(Register and Memory Data): Break sections
[deliverable/binutils-gdb.git] / gdb / NEWS
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1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
3
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4*** Changes since GDB 6.6
5
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6* When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
7recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
8is not supported.
9
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10* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
11frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
12
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13* GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
1432-bit or 64-bit register values.
15
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16* Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
17
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18* GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
19target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
20a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
21
e1f48ead 22* Arrays of explicitly SIGNED or UNSIGNED CHARs are now printed as arrays
f8b73d13 23of numbers.
e1f48ead 24
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25* Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
26for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
f8b73d13 27only ARM and MIPS).
123dc839 28
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29* GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
30iWMMXt coprocessor.
fb1e4ffc 31
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32* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
33ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
34has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
35
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36* GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
37
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38* GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
39
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40* The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
41layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
42segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
43
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44* The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
45immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
46
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47* New commands
48
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49set remoteflow
50show remoteflow
51 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
52 when debugging using remote targets.
53
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54set mem inaccessible-by-default
55show mem inaccessible-by-default
56 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
57 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
58 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
59 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
60 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
61
62set breakpoint auto-hw
63show breakpoint auto-hw
64 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
65 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
66 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
67 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
68 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
69 including "next" and "finish".
70
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71catch exception
72catch exception unhandled
73 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
74
75catch assert
76 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
77
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78set sysroot
79show sysroot
80 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
81 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
82 an alias to "set sysroot".
83
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84info spu
85 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
86 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
87 architecture.
88
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89* New native configurations
90
91OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
92
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93set tdesc filename
94unset tdesc filename
95show tdesc filename
96 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
97 not query the target for its built-in description.
98
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99* New targets
100
54fe9172 101OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
c9bb8148 102MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
c077150c 103Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
c9bb8148 104
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105* New remote packets
106
107QPassSignals:
108 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
109 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
110
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111qXfer:features:read:
112 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
113 features.
6dd09645 114
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115qXfer:spu:read:
116qXfer:spu:write:
117 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
118 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
119
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120* Removed targets
121
122Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
123
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124alpha*-*-osf1*
125alpha*-*-osf2*
7ce59000 126d10v-*-*
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127hppa*-*-hiux*
128i[34567]86-ncr-*
129i[34567]86-*-dgux*
130i[34567]86-*-lynxos*
131i[34567]86-*-netware*
132i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
133i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
134i[34567]86-*-sco*
135i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
136i[34567]86-*-sysv4*
137i[34567]86-*-sysv5*
138i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
139i[34567]86-*-unixware*
140i[34567]86-*-sysv*
141i[34567]86-*-isc*
142m68*-cisco*-*
143m68*-tandem-*
ad527d2e 144mips*-*-pe
483367ee 145rs6000-*-lynxos*
ad527d2e 146sh*-*-pe
483367ee 147
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148* Other removed features
149
150target abug
151target cpu32bug
152target est
153target rom68k
154
155 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
156
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157target hms
158target e7000
159target sh3
160target sh3e
161
162 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
163 H8/300.
164
165target ocd
166
167 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
168 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
169 interfaces.
170
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171DWARF 1 support
172
173 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
174 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
175
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176Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
177
178 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
179 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
180 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
181 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
182
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183MIPS ".pdr" sections
184
185 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
186 in debugging information.
187
188Scheme support
189
190 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
191 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
192
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193set mips stack-arg-size
194set mips saved-gpreg-size
195
196 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
197
6dd09645 198*** Changes in GDB 6.6
e374b601 199
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200* New targets
201
202Xtensa xtensa-elf
9c309e77 203Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
ca3bf3bd 204
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205* GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
206(mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
207running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
208
209* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
210Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
211supported.
212
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213* The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
214broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
215
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216* The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
217stub provides the required support.
218
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219* Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
220longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
221
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222* New commands
223
224set substitute-path
225unset substitute-path
226show substitute-path
227 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
228 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
229 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
230 between compilation and debugging.
231
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232set trace-commands
233show trace-commands
234 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
235 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
236 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
237
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238* REMOVED features
239
240The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
241
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242Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
243an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
244
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245The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
246
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247* New remote packets
248
249qSupported:
250 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
251 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
252 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
253 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
254 target.
255
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256qXfer:auxv:read:
257 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
258 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
259
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260qXfer:memory-map:read:
261 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
262 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
263
264vFlashErase:
265vFlashWrite:
266vFlashDone:
267 Erase and program a flash memory device.
268
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269* Removed remote packets
270
271qPart:auxv:read:
272 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
273 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
274
e374b601 275*** Changes in GDB 6.5
53e5f3cf 276
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277* New targets
278
279Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
280
281Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
282
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283* New commands
284
285init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
286 only if it doesn't already have a value.
287
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288The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
289
290checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
291
292restart <n> Return the program state to a
293 previously saved state.
294
295info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
296
297delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
298
299set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
300 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
301
302info forks List forks of the user program that
303 are available to be debugged.
304
305fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
306 forks of the user program that are
307 available to be debugged.
308
309delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
310 that are available to be debugged (and
311 kill the forked process).
312
313detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
314 that are available to be debugged (and
315 allow the process to continue).
316
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317* New architecture
318
319Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
320
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321* Improved Windows host support
322
323GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
324native console support, and remote communications using either
325network sockets or serial ports.
326
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327* Improved Modula-2 language support
328
329GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
330basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
331pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
332printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
333written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
334GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
335
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336* REMOVED features
337
338The ARM rdi-share module.
339
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340The Netware NLM debug server.
341
53e5f3cf 342*** Changes in GDB 6.4
156a53ca 343
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344* New native configurations
345
02a677ac 346OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
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347OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
348
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349* New targets
350
351Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
352
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353* New command line options
354
355--batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
356--return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
357 the child (debugged) program exited with.
358--eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
359 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
360 specified multiple times and in conjunction
361 with the --command (-x) option.
362
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363* Deprecated commands removed
364
365The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
366removed:
367
368 Command Replacement
369 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
370 othernames set arm disassembler
371 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
372 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
373 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
374 regs info registers
375
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376* New BSD user-level threads support
377
378It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
379library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
380configurations are:
381
382FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
383FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
384OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
385
386Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
387are not yet supported.
388
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389* New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
390(Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
391
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392* REMOVED configurations and files
393
394VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
9445aa30 395Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
9445aa30 396National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
156a53ca 397
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398* New "set print array-indexes" command
399
400After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
401when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
402behavior.
403
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404* VAX floating point support
405
406GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
407
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408* User-defined command support
409
410In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
411to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
412section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
413
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414*** Changes in GDB 6.3:
415
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416* New command line option
417
418GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
419debugging.
420
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421* GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
422
423GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
424information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
425by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
426proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
427to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
860660cb 428
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429* Internationalization
430
431When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
432internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
433continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
434
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435* Ada
436
437Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
438implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
439into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
440
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441* New native configurations
442
443GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
444
445* Remote 'p' packet
446
447GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
448packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
449
450* END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
451
452GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
453The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
454features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
455i386 application).
456
457GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
458compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
459continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
460configurations:
461
462hppa-*-hpux
463ia64-*-aix
464mips-*-irix*
465*-*-lynx
466mips-*-linux-gnu
467sds protocol
468xdr protocol
469powerpc bdm protocol
470
471Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
472made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
473
474* OBSOLETE configurations and files
475
476Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
477been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
478configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
479permanently REMOVED.
480
481h8300-*-*
482mcore-*-*
483mn10300-*-*
484ns32k-*-*
485sh64-*-*
486v850-*-*
487
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488*** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
489
490* MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
491
492When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
493heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
494been fixed.
495
496* MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
497
498When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
499fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
500IRIX long double values).
501
502* VAX and "next"
503
504A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
505command. This problem has been fixed.
506
860660cb 507*** Changes in GDB 6.2:
faae5abe 508
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509* Fix for ``many threads''
510
511On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
512rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
513error message:
514
515 ptrace: No such process.
516 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
517
518This problem has been fixed.
519
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520* "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
521
522Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
523GDB to dump core).
524
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525* New ``start'' command.
526
527This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
528
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529* New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
530
531Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
532live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
533platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
534
535FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
536FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
537NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
538NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
539NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
540OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
541OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
542OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
543OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
544
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545* Signal trampoline code overhauled
546
547Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
548These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
549of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
550call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
551signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
552
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553Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
554features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
555include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
3c0b7db2 556
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557* Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
558
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559* New native configurations
560
97dc871c 561GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
0e56aeaf 562OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
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563OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
564OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
d195bc9f 565OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 566NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
9f076e7a 567OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 568
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569* END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
570
571GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
572The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
573including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
574migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
575compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
576work, was also included.
577
578GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
579module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
580
581h8300-*-*
582mcore-*-*
583mn10300-*-*
584ns32k-*-*
585sh64-*-*
586v850-*-*
587xstormy16-*-*
588
589Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
590made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
591
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592* REMOVED configurations and files
593
594Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
595Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
596Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
597Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
598Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
599AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
600Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
601decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
602riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
603sonymips mips-sony-*
604sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
605
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606*** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
607
608* TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
609
610The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
611GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
612command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
613program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
614with GDB".
615
616* Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
617
618Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
619libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
620cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
621GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
622shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
623the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
624are created.
625
626Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
627
628* Fixed ISO-C build problems
629
630The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
631non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
632compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
633
634* Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
635
636Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
637wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
638
639* Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
640
641The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
642permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
643systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
644
645* Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
646
647Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
648has been updated to use constant array sizes.
649
650* Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
651
652GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
653its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
654panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
655
656* Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
657
658When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
659by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
660not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
661
faae5abe 662*** Changes in GDB 6.1:
f2c06f52 663
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664* Removed --with-mmalloc
665
666Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
667conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
668
3cc87ec0
MK
669* Changes in AMD64 configurations
670
671The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
672the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
673and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
674you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
675
f0424ef6
MK
676* Revised SPARC target
677
678The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
679FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
03cebad2
MK
680support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
681from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
682(Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
f0424ef6 683
59659be2
ILT
684* New C++ demangler
685
686GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
687names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
688with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
689programs.
690
9e08b29b
DJ
691* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
692
693GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
694arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
695encountered these.
696
8dfe8985
DC
697* C++ nested types and namespaces
698
699GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
700improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
701is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
702Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
703namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
704"Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
705frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
706if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
707GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
708
cced5e27
MK
709* New native configurations
710
711NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
27d1e716 712OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
2031c21a 713OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
f2cab569
MK
714OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
715OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
cced5e27 716
b4b4b794
KI
717* New debugging protocols
718
719M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
720
7989c619
AC
721* "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
722
723The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
724and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
725tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
726
5994185b
AC
727* OBSOLETE configurations and files
728
729Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
730been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
731configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
732permanently REMOVED.
733
734Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
735Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
736Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
737Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
738Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
739AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
740Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
0748d941
AC
741decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
742riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
743sonymips mips-sony-*
744sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
5994185b 745
0ddabb4c
AC
746* REMOVED configurations and files
747
748SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
749SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
4a8269c0
AC
750Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
751Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
752H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
753HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
754HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
755HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
756PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
cf7c5c23 757386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
4a8269c0
AC
758Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
759 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
760 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
f0424ef6
MK
761SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
762SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
4a8269c0
AC
763Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
764Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
0ddabb4c 765
c7f1390e
DJ
766*** Changes in GDB 6.0:
767
1fe43d45
AC
768* Objective-C
769
770Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
771integrated into GDB.
772
e6beb428
AC
773* New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
774
775DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
776information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
777By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
778backtraces.
779
780The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
781have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
782DWARF 2 CFI support.
783
784* Hosted file I/O.
785
786GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
787file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
788remote protocol documentation for details.
789
790* All targets using the new architecture framework.
791
792All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
793architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
794to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
795ppc32 on ppc64).
796
797* GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
798
799GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
800per-thread variables.
801
802* GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
803
804GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
805GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
806
807* Separate debug info.
808
809GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
810automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
811of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
812system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
813and optional debug files.
814
815* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
816
817DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
818describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
819debugger.
820
821GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
822for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
823
824* Java
825
826A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
827Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
828considered "useable".
829
85f8f974
DJ
830* GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
831
832The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
833commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
834kernel.
835
0fac0b41
DJ
836* GDB supports logging output to a file
837
838There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
839used to capture GDB's output to a file.
f2c06f52 840
6ad8ae5c
DJ
841* The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
842
843The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
844disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
845command.
846
e286caf2 847* d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
5f601589
AC
848
849The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
850registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
851
d28f9cdf
DJ
852* Profiling support
853
854A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
855be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
856session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
857"--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
858data, for more informative profiling results.
859
da0f9dcd
AC
860* Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
861
862The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
863option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
b68767c1 864"mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
da0f9dcd
AC
865
866Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
867removed.
868
fb9b6b35
JJ
869Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
870Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
871Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
872 in a subsequent -var-update.
873
954a4db8
MK
874* New native configurations.
875
876FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
877
6760f9e6
JB
878* Multi-arched targets.
879
b4263afa 880HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
85a453d5 881Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
6760f9e6 882
1b831c93
AC
883* OBSOLETE configurations and files
884
885Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
886been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
887configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
888permanently REMOVED.
889
8b0e5691 890Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
67f16606 891Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
fd2299bd 892H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
56056df7
AC
893HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
894HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
895HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
78c43945 896PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
2fbce691
AC
897Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
898 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
899 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
f81824a9
AC
900Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
901Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
fd2299bd 902
5835abe7
NC
903* REMOVED configurations and files
904
905V850EA ISA
1b831c93
AC
906Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
907IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
908i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
909i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
910i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
911HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
912 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
913 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
914Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
915Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
916Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
917OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
918I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
5835abe7 919
a094c6fb
AC
920* MIPS $fp behavior changed
921
922The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
923the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
924context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
925address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
926The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
927
299ffc64 928*** Changes in GDB 5.3:
37057839 929
46248966
AC
930* GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
931
932When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
933`/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
934in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
935library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
936shared libs like mad''.
937
b9d14705 938* ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
6da02953 939
b9d14705
DJ
940Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
941the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
942arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
943powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
6da02953 944
e0e9281e
JB
945* GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
946
947GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
948and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
949they expand.
950
dd73b9bb
AC
951The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
952invocations in expression, and shows the result.
953
954The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
955macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
956
e0e9281e
JB
957Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
958information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
959your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
960information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
961
2250ee0c
CV
962* Multi-arched targets.
963
6e3ba3b8
JT
964DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
965DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
2250ee0c 966NEC V850 v850-*-*
6e3ba3b8 967National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
a1789893
GS
968Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
969Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
2250ee0c 970
cd9bfe15 971* New targets.
e33ce519 972
456f8b9d
DB
973Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
974
e33ce519 975
da8ca43d
JT
976* New native configurations
977
978Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
029923d4 979SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
45888261 980MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
9ce5c36a 981UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
da8ca43d 982
cd9bfe15
AC
983* OBSOLETE configurations and files
984
985Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
986been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
987configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
988permanently REMOVED.
989
92eb23c5 990Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
a99a9e1b 991OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1c7cc583 992IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
7a3085c1 993Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
7fb623f7 994Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
eb4c54a2 995Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
d8ee244c
MK
996i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
997i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
998i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
822e978b
AC
999HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
1000 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
1001 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
4d210288 1002I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
92eb23c5 1003
db034ac5
AC
1004* OBSOLETE languages
1005
1006CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
1007
cd9bfe15
AC
1008* REMOVED configurations and files
1009
1010AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
1011A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1012AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1013AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1014AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1015
1016testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
1017
20f01a46
DH
1018* New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
1019
1020This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
1021commands. The default is 1024.
1022
a5941fbf
MK
1023* Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
1024
1025Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
1026
89743e04
MS
1027* New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
1028
1029These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
1030to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
1031from a file into memory (restore).
37057839 1032
9fb14e79
JB
1033* Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
1034
1035The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
1036including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
1037of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
1038
2037aebb
AC
1039*** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
1040
1041* New targets.
1042
1043Atmel AVR avr*-*-*
1044
1045* Bug fixes
1046
1047gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
1048mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
1049Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
1050
1051gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
1052dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
1053Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
1054
1055Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
1056Surprisingly enough, it works now.
1057By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
1058
1059i386 hardware watchpoint support:
1060avoid misses on second run for some targets.
1061By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
1062
37057839 1063*** Changes in GDB 5.2:
eb7cedd9 1064
1a703748
MS
1065* New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
1066
1067This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
1068really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
1069In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
1070target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
1071This can be a significant performance improvement on some
1072(notably embedded) targets.
1073
cefd4ef5
MS
1074* New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
1075
55241689
AC
1076This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
1077process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
1078GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
1079hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
cefd4ef5 1080
352ed7b4
MS
1081* New command line option
1082
1083GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
1084
1085* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
1086
1087There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
1088command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
1089a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
1090be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
1091open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
1092issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
1093a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
1094it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
1095GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
1096is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
1097
fe419ffc
RE
1098* Changes in ARM configurations.
1099
1100Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
1101configuration is fully multi-arch.
1102
eb7cedd9
MK
1103* New native configurations
1104
fe419ffc 1105ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
eb7cedd9 1106x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
55241689 1107AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
768f0842 1108Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
eb7cedd9 1109
c9f63e6b
CV
1110* New targets
1111
1112Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
1113
9b4ff276
AC
1114* OBSOLETE configurations and files
1115
1116Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1117been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1118configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1119permanently REMOVED.
1120
1121AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
1122A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1123AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1124AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1125AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1126
b4ceaee6 1127testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
9b4ff276 1128
e2caac18
AC
1129* REMOVED configurations and files
1130
1131TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
7bc65f05 1132WDC 65816 w65-*-*
7768dd6c
AC
1133PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1134PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1135PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
5e734e1f 1136Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1406caf7
AC
1137Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
1138 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
7e24f0b1 1139SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
9b567150 1140Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
3680c638
AC
1141Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
1142ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
a752853e 1143Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
e2caac18 1144
c2a727fa
TT
1145* Changes to command line processing
1146
1147The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
1148for the inferior from gdb's command line.
1149
467d8519
TT
1150* Changes to key bindings
1151
1152There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
1153
7072a954
AC
1154*** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
1155
1156Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
1157
1158Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
1159corrupted.
1160
1161Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
1162
1163Numerous documentation fixes.
1164
1165Numerous testsuite fixes.
1166
34f47bc4 1167*** Changes in GDB 5.1:
139760b7
MK
1168
1169* New native configurations
1170
1171Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
1172x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
55241689 1173MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
e23194cb
EZ
1174MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
1175ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
55241689 1176s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
139760b7 1177
bf64bfd6
AC
1178* New targets
1179
def90278 1180Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
24be5c34 1181CRIS cris-axis
55241689 1182UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
def90278 1183
17e78a56 1184* OBSOLETE configurations and files
bf64bfd6
AC
1185
1186x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
9b9c068d 1187Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
bb19ff3b
AC
1188Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
1189 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
76f4ea53
AC
1190TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1191WDC 65816 w65-*-*
4a1968f4 1192Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1b2b2c16
AC
1193PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1194PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1195PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
24f89b68 1196SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
514e603d
AC
1197Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
1198ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
d036b4d9 1199Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
bf64bfd6 1200
17e78a56
AC
1201stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
1202kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
1203
7fcca85b
AC
1204Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1205been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1206configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1207permanently REMOVED.
1208
a196c81c 1209* REMOVED configurations and files
7fcca85b
AC
1210
1211Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
1212Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
1213Pyramid pyramid-*-*
1214ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
1215Tahoe tahoe-*-*
a196c81c 1216ser-ocd.c *-*-*
bf64bfd6 1217
6d6b80e5 1218* GDB has been converted to ISO C.
e23194cb 1219
6d6b80e5 1220GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
e23194cb
EZ
1221sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
1222present.
1223
bf64bfd6
AC
1224* Other news:
1225
e23194cb
EZ
1226* "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
1227
1228* The MI enabled by default.
1229
1230The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
1231revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
1232engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
1233using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
1234which is now deprecated.
1235
1236* Support for debugging Pascal programs.
1237
1238GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
1239main features are supported:
1240
1241 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
1242
1243 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
1244 extension;
1245
1246 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
1247
1248 - a Pascal expression parser.
1249
1250However, some important features are not yet supported.
1251
1252 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
1253
1254 - there are some problems with boolean types;
1255
1256 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
1257 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
1258
1259 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
1260
1261 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
1262
1263* Changes in completion.
1264
1265Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
1266to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
1267users expect at the shell prompt.
1268
1269Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
1270`breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
1271program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
1272files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
1273be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
1274considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
1275name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
1276
1277`set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
1278
1279* New platform-independent commands:
1280
1281It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
1282hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
1283documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
1284
1285* Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
1286
d7275149
MK
1287Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
1288revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
1289many threads as your system allows you to have.
1290
e23194cb
EZ
1291Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
1292
d7275149
MK
1293Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
1294multi-threaded programs though.
e23194cb
EZ
1295
1296* Changes in MIPS configurations.
bf64bfd6
AC
1297
1298Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
1299
e23194cb
EZ
1300GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
1301debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
1302supported.)
1303
1304* Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
1305
1306Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
1307breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
1308implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
1309put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
1310and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
1311registers.
1312
1313The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
1314debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
1315watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
1316
1317* Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
1318
1319New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
1320the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
1321
1322New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
1323display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
1324IDT.
1325
1326New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
1327from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
1328New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
1329a given linear address.
1330
1331GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
1332program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
1333which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
1334
1335DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
1336
6c56c069
EZ
1337It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
1338
e23194cb
EZ
1339* Changes in documentation.
1340
1341All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
1342Documentation License.
1343
1344Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1345manual.
1346
1347TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
1348
1349Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1350manual.
1351
1352The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
1353documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
1354hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
1355
5d6640b1
AC
1356* GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
1357
1358The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
1359``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
1360contents of this file.
1361
1a1d8446
AC
1362* gdba.el deleted
1363
1364GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
139760b7 1365
9debab2f 1366*** Changes in GDB 5.0:
7a292a7a 1367
c63ce875
EZ
1368* Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
1369
1370Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
1371programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
1372displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
1373greater level of detail.
1374
1375* Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
1376
1377It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
1378bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
1379on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
1380written.
1381
1382* Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
1383
1384The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
1385necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
1386machines ``out of the box''.
1387
1388The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
1389possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
1390signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
1391would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
1392interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
1393
1394It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
1395standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
1396even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
1397and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
1398terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
1399
1400The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
1401enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
1402also works.
1403
1404DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
1405GDB.
1406
1407It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
1408directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
1409times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
1410breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
1411
ed9a39eb
JM
1412* New native configurations
1413
1414ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
afc05dd4 1415PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
ed9a39eb 1416
7a292a7a
SS
1417* New targets
1418
96baa820 1419Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
adf40b2e
JM
1420x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
1421PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
7a292a7a
SS
1422TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1423
085dd6e6
JM
1424* OBSOLETE configurations
1425
1426Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
1427Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
9846de1b 1428Pyramid pyramid-*-*
ed9a39eb 1429ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
104c1213 1430Tahoe tahoe-*-*
7a292a7a 1431
9debab2f
AC
1432Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1433but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1434these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1435be permanently REMOVED.
1436
5330533d
SS
1437* Gould support removed
1438
1439Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
1440
bc9e5bbf
AC
1441* New features for SVR4
1442
1443On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
1444without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
1445load symbols from the running process's executable file.
1446
1447* Many C++ enhancements
1448
1449C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
1450in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
1451
adf40b2e
JM
1452* Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
1453
1454A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
1455sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
1456with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
1457``|<program> <args>'' vis:
1458
1459 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
1460 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
1461
43e526b9
JM
1462* MIPS 64 remote protocol
1463
1464A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
1465expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
1466instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
1467
1468The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
1469added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
1470
96baa820
JM
1471* ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
1472
1473The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
1474``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
1475include ``set remote P-packet''.
1476
11cf8741
JM
1477* Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
1478
1479The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
1480accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
1481``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
1482
7876dd43
DB
1483* ``apropos'' command added.
1484
1485The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
1486documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
1487try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
1488
bc9e5bbf
AC
1489* New MI interface
1490
1491A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
1492interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
7162c0ca
EZ
1493process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
1494"GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
1495enabled by configuring with:
bc9e5bbf
AC
1496
1497 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
1498
c906108c
SS
1499*** Changes in GDB-4.18:
1500
1501* New native configurations
1502
1503HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
1504HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
55241689 1505M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
c906108c
SS
1506
1507* New targets
1508
1509Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1510Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
1511Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1512
1513* OBSOLETE configurations
1514
1515Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
1516
1517Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1518but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1519these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1520be permanently REMOVED.
1521
1522* ANSI/ISO C
1523
1524As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
1525buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
1526containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
1527use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
1528available. If this is not true, please report the affected
1529configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
1530information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
1531already.
1532
1533* Readline 2.2
1534
1535GDB now uses readline 2.2.
1536
1537* set extension-language
1538
1539You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
1540languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
1541you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
1542 set extension-language .c c++
1543The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
1544and their associated languages.
1545
1546* Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
1547
1548When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
1549you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
1550PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
1551
1552 set processor NAME
1553
1554sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
1555following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
1556
1557 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
1558 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
1559 403 IBM PowerPC 403
1560 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
1561 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
1562 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
1563 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
1564 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
1565 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
1566 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
1567 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
1568
1569At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
1570special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
1571registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
1572only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
1573
1574* HP-UX support
1575
1576Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
1577more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
1578library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
1579support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
1580for xdb and dbx commands.
1581
1582* Catchpoints
1583
1584HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
1585generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
1586to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
1587
1588This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
1589argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
1590output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
1591
1592* Debugging across forks
1593
1594On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
1595in the inferior.
1596
1597* TUI
1598
1599HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
1600it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
1601configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
1602
1603* GDB remote protocol additions
1604
1605A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
1606Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
1607fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
1608allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
1609
1610For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
1611full 64-bit address. The command
1612
1613 set remoteaddresssize 32
1614
1615can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
1616the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
1617will be discarded.
1618
1619In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
1620command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
1621
1622 maint packet heythere
1623
1624sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
1625disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
1626time.
1627
1628The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
1629target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
1630downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
1631
1632* Tracing can collect general expressions
1633
1634You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
1635further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
1636doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
1637
1638* mask-address variable for Mips
1639
1640For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
1641a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
1642of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
1643
1644* Higher serial baud rates
1645
1646GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
1647230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
1648to achieve all of these rates.)
1649
1650* i960 simulator
1651
1652The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
1653builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
1654
1655
1656*** Changes in GDB-4.17:
1657
1658* New native configurations
1659
1660Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
1661Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
1662Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
1663PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
1664PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1665Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
1666Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
1667
1668* New targets
1669
1670Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1671Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
1672Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1673Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
1674MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
1675MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
1676MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
1677Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
1678Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
1679Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1680NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
1681
1682* New debugging protocols
1683
1684ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
1685M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
1686DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
1687PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1688PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1689Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1690
1691* DWARF 2
1692
1693All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
1694format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
1695information.
1696
1697* Java frontend
1698
1699GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
1700only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
1701
1702* solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
1703
1704For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
1705loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
1706locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
1707
1708* Live range splitting
1709
1710GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
1711range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
1712more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
1713
1714* Hurd support
1715
1716GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
1717updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
1718
1719* ARM Thumb support
1720
1721GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
1722instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
1723instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
1724accordingly.
1725
1726* MIPS16 support
1727
1728GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
1729instruction set.
1730
1731* Overlay support
1732
1733GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
1734linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
1735will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
1736control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
1737additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
1738in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
1739
1740* info symbol
1741
1742The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
1743the symbol at the specified address.
1744
1745* Trace support
1746
1747The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
1748asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
1749extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
1750includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
1751file tracepoint.c for more details.
1752
1753* MIPS simulator
1754
1755Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
1756by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
1757of most MIPS variants.
1758
1759* Sparc simulator
1760
1761Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
1762by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
1763Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
1764
1765* set architecture
1766
1767For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
1768basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
1769architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
1770the possible architectures.
1771
1772*** Changes in GDB-4.16:
1773
1774* New native configurations
1775
1776Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
1777M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
1778PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
1779PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
1780PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1781RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
1782
1783* New targets
1784
1785ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
1786I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1787MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
1788MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
1789PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
1790Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
1791Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1792
1793* PowerPC simulator
1794
1795The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
1796contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
1797PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
1798basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
1799performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
1800
1801* Solaris 2.5
1802
1803GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
1804
1805* Windows 95/NT native
1806
1807GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
1808To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
1809which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
1810Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
1811ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
1812
1813* dont-repeat command
1814
1815If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
1816command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
1817useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
1818extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
1819
1820* Send break instead of ^C
1821
1822The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
1823rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
1824GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
1825
1826* Remote protocol timeout
1827
1828The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
1829that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
1830to read from the target. The default value is 2.
1831
1832* Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
1833
1834By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
1835loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
1836stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
1837when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
1838in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
1839
1840Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
1841/usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
1842automatically on hpux10.
1843
1844* Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
1845
1846Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
1847
1848* Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
1849
1850When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
1851may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
1852the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
1853every character. The default value is 1050.
1854
1855* Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
1856
1857If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
1858a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
1859replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
1860details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
1861remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
1862to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
1863
1864* Speedups for remote debugging
1865
1866GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
1867the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
1868and more efficient S-record downloading.
1869
1870* Memory use reductions and statistics collection
1871
1872GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
1873Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
1874
1875*** Changes in GDB-4.15:
1876
1877* Psymtabs for XCOFF
1878
1879The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
1880can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
1881
1882* Remote targets use caching
1883
1884Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
1885remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
1886it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
1887debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
1888off' turns the the data cache off.
1889
1890* Remote targets may have threads
1891
1892The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
1893in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
1894gdb/remote.c for details.
1895
1896* NetROM support
1897
1898If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
1899support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
1900acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
1901write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
1902support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
1903another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
1904sequence is something like
1905
1906 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
1907 load <prog>
1908 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
1909
1910* Macintosh host
1911
1912GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
1913may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
1914it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
1915available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
1916device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
1917directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
1918scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
1919mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
1920
1921* Autoconf
1922
1923GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
1924but does simplify configuration and building.
1925
1926* hpux10
1927
1928GDB now supports hpux10.
1929
1930*** Changes in GDB-4.14:
1931
1932* New native configurations
1933
1934x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
1935x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
1936NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
1937Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
1938
1939* New targets
1940
1941A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1942HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
1943CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
1944PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
1945WDC 65816 w65-*-*
1946
1947* Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
1948
1949GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
1950possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
1951filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
1952the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
1953if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
1954
1955* Arguments to user-defined commands
1956
1957User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
1958Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
1959trivial example:
1960define adder
1961 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
1962
1963To execute the command use:
1964adder 1 2 3
1965
1966Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
1967Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
1968use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
1969
1970* New `if' and `while' commands
1971
1972This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
1973commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
1974expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
1975execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
1976terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
1977`else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
1978if the expression is zero.
1979
1980* Fortran source language mode
1981
1982GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
1983Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
1984variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
1985with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
1986Fortran compilers.
1987
1988* Better HPUX support
1989
1990Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
1991running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
1992processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
1993for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
1994that behavior do the following before running the program:
1995
1996 adb -w a.out
1997 __dld_flags?W 0x5
1998 control-d
1999
2000This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
2001To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
2002
2003 adb -w a.out
2004 __dld_flags?W 0x4
2005 control-d
2006
2007You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
2008the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
2009external linkage.
2010
2011GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
2012HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
2013
2014* Target byte order now dynamically selectable
2015
2016You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
2017commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
2018current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
2019"set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
2020associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
2021configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
2022
2023* New DOS host serial code
2024
2025This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
2026no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
2027a PC's serial port.
2028
2029*** Changes in GDB-4.13:
2030
2031* New "complete" command
2032
2033This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
2034were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
2035
2036* Trailing space optional in prompt
2037
2038"set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
2039allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
2040
2041* Breakpoint hit counts
2042
2043"info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
2044has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
2045can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
2046to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
2047less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
2048that breakpoint.
2049
2050* Ability to stop printing at NULL character
2051
2052"set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
2053an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
2054arrays actually contain only short strings.
2055
2056* Shared library breakpoints
2057
2058In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
2059breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
2060
2061* Hardware watchpoints
2062
2063There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
2064targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
2065
55241689 2066Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
c906108c
SS
2067
2068* Annotations
2069
2070Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
2071and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
2072
2073* Improved Irix 5 support
2074
2075GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
2076
2077* Improved HPPA support
2078
2079GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
2080
2081* New native configurations
2082
2083Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
2084HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
2085Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
2086RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
2087
2088* New targets
2089
2090OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
2091MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
2092Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
2093
2094* Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
2095
2096There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
2097This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
2098
2099* Fixes
2100
2101As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
2102and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
2103
2104*** Changes in GDB-4.12:
2105
2106* Irix 5 is now supported
2107
2108* HPPA support
2109
2110GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
2111to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
2112GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
2113of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
2114can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
2115
2116
2117*** Changes in GDB-4.11:
2118
2119* User visible changes:
2120
2121* Remote Debugging
2122
2123The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
2124target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
2125debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
2126integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
2127debugging info for the mips target).
2128
2129* DEC Alpha native support
2130
2131GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
2132debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
2133work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
2134Alpha-specific notes.
2135
2136* Preliminary thread implementation
2137
2138GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
2139
2140* LynxOS native and target support for 386
2141
2142This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
2143to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
2144for details).
2145
2146* Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
2147
2148This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
2149mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
2150call methods, ...etc.
2151
2152*** Changes in GDB-4.10:
2153
2154 * User visible changes:
2155
2156Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
2157supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
2158other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
2159somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
2160
2161Filename completion now works.
2162
2163When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
2164arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
2165addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
2166
2167All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
2168vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
2169should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
2170your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
2171to be on the far side of a thin network line.
2172
2173 * DEC alpha support
2174
2175This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
2176cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
2177
2178
2179*** Changes in GDB-4.9:
2180
2181 * Testsuite
2182
2183This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
2184The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
2185via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
2186
2187 * C++ demangling
2188
2189'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
2190emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
2191Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
2192disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
2193use gdb with AT&T cfront.
2194
2195 * Simulators
2196
2197GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
2198So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
2199Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
2200
2201 * New targets supported
2202
2203H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
2204H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
2205SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
2206Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
2207IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
2208
2209Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
2210version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
2211GO32 memory extender.
2212
2213 * New remote protocols
2214
2215MIPS remote debugging protocol.
2216
2217 * New source languages supported
2218
2219This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
2220used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
2221into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
2222
2223
2224*** Changes in GDB-4.8:
2225
2226 * HP Precision Architecture supported
2227
2228GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
2229version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
2230University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
2231compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
2232format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
2233(as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
2234
2235Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
2236
2237 * Faster and better demangling
2238
2239We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
2240demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
2241character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
2242only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
2243This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
2244increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
2245symbol lookups.
2246
2247`Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
2248from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
2249compiler does not actually implement.
2250
2251 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
2252
2253In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
2254inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
2255recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
2256very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
2257The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
2258circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
2259fix.
2260
2261The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
2262release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
2263
2264 * Improved configure script
2265
2266The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
2267you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
2268host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
2269done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
2270
2271We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
2272version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
2273`--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
2274The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
2275only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
2276We hope to make this the default in a future release.
2277
2278 * Documentation improvements
2279
2280There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
2281produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
2282before submitting changes.
2283
2284The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
2285M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
2286`info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
2287you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
2288a future texinfo-X.Y release.
2289
2290*NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
2291We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
2292been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
2293or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
2294`texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
2295around this problem.
2296
2297 * New features
2298
2299GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
2300the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
2301`print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
2302the target program.
2303
2304The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
2305how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
2306
2307 * New native hosts supported
2308
2309HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
2310386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
2311
2312 * New targets supported
2313
2314AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
2315
2316 * New file formats supported
2317
2318BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
2319HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
2320
2321 * Major bug fixes
2322
2323Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
2324
2325We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
2326printf_filtered("%s") problems.
2327
2328We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
2329for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
2330release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
2331
2332You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
2333will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
2334
2335We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
2336for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
2337especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
2338libraries.
2339
2340The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
2341information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
2342command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
2343any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
2344when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
2345
2346 * Internal improvements
2347
2348GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
2349debugging of multiple languages in the future.
2350
2351GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
2352Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
2353symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
2354contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
2355shared code that handles any of them.
2356
2357 * New command line options
2358
2359We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
2360
2361 * Mmalloc licensing
2362
2363The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
2364General Public License.
2365
2366*** Changes in GDB-4.7:
2367
2368 * Host/native/target split
2369
2370GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
2371hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
2372target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
2373local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
2374ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
2375
2376The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
2377GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
2378is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
2379code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
2380any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
2381built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
2382handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
2383
2384GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
2385It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
2386plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
2387
2388 * New hosts supported
2389
2390HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
2391386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
2392386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
2393
2394 * New targets supported
2395
2396Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
239768030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
2398
2399 * New native hosts supported
2400
2401386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
2402 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
2403386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
2404
2405 * New file formats supported
2406
2407BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
2408supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
2409format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
2410
2411 * New commands
2412
2413`show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
2414`show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
2415These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
2416
2417`info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
2418
2419You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
2420scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
2421prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
2422executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
2423
2424 * C++ improvements
2425
2426We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
2427info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
2428symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
2429
2430Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
2431
2432 * Major bug fixes
2433
2434The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
2435fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
2436by the compiler.
2437
2438We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
2439support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
2440
2441John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
2442slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
2443that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
2444purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
2445the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
2446mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
2447
2448Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
2449about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
2450completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
2451we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
2452
2453 * AMD 29k support
2454
2455A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
2456specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
2457calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
2458usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
2459in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
2460
2461We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
2462Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
2463of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
2464resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
2465
2466 * Remote interfaces
2467
2468We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
2469with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
2470message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
2471This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
2472needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
2473breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
2474each instruction being stepped through.
2475
2476The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
2477registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
2478
2479There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
2480find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
2481Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
2482processor with a serial port.
2483
2484 * Configuration
2485
2486Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
2487`table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
2488supported, and what files each one uses.
2489
2490 * Library changes
2491
2492There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
2493disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
2494Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
2495disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
2496
2497The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
2498Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
2499can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
2500grants all the rights from the General Public License.
2501
2502 * Documentation
2503
2504The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
2505reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
2506as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
2507encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
2508system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
2509bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
2510
2511And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
2512
2513
2514*** Changes in GDB-4.6:
2515
2516 * Better support for C++ function names
2517
2518GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
2519names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
2520(using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
2521single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
2522Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
2523
2524GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
2525the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
2526You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
2527lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
2528for the list of formats.
2529
2530 * G++ symbol mangling problem
2531
2532Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
2533C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
2534directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
2535can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
2536usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
2537about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
2538this problem.)
2539
2540 * New 'maintenance' command
2541
2542All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
2543the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
2544can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
2545
2546 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
2547 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
2548 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
2549 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
2550 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
2551 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
2552
2553The following commands are new:
2554
2555 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
2556 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
2557 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
2558
2559 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
2560
2561We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
2562(e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
2563be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
2564read after argv processing.
2565
2566 * New hosts supported
2567
2568Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
2569
55241689 2570GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
c906108c
SS
2571
2572We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
2573is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
2574for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
2575masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
2576fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
2577It costs extra.
2578
2579 * New targets supported
2580
2581Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
2582
2583 * More smarts about finding #include files
2584
2585GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
2586all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
2587greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
2588especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
2589the one that contains your sources.
2590
2591We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
2592breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
2593try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
2594
2595 * Interesting infernals change
2596
2597GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
2598section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
2599target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
2600stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
2601
2602 * Bug fixes (of course!)
2603
2604There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
2605 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
2606 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
2607
2608See the ChangeLog for details.
2609
2610*** Changes in GDB-4.5:
2611
2612 * New machines supported (host and target)
2613
2614IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
2615
2616SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
2617
2618 * New malloc package
2619
2620GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
2621Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
2622capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
2623This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
2624pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
2625more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
2626
2627 * info proc
2628
2629The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
2630'help info proc' for details.
2631
2632 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
2633
2634The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
2635Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
2636possible.
2637
2638 * File name changes for MS-DOS
2639
2640Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
2641support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
2642conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
2643environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
2644that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
2645in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
2646
2647 * Cross byte order fixes
2648
2649Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
2650targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
2651
2652 * New -mapped and -readnow options
2653
2654If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
2655system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
2656`symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
2657program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
2658called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
2659Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
2660and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
2661the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
2662option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
2663starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
2664
2665You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
2666the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
2667information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
2668slower, but makes future operations faster.
2669
2670The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
2671build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
2672A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
2673use is:
2674
2675 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
2676
2677The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
2678It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
2679shared across multiple host platforms.
2680
2681 * longjmp() handling
2682
2683GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
2684siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
2685all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
2686platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
2687
2688 * Solaris 2.0
2689
2690Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
2691this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
2692reading symbols.
2693
2694 * Bug fixes
2695
2696As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
2697People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
2698crashes and trashed symbol tables.
2699
2700*** Changes in GDB-4.4:
2701
2702 * New machines supported (host and target)
2703
2704SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2705 (except core files)
2706BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
2707Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
2708
2709 * New machines supported (target)
2710
2711AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2712
2713 * C++ support
2714
2715GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
2716The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
2717per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
2718
2719GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
2720`ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
2721extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
2722good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
2723will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
2724released.
2725
2726 * New features for SVR4
2727
2728GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
2729shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
2730only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
2731
2732The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
2733on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
2734it prints the address mappings of the process.
2735
2736If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
2737bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
2738
2739 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
2740
2741Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
2742now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
2743skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
2744make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
2745same code linked statically.
2746
2747 * New Getopt
2748
2749GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
2750version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
2751continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
2752Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
2753added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
2754future by other options that begin with the same letter.
2755
2756 * Bugs fixed
2757
2758The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2759Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2760See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2761
2762
2763*** Changes in GDB-4.3:
2764
2765 * New machines supported (host and target)
2766
2767Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
2768NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
2769Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
2770
2771 * Almost SCO Unix support
2772
2773We had hoped to support:
2774SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2775(except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
2776that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
2777about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
2778
2779 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
2780
2781GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
2782debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
2783is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
2784send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
2785reqired (if any).
2786
2787 * New Readline
2788
2789GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
2790is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
2791required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
2792
2793 * Bugs fixed
2794
2795The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2796Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2797See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2798
2799 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
2800
2801GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
2802supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
2803symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
2804
2805Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
2806mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
2807debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
2808mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
2809version 2.
2810
2811Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
2812really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
2813line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
2814variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
2815situation somewhat.
2816
2817When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
2818However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
2819methods.
2820
2821We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
2822DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
2823encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
2824
2825
2826*** Changes in GDB-4.2:
2827
2828 * Improved configuration
2829
2830Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
2831Porting BFD is simpler.
2832
2833 * Stepping improved
2834
2835The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
2836of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
2837in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
2838function that has debugging information is called within the line.
2839
2840 * Bug fixing
2841
2842Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
2843
2844 * New host supported (not target)
2845
2846Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
2847
2848
2849*** Changes in GDB-4.1:
2850
2851 * Multiple source language support
2852
2853GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
2854It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
2855and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
2856language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
2857You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
2858`set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
2859
2860 * GDB and Modula-2
2861
2862GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
2863currently under development at the State University of New York at
2864Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
2865continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
2866
2867Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
2868debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
2869symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
2870
2871There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
2872in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
2873
2874 * set write on/off
2875
2876GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
2877a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
2878the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
2879by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
2880effect immediately.
2881
2882 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
2883
2884When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
2885shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
2886The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
2887examining core files.
2888
2889 * set listsize
2890
2891You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
2892The default is 10.
2893
2894 * New machines supported (host and target)
2895
2896SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
2897Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
2898Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
2899
2900 * New hosts supported (not targets)
2901
2902IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
2903
2904 * New targets supported (not hosts)
2905
2906AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2907AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2908Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
2909
2910 * New remote interfaces
2911
2912AMD 29000 Adapt
2913AMD 29000 Minimon
2914
2915
2916*** Changes in GDB-4.0:
2917
2918 * New Facilities
2919
2920Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
2921
2922Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
2923target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
2924is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
2925remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
2926remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
2927also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
2928using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
2929stub on the target system.
2930
2931New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
2932
2933GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
2934library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
2935object file types such as a.out and coff.
2936
2937There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
2938refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
2939
2940
2941 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
2942
2943All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
2944by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
2945
2946For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
2947``Show prompt'' produces the response:
2948Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
2949
2950What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
2951print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
2952will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
2953all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
2954
2955confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
2956 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
2957 it is already running. Default is ON.
2958
2959editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
2960 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
2961 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
2962 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
2963 Default is ON.
2964
2965history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
2966 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
2967 or the value of the environment variable
2968 GDBHISTFILE.
2969
2970history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
2971 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
2972 HISTSIZE.
2973
2974history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
2975 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
2976 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
2977
2978history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
2979 history expansion will be performed on
2980 command line input. The default is OFF.
2981
2982radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
2983 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
2984 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
2985
2986height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
2987 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
2988 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2989 variable TERM.
2990
2991width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
2992 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
2993 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2994 variable TERM.
2995
2996Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
2997``set width'' instead.
2998
2999print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
3000 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
3001 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
3002 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
3003
3004print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
3005 is OFF.
3006
3007print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
3008 "raw" form if off.
3009
3010print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
3011 like instructions.
3012
3013print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
3014
3015
3016 * Support for Epoch Environment.
3017
3018The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
3019new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
3020are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
3021window.
3022
3023
3024 * Support for Shared Libraries
3025
3026GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
3027Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
3028before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
3029happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
3030At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
3031from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
3032shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
3033It can be abbreviated ``share''.
3034
3035sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
3036 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
3037 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
3038
3039info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
3040
3041
3042 * Watchpoints
3043
3044A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
3045expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
3046tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
3047quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
3048problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
3049more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
3050
3051watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
3052
3053info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
3054
3055delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3056disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3057enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3058
3059
3060 * C++ multiple inheritance
3061
3062When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
3063for C++ programs.
3064
3065 * C++ exception handling
3066
3067Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
3068ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
3069the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
3070handler's context).
3071
3072catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
3073 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
3074 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
3075
3076info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
3077 current stack frame.
3078
3079
3080 * Minor command changes
3081
3082The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
3083command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
3084is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
3085
3086The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
3087at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
3088frames without printing.
3089
3090 * New directory command
3091
3092'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
3093The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
3094about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
3095with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
3096find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
3097
3098 * Configuring GDB for compilation
3099
3100For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
3101for more details.
3102
3103GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
3104two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
3105Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
3106where the program that you are debugging will run.
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