
2278
2279In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
2280inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
2281recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
2282very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
2283The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
2284circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
2285fix.
2286
2287The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
2288release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
2289
2290 * Improved configure script
2291
2292The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
2293you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
2294host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
2295done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
2296
2297We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
2298version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
2299`--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
2300The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
2301only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
2302We hope to make this the default in a future release.
2303
2304 * Documentation improvements
2305
2306There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
2307produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
2308before submitting changes.
2309
2310The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
2311M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
2312`info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
2313you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
2314a future texinfo-X.Y release.
2315
2316*NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
2317We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
2318been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
2319or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
2320`texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
2321around this problem.
2322
2323 * New features
2324
2325GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
2326the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
2327`print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
2328the target program.
2329
2330The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
2331how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
2332
2333 * New native hosts supported
2334
2335HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
2336386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
2337
2338 * New targets supported
2339
2340AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
2341
2342 * New file formats supported
2343
2344BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
2345HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
2346
2347 * Major bug fixes
2348
2349Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
2350
2351We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
2352printf_filtered("%s") problems.
2353
2354We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
2355for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
2356release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
2357
2358You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
2359will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
2360
2361We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
2362for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
2363especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
2364libraries.
2365
2366The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
2367information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
2368command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
2369any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
2370when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
2371
2372 * Internal improvements
2373
2374GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
2375debugging of multiple languages in the future.
2376
2377GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
2378Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
2379symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
2380contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
2381shared code that handles any of them.
2382
2383 * New command line options
2384
2385We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
2386
2387 * Mmalloc licensing
2388
2389The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
2390General Public License.
2391
2392*** Changes in GDB-4.7:
2393
2394 * Host/native/target split
2395
2396GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
2397hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
2398target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
2399local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
2400ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
2401
2402The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
2403GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
2404is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
2405code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
2406any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
2407built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
2408handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
2409
2410GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
2411It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
2412plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
2413
2414 * New hosts supported
2415
2416HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
2417386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
2418386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
2419
2420 * New targets supported
2421
2422Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
242368030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
2424
2425 * New native hosts supported
2426
2427386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
2428 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
2429386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
2430
2431 * New file formats supported
2432
2433BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
2434supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
2435format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
2436
2437 * New commands
2438
2439`show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
2440`show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
2441These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
2442
2443`info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
2444
2445You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
2446scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
2447prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
2448executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
2449
2450 * C++ improvements
2451
2452We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
2453info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
2454symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
2455
2456Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
2457
2458 * Major bug fixes
2459
2460The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
2461fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
2462by the compiler.
2463
2464We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
2465support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
2466
2467John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
2468slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
2469that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
2470purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
2471the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
2472mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
2473
2474Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
2475about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
2476completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
2477we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
2478
2479 * AMD 29k support
2480
2481A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
2482specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
2483calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
2484usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
2485in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
2486
2487We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
2488Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
2489of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
2490resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
2491
2492 * Remote interfaces
2493
2494We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
2495with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
2496message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
2497This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
2498needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
2499breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
2500each instruction being stepped through.
2501
2502The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
2503registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
2504
2505There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
2506find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
2507Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
2508processor with a serial port.
2509
2510 * Configuration
2511
2512Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
2513`table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
2514supported, and what files each one uses.
2515
2516 * Library changes
2517
2518There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
2519disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
2520Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
2521disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
2522
2523The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
2524Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
2525can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
2526grants all the rights from the General Public License.
2527
2528 * Documentation
2529
2530The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
2531reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
2532as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
2533encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
2534system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
2535bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
2536
2537And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
2538
2539
2540*** Changes in GDB-4.6:
2541
2542 * Better support for C++ function names
2543
2544GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
2545names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
2546(using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
2547single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
2548Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
2549
2550GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
2551the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
2552You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
2553lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
2554for the list of formats.
2555
2556 * G++ symbol mangling problem
2557
2558Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
2559C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
2560directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
2561can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
2562usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
2563about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
2564this problem.)
2565
2566 * New 'maintenance' command
2567
2568All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
2569the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
2570can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
2571
2572 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
2573 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
2574 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
2575 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
2576 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
2577 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
2578
2579The following commands are new:
2580
2581 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
2582 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
2583 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
2584
2585 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
2586
2587We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
2588(e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
2589be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
2590read after argv processing.
2591
2592 * New hosts supported
2593
2594Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
2595
55241689 2596GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
c906108c
SS
2597
2598We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
2599is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
2600for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
2601masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
2602fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
2603It costs extra.
2604
2605 * New targets supported
2606
2607Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
2608
2609 * More smarts about finding #include files
2610
2611GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
2612all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
2613greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
2614especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
2615the one that contains your sources.
2616
2617We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
2618breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
2619try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
2620
2621 * Interesting infernals change
2622
2623GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
2624section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
2625target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
2626stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
2627
2628 * Bug fixes (of course!)
2629
2630There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
2631 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
2632 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
2633
2634See the ChangeLog for details.
2635
2636*** Changes in GDB-4.5:
2637
2638 * New machines supported (host and target)
2639
2640IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
2641
2642SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
2643
2644 * New malloc package
2645
2646GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
2647Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
2648capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
2649This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
2650pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
2651more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
2652
2653 * info proc
2654
2655The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
2656'help info proc' for details.
2657
2658 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
2659
2660The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
2661Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
2662possible.
2663
2664 * File name changes for MS-DOS
2665
2666Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
2667support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
2668conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
2669environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
2670that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
2671in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
2672
2673 * Cross byte order fixes
2674
2675Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
2676targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
2677
2678 * New -mapped and -readnow options
2679
2680If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
2681system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
2682`symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
2683program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
2684called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
2685Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
2686and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
2687the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
2688option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
2689starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
2690
2691You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
2692the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
2693information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
2694slower, but makes future operations faster.
2695
2696The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
2697build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
2698A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
2699use is:
2700
2701 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
2702
2703The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
2704It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
2705shared across multiple host platforms.
2706
2707 * longjmp() handling
2708
2709GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
2710siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
2711all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
2712platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
2713
2714 * Solaris 2.0
2715
2716Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
2717this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
2718reading symbols.
2719
2720 * Bug fixes
2721
2722As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
2723People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
2724crashes and trashed symbol tables.
2725
2726*** Changes in GDB-4.4:
2727
2728 * New machines supported (host and target)
2729
2730SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2731 (except core files)
2732BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
2733Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
2734
2735 * New machines supported (target)
2736
2737AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2738
2739 * C++ support
2740
2741GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
2742The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
2743per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
2744
2745GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
2746`ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
2747extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
2748good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
2749will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
2750released.
2751
2752 * New features for SVR4
2753
2754GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
2755shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
2756only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
2757
2758The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
2759on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
2760it prints the address mappings of the process.
2761
2762If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
2763bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
2764
2765 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
2766
2767Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
2768now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
2769skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
2770make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
2771same code linked statically.
2772
2773 * New Getopt
2774
2775GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
2776version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
2777continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
2778Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
2779added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
2780future by other options that begin with the same letter.
2781
2782 * Bugs fixed
2783
2784The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2785Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2786See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2787
2788
2789*** Changes in GDB-4.3:
2790
2791 * New machines supported (host and target)
2792
2793Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
2794NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
2795Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
2796
2797 * Almost SCO Unix support
2798
2799We had hoped to support:
2800SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2801(except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
2802that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
2803about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
2804
2805 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
2806
2807GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
2808debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
2809is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
2810send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
2811reqired (if any).
2812
2813 * New Readline
2814
2815GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
2816is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
2817required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
2818
2819 * Bugs fixed
2820
2821The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2822Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2823See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2824
2825 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
2826
2827GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
2828supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
2829symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
2830
2831Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
2832mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
2833debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
2834mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
2835version 2.
2836
2837Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
2838really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
2839line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
2840variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
2841situation somewhat.
2842
2843When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
2844However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
2845methods.
2846
2847We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
2848DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
2849encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
2850
2851
2852*** Changes in GDB-4.2:
2853
2854 * Improved configuration
2855
2856Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
2857Porting BFD is simpler.
2858
2859 * Stepping improved
2860
2861The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
2862of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
2863in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
2864function that has debugging information is called within the line.
2865
2866 * Bug fixing
2867
2868Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
2869
2870 * New host supported (not target)
2871
2872Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
2873
2874
2875*** Changes in GDB-4.1:
2876
2877 * Multiple source language support
2878
2879GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
2880It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
2881and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
2882language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
2883You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
2884`set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
2885
2886 * GDB and Modula-2
2887
2888GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
2889currently under development at the State University of New York at
2890Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
2891continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
2892
2893Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
2894debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
2895symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
2896
2897There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
2898in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
2899
2900 * set write on/off
2901
2902GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
2903a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
2904the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
2905by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
2906effect immediately.
2907
2908 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
2909
2910When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
2911shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
2912The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
2913examining core files.
2914
2915 * set listsize
2916
2917You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
2918The default is 10.
2919
2920 * New machines supported (host and target)
2921
2922SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
2923Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
2924Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
2925
2926 * New hosts supported (not targets)
2927
2928IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
2929
2930 * New targets supported (not hosts)
2931
2932AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2933AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2934Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
2935
2936 * New remote interfaces
2937
2938AMD 29000 Adapt
2939AMD 29000 Minimon
2940
2941
2942*** Changes in GDB-4.0:
2943
2944 * New Facilities
2945
2946Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
2947
2948Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
2949target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
2950is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
2951remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
2952remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
2953also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
2954using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
2955stub on the target system.
2956
2957New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
2958
2959GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
2960library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
2961object file types such as a.out and coff.
2962
2963There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
2964refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
2965
2966
2967 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
2968
2969All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
2970by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
2971
2972For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
2973``Show prompt'' produces the response:
2974Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
2975
2976What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
2977print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
2978will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
2979all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
2980
2981confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
2982 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
2983 it is already running. Default is ON.
2984
2985editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
2986 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
2987 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
2988 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
2989 Default is ON.
2990
2991history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
2992 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
2993 or the value of the environment variable
2994 GDBHISTFILE.
2995
2996history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
2997 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
2998 HISTSIZE.
2999
3000history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
3001 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
3002 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
3003
3004history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
3005 history expansion will be performed on
3006 command line input. The default is OFF.
3007
3008radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
3009 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
3010 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
3011
3012height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
3013 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
3014 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
3015 variable TERM.
3016
3017width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
3018 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
3019 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
3020 variable TERM.
3021
3022Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
3023``set width'' instead.
3024
3025print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
3026 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
3027 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
3028 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
3029
3030print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
3031 is OFF.
3032
3033print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
3034 "raw" form if off.
3035
3036print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
3037 like instructions.
3038
3039print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
3040
3041
3042 * Support for Epoch Environment.
3043
3044The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
3045new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
3046are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
3047window.
3048
3049
3050 * Support for Shared Libraries
3051
3052GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
3053Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
3054before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
3055happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
3056At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
3057from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
3058shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
3059It can be abbreviated ``share''.
3060
3061sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
3062 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
3063 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
3064
3065info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
3066
3067
3068 * Watchpoints
3069
3070A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
3071expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
3072tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
3073quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
3074problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
3075more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
3076
3077watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
3078
3079info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
3080
3081delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3082disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3083enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3084
3085
3086 * C++ multiple inheritance
3087
3088When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
3089for C++ programs.
3090
3091 * C++ exception handling
3092
3093Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
3094ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
3095the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
3096handler's context).
3097
3098catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
3099 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
3100 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
3101
3102info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
3103 current stack frame.
3104
3105
3106 * Minor command changes
3107
3108The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
3109command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
3110is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
3111
3112The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
3113at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
3114frames without printing.
3115
3116 * New directory command
3117
3118'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
3119The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
3120about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
3121with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
3122find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
3123
3124 * Configuring GDB for compilation
3125
3126For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
3127for more details.
3128
3129GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
3130two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
3131Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
3132where the program that you are debugging will run.
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