ChangeLog:
[deliverable/binutils-gdb.git] / gdb / NEWS
1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
3
4 *** Changes since GDB 7.4
5
6 * Python scripting
7
8 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" is now deleted.
9
10 ** A new class, gdb.printing.FlagEnumerationPrinter, can be used to
11 apply "flag enum"-style pretty-printing to any enum.
12
13 * GDBserver now supports stdio connections.
14 E.g. (gdb) target remote | ssh myhost gdbserver - hello
15
16 * The binary "gdbtui" can no longer be built or installed.
17 Use "gdb -tui" instead.
18
19 * GDB will now print "flag" enums specially. A flag enum is one where
20 all the enumerator values have no bits in common when pairwise
21 "and"ed. When printing a value whose type is a flag enum, GDB will
22 show all the constants, e.g., for enum E { ONE = 1, TWO = 2}:
23 (gdb) print (enum E) 3
24 $1 = (ONE | TWO)
25
26 * The filename part of a linespec will now match trailing components
27 of a source file name. For example, "break gcc/expr.c:1000" will
28 now set a breakpoint in build/gcc/expr.c, but not
29 build/libcpp/expr.c.
30
31 * The "info proc" and "generate-core-file" commands will now also
32 work on remote targets connected to GDBserver on Linux.
33
34 * The command "info catch" has been removed. It has been disabled
35 since December 2007.
36
37 *** Changes in GDB 7.4
38
39 * GDB now handles ambiguous linespecs more consistently; the existing
40 FILE:LINE support has been expanded to other types of linespecs. A
41 breakpoint will now be set on all matching locations in all
42 inferiors, and locations will be added or removed according to
43 inferior changes.
44
45 * GDB now allows you to skip uninteresting functions and files when
46 stepping with the "skip function" and "skip file" commands.
47
48 * GDB has two new commands: "set remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit"
49 and "show remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit". These allows to
50 set or show the maximum length limit (in bytes) of a remote
51 target hardware watchpoint.
52
53 This allows e.g. to use "unlimited" hardware watchpoints with the
54 gdbserver integrated in Valgrind version >= 3.7.0. Such Valgrind
55 watchpoints are slower than real hardware watchpoints but are
56 significantly faster than gdb software watchpoints.
57
58 * Python scripting
59
60 ** The register_pretty_printer function in module gdb.printing now takes
61 an optional `replace' argument. If True, the new printer replaces any
62 existing one.
63
64 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" command has been
65 deprecated and will be deleted in GDB 7.5.
66 A new command: "set python print-stack none|full|message" has
67 replaced it. Additionally, the default for "print-stack" is
68 now "message", which just prints the error message without
69 the stack trace.
70
71 ** A prompt substitution hook (prompt_hook) is now available to the
72 Python API.
73
74 ** A new Python module, gdb.prompt has been added to the GDB Python
75 modules library. This module provides functionality for
76 escape sequences in prompts (used by set/show
77 extended-prompt). These escape sequences are replaced by their
78 corresponding value.
79
80 ** Python commands and convenience-functions located in
81 'data-directory'/python/gdb/command and
82 'data-directory'/python/gdb/function are now automatically loaded
83 on GDB start-up.
84
85 ** Blocks now provide four new attributes. global_block and
86 static_block will return the global and static blocks
87 respectively. is_static and is_global are boolean attributes
88 that indicate if the block is one of those two types.
89
90 ** Symbols now provide the "type" attribute, the type of the symbol.
91
92 ** The "gdb.breakpoint" function has been deprecated in favor of
93 "gdb.breakpoints".
94
95 ** A new class "gdb.FinishBreakpoint" is provided to catch the return
96 of a function. This class is based on the "finish" command
97 available in the CLI.
98
99 ** Type objects for struct and union types now allow access to
100 the fields using standard Python dictionary (mapping) methods.
101 For example, "some_type['myfield']" now works, as does
102 "some_type.items()".
103
104 ** A new event "gdb.new_objfile" has been added, triggered by loading a
105 new object file.
106
107 ** A new function, "deep_items" has been added to the gdb.types
108 module in the GDB Python modules library. This function returns
109 an iterator over the fields of a struct or union type. Unlike
110 the standard Python "iteritems" method, it will recursively traverse
111 any anonymous fields.
112
113 * MI changes
114
115 ** "*stopped" events can report several new "reason"s, such as
116 "solib-event".
117
118 ** Breakpoint changes are now notified using new async records, like
119 "=breakpoint-modified".
120
121 ** New command -ada-task-info.
122
123 * libthread-db-search-path now supports two special values: $sdir and $pdir.
124 $sdir specifies the default system locations of shared libraries.
125 $pdir specifies the directory where the libpthread used by the application
126 lives.
127
128 GDB no longer looks in $sdir and $pdir after it has searched the directories
129 mentioned in libthread-db-search-path. If you want to search those
130 directories, they must be specified in libthread-db-search-path.
131 The default value of libthread-db-search-path on GNU/Linux and Solaris
132 systems is now "$sdir:$pdir".
133
134 $pdir is not supported by gdbserver, it is currently ignored.
135 $sdir is supported by gdbserver.
136
137 * New configure option --with-iconv-bin.
138 When using the internationalization support like the one in the GNU C
139 library, GDB will invoke the "iconv" program to get a list of supported
140 character sets. If this program lives in a non-standard location, one can
141 use this option to specify where to find it.
142
143 * When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
144 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports masked hardware
145 watchpoints, which specify a mask in addition to an address to watch.
146 The mask specifies that some bits of an address (the bits which are
147 reset in the mask) should be ignored when matching the address accessed
148 by the inferior against the watchpoint address. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
149 section in the user manual for more details.
150
151 * The new option --once causes GDBserver to stop listening for connections once
152 the first connection is made. The listening port used by GDBserver will
153 become available after that.
154
155 * New commands "info macros" and "alias" have been added.
156
157 * New function parameters suffix @entry specifies value of function parameter
158 at the time the function got called. Entry values are available only since
159 gcc version 4.7.
160
161 * New commands
162
163 !SHELL COMMAND
164 "!" is now an alias of the "shell" command.
165 Note that no space is needed between "!" and SHELL COMMAND.
166
167 * Changed commands
168
169 watch EXPRESSION mask MASK_VALUE
170 The watch command now supports the mask argument which allows creation
171 of masked watchpoints, if the current architecture supports this feature.
172
173 info auto-load-scripts [REGEXP]
174 This command was formerly named "maintenance print section-scripts".
175 It is now generally useful and is no longer a maintenance-only command.
176
177 info macro [-all] [--] MACRO
178 The info macro command has new options `-all' and `--'. The first for
179 printing all definitions of a macro. The second for explicitly specifying
180 the end of arguments and the beginning of the macro name in case the macro
181 name starts with a hyphen.
182
183 collect[/s] EXPRESSIONS
184 The tracepoint collect command now takes an optional modifier "/s"
185 that directs it to dereference pointer-to-character types and
186 collect the bytes of memory up to a zero byte. The behavior is
187 similar to what you see when you use the regular print command on a
188 string. An optional integer following the "/s" sets a bound on the
189 number of bytes that will be collected.
190
191 tstart [NOTES]
192 The trace start command now interprets any supplied arguments as a
193 note to be recorded with the trace run, with an effect similar to
194 setting the variable trace-notes.
195
196 tstop [NOTES]
197 The trace stop command now interprets any arguments as a note to be
198 mentioned along with the tstatus report that the trace was stopped
199 with a command. The effect is similar to setting the variable
200 trace-stop-notes.
201
202 * Tracepoints can now be enabled and disabled at any time after a trace
203 experiment has been started using the standard "enable" and "disable"
204 commands. It is now possible to start a trace experiment with no enabled
205 tracepoints; GDB will display a warning, but will allow the experiment to
206 begin, assuming that tracepoints will be enabled as needed while the trace
207 is running.
208
209 * Fast tracepoints on 32-bit x86-architectures can now be placed at
210 locations with 4-byte instructions, when they were previously
211 limited to locations with instructions of 5 bytes or longer.
212
213 * New options
214
215 set extended-prompt
216 show extended-prompt
217 Set the GDB prompt, and allow escape sequences to be inserted to
218 display miscellaneous information (see 'help set extended-prompt'
219 for the list of sequences). This prompt (and any information
220 accessed through the escape sequences) is updated every time the
221 prompt is displayed.
222
223 set print entry-values (both|compact|default|if-needed|no|only|preferred)
224 show print entry-values
225 Set printing of frame argument values at function entry. In some cases
226 GDB can determine the value of function argument which was passed by the
227 function caller, even if the value was modified inside the called function.
228
229 set debug entry-values
230 show debug entry-values
231 Control display of debugging info for determining frame argument values at
232 function entry and virtual tail call frames.
233
234 set basenames-may-differ
235 show basenames-may-differ
236 Set whether a source file may have multiple base names.
237 (A "base name" is the name of a file with the directory part removed.
238 Example: The base name of "/home/user/hello.c" is "hello.c".)
239 If set, GDB will canonicalize file names (e.g., expand symlinks)
240 before comparing them. Canonicalization is an expensive operation,
241 but it allows the same file be known by more than one base name.
242 If not set (the default), all source files are assumed to have just
243 one base name, and gdb will do file name comparisons more efficiently.
244
245 set trace-user
246 show trace-user
247 set trace-notes
248 show trace-notes
249 Set a user name and notes for the current and any future trace runs.
250 This is useful for long-running and/or disconnected traces, to
251 inform others (or yourself) as to who is running the trace, supply
252 contact information, or otherwise explain what is going on.
253
254 set trace-stop-notes
255 show trace-stop-notes
256 Set a note attached to the trace run, that is displayed when the
257 trace has been stopped by a tstop command. This is useful for
258 instance as an explanation, if you are stopping a trace run that was
259 started by someone else.
260
261 * New remote packets
262
263 QTEnable
264
265 Dynamically enable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
266
267 QTDisable
268
269 Dynamically disable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
270
271 QTNotes
272
273 Set the user and notes of the trace run.
274
275 qTP
276
277 Query the current status of a tracepoint.
278
279 qTMinFTPILen
280
281 Query the minimum length of instruction at which a fast tracepoint may
282 be placed.
283
284 * Dcache size (number of lines) and line-size are now runtime-configurable
285 via "set dcache line" and "set dcache line-size" commands.
286
287 * New targets
288
289 Texas Instruments TMS320C6x tic6x-*-*
290
291 * New Simulators
292
293 Renesas RL78 rl78-*-elf
294
295 *** Changes in GDB 7.3.1
296
297 * The build failure for NetBSD and OpenBSD targets have now been fixed.
298
299 *** Changes in GDB 7.3
300
301 * GDB has a new command: "thread find [REGEXP]".
302 It finds the thread id whose name, target id, or thread extra info
303 matches the given regular expression.
304
305 * The "catch syscall" command now works on mips*-linux* targets.
306
307 * The -data-disassemble MI command now supports modes 2 and 3 for
308 dumping the instruction opcodes.
309
310 * New command line options
311
312 -data-directory DIR Specify DIR as the "data-directory".
313 This is mostly for testing purposes.
314
315 * The "maint set python auto-load on|off" command has been renamed to
316 "set auto-load-scripts on|off".
317
318 * GDB has a new command: "set directories".
319 It is like the "dir" command except that it replaces the
320 source path list instead of augmenting it.
321
322 * GDB now understands thread names.
323
324 On GNU/Linux, "info threads" will display the thread name as set by
325 prctl or pthread_setname_np.
326
327 There is also a new command, "thread name", which can be used to
328 assign a name internally for GDB to display.
329
330 * OpenCL C
331 Initial support for the OpenCL C language (http://www.khronos.org/opencl)
332 has been integrated into GDB.
333
334 * Python scripting
335
336 ** The function gdb.Write now accepts an optional keyword 'stream'.
337 This keyword, when provided, will direct the output to either
338 stdout, stderr, or GDB's logging output.
339
340 ** Parameters can now be be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
341 you may implement the get_set_doc and get_show_doc functions.
342 This improves how Parameter set/show documentation is processed
343 and allows for more dynamic content.
344
345 ** Symbols, Symbol Table, Symbol Table and Line, Object Files,
346 Inferior, Inferior Thread, Blocks, and Block Iterator APIs now
347 have an is_valid method.
348
349 ** Breakpoints can now be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
350 you may implement a 'stop' function that is executed each time
351 the inferior reaches that breakpoint.
352
353 ** New function gdb.lookup_global_symbol looks up a global symbol.
354
355 ** GDB values in Python are now callable if the value represents a
356 function. For example, if 'some_value' represents a function that
357 takes two integer parameters and returns a value, you can call
358 that function like so:
359
360 result = some_value (10,20)
361
362 ** Module gdb.types has been added.
363 It contains a collection of utilities for working with gdb.Types objects:
364 get_basic_type, has_field, make_enum_dict.
365
366 ** Module gdb.printing has been added.
367 It contains utilities for writing and registering pretty-printers.
368 New classes: PrettyPrinter, SubPrettyPrinter,
369 RegexpCollectionPrettyPrinter.
370 New function: register_pretty_printer.
371
372 ** New commands "info pretty-printers", "enable pretty-printer" and
373 "disable pretty-printer" have been added.
374
375 ** gdb.parameter("directories") is now available.
376
377 ** New function gdb.newest_frame returns the newest frame in the
378 selected thread.
379
380 ** The gdb.InferiorThread class has a new "name" attribute. This
381 holds the thread's name.
382
383 ** Python Support for Inferior events.
384 Python scripts can add observers to be notified of events
385 occurring in the process being debugged.
386 The following events are currently supported:
387 - gdb.events.cont Continue event.
388 - gdb.events.exited Inferior exited event.
389 - gdb.events.stop Signal received, and Breakpoint hit events.
390
391 * C++ Improvements:
392
393 ** GDB now puts template parameters in scope when debugging in an
394 instantiation. For example, if you have:
395
396 template<int X> int func (void) { return X; }
397
398 then if you step into func<5>, "print X" will show "5". This
399 feature requires proper debuginfo support from the compiler; it
400 was added to GCC 4.5.
401
402 ** The motion commands "next", "finish", "until", and "advance" now
403 work better when exceptions are thrown. In particular, GDB will
404 no longer lose control of the inferior; instead, the GDB will
405 stop the inferior at the point at which the exception is caught.
406 This functionality requires a change in the exception handling
407 code that was introduced in GCC 4.5.
408
409 * GDB now follows GCC's rules on accessing volatile objects when
410 reading or writing target state during expression evaluation.
411 One notable difference to prior behavior is that "print x = 0"
412 no longer generates a read of x; the value of the assignment is
413 now always taken directly from the value being assigned.
414
415 * GDB now has some support for using labels in the program's source in
416 linespecs. For instance, you can use "advance label" to continue
417 execution to a label.
418
419 * GDB now has support for reading and writing a new .gdb_index
420 section. This section holds a fast index of DWARF debugging
421 information and can be used to greatly speed up GDB startup and
422 operation. See the documentation for `save gdb-index' for details.
423
424 * The "watch" command now accepts an optional "-location" argument.
425 When used, this causes GDB to watch the memory referred to by the
426 expression. Such a watchpoint is never deleted due to it going out
427 of scope.
428
429 * GDB now supports thread debugging of core dumps on GNU/Linux.
430
431 GDB now activates thread debugging using the libthread_db library
432 when debugging GNU/Linux core dumps, similarly to when debugging
433 live processes. As a result, when debugging a core dump file, GDB
434 is now able to display pthread_t ids of threads. For example, "info
435 threads" shows the same output as when debugging the process when it
436 was live. In earlier releases, you'd see something like this:
437
438 (gdb) info threads
439 * 1 LWP 6780 main () at main.c:10
440
441 While now you see this:
442
443 (gdb) info threads
444 * 1 Thread 0x7f0f5712a700 (LWP 6780) main () at main.c:10
445
446 It is also now possible to inspect TLS variables when debugging core
447 dumps.
448
449 When debugging a core dump generated on a machine other than the one
450 used to run GDB, you may need to point GDB at the correct
451 libthread_db library with the "set libthread-db-search-path"
452 command. See the user manual for more details on this command.
453
454 * When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
455 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports ranged breakpoints,
456 which stop execution of the inferior whenever it executes an instruction
457 at any address within the specified range. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
458 section in the user manual for more details.
459
460 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
461
462 ** GDBserver is now supported on PowerPC LynxOS (versions 4.x and 5.x),
463 and i686 LynxOS (version 5.x).
464
465 ** GDBserver is now supported on Blackfin Linux.
466
467 * New native configurations
468
469 ia64 HP-UX ia64-*-hpux*
470
471 * New targets:
472
473 Analog Devices, Inc. Blackfin Processor bfin-*
474
475 * Ada task switching is now supported on sparc-elf targets when
476 debugging a program using the Ravenscar Profile. For more information,
477 see the "Tasking Support when using the Ravenscar Profile" section
478 in the GDB user manual.
479
480 * Guile support was removed.
481
482 * New features in the GNU simulator
483
484 ** The --map-info flag lists all known core mappings.
485
486 ** CFI flashes may be simulated via the "cfi" device.
487
488 *** Changes in GDB 7.2
489
490 * Shared library support for remote targets by default
491
492 When GDB is configured for a generic, non-OS specific target, like
493 for example, --target=arm-eabi or one of the many *-*-elf targets,
494 GDB now queries remote stubs for loaded shared libraries using the
495 `qXfer:libraries:read' packet. Previously, shared library support
496 was always disabled for such configurations.
497
498 * C++ Improvements:
499
500 ** Argument Dependent Lookup (ADL)
501
502 In C++ ADL lookup directs function search to the namespaces of its
503 arguments even if the namespace has not been imported.
504 For example:
505 namespace A
506 {
507 class B { };
508 void foo (B) { }
509 }
510 ...
511 A::B b
512 foo(b)
513 Here the compiler will search for `foo' in the namespace of 'b'
514 and find A::foo. GDB now supports this. This construct is commonly
515 used in the Standard Template Library for operators.
516
517 ** Improved User Defined Operator Support
518
519 In addition to member operators, GDB now supports lookup of operators
520 defined in a namespace and imported with a `using' directive, operators
521 defined in the global scope, operators imported implicitly from an
522 anonymous namespace, and the ADL operators mentioned in the previous
523 entry.
524 GDB now also supports proper overload resolution for all the previously
525 mentioned flavors of operators.
526
527 ** static const class members
528
529 Printing of static const class members that are initialized in the
530 class definition has been fixed.
531
532 * Windows Thread Information Block access.
533
534 On Windows targets, GDB now supports displaying the Windows Thread
535 Information Block (TIB) structure. This structure is visible either
536 by using the new command `info w32 thread-information-block' or, by
537 dereferencing the new convenience variable named `$_tlb', a
538 thread-specific pointer to the TIB. This feature is also supported
539 when remote debugging using GDBserver.
540
541 * Static tracepoints
542
543 Static tracepoints are calls in the user program into a tracing
544 library. One such library is a port of the LTTng kernel tracer to
545 userspace --- UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer, http://lttng.org/ust).
546 When debugging with GDBserver, GDB now supports combining the GDB
547 tracepoint machinery with such libraries. For example: the user can
548 use GDB to probe a static tracepoint marker (a call from the user
549 program into the tracing library) with the new "strace" command (see
550 "New commands" below). This creates a "static tracepoint" in the
551 breakpoint list, that can be manipulated with the same feature set
552 as fast and regular tracepoints. E.g., collect registers, local and
553 global variables, collect trace state variables, and define
554 tracepoint conditions. In addition, the user can collect extra
555 static tracepoint marker specific data, by collecting the new
556 $_sdata internal variable. When analyzing the trace buffer, you can
557 inspect $_sdata like any other variable available to GDB. For more
558 information, see the "Tracepoints" chapter in GDB user manual. New
559 remote packets have been defined to support static tracepoints, see
560 the "New remote packets" section below.
561
562 * Better reconstruction of tracepoints after disconnected tracing
563
564 GDB will attempt to download the original source form of tracepoint
565 definitions when starting a trace run, and then will upload these
566 upon reconnection to the target, resulting in a more accurate
567 reconstruction of the tracepoints that are in use on the target.
568
569 * Observer mode
570
571 You can now exercise direct control over the ways that GDB can
572 affect your program. For instance, you can disallow the setting of
573 breakpoints, so that the program can run continuously (assuming
574 non-stop mode). In addition, the "observer" variable is available
575 to switch all of the different controls; in observer mode, GDB
576 cannot affect the target's behavior at all, which is useful for
577 tasks like diagnosing live systems in the field.
578
579 * The new convenience variable $_thread holds the number of the
580 current thread.
581
582 * New remote packets
583
584 qGetTIBAddr
585
586 Return the address of the Windows Thread Information Block of a given thread.
587
588 qRelocInsn
589
590 In response to several of the tracepoint packets, the target may now
591 also respond with a number of intermediate `qRelocInsn' request
592 packets before the final result packet, to have GDB handle
593 relocating an instruction to execute at a different address. This
594 is particularly useful for stubs that support fast tracepoints. GDB
595 reports support for this feature in the qSupported packet.
596
597 qTfSTM, qTsSTM
598
599 List static tracepoint markers in the target program.
600
601 qTSTMat
602
603 List static tracepoint markers at a given address in the target
604 program.
605
606 qXfer:statictrace:read
607
608 Read the static trace data collected (by a `collect $_sdata'
609 tracepoint action). The remote stub reports support for this packet
610 to gdb's qSupported query.
611
612 QAllow
613
614 Send the current settings of GDB's permission flags.
615
616 QTDPsrc
617
618 Send part of the source (textual) form of a tracepoint definition,
619 which includes location, conditional, and action list.
620
621 * The source command now accepts a -s option to force searching for the
622 script in the source search path even if the script name specifies
623 a directory.
624
625 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
626
627 - GDBserver now support tracepoints (including fast tracepoints, and
628 static tracepoints). The feature is currently supported by the
629 i386-linux and amd64-linux builds. See the "Tracepoints support
630 in gdbserver" section in the manual for more information.
631
632 GDBserver JIT compiles the tracepoint's conditional agent
633 expression bytecode into native code whenever possible for low
634 overhead dynamic tracepoints conditionals. For such tracepoints,
635 an expression that examines program state is evaluated when the
636 tracepoint is reached, in order to determine whether to capture
637 trace data. If the condition is simple and false, processing the
638 tracepoint finishes very quickly and no data is gathered.
639
640 GDBserver interfaces with the UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer) library
641 for static tracepoints support.
642
643 - GDBserver now supports x86_64 Windows 64-bit debugging.
644
645 * GDB now sends xmlRegisters= in qSupported packet to indicate that
646 it understands register description.
647
648 * The --batch flag now disables pagination and queries.
649
650 * X86 general purpose registers
651
652 GDB now supports reading/writing byte, word and double-word x86
653 general purpose registers directly. This means you can use, say,
654 $ah or $ax to refer, respectively, to the byte register AH and
655 16-bit word register AX that are actually portions of the 32-bit
656 register EAX or 64-bit register RAX.
657
658 * The `commands' command now accepts a range of breakpoints to modify.
659 A plain `commands' following a command that creates multiple
660 breakpoints affects all the breakpoints set by that command. This
661 applies to breakpoints set by `rbreak', and also applies when a
662 single `break' command creates multiple breakpoints (e.g.,
663 breakpoints on overloaded c++ functions).
664
665 * The `rbreak' command now accepts a filename specification as part of
666 its argument, limiting the functions selected by the regex to those
667 in the specified file.
668
669 * Support for remote debugging Windows and SymbianOS shared libraries
670 from Unix hosts has been improved. Non Windows GDB builds now can
671 understand target reported file names that follow MS-DOS based file
672 system semantics, such as file names that include drive letters and
673 use the backslash character as directory separator. This makes it
674 possible to transparently use the "set sysroot" and "set
675 solib-search-path" on Unix hosts to point as host copies of the
676 target's shared libraries. See the new command "set
677 target-file-system-kind" described below, and the "Commands to
678 specify files" section in the user manual for more information.
679
680 * New commands
681
682 eval template, expressions...
683 Convert the values of one or more expressions under the control
684 of the string template to a command line, and call it.
685
686 set target-file-system-kind unix|dos-based|auto
687 show target-file-system-kind
688 Set or show the assumed file system kind for target reported file
689 names.
690
691 save breakpoints <filename>
692 Save all current breakpoint definitions to a file suitable for use
693 in a later debugging session. To read the saved breakpoint
694 definitions, use the `source' command.
695
696 `save tracepoints' is a new alias for `save-tracepoints'. The latter
697 is now deprecated.
698
699 info static-tracepoint-markers
700 Display information about static tracepoint markers in the target.
701
702 strace FN | FILE:LINE | *ADDR | -m MARKER_ID
703 Define a static tracepoint by probing a marker at the given
704 function, line, address, or marker ID.
705
706 set observer on|off
707 show observer
708 Enable and disable observer mode.
709
710 set may-write-registers on|off
711 set may-write-memory on|off
712 set may-insert-breakpoints on|off
713 set may-insert-tracepoints on|off
714 set may-insert-fast-tracepoints on|off
715 set may-interrupt on|off
716 Set individual permissions for GDB effects on the target. Note that
717 some of these settings can have undesirable or surprising
718 consequences, particularly when changed in the middle of a session.
719 For instance, disabling the writing of memory can prevent
720 breakpoints from being inserted, cause single-stepping to fail, or
721 even crash your program, if you disable after breakpoints have been
722 inserted. However, GDB should not crash.
723
724 set record memory-query on|off
725 show record memory-query
726 Control whether to stop the inferior if memory changes caused
727 by an instruction cannot be recorded.
728
729 * Changed commands
730
731 disassemble
732 The disassemble command now supports "start,+length" form of two arguments.
733
734 * Python scripting
735
736 ** GDB now provides a new directory location, called the python directory,
737 where Python scripts written for GDB can be installed. The location
738 of that directory is <data-directory>/python, where <data-directory>
739 is the GDB data directory. For more details, see section `Scripting
740 GDB using Python' in the manual.
741
742 ** The GDB Python API now has access to breakpoints, symbols, symbol
743 tables, program spaces, inferiors, threads and frame's code blocks.
744 Additionally, GDB Parameters can now be created from the API, and
745 manipulated via set/show in the CLI.
746
747 ** New functions gdb.target_charset, gdb.target_wide_charset,
748 gdb.progspaces, gdb.current_progspace, and gdb.string_to_argv.
749
750 ** New exception gdb.GdbError.
751
752 ** Pretty-printers are now also looked up in the current program space.
753
754 ** Pretty-printers can now be individually enabled and disabled.
755
756 ** GDB now looks for names of Python scripts to auto-load in a
757 special section named `.debug_gdb_scripts', in addition to looking
758 for a OBJFILE-gdb.py script when OBJFILE is read by the debugger.
759
760 * Tracepoint actions were unified with breakpoint commands. In particular,
761 there are no longer differences in "info break" output for breakpoints and
762 tracepoints and the "commands" command can be used for both tracepoints and
763 regular breakpoints.
764
765 * New targets
766
767 ARM Symbian arm*-*-symbianelf*
768
769 * D language support.
770 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the D programming
771 language.
772
773 * GDB now supports the extended ptrace interface for PowerPC which is
774 available since Linux kernel version 2.6.34. This automatically enables
775 any hardware breakpoints and additional hardware watchpoints available in
776 the processor. The old ptrace interface exposes just one hardware
777 watchpoint and no hardware breakpoints.
778
779 * GDB is now able to use the Data Value Compare (DVC) register available on
780 embedded PowerPC processors to implement in hardware simple watchpoint
781 conditions of the form:
782
783 watch ADDRESS|VARIABLE if ADDRESS|VARIABLE == CONSTANT EXPRESSION
784
785 This works in native GDB running on Linux kernels with the extended ptrace
786 interface mentioned above.
787
788 *** Changes in GDB 7.1
789
790 * C++ Improvements
791
792 ** Namespace Support
793
794 GDB now supports importing of namespaces in C++. This enables the
795 user to inspect variables from imported namespaces. Support for
796 namepace aliasing has also been added. So, if a namespace is
797 aliased in the current scope (e.g. namepace C=A; ) the user can
798 print variables using the alias (e.g. (gdb) print C::x).
799
800 ** Bug Fixes
801
802 All known bugs relating to the printing of virtual base class were
803 fixed. It is now possible to call overloaded static methods using a
804 qualified name.
805
806 ** Cast Operators
807
808 The C++ cast operators static_cast<>, dynamic_cast<>, const_cast<>,
809 and reinterpret_cast<> are now handled by the C++ expression parser.
810
811 * New targets
812
813 Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze-*-*
814 Renesas RX rx-*-elf
815
816 * New Simulators
817
818 Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze
819 Renesas RX rx
820
821 * Multi-program debugging.
822
823 GDB now has support for multi-program (a.k.a. multi-executable or
824 multi-exec) debugging. This allows for debugging multiple inferiors
825 simultaneously each running a different program under the same GDB
826 session. See "Debugging Multiple Inferiors and Programs" in the
827 manual for more information. This implied some user visible changes
828 in the multi-inferior support. For example, "info inferiors" now
829 lists inferiors that are not running yet or that have exited
830 already. See also "New commands" and "New options" below.
831
832 * New tracing features
833
834 GDB's tracepoint facility now includes several new features:
835
836 ** Trace state variables
837
838 GDB tracepoints now include support for trace state variables, which
839 are variables managed by the target agent during a tracing
840 experiment. They are useful for tracepoints that trigger each
841 other, so for instance one tracepoint can count hits in a variable,
842 and then a second tracepoint has a condition that is true when the
843 count reaches a particular value. Trace state variables share the
844 $-syntax of GDB convenience variables, and can appear in both
845 tracepoint actions and condition expressions. Use the "tvariable"
846 command to create, and "info tvariables" to view; see "Trace State
847 Variables" in the manual for more detail.
848
849 ** Fast tracepoints
850
851 GDB now includes an option for defining fast tracepoints, which
852 targets may implement more efficiently, such as by installing a jump
853 into the target agent rather than a trap instruction. The resulting
854 speedup can be by two orders of magnitude or more, although the
855 tradeoff is that some program locations on some target architectures
856 might not allow fast tracepoint installation, for instance if the
857 instruction to be replaced is shorter than the jump. To request a
858 fast tracepoint, use the "ftrace" command, with syntax identical to
859 the regular trace command.
860
861 ** Disconnected tracing
862
863 It is now possible to detach GDB from the target while it is running
864 a trace experiment, then reconnect later to see how the experiment
865 is going. In addition, a new variable disconnected-tracing lets you
866 tell the target agent whether to continue running a trace if the
867 connection is lost unexpectedly.
868
869 ** Trace files
870
871 GDB now has the ability to save the trace buffer into a file, and
872 then use that file as a target, similarly to you can do with
873 corefiles. You can select trace frames, print data that was
874 collected in them, and use tstatus to display the state of the
875 tracing run at the moment that it was saved. To create a trace
876 file, use "tsave <filename>", and to use it, do "target tfile
877 <name>".
878
879 ** Circular trace buffer
880
881 You can ask the target agent to handle the trace buffer as a
882 circular buffer, discarding the oldest trace frames to make room for
883 newer ones, by setting circular-trace-buffer to on. This feature may
884 not be available for all target agents.
885
886 * Changed commands
887
888 disassemble
889 The disassemble command, when invoked with two arguments, now requires
890 the arguments to be comma-separated.
891
892 info variables
893 The info variables command now displays variable definitions. Files
894 which only declare a variable are not shown.
895
896 source
897 The source command is now capable of sourcing Python scripts.
898 This feature is dependent on the debugger being build with Python
899 support.
900
901 Related to this enhancement is also the introduction of a new command
902 "set script-extension" (see below).
903
904 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
905
906 record save [<FILENAME>]
907 Save a file (in core file format) containing the process record
908 execution log for replay debugging at a later time.
909
910 record restore <FILENAME>
911 Restore the process record execution log that was saved at an
912 earlier time, for replay debugging.
913
914 add-inferior [-copies <N>] [-exec <FILENAME>]
915 Add a new inferior.
916
917 clone-inferior [-copies <N>] [ID]
918 Make a new inferior ready to execute the same program another
919 inferior has loaded.
920
921 remove-inferior ID
922 Remove an inferior.
923
924 maint info program-spaces
925 List the program spaces loaded into GDB.
926
927 set remote interrupt-sequence [Ctrl-C | BREAK | BREAK-g]
928 show remote interrupt-sequence
929 Allow the user to select one of ^C, a BREAK signal or BREAK-g
930 as the sequence to the remote target in order to interrupt the execution.
931 Ctrl-C is a default. Some system prefers BREAK which is high level of
932 serial line for some certain time. Linux kernel prefers BREAK-g, a.k.a
933 Magic SysRq g. It is BREAK signal and character 'g'.
934
935 set remote interrupt-on-connect [on | off]
936 show remote interrupt-on-connect
937 When interrupt-on-connect is ON, gdb sends interrupt-sequence to
938 remote target when gdb connects to it. This is needed when you debug
939 Linux kernel.
940
941 set remotebreak [on | off]
942 show remotebreak
943 Deprecated. Use "set/show remote interrupt-sequence" instead.
944
945 tvariable $NAME [ = EXP ]
946 Create or modify a trace state variable.
947
948 info tvariables
949 List trace state variables and their values.
950
951 delete tvariable $NAME ...
952 Delete one or more trace state variables.
953
954 teval EXPR, ...
955 Evaluate the given expressions without collecting anything into the
956 trace buffer. (Valid in tracepoint actions only.)
957
958 ftrace FN / FILE:LINE / *ADDR
959 Define a fast tracepoint at the given function, line, or address.
960
961 * New expression syntax
962
963 GDB now parses the 0b prefix of binary numbers the same way as GCC does.
964 GDB now parses 0b101010 identically with 42.
965
966 * New options
967
968 set follow-exec-mode new|same
969 show follow-exec-mode
970 Control whether GDB reuses the same inferior across an exec call or
971 creates a new one. This is useful to be able to restart the old
972 executable after the inferior having done an exec call.
973
974 set default-collect EXPR, ...
975 show default-collect
976 Define a list of expressions to be collected at each tracepoint.
977 This is a useful way to ensure essential items are not overlooked,
978 such as registers or a critical global variable.
979
980 set disconnected-tracing
981 show disconnected-tracing
982 If set to 1, the target is instructed to continue tracing if it
983 loses its connection to GDB. If 0, the target is to stop tracing
984 upon disconnection.
985
986 set circular-trace-buffer
987 show circular-trace-buffer
988 If set to on, the target is instructed to use a circular trace buffer
989 and discard the oldest trace frames instead of stopping the trace due
990 to a full trace buffer. If set to off, the trace stops when the buffer
991 fills up. Some targets may not support this.
992
993 set script-extension off|soft|strict
994 show script-extension
995 If set to "off", the debugger does not perform any script language
996 recognition, and all sourced files are assumed to be GDB scripts.
997 If set to "soft" (the default), files are sourced according to
998 filename extension, falling back to GDB scripts if the first
999 evaluation failed.
1000 If set to "strict", files are sourced according to filename extension.
1001
1002 set ada trust-PAD-over-XVS on|off
1003 show ada trust-PAD-over-XVS
1004 If off, activate a workaround against a bug in the debugging information
1005 generated by the compiler for PAD types (see gcc/exp_dbug.ads in
1006 the GCC sources for more information about the GNAT encoding and
1007 PAD types in particular). It is always safe to set this option to
1008 off, but this introduces a slight performance penalty. The default
1009 is on.
1010
1011 * Python API Improvements
1012
1013 ** GDB provides the new class gdb.LazyString. This is useful in
1014 some pretty-printing cases. The new method gdb.Value.lazy_string
1015 provides a simple way to create objects of this type.
1016
1017 ** The fields returned by gdb.Type.fields now have an
1018 `is_base_class' attribute.
1019
1020 ** The new method gdb.Type.range returns the range of an array type.
1021
1022 ** The new method gdb.parse_and_eval can be used to parse and
1023 evaluate an expression.
1024
1025 * New remote packets
1026
1027 QTDV
1028 Define a trace state variable.
1029
1030 qTV
1031 Get the current value of a trace state variable.
1032
1033 QTDisconnected
1034 Set desired tracing behavior upon disconnection.
1035
1036 QTBuffer:circular
1037 Set the trace buffer to be linear or circular.
1038
1039 qTfP, qTsP
1040 Get data about the tracepoints currently in use.
1041
1042 * Bug fixes
1043
1044 Process record now works correctly with hardware watchpoints.
1045
1046 Multiple bug fixes have been made to the mips-irix port, making it
1047 much more reliable. In particular:
1048 - Debugging threaded applications is now possible again. Previously,
1049 GDB would hang while starting the program, or while waiting for
1050 the program to stop at a breakpoint.
1051 - Attaching to a running process no longer hangs.
1052 - An error occurring while loading a core file has been fixed.
1053 - Changing the value of the PC register now works again. This fixes
1054 problems observed when using the "jump" command, or when calling
1055 a function from GDB, or even when assigning a new value to $pc.
1056 - With the "finish" and "return" commands, the return value for functions
1057 returning a small array is now correctly printed.
1058 - It is now possible to break on shared library code which gets executed
1059 during a shared library init phase (code executed while executing
1060 their .init section). Previously, the breakpoint would have no effect.
1061 - GDB is now able to backtrace through the signal handler for
1062 non-threaded programs.
1063
1064 PIE (Position Independent Executable) programs debugging is now supported.
1065 This includes debugging execution of PIC (Position Independent Code) shared
1066 libraries although for that, it should be possible to run such libraries as an
1067 executable program.
1068
1069 *** Changes in GDB 7.0
1070
1071 * GDB now has an interface for JIT compilation. Applications that
1072 dynamically generate code can create symbol files in memory and register
1073 them with GDB. For users, the feature should work transparently, and
1074 for JIT developers, the interface is documented in the GDB manual in the
1075 "JIT Compilation Interface" chapter.
1076
1077 * Tracepoints may now be conditional. The syntax is as for
1078 breakpoints; either an "if" clause appended to the "trace" command,
1079 or the "condition" command is available. GDB sends the condition to
1080 the target for evaluation using the same bytecode format as is used
1081 for tracepoint actions.
1082
1083 * The disassemble command now supports: an optional /r modifier, print the
1084 raw instructions in hex as well as in symbolic form, and an optional /m
1085 modifier to print mixed source+assembly.
1086
1087 * Process record and replay
1088
1089 In a architecture environment that supports ``process record and
1090 replay'', ``process record and replay'' target can record a log of
1091 the process execution, and replay it with both forward and reverse
1092 execute commands.
1093
1094 * Reverse debugging: GDB now has new commands reverse-continue, reverse-
1095 step, reverse-next, reverse-finish, reverse-stepi, reverse-nexti, and
1096 set execution-direction {forward|reverse}, for targets that support
1097 reverse execution.
1098
1099 * GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on MIPS/Linux systems. This
1100 feature is available with a native GDB running on kernel version
1101 2.6.28 or later.
1102
1103 * GDB now has support for multi-byte and wide character sets on the
1104 target. Strings whose character type is wchar_t, char16_t, or
1105 char32_t are now correctly printed. GDB supports wide- and unicode-
1106 literals in C, that is, L'x', L"string", u'x', u"string", U'x', and
1107 U"string" syntax. And, GDB allows the "%ls" and "%lc" formats in
1108 `printf'. This feature requires iconv to work properly; if your
1109 system does not have a working iconv, GDB can use GNU libiconv. See
1110 the installation instructions for more information.
1111
1112 * GDB now supports automatic retrieval of shared library files from
1113 remote targets. To use this feature, specify a system root that begins
1114 with the `remote:' prefix, either via the `set sysroot' command or via
1115 the `--with-sysroot' configure-time option.
1116
1117 * "info sharedlibrary" now takes an optional regex of libraries to show,
1118 and it now reports if a shared library has no debugging information.
1119
1120 * Commands `set debug-file-directory', `set solib-search-path' and `set args'
1121 now complete on file names.
1122
1123 * When completing in expressions, gdb will attempt to limit
1124 completions to allowable structure or union fields, where appropriate.
1125 For instance, consider:
1126
1127 # struct example { int f1; double f2; };
1128 # struct example variable;
1129 (gdb) p variable.
1130
1131 If the user types TAB at the end of this command line, the available
1132 completions will be "f1" and "f2".
1133
1134 * Inlined functions are now supported. They show up in backtraces, and
1135 the "step", "next", and "finish" commands handle them automatically.
1136
1137 * GDB now supports the token-splicing (##) and stringification (#)
1138 operators when expanding macros. It also supports variable-arity
1139 macros.
1140
1141 * GDB now supports inspecting extra signal information, exported by
1142 the new $_siginfo convenience variable. The feature is currently
1143 implemented on linux ARM, i386 and amd64.
1144
1145 * GDB can now display the VFP floating point registers and NEON vector
1146 registers on ARM targets. Both ARM GNU/Linux native GDB and gdbserver
1147 can provide these registers (requires Linux 2.6.30 or later). Remote
1148 and simulator targets may also provide them.
1149
1150 * New remote packets
1151
1152 qSearch:memory:
1153 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
1154
1155 QStartNoAckMode
1156 Turn off `+'/`-' protocol acknowledgments to permit more efficient
1157 operation over reliable transport links. Use of this packet is
1158 controlled by the `set remote noack-packet' command.
1159
1160 vKill
1161 Kill the process with the specified process ID. Use this in preference
1162 to `k' when multiprocess protocol extensions are supported.
1163
1164 qXfer:osdata:read
1165 Obtains additional operating system information
1166
1167 qXfer:siginfo:read
1168 qXfer:siginfo:write
1169 Read or write additional signal information.
1170
1171 * Removed remote protocol undocumented extension
1172
1173 An undocumented extension to the remote protocol's `S' stop reply
1174 packet that permited the stub to pass a process id was removed.
1175 Remote servers should use the `T' stop reply packet instead.
1176
1177 * GDB now supports multiple function calling conventions according to the
1178 DWARF-2 DW_AT_calling_convention function attribute.
1179
1180 * The SH target utilizes the aforementioned change to distinguish between gcc
1181 and Renesas calling convention. It also adds the new CLI commands
1182 `set/show sh calling-convention'.
1183
1184 * GDB can now read compressed debug sections, as produced by GNU gold
1185 with the --compress-debug-sections=zlib flag.
1186
1187 * 64-bit core files are now supported on AIX.
1188
1189 * Thread switching is now supported on Tru64.
1190
1191 * Watchpoints can now be set on unreadable memory locations, e.g. addresses
1192 which will be allocated using malloc later in program execution.
1193
1194 * The qXfer:libraries:read remote procotol packet now allows passing a
1195 list of section offsets.
1196
1197 * On GNU/Linux, GDB can now attach to stopped processes. Several race
1198 conditions handling signals delivered during attach or thread creation
1199 have also been fixed.
1200
1201 * GDB now supports the use of DWARF boolean types for Ada's type Boolean.
1202 From the user's standpoint, all unqualified instances of True and False
1203 are treated as the standard definitions, regardless of context.
1204
1205 * GDB now parses C++ symbol and type names more flexibly. For
1206 example, given:
1207
1208 template<typename T> class C { };
1209 C<char const *> c;
1210
1211 GDB will now correctly handle all of:
1212
1213 ptype C<char const *>
1214 ptype C<char const*>
1215 ptype C<const char *>
1216 ptype C<const char*>
1217
1218 * New features in the GDB remote stub, gdbserver
1219
1220 - The "--wrapper" command-line argument tells gdbserver to use a
1221 wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
1222
1223 - On PowerPC and S/390 targets, it is now possible to use a single
1224 gdbserver executable to debug both 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
1225 (This requires gdbserver itself to be built as a 64-bit executable.)
1226
1227 - gdbserver uses the new noack protocol mode for TCP connections to
1228 reduce communications latency, if also supported and enabled in GDB.
1229
1230 - Support for the sparc64-linux-gnu target is now included in
1231 gdbserver.
1232
1233 - The amd64-linux build of gdbserver now supports debugging both
1234 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
1235
1236 - The i386-linux, amd64-linux, and i386-win32 builds of gdbserver
1237 now support hardware watchpoints, and will use them automatically
1238 as appropriate.
1239
1240 * Python scripting
1241
1242 GDB now has support for scripting using Python. Whether this is
1243 available is determined at configure time.
1244
1245 New GDB commands can now be written in Python.
1246
1247 * Ada tasking support
1248
1249 Ada tasks can now be inspected in GDB. The following commands have
1250 been introduced:
1251
1252 info tasks
1253 Print the list of Ada tasks.
1254 info task N
1255 Print detailed information about task number N.
1256 task
1257 Print the task number of the current task.
1258 task N
1259 Switch the context of debugging to task number N.
1260
1261 * Support for user-defined prefixed commands. The "define" command can
1262 add new commands to existing prefixes, e.g. "target".
1263
1264 * Multi-inferior, multi-process debugging.
1265
1266 GDB now has generalized support for multi-inferior debugging. See
1267 "Debugging Multiple Inferiors" in the manual for more information.
1268 Although availability still depends on target support, the command
1269 set is more uniform now. The GNU/Linux specific multi-forks support
1270 has been migrated to this new framework. This implied some user
1271 visible changes; see "New commands" and also "Removed commands"
1272 below.
1273
1274 * Target descriptions can now describe the target OS ABI. See the
1275 "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for more
1276 information.
1277
1278 * Target descriptions can now describe "compatible" architectures
1279 to indicate that the target can execute applications for a different
1280 architecture in addition to those for the main target architecture.
1281 See the "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for
1282 more information.
1283
1284 * Multi-architecture debugging.
1285
1286 GDB now includes general supports for debugging applications on
1287 hybrid systems that use more than one single processor architecture
1288 at the same time. Each such hybrid architecture still requires
1289 specific support to be added. The only hybrid architecture supported
1290 in this version of GDB is the Cell Broadband Engine.
1291
1292 * GDB now supports integrated debugging of Cell/B.E. applications that
1293 use both the PPU and SPU architectures. To enable support for hybrid
1294 Cell/B.E. debugging, you need to configure GDB to support both the
1295 powerpc-linux or powerpc64-linux and the spu-elf targets, using the
1296 --enable-targets configure option.
1297
1298 * Non-stop mode debugging.
1299
1300 For some targets, GDB now supports an optional mode of operation in
1301 which you can examine stopped threads while other threads continue
1302 to execute freely. This is referred to as non-stop mode, with the
1303 old mode referred to as all-stop mode. See the "Non-Stop Mode"
1304 section in the user manual for more information.
1305
1306 To be able to support remote non-stop debugging, a remote stub needs
1307 to implement the non-stop mode remote protocol extensions, as
1308 described in the "Remote Non-Stop" section of the user manual. The
1309 GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been adjusted to support these
1310 extensions on linux targets.
1311
1312 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
1313
1314 catch syscall [NAME(S) | NUMBER(S)]
1315 Catch system calls. Arguments, which should be names of system
1316 calls or their numbers, mean catch only those syscalls. Without
1317 arguments, every syscall will be caught. When the inferior issues
1318 any of the specified syscalls, GDB will stop and announce the system
1319 call, both when it is called and when its call returns. This
1320 feature is currently available with a native GDB running on the
1321 Linux Kernel, under the following architectures: x86, x86_64,
1322 PowerPC and PowerPC64.
1323
1324 find [/size-char] [/max-count] start-address, end-address|+search-space-size,
1325 val1 [, val2, ...]
1326 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
1327
1328 maint set python print-stack
1329 maint show python print-stack
1330 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Python script.
1331
1332 python [CODE]
1333 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Python interpreter.
1334
1335 macro define
1336 macro list
1337 macro undef
1338 These allow macros to be defined, undefined, and listed
1339 interactively.
1340
1341 info os processes
1342 Show operating system information about processes.
1343
1344 info inferiors
1345 List the inferiors currently under GDB's control.
1346
1347 inferior NUM
1348 Switch focus to inferior number NUM.
1349
1350 detach inferior NUM
1351 Detach from inferior number NUM.
1352
1353 kill inferior NUM
1354 Kill inferior number NUM.
1355
1356 * New options
1357
1358 set spu stop-on-load
1359 show spu stop-on-load
1360 Control whether to stop for new SPE threads during Cell/B.E. debugging.
1361
1362 set spu auto-flush-cache
1363 show spu auto-flush-cache
1364 Control whether to automatically flush the software-managed cache
1365 during Cell/B.E. debugging.
1366
1367 set sh calling-convention
1368 show sh calling-convention
1369 Control the calling convention used when calling SH target functions.
1370
1371 set debug timestamp
1372 show debug timestamp
1373 Control display of timestamps with GDB debugging output.
1374
1375 set disassemble-next-line
1376 show disassemble-next-line
1377 Control display of disassembled source lines or instructions when
1378 the debuggee stops.
1379
1380 set remote noack-packet
1381 show remote noack-packet
1382 Set/show the use of remote protocol QStartNoAckMode packet. See above
1383 under "New remote packets."
1384
1385 set remote query-attached-packet
1386 show remote query-attached-packet
1387 Control use of remote protocol `qAttached' (query-attached) packet.
1388
1389 set remote read-siginfo-object
1390 show remote read-siginfo-object
1391 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:read' (read-siginfo-object)
1392 packet.
1393
1394 set remote write-siginfo-object
1395 show remote write-siginfo-object
1396 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:write' (write-siginfo-object)
1397 packet.
1398
1399 set remote reverse-continue
1400 show remote reverse-continue
1401 Control use of remote protocol 'bc' (reverse-continue) packet.
1402
1403 set remote reverse-step
1404 show remote reverse-step
1405 Control use of remote protocol 'bs' (reverse-step) packet.
1406
1407 set displaced-stepping
1408 show displaced-stepping
1409 Control displaced stepping mode. Displaced stepping is a way to
1410 single-step over breakpoints without removing them from the debuggee.
1411 Also known as "out-of-line single-stepping".
1412
1413 set debug displaced
1414 show debug displaced
1415 Control display of debugging info for displaced stepping.
1416
1417 maint set internal-error
1418 maint show internal-error
1419 Control what GDB does when an internal error is detected.
1420
1421 maint set internal-warning
1422 maint show internal-warning
1423 Control what GDB does when an internal warning is detected.
1424
1425 set exec-wrapper
1426 show exec-wrapper
1427 unset exec-wrapper
1428 Use a wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
1429
1430 set multiple-symbols (all|ask|cancel)
1431 show multiple-symbols
1432 The value of this variable can be changed to adjust the debugger behavior
1433 when an expression or a breakpoint location contains an ambiguous symbol
1434 name (an overloaded function name, for instance).
1435
1436 set breakpoint always-inserted
1437 show breakpoint always-inserted
1438 Keep breakpoints always inserted in the target, as opposed to inserting
1439 them when resuming the target, and removing them when the target stops.
1440 This option can improve debugger performance on slow remote targets.
1441
1442 set arm fallback-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
1443 show arm fallback-mode
1444 set arm force-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
1445 show arm force-mode
1446 These commands control how ARM GDB determines whether instructions
1447 are ARM or Thumb. The default for both settings is auto, which uses
1448 the current CPSR value for instructions without symbols; previous
1449 versions of GDB behaved as if "set arm fallback-mode arm".
1450
1451 set disable-randomization
1452 show disable-randomization
1453 Standalone programs run with the virtual address space randomization enabled
1454 by default on some platforms. This option keeps the addresses stable across
1455 multiple debugging sessions.
1456
1457 set non-stop
1458 show non-stop
1459 Control whether other threads are stopped or not when some thread hits
1460 a breakpoint.
1461
1462 set target-async
1463 show target-async
1464 Requests that asynchronous execution is enabled in the target, if available.
1465 In this case, it's possible to resume target in the background, and interact
1466 with GDB while the target is running. "show target-async" displays the
1467 current state of asynchronous execution of the target.
1468
1469 set target-wide-charset
1470 show target-wide-charset
1471 The target-wide-charset is the name of the character set that GDB
1472 uses when printing characters whose type is wchar_t.
1473
1474 set tcp auto-retry (on|off)
1475 show tcp auto-retry
1476 set tcp connect-timeout
1477 show tcp connect-timeout
1478 These commands allow GDB to retry failed TCP connections to a remote stub
1479 with a specified timeout period; this is useful if the stub is launched
1480 in parallel with GDB but may not be ready to accept connections immediately.
1481
1482 set libthread-db-search-path
1483 show libthread-db-search-path
1484 Control list of directories which GDB will search for appropriate
1485 libthread_db.
1486
1487 set schedule-multiple (on|off)
1488 show schedule-multiple
1489 Allow GDB to resume all threads of all processes or only threads of
1490 the current process.
1491
1492 set stack-cache
1493 show stack-cache
1494 Use more aggressive caching for accesses to the stack. This improves
1495 performance of remote debugging (particularly backtraces) without
1496 affecting correctness.
1497
1498 set interactive-mode (on|off|auto)
1499 show interactive-mode
1500 Control whether GDB runs in interactive mode (on) or not (off).
1501 When in interactive mode, GDB waits for the user to answer all
1502 queries. Otherwise, GDB does not wait and assumes the default
1503 answer. When set to auto (the default), GDB determines which
1504 mode to use based on the stdin settings.
1505
1506 * Removed commands
1507
1508 info forks
1509 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `info
1510 inferiors' command. To list checkpoints, you can still use the
1511 `info checkpoints' command, which was an alias for the `info forks'
1512 command.
1513
1514 fork NUM
1515 Replaced by the new `inferior' command. To switch between
1516 checkpoints, you can still use the `restart' command, which was an
1517 alias for the `fork' command.
1518
1519 process PID
1520 This is removed, since some targets don't have a notion of
1521 processes. To switch between processes, you can still use the
1522 `inferior' command using GDB's own inferior number.
1523
1524 delete fork NUM
1525 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `kill
1526 inferior' command. To delete a checkpoint, you can still use the
1527 `delete checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `delete
1528 fork' command.
1529
1530 detach fork NUM
1531 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `detach
1532 inferior' command. To detach a checkpoint, you can still use the
1533 `detach checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `detach
1534 fork' command.
1535
1536 * New native configurations
1537
1538 x86/x86_64 Darwin i[34567]86-*-darwin*
1539
1540 x86_64 MinGW x86_64-*-mingw*
1541
1542 * New targets
1543
1544 Lattice Mico32 lm32-*
1545 x86 DICOS i[34567]86-*-dicos*
1546 x86_64 DICOS x86_64-*-dicos*
1547 S+core 3 score-*-*
1548
1549 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports x86 Windows CE
1550 (mingw32ce) debugging.
1551
1552 * Removed commands
1553
1554 catch load
1555 catch unload
1556 These commands were actually not implemented on any target.
1557
1558 *** Changes in GDB 6.8
1559
1560 * New native configurations
1561
1562 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*netbsd*
1563 Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
1564
1565 * New targets
1566
1567 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*-netbsd*
1568 Xtensa GNU/Lunux xtensa*-*-linux*
1569
1570 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
1571
1572 When the '-p NUMBER' or '--pid NUMBER' options are used, and
1573 attaching to process NUMBER fails, GDB no longer attempts to open a
1574 core file named NUMBER. Attaching to a program using the -c option
1575 is no longer supported. Instead, use the '-p' or '--pid' options.
1576
1577 * GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
1578 (mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
1579
1580 * Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
1581 is resolved.
1582
1583 * GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
1584 including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
1585 and in inlined functions.
1586
1587 * GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
1588 accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
1589 more than one contiguous range of addresses.
1590
1591 * Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
1592
1593 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
1594 registers on PowerPC targets.
1595
1596 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
1597 targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
1598
1599 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
1600 commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
1601
1602 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports run and attach in
1603 extended-remote mode.
1604
1605 * hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
1606 The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
1607 error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
1608 The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
1609
1610 * GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
1611 building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
1612 target architectures.
1613
1614 * GDB now supports debugging C and C++ programs which use the
1615 Decimal Floating Point extension. In addition, the PowerPC target
1616 now has a set of pseudo-registers to inspect decimal float values
1617 stored in two consecutive float registers.
1618
1619 * The -break-insert MI command can optionally create pending
1620 breakpoints now.
1621
1622 * Improved support for debugging Ada
1623 Many improvements to the Ada language support have been made. These
1624 include:
1625 - Better support for Ada2005 interface types
1626 - Improved handling of arrays and slices in general
1627 - Better support for Taft-amendment types
1628 - The '{type} ADDRESS' expression is now allowed on the left hand-side
1629 of an assignment
1630 - Improved command completion in Ada
1631 - Several bug fixes
1632
1633 * GDB on GNU/Linux and HP/UX can now debug through "exec" of a new
1634 process.
1635
1636 * New commands
1637
1638 set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
1639 show print frame-arguments
1640 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
1641 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
1642
1643 remote put
1644 remote get
1645 remote delete
1646 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
1647
1648 * New MI commands
1649
1650 -target-file-put
1651 -target-file-get
1652 -target-file-delete
1653 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
1654
1655 * New remote packets
1656
1657 vFile:open:
1658 vFile:close:
1659 vFile:pread:
1660 vFile:pwrite:
1661 vFile:unlink:
1662 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
1663
1664 vAttach
1665 Attach to an existing process on the remote system, in extended-remote
1666 mode.
1667
1668 vRun
1669 Run a new process on the remote system, in extended-remote mode.
1670
1671 *** Changes in GDB 6.7
1672
1673 * Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
1674 bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
1675 Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
1676
1677 * When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
1678 symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
1679 -Bsymbolic linker option.
1680
1681 * When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
1682 recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
1683 is not supported.
1684
1685 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
1686 frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
1687
1688 * GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
1689 32-bit or 64-bit register values.
1690
1691 * Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
1692
1693 * GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
1694 target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
1695 a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
1696
1697 * Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
1698 automatically displayed as character or string data.
1699
1700 * The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
1701 arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
1702 as strings.
1703
1704 * Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
1705 for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
1706 only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
1707
1708 * GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
1709 iWMMXt coprocessor.
1710
1711 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
1712 ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
1713 has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
1714
1715 * GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
1716
1717 * GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
1718
1719 * The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
1720 layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
1721 segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
1722
1723 * The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
1724 immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
1725
1726 * The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
1727 "library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
1728 packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
1729 where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
1730 Windows and SymbianOS).
1731
1732 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
1733 (DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
1734
1735 * GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
1736 according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
1737
1738 * New commands
1739
1740 set remoteflow
1741 show remoteflow
1742 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
1743 when debugging using remote targets.
1744
1745 set mem inaccessible-by-default
1746 show mem inaccessible-by-default
1747 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
1748 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
1749 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
1750 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
1751 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
1752
1753 set breakpoint auto-hw
1754 show breakpoint auto-hw
1755 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
1756 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
1757 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
1758 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
1759 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
1760 including "next" and "finish".
1761
1762 catch exception
1763 catch exception unhandled
1764 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
1765
1766 catch assert
1767 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
1768
1769 set sysroot
1770 show sysroot
1771 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
1772 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
1773 an alias to "set sysroot".
1774
1775 info spu
1776 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
1777 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
1778 architecture.
1779
1780 * New native configurations
1781
1782 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
1783
1784 set tdesc filename
1785 unset tdesc filename
1786 show tdesc filename
1787 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
1788 not query the target for its built-in description.
1789
1790 * New targets
1791
1792 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
1793 MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
1794 Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
1795
1796 * New remote packets
1797
1798 QPassSignals:
1799 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
1800 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
1801
1802 qXfer:features:read:
1803 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
1804 features.
1805
1806 qXfer:spu:read:
1807 qXfer:spu:write:
1808 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
1809 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
1810
1811 qXfer:libraries:read:
1812 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
1813 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
1814 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
1815 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
1816
1817 * Removed targets
1818
1819 Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
1820
1821 alpha*-*-osf1*
1822 alpha*-*-osf2*
1823 d10v-*-*
1824 hppa*-*-hiux*
1825 i[34567]86-ncr-*
1826 i[34567]86-*-dgux*
1827 i[34567]86-*-lynxos*
1828 i[34567]86-*-netware*
1829 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
1830 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
1831 i[34567]86-*-sco*
1832 i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
1833 i[34567]86-*-sysv4*
1834 i[34567]86-*-sysv5*
1835 i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
1836 i[34567]86-*-unixware*
1837 i[34567]86-*-sysv*
1838 i[34567]86-*-isc*
1839 m68*-cisco*-*
1840 m68*-tandem-*
1841 mips*-*-pe
1842 rs6000-*-lynxos*
1843 sh*-*-pe
1844
1845 * Other removed features
1846
1847 target abug
1848 target cpu32bug
1849 target est
1850 target rom68k
1851
1852 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
1853
1854 target hms
1855 target e7000
1856 target sh3
1857 target sh3e
1858
1859 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
1860 H8/300.
1861
1862 target ocd
1863
1864 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
1865 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
1866 interfaces.
1867
1868 DWARF 1 support
1869
1870 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
1871 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
1872
1873 Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
1874
1875 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
1876 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
1877 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
1878 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
1879
1880 MIPS ".pdr" sections
1881
1882 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
1883 in debugging information.
1884
1885 Scheme support
1886
1887 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
1888 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
1889
1890 set mips stack-arg-size
1891 set mips saved-gpreg-size
1892
1893 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
1894
1895 *** Changes in GDB 6.6
1896
1897 * New targets
1898
1899 Xtensa xtensa-elf
1900 Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
1901
1902 * GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
1903 (mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
1904 running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
1905
1906 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
1907 Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
1908 supported.
1909
1910 * The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
1911 broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
1912
1913 * The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
1914 stub provides the required support.
1915
1916 * Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
1917 longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
1918
1919 * New commands
1920
1921 set substitute-path
1922 unset substitute-path
1923 show substitute-path
1924 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
1925 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
1926 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
1927 between compilation and debugging.
1928
1929 set trace-commands
1930 show trace-commands
1931 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
1932 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
1933 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
1934
1935 * REMOVED features
1936
1937 The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
1938
1939 Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
1940 an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
1941
1942 The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
1943
1944 * New remote packets
1945
1946 qSupported:
1947 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
1948 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
1949 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
1950 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
1951 target.
1952
1953 qXfer:auxv:read:
1954 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
1955 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
1956
1957 qXfer:memory-map:read:
1958 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
1959 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
1960
1961 vFlashErase:
1962 vFlashWrite:
1963 vFlashDone:
1964 Erase and program a flash memory device.
1965
1966 * Removed remote packets
1967
1968 qPart:auxv:read:
1969 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
1970 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
1971
1972 *** Changes in GDB 6.5
1973
1974 * New targets
1975
1976 Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
1977
1978 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
1979
1980 * New commands
1981
1982 init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
1983 only if it doesn't already have a value.
1984
1985 The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
1986
1987 checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
1988
1989 restart <n> Return the program state to a
1990 previously saved state.
1991
1992 info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
1993
1994 delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
1995
1996 set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
1997 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
1998
1999 info forks List forks of the user program that
2000 are available to be debugged.
2001
2002 fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
2003 forks of the user program that are
2004 available to be debugged.
2005
2006 delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
2007 that are available to be debugged (and
2008 kill the forked process).
2009
2010 detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
2011 that are available to be debugged (and
2012 allow the process to continue).
2013
2014 * New architecture
2015
2016 Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
2017
2018 * Improved Windows host support
2019
2020 GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
2021 native console support, and remote communications using either
2022 network sockets or serial ports.
2023
2024 * Improved Modula-2 language support
2025
2026 GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
2027 basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
2028 pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
2029 printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
2030 written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
2031 GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
2032
2033 * REMOVED features
2034
2035 The ARM rdi-share module.
2036
2037 The Netware NLM debug server.
2038
2039 *** Changes in GDB 6.4
2040
2041 * New native configurations
2042
2043 OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
2044 OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
2045
2046 * New targets
2047
2048 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
2049
2050 * New command line options
2051
2052 --batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
2053 --return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
2054 the child (debugged) program exited with.
2055 --eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
2056 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
2057 specified multiple times and in conjunction
2058 with the --command (-x) option.
2059
2060 * Deprecated commands removed
2061
2062 The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
2063 removed:
2064
2065 Command Replacement
2066 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
2067 othernames set arm disassembler
2068 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
2069 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
2070 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
2071 regs info registers
2072
2073 * New BSD user-level threads support
2074
2075 It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
2076 library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
2077 configurations are:
2078
2079 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
2080 FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
2081 OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
2082
2083 Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
2084 are not yet supported.
2085
2086 * New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
2087 (Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
2088
2089 * REMOVED configurations and files
2090
2091 VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
2092 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
2093 National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
2094
2095 * New "set print array-indexes" command
2096
2097 After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
2098 when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
2099 behavior.
2100
2101 * VAX floating point support
2102
2103 GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
2104
2105 * User-defined command support
2106
2107 In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
2108 to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
2109 section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
2110
2111 *** Changes in GDB 6.3:
2112
2113 * New command line option
2114
2115 GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
2116 debugging.
2117
2118 * GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
2119
2120 GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
2121 information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
2122 by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
2123 proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
2124 to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
2125
2126 * Internationalization
2127
2128 When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
2129 internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
2130 continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
2131
2132 * Ada
2133
2134 Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
2135 implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
2136 into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
2137
2138 * New native configurations
2139
2140 GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
2141
2142 * Remote 'p' packet
2143
2144 GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
2145 packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
2146
2147 * END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
2148
2149 GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
2150 The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
2151 features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
2152 i386 application).
2153
2154 GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
2155 compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
2156 continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
2157 configurations:
2158
2159 hppa-*-hpux
2160 ia64-*-aix
2161 mips-*-irix*
2162 *-*-lynx
2163 mips-*-linux-gnu
2164 sds protocol
2165 xdr protocol
2166 powerpc bdm protocol
2167
2168 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
2169 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
2170
2171 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
2172
2173 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2174 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2175 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2176 permanently REMOVED.
2177
2178 h8300-*-*
2179 mcore-*-*
2180 mn10300-*-*
2181 ns32k-*-*
2182 sh64-*-*
2183 v850-*-*
2184
2185 *** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
2186
2187 * MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
2188
2189 When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
2190 heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
2191 been fixed.
2192
2193 * MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
2194
2195 When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
2196 fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
2197 IRIX long double values).
2198
2199 * VAX and "next"
2200
2201 A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
2202 command. This problem has been fixed.
2203
2204 *** Changes in GDB 6.2:
2205
2206 * Fix for ``many threads''
2207
2208 On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
2209 rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
2210 error message:
2211
2212 ptrace: No such process.
2213 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
2214
2215 This problem has been fixed.
2216
2217 * "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
2218
2219 Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
2220 GDB to dump core).
2221
2222 * New ``start'' command.
2223
2224 This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
2225
2226 * New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
2227
2228 Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
2229 live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
2230 platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
2231
2232 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
2233 FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
2234 NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
2235 NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
2236 NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
2237 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
2238 OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
2239 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
2240 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
2241
2242 * Signal trampoline code overhauled
2243
2244 Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
2245 These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
2246 of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
2247 call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
2248 signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
2249
2250 Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
2251 features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
2252 include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
2253
2254 * Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
2255
2256 * New native configurations
2257
2258 GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
2259 OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
2260 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
2261 OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
2262 OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
2263 NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
2264 OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
2265
2266 * END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
2267
2268 GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
2269 The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
2270 including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
2271 migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
2272 compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
2273 work, was also included.
2274
2275 GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
2276 module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
2277
2278 h8300-*-*
2279 mcore-*-*
2280 mn10300-*-*
2281 ns32k-*-*
2282 sh64-*-*
2283 v850-*-*
2284 xstormy16-*-*
2285
2286 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
2287 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
2288
2289 * REMOVED configurations and files
2290
2291 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
2292 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
2293 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
2294 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
2295 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
2296 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
2297 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
2298 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
2299 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
2300 sonymips mips-sony-*
2301 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
2302
2303 *** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
2304
2305 * TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
2306
2307 The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
2308 GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
2309 command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
2310 program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
2311 with GDB".
2312
2313 * Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
2314
2315 Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
2316 libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
2317 cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
2318 GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
2319 shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
2320 the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
2321 are created.
2322
2323 Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
2324
2325 * Fixed ISO-C build problems
2326
2327 The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
2328 non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
2329 compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
2330
2331 * Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
2332
2333 Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
2334 wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
2335
2336 * Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
2337
2338 The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
2339 permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
2340 systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
2341
2342 * Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
2343
2344 Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
2345 has been updated to use constant array sizes.
2346
2347 * Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
2348
2349 GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
2350 its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
2351 panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
2352
2353 * Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
2354
2355 When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
2356 by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
2357 not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
2358
2359 *** Changes in GDB 6.1:
2360
2361 * Removed --with-mmalloc
2362
2363 Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
2364 conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
2365
2366 * Changes in AMD64 configurations
2367
2368 The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
2369 the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
2370 and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
2371 you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
2372
2373 * Revised SPARC target
2374
2375 The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
2376 FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
2377 support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
2378 from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
2379 (Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
2380
2381 * New C++ demangler
2382
2383 GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
2384 names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
2385 with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
2386 programs.
2387
2388 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
2389
2390 GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
2391 arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
2392 encountered these.
2393
2394 * C++ nested types and namespaces
2395
2396 GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
2397 improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
2398 is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
2399 Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
2400 namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
2401 "Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
2402 frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
2403 if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
2404 GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
2405
2406 * New native configurations
2407
2408 NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
2409 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
2410 OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
2411 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
2412 OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
2413
2414 * New debugging protocols
2415
2416 M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
2417
2418 * "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
2419
2420 The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
2421 and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
2422 tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
2423
2424 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
2425
2426 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2427 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2428 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2429 permanently REMOVED.
2430
2431 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
2432 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
2433 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
2434 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
2435 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
2436 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
2437 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
2438 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
2439 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
2440 sonymips mips-sony-*
2441 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
2442
2443 * REMOVED configurations and files
2444
2445 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
2446 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
2447 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
2448 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
2449 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
2450 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
2451 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
2452 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
2453 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
2454 386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
2455 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
2456 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
2457 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
2458 SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
2459 SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
2460 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2461 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
2462
2463 *** Changes in GDB 6.0:
2464
2465 * Objective-C
2466
2467 Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
2468 integrated into GDB.
2469
2470 * New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
2471
2472 DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
2473 information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
2474 By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
2475 backtraces.
2476
2477 The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
2478 have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
2479 DWARF 2 CFI support.
2480
2481 * Hosted file I/O.
2482
2483 GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
2484 file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
2485 remote protocol documentation for details.
2486
2487 * All targets using the new architecture framework.
2488
2489 All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
2490 architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
2491 to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
2492 ppc32 on ppc64).
2493
2494 * GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
2495
2496 GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
2497 per-thread variables.
2498
2499 * GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
2500
2501 GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
2502 GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
2503
2504 * Separate debug info.
2505
2506 GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
2507 automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
2508 of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
2509 system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
2510 and optional debug files.
2511
2512 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
2513
2514 DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
2515 describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
2516 debugger.
2517
2518 GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
2519 for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
2520
2521 * Java
2522
2523 A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
2524 Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
2525 considered "useable".
2526
2527 * GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
2528
2529 The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
2530 commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
2531 kernel.
2532
2533 * GDB supports logging output to a file
2534
2535 There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
2536 used to capture GDB's output to a file.
2537
2538 * The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
2539
2540 The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
2541 disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
2542 command.
2543
2544 * d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
2545
2546 The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
2547 registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
2548
2549 * Profiling support
2550
2551 A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
2552 be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
2553 session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
2554 "--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
2555 data, for more informative profiling results.
2556
2557 * Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
2558
2559 The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
2560 option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
2561 "mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
2562
2563 Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
2564 removed.
2565
2566 Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
2567 Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
2568 Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
2569 in a subsequent -var-update.
2570
2571 * New native configurations.
2572
2573 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
2574
2575 * Multi-arched targets.
2576
2577 HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
2578 Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
2579
2580 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
2581
2582 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2583 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2584 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2585 permanently REMOVED.
2586
2587 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
2588 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
2589 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
2590 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
2591 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
2592 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
2593 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
2594 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
2595 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
2596 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
2597 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2598 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
2599
2600 * REMOVED configurations and files
2601
2602 V850EA ISA
2603 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
2604 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
2605 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
2606 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
2607 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
2608 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
2609 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
2610 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
2611 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
2612 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
2613 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
2614 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
2615 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
2616
2617 * MIPS $fp behavior changed
2618
2619 The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
2620 the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
2621 context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
2622 address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
2623 The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
2624
2625 *** Changes in GDB 5.3:
2626
2627 * GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
2628
2629 When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
2630 `/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
2631 in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
2632 library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
2633 shared libs like mad''.
2634
2635 * ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
2636
2637 Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
2638 the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
2639 arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
2640 powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
2641
2642 * GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
2643
2644 GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
2645 and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
2646 they expand.
2647
2648 The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
2649 invocations in expression, and shows the result.
2650
2651 The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
2652 macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
2653
2654 Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
2655 information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
2656 your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
2657 information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
2658
2659 * Multi-arched targets.
2660
2661 DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
2662 DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
2663 NEC V850 v850-*-*
2664 National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
2665 Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
2666 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
2667
2668 * New targets.
2669
2670 Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
2671
2672
2673 * New native configurations
2674
2675 Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
2676 SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
2677 MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
2678 UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
2679
2680 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
2681
2682 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2683 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2684 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2685 permanently REMOVED.
2686
2687 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
2688 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
2689 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
2690 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
2691 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
2692 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
2693 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
2694 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
2695 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
2696 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
2697 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
2698 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
2699 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
2700
2701 * OBSOLETE languages
2702
2703 CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
2704
2705 * REMOVED configurations and files
2706
2707 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
2708 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
2709 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2710 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2711 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2712
2713 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
2714
2715 * New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
2716
2717 This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
2718 commands. The default is 1024.
2719
2720 * Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
2721
2722 Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
2723
2724 * New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
2725
2726 These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
2727 to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
2728 from a file into memory (restore).
2729
2730 * Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
2731
2732 The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
2733 including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
2734 of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
2735
2736 *** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
2737
2738 * New targets.
2739
2740 Atmel AVR avr*-*-*
2741
2742 * Bug fixes
2743
2744 gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
2745 mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
2746 Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
2747
2748 gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
2749 dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
2750 Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
2751
2752 Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
2753 Surprisingly enough, it works now.
2754 By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
2755
2756 i386 hardware watchpoint support:
2757 avoid misses on second run for some targets.
2758 By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
2759
2760 *** Changes in GDB 5.2:
2761
2762 * New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
2763
2764 This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
2765 really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
2766 In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
2767 target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
2768 This can be a significant performance improvement on some
2769 (notably embedded) targets.
2770
2771 * New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
2772
2773 This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
2774 process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
2775 GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
2776 hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
2777
2778 * New command line option
2779
2780 GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
2781
2782 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
2783
2784 There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
2785 command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
2786 a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
2787 be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
2788 open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
2789 issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
2790 a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
2791 it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
2792 GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
2793 is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
2794
2795 * Changes in ARM configurations.
2796
2797 Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
2798 configuration is fully multi-arch.
2799
2800 * New native configurations
2801
2802 ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
2803 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
2804 AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
2805 Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
2806
2807 * New targets
2808
2809 Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
2810
2811 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
2812
2813 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2814 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2815 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2816 permanently REMOVED.
2817
2818 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
2819 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
2820 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2821 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2822 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2823
2824 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
2825
2826 * REMOVED configurations and files
2827
2828 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
2829 WDC 65816 w65-*-*
2830 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
2831 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
2832 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
2833 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
2834 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
2835 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
2836 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
2837 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
2838 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
2839 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
2840 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
2841
2842 * Changes to command line processing
2843
2844 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
2845 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
2846
2847 * Changes to key bindings
2848
2849 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
2850
2851 *** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
2852
2853 Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
2854
2855 Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
2856 corrupted.
2857
2858 Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
2859
2860 Numerous documentation fixes.
2861
2862 Numerous testsuite fixes.
2863
2864 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
2865
2866 * New native configurations
2867
2868 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
2869 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
2870 MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
2871 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
2872 ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
2873 s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
2874
2875 * New targets
2876
2877 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
2878 CRIS cris-axis
2879 UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
2880
2881 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
2882
2883 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
2884 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
2885 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
2886 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
2887 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
2888 WDC 65816 w65-*-*
2889 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
2890 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
2891 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
2892 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
2893 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
2894 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
2895 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
2896 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
2897
2898 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
2899 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
2900
2901 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2902 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2903 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2904 permanently REMOVED.
2905
2906 * REMOVED configurations and files
2907
2908 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
2909 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
2910 Pyramid pyramid-*-*
2911 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
2912 Tahoe tahoe-*-*
2913 ser-ocd.c *-*-*
2914
2915 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
2916
2917 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
2918 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
2919 present.
2920
2921 * Other news:
2922
2923 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
2924
2925 * The MI enabled by default.
2926
2927 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
2928 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
2929 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
2930 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
2931 which is now deprecated.
2932
2933 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
2934
2935 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
2936 main features are supported:
2937
2938 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
2939
2940 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
2941 extension;
2942
2943 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
2944
2945 - a Pascal expression parser.
2946
2947 However, some important features are not yet supported.
2948
2949 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
2950
2951 - there are some problems with boolean types;
2952
2953 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
2954 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
2955
2956 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
2957
2958 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
2959
2960 * Changes in completion.
2961
2962 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
2963 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
2964 users expect at the shell prompt.
2965
2966 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
2967 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
2968 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
2969 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
2970 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
2971 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
2972 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
2973
2974 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
2975
2976 * New platform-independent commands:
2977
2978 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
2979 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
2980 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
2981
2982 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
2983
2984 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
2985 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
2986 many threads as your system allows you to have.
2987
2988 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
2989
2990 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
2991 multi-threaded programs though.
2992
2993 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
2994
2995 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
2996
2997 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
2998 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
2999 supported.)
3000
3001 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
3002
3003 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
3004 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
3005 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
3006 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
3007 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
3008 registers.
3009
3010 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
3011 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
3012 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
3013
3014 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
3015
3016 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
3017 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
3018
3019 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
3020 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
3021 IDT.
3022
3023 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
3024 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
3025 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
3026 a given linear address.
3027
3028 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
3029 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
3030 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
3031
3032 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
3033
3034 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
3035
3036 * Changes in documentation.
3037
3038 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
3039 Documentation License.
3040
3041 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
3042 manual.
3043
3044 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
3045
3046 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
3047 manual.
3048
3049 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
3050 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
3051 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
3052
3053 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
3054
3055 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
3056 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
3057 contents of this file.
3058
3059 * gdba.el deleted
3060
3061 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
3062
3063 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
3064
3065 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
3066
3067 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
3068 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
3069 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
3070 greater level of detail.
3071
3072 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
3073
3074 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
3075 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
3076 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
3077 written.
3078
3079 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
3080
3081 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
3082 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
3083 machines ``out of the box''.
3084
3085 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
3086 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
3087 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
3088 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
3089 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
3090
3091 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
3092 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
3093 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
3094 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
3095 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
3096
3097 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
3098 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
3099 also works.
3100
3101 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
3102 GDB.
3103
3104 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
3105 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
3106 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
3107 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
3108
3109 * New native configurations
3110
3111 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
3112 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
3113
3114 * New targets
3115
3116 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
3117 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
3118 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
3119 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
3120
3121 * OBSOLETE configurations
3122
3123 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
3124 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
3125 Pyramid pyramid-*-*
3126 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
3127 Tahoe tahoe-*-*
3128
3129 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
3130 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
3131 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
3132 be permanently REMOVED.
3133
3134 * Gould support removed
3135
3136 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
3137
3138 * New features for SVR4
3139
3140 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
3141 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
3142 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
3143
3144 * Many C++ enhancements
3145
3146 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
3147 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
3148
3149 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
3150
3151 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
3152 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
3153 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
3154 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
3155
3156 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
3157 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
3158
3159 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
3160
3161 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
3162 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
3163 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
3164
3165 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
3166 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
3167
3168 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
3169
3170 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
3171 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
3172 include ``set remote P-packet''.
3173
3174 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
3175
3176 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
3177 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
3178 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
3179
3180 * ``apropos'' command added.
3181
3182 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
3183 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
3184 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
3185
3186 * New MI interface
3187
3188 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
3189 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
3190 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
3191 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
3192 enabled by configuring with:
3193
3194 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
3195
3196 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
3197
3198 * New native configurations
3199
3200 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
3201 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
3202 M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
3203
3204 * New targets
3205
3206 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
3207 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
3208 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
3209
3210 * OBSOLETE configurations
3211
3212 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
3213
3214 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
3215 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
3216 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
3217 be permanently REMOVED.
3218
3219 * ANSI/ISO C
3220
3221 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
3222 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
3223 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
3224 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
3225 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
3226 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
3227 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
3228 already.
3229
3230 * Readline 2.2
3231
3232 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
3233
3234 * set extension-language
3235
3236 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
3237 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
3238 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
3239 set extension-language .c c++
3240 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
3241 and their associated languages.
3242
3243 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
3244
3245 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
3246 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
3247 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
3248
3249 set processor NAME
3250
3251 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
3252 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
3253
3254 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
3255 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
3256 403 IBM PowerPC 403
3257 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
3258 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
3259 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
3260 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
3261 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
3262 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
3263 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
3264 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
3265
3266 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
3267 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
3268 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
3269 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
3270
3271 * HP-UX support
3272
3273 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
3274 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
3275 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
3276 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
3277 for xdb and dbx commands.
3278
3279 * Catchpoints
3280
3281 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
3282 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
3283 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
3284
3285 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
3286 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
3287 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
3288
3289 * Debugging across forks
3290
3291 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
3292 in the inferior.
3293
3294 * TUI
3295
3296 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
3297 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
3298 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
3299
3300 * GDB remote protocol additions
3301
3302 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
3303 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
3304 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
3305 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
3306
3307 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
3308 full 64-bit address. The command
3309
3310 set remoteaddresssize 32
3311
3312 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
3313 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
3314 will be discarded.
3315
3316 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
3317 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
3318
3319 maint packet heythere
3320
3321 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
3322 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
3323 time.
3324
3325 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
3326 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
3327 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
3328
3329 * Tracing can collect general expressions
3330
3331 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
3332 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
3333 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
3334
3335 * mask-address variable for Mips
3336
3337 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
3338 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
3339 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
3340
3341 * Higher serial baud rates
3342
3343 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
3344 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
3345 to achieve all of these rates.)
3346
3347 * i960 simulator
3348
3349 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
3350 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
3351
3352
3353 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
3354
3355 * New native configurations
3356
3357 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
3358 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
3359 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
3360 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
3361 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
3362 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
3363 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
3364
3365 * New targets
3366
3367 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
3368 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
3369 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
3370 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
3371 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
3372 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
3373 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
3374 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
3375 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
3376 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
3377 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
3378
3379 * New debugging protocols
3380
3381 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
3382 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
3383 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
3384 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
3385 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
3386 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
3387
3388 * DWARF 2
3389
3390 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
3391 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
3392 information.
3393
3394 * Java frontend
3395
3396 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
3397 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
3398
3399 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
3400
3401 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
3402 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
3403 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
3404
3405 * Live range splitting
3406
3407 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
3408 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
3409 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
3410
3411 * Hurd support
3412
3413 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
3414 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
3415
3416 * ARM Thumb support
3417
3418 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
3419 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
3420 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
3421 accordingly.
3422
3423 * MIPS16 support
3424
3425 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
3426 instruction set.
3427
3428 * Overlay support
3429
3430 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
3431 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
3432 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
3433 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
3434 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
3435 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
3436
3437 * info symbol
3438
3439 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
3440 the symbol at the specified address.
3441
3442 * Trace support
3443
3444 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
3445 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
3446 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
3447 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
3448 file tracepoint.c for more details.
3449
3450 * MIPS simulator
3451
3452 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
3453 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
3454 of most MIPS variants.
3455
3456 * Sparc simulator
3457
3458 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
3459 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
3460 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
3461
3462 * set architecture
3463
3464 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
3465 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
3466 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
3467 the possible architectures.
3468
3469 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
3470
3471 * New native configurations
3472
3473 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
3474 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
3475 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
3476 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
3477 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
3478 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
3479
3480 * New targets
3481
3482 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
3483 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
3484 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
3485 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
3486 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
3487 Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
3488 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
3489
3490 * PowerPC simulator
3491
3492 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
3493 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
3494 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
3495 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
3496 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
3497
3498 * Solaris 2.5
3499
3500 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
3501
3502 * Windows 95/NT native
3503
3504 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
3505 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
3506 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
3507 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
3508 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
3509
3510 * dont-repeat command
3511
3512 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
3513 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
3514 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
3515 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
3516
3517 * Send break instead of ^C
3518
3519 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
3520 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
3521 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
3522
3523 * Remote protocol timeout
3524
3525 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
3526 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
3527 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
3528
3529 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
3530
3531 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
3532 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
3533 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
3534 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
3535 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
3536
3537 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
3538 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
3539 automatically on hpux10.
3540
3541 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
3542
3543 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
3544
3545 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
3546
3547 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
3548 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
3549 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
3550 every character. The default value is 1050.
3551
3552 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
3553
3554 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
3555 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
3556 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
3557 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
3558 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
3559 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
3560
3561 * Speedups for remote debugging
3562
3563 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
3564 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
3565 and more efficient S-record downloading.
3566
3567 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
3568
3569 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
3570 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
3571
3572 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
3573
3574 * Psymtabs for XCOFF
3575
3576 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
3577 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
3578
3579 * Remote targets use caching
3580
3581 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
3582 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
3583 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
3584 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
3585 off' turns the the data cache off.
3586
3587 * Remote targets may have threads
3588
3589 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
3590 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
3591 gdb/remote.c for details.
3592
3593 * NetROM support
3594
3595 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
3596 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
3597 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
3598 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
3599 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
3600 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
3601 sequence is something like
3602
3603 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
3604 load <prog>
3605 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
3606
3607 * Macintosh host
3608
3609 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
3610 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
3611 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
3612 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
3613 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
3614 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
3615 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
3616 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
3617
3618 * Autoconf
3619
3620 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
3621 but does simplify configuration and building.
3622
3623 * hpux10
3624
3625 GDB now supports hpux10.
3626
3627 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
3628
3629 * New native configurations
3630
3631 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
3632 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
3633 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
3634 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
3635
3636 * New targets
3637
3638 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
3639 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
3640 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
3641 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
3642 WDC 65816 w65-*-*
3643
3644 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
3645
3646 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
3647 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
3648 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
3649 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
3650 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
3651
3652 * Arguments to user-defined commands
3653
3654 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
3655 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
3656 trivial example:
3657 define adder
3658 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
3659
3660 To execute the command use:
3661 adder 1 2 3
3662
3663 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
3664 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
3665 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
3666
3667 * New `if' and `while' commands
3668
3669 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
3670 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
3671 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
3672 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
3673 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
3674 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
3675 if the expression is zero.
3676
3677 * Fortran source language mode
3678
3679 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
3680 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
3681 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
3682 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
3683 Fortran compilers.
3684
3685 * Better HPUX support
3686
3687 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
3688 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
3689 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
3690 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
3691 that behavior do the following before running the program:
3692
3693 adb -w a.out
3694 __dld_flags?W 0x5
3695 control-d
3696
3697 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
3698 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
3699
3700 adb -w a.out
3701 __dld_flags?W 0x4
3702 control-d
3703
3704 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
3705 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
3706 external linkage.
3707
3708 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
3709 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
3710
3711 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
3712
3713 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
3714 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
3715 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
3716 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
3717 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
3718 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
3719
3720 * New DOS host serial code
3721
3722 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
3723 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
3724 a PC's serial port.
3725
3726 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
3727
3728 * New "complete" command
3729
3730 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
3731 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
3732
3733 * Trailing space optional in prompt
3734
3735 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
3736 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
3737
3738 * Breakpoint hit counts
3739
3740 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
3741 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
3742 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
3743 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
3744 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
3745 that breakpoint.
3746
3747 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
3748
3749 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
3750 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
3751 arrays actually contain only short strings.
3752
3753 * Shared library breakpoints
3754
3755 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
3756 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
3757
3758 * Hardware watchpoints
3759
3760 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
3761 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
3762
3763 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
3764
3765 * Annotations
3766
3767 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
3768 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
3769
3770 * Improved Irix 5 support
3771
3772 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
3773
3774 * Improved HPPA support
3775
3776 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
3777
3778 * New native configurations
3779
3780 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
3781 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
3782 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
3783 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
3784
3785 * New targets
3786
3787 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
3788 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
3789 Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
3790
3791 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
3792
3793 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
3794 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
3795
3796 * Fixes
3797
3798 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
3799 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
3800
3801 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
3802
3803 * Irix 5 is now supported
3804
3805 * HPPA support
3806
3807 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
3808 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
3809 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
3810 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
3811 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
3812
3813
3814 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
3815
3816 * User visible changes:
3817
3818 * Remote Debugging
3819
3820 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
3821 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
3822 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
3823 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
3824 debugging info for the mips target).
3825
3826 * DEC Alpha native support
3827
3828 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
3829 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
3830 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
3831 Alpha-specific notes.
3832
3833 * Preliminary thread implementation
3834
3835 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
3836
3837 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
3838
3839 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
3840 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
3841 for details).
3842
3843 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
3844
3845 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
3846 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
3847 call methods, ...etc.
3848
3849 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
3850
3851 * User visible changes:
3852
3853 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
3854 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
3855 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
3856 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
3857
3858 Filename completion now works.
3859
3860 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
3861 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
3862 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
3863
3864 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
3865 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
3866 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
3867 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
3868 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
3869
3870 * DEC alpha support
3871
3872 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
3873 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
3874
3875
3876 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
3877
3878 * Testsuite
3879
3880 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
3881 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
3882 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
3883
3884 * C++ demangling
3885
3886 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
3887 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
3888 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
3889 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
3890 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
3891
3892 * Simulators
3893
3894 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
3895 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
3896 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
3897
3898 * New targets supported
3899
3900 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
3901 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
3902 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
3903 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
3904 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
3905
3906 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
3907 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
3908 GO32 memory extender.
3909
3910 * New remote protocols
3911
3912 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
3913
3914 * New source languages supported
3915
3916 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
3917 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
3918 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
3919
3920
3921 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
3922
3923 * HP Precision Architecture supported
3924
3925 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
3926 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
3927 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
3928 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
3929 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
3930 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
3931
3932 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
3933
3934 * Faster and better demangling
3935
3936 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
3937 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
3938 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
3939 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
3940 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
3941 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
3942 symbol lookups.
3943
3944 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
3945 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
3946 compiler does not actually implement.
3947
3948 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
3949
3950 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
3951 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
3952 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
3953 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
3954 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
3955 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
3956 fix.
3957
3958 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
3959 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
3960
3961 * Improved configure script
3962
3963 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
3964 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
3965 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
3966 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
3967
3968 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
3969 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
3970 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
3971 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
3972 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
3973 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
3974
3975 * Documentation improvements
3976
3977 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
3978 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
3979 before submitting changes.
3980
3981 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
3982 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
3983 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
3984 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
3985 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
3986
3987 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
3988 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
3989 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
3990 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
3991 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
3992 around this problem.
3993
3994 * New features
3995
3996 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
3997 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
3998 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
3999 the target program.
4000
4001 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
4002 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
4003
4004 * New native hosts supported
4005
4006 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
4007 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
4008
4009 * New targets supported
4010
4011 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
4012
4013 * New file formats supported
4014
4015 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
4016 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
4017
4018 * Major bug fixes
4019
4020 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
4021
4022 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
4023 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
4024
4025 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
4026 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
4027 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
4028
4029 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
4030 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
4031
4032 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
4033 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
4034 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
4035 libraries.
4036
4037 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
4038 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
4039 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
4040 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
4041 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
4042
4043 * Internal improvements
4044
4045 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
4046 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
4047
4048 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
4049 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
4050 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
4051 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
4052 shared code that handles any of them.
4053
4054 * New command line options
4055
4056 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
4057
4058 * Mmalloc licensing
4059
4060 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
4061 General Public License.
4062
4063 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
4064
4065 * Host/native/target split
4066
4067 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
4068 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
4069 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
4070 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
4071 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
4072
4073 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
4074 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
4075 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
4076 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
4077 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
4078 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
4079 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
4080
4081 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
4082 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
4083 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
4084
4085 * New hosts supported
4086
4087 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
4088 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
4089 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
4090
4091 * New targets supported
4092
4093 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
4094 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
4095
4096 * New native hosts supported
4097
4098 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
4099 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
4100 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
4101
4102 * New file formats supported
4103
4104 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
4105 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
4106 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
4107
4108 * New commands
4109
4110 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
4111 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
4112 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
4113
4114 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
4115
4116 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
4117 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
4118 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
4119 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
4120
4121 * C++ improvements
4122
4123 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
4124 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
4125 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
4126
4127 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
4128
4129 * Major bug fixes
4130
4131 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
4132 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
4133 by the compiler.
4134
4135 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
4136 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
4137
4138 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
4139 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
4140 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
4141 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
4142 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
4143 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
4144
4145 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
4146 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
4147 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
4148 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
4149
4150 * AMD 29k support
4151
4152 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
4153 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
4154 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
4155 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
4156 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
4157
4158 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
4159 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
4160 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
4161 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
4162
4163 * Remote interfaces
4164
4165 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
4166 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
4167 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
4168 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
4169 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
4170 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
4171 each instruction being stepped through.
4172
4173 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
4174 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
4175
4176 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
4177 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
4178 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
4179 processor with a serial port.
4180
4181 * Configuration
4182
4183 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
4184 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
4185 supported, and what files each one uses.
4186
4187 * Library changes
4188
4189 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
4190 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
4191 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
4192 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
4193
4194 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
4195 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
4196 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
4197 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
4198
4199 * Documentation
4200
4201 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
4202 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
4203 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
4204 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
4205 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
4206 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
4207
4208 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
4209
4210
4211 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
4212
4213 * Better support for C++ function names
4214
4215 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
4216 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
4217 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
4218 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
4219 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
4220
4221 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
4222 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
4223 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
4224 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
4225 for the list of formats.
4226
4227 * G++ symbol mangling problem
4228
4229 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
4230 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
4231 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
4232 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
4233 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
4234 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
4235 this problem.)
4236
4237 * New 'maintenance' command
4238
4239 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
4240 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
4241 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
4242
4243 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
4244 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
4245 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
4246 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
4247 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
4248 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
4249
4250 The following commands are new:
4251
4252 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
4253 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
4254 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
4255
4256 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
4257
4258 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
4259 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
4260 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
4261 read after argv processing.
4262
4263 * New hosts supported
4264
4265 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
4266
4267 GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
4268
4269 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
4270 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
4271 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
4272 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
4273 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
4274 It costs extra.
4275
4276 * New targets supported
4277
4278 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
4279
4280 * More smarts about finding #include files
4281
4282 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
4283 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
4284 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
4285 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
4286 the one that contains your sources.
4287
4288 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
4289 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
4290 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
4291
4292 * Interesting infernals change
4293
4294 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
4295 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
4296 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
4297 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
4298
4299 * Bug fixes (of course!)
4300
4301 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
4302 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
4303 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
4304
4305 See the ChangeLog for details.
4306
4307 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
4308
4309 * New machines supported (host and target)
4310
4311 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
4312
4313 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
4314
4315 * New malloc package
4316
4317 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
4318 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
4319 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
4320 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
4321 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
4322 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
4323
4324 * info proc
4325
4326 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
4327 'help info proc' for details.
4328
4329 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
4330
4331 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
4332 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
4333 possible.
4334
4335 * File name changes for MS-DOS
4336
4337 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
4338 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
4339 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
4340 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
4341 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
4342 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
4343
4344 * Cross byte order fixes
4345
4346 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
4347 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
4348
4349 * New -mapped and -readnow options
4350
4351 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
4352 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
4353 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
4354 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
4355 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
4356 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
4357 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
4358 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
4359 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
4360 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
4361
4362 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
4363 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
4364 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
4365 slower, but makes future operations faster.
4366
4367 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
4368 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
4369 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
4370 use is:
4371
4372 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
4373
4374 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
4375 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
4376 shared across multiple host platforms.
4377
4378 * longjmp() handling
4379
4380 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
4381 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
4382 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
4383 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
4384
4385 * Solaris 2.0
4386
4387 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
4388 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
4389 reading symbols.
4390
4391 * Bug fixes
4392
4393 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
4394 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
4395 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
4396
4397 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
4398
4399 * New machines supported (host and target)
4400
4401 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
4402 (except core files)
4403 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
4404 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
4405
4406 * New machines supported (target)
4407
4408 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
4409
4410 * C++ support
4411
4412 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
4413 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
4414 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
4415
4416 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
4417 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
4418 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
4419 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
4420 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
4421 released.
4422
4423 * New features for SVR4
4424
4425 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
4426 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
4427 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
4428
4429 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
4430 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
4431 it prints the address mappings of the process.
4432
4433 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
4434 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
4435
4436 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
4437
4438 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
4439 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
4440 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
4441 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
4442 same code linked statically.
4443
4444 * New Getopt
4445
4446 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
4447 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
4448 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
4449 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
4450 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
4451 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
4452
4453 * Bugs fixed
4454
4455 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
4456 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
4457 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
4458
4459
4460 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
4461
4462 * New machines supported (host and target)
4463
4464 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
4465 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
4466 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
4467
4468 * Almost SCO Unix support
4469
4470 We had hoped to support:
4471 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
4472 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
4473 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
4474 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
4475
4476 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
4477
4478 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
4479 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
4480 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
4481 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
4482 reqired (if any).
4483
4484 * New Readline
4485
4486 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
4487 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
4488 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
4489
4490 * Bugs fixed
4491
4492 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
4493 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
4494 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
4495
4496 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
4497
4498 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
4499 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
4500 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
4501
4502 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
4503 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
4504 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
4505 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
4506 version 2.
4507
4508 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
4509 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
4510 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
4511 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
4512 situation somewhat.
4513
4514 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
4515 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
4516 methods.
4517
4518 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
4519 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
4520 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
4521
4522
4523 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
4524
4525 * Improved configuration
4526
4527 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
4528 Porting BFD is simpler.
4529
4530 * Stepping improved
4531
4532 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
4533 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
4534 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
4535 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
4536
4537 * Bug fixing
4538
4539 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
4540
4541 * New host supported (not target)
4542
4543 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
4544
4545
4546 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
4547
4548 * Multiple source language support
4549
4550 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
4551 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
4552 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
4553 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
4554 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
4555 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
4556
4557 * GDB and Modula-2
4558
4559 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
4560 currently under development at the State University of New York at
4561 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
4562 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
4563
4564 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
4565 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
4566 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
4567
4568 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
4569 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
4570
4571 * set write on/off
4572
4573 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
4574 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
4575 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
4576 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
4577 effect immediately.
4578
4579 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
4580
4581 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
4582 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
4583 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
4584 examining core files.
4585
4586 * set listsize
4587
4588 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
4589 The default is 10.
4590
4591 * New machines supported (host and target)
4592
4593 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
4594 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
4595 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
4596
4597 * New hosts supported (not targets)
4598
4599 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
4600
4601 * New targets supported (not hosts)
4602
4603 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
4604 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
4605 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
4606
4607 * New remote interfaces
4608
4609 AMD 29000 Adapt
4610 AMD 29000 Minimon
4611
4612
4613 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
4614
4615 * New Facilities
4616
4617 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
4618
4619 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
4620 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
4621 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
4622 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
4623 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
4624 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
4625 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
4626 stub on the target system.
4627
4628 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
4629
4630 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
4631 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
4632 object file types such as a.out and coff.
4633
4634 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
4635 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
4636
4637
4638 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
4639
4640 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
4641 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
4642
4643 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
4644 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
4645 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
4646
4647 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
4648 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
4649 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
4650 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
4651
4652 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
4653 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
4654 it is already running. Default is ON.
4655
4656 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
4657 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
4658 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
4659 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
4660 Default is ON.
4661
4662 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
4663 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
4664 or the value of the environment variable
4665 GDBHISTFILE.
4666
4667 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
4668 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
4669 HISTSIZE.
4670
4671 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
4672 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
4673 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
4674
4675 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
4676 history expansion will be performed on
4677 command line input. The default is OFF.
4678
4679 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
4680 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
4681 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
4682
4683 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
4684 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
4685 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
4686 variable TERM.
4687
4688 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
4689 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
4690 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
4691 variable TERM.
4692
4693 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
4694 ``set width'' instead.
4695
4696 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
4697 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
4698 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
4699 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
4700
4701 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
4702 is OFF.
4703
4704 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
4705 "raw" form if off.
4706
4707 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
4708 like instructions.
4709
4710 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
4711
4712
4713 * Support for Epoch Environment.
4714
4715 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
4716 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
4717 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
4718 window.
4719
4720
4721 * Support for Shared Libraries
4722
4723 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
4724 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
4725 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
4726 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
4727 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
4728 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
4729 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
4730 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
4731
4732 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
4733 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
4734 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
4735
4736 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
4737
4738
4739 * Watchpoints
4740
4741 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
4742 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
4743 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
4744 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
4745 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
4746 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
4747
4748 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
4749
4750 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
4751
4752 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
4753 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
4754 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
4755
4756
4757 * C++ multiple inheritance
4758
4759 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
4760 for C++ programs.
4761
4762 * C++ exception handling
4763
4764 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
4765 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
4766 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
4767 handler's context).
4768
4769 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
4770 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
4771 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
4772
4773 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
4774 current stack frame.
4775
4776
4777 * Minor command changes
4778
4779 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
4780 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
4781 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
4782
4783 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
4784 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
4785 frames without printing.
4786
4787 * New directory command
4788
4789 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
4790 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
4791 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
4792 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
4793 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
4794
4795 * Configuring GDB for compilation
4796
4797 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
4798 for more details.
4799
4800 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
4801 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
4802 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
4803 where the program that you are debugging will run.
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