* gas/cfi/cfi-common-6.s: Do not use |.
[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
6* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
7frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
8
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9* GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
1032-bit or 64-bit register values.
11
12* New commands
13
14set mem inaccessible-by-default
15show mem inaccessible-by-default
16 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
17 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
18 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
19 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
20 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
21
22set breakpoint auto-hw
23show breakpoint auto-hw
24 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
25 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
26 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
27 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
28 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
29 including "next" and "finish".
30
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31* New native configurations
32
33OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
34
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35* New targets
36
54fe9172 37OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
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38MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
39
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40* New remote packets
41
42QPassSignals:
43 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
44 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
45
46
47*** Changes in GDB 6.6
e374b601 48
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49* New targets
50
51Xtensa xtensa-elf
9c309e77 52Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
ca3bf3bd 53
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54* GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
55(mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
56running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
57
58* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
59Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
60supported.
61
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62* The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
63broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
64
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65* Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
66longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
67
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68* New commands
69
70set substitute-path
71unset substitute-path
72show substitute-path
73 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
74 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
75 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
76 between compilation and debugging.
77
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78set trace-commands
79show trace-commands
80 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
81 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
82 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
83
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84* REMOVED features
85
86The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
87
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88Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
89an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
90
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91The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
92
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93* New remote packets
94
95qSupported:
96 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
97 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
98 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
99 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
100 target.
101
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102qXfer:auxv:read:
103 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
104 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
105
106* Removed remote packets
107
108qPart:auxv:read:
109 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
110 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
111
e374b601 112*** Changes in GDB 6.5
53e5f3cf 113
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114* New targets
115
116Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
117
118Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
119
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120* New commands
121
122init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
123 only if it doesn't already have a value.
124
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125The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
126
127checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
128
129restart <n> Return the program state to a
130 previously saved state.
131
132info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
133
134delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
135
136set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
137 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
138
139info forks List forks of the user program that
140 are available to be debugged.
141
142fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
143 forks of the user program that are
144 available to be debugged.
145
146delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
147 that are available to be debugged (and
148 kill the forked process).
149
150detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
151 that are available to be debugged (and
152 allow the process to continue).
153
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154* New architecture
155
156Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
157
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158* Improved Windows host support
159
160GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
161native console support, and remote communications using either
162network sockets or serial ports.
163
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164* Improved Modula-2 language support
165
166GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
167basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
168pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
169printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
170written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
171GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
172
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173* REMOVED features
174
175The ARM rdi-share module.
176
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177The Netware NLM debug server.
178
53e5f3cf 179*** Changes in GDB 6.4
156a53ca 180
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181* New native configurations
182
02a677ac 183OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
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184OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
185
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186* New targets
187
188Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
189
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190* New command line options
191
192--batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
193--return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
194 the child (debugged) program exited with.
195--eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
196 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
197 specified multiple times and in conjunction
198 with the --command (-x) option.
199
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200* Deprecated commands removed
201
202The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
203removed:
204
205 Command Replacement
206 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
207 othernames set arm disassembler
208 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
209 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
210 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
211 regs info registers
212
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213* New BSD user-level threads support
214
215It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
216library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
217configurations are:
218
219FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
220FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
221OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
222
223Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
224are not yet supported.
225
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226* New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
227(Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
228
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229* REMOVED configurations and files
230
231VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
9445aa30 232Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
9445aa30 233National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
156a53ca 234
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235* New "set print array-indexes" command
236
237After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
238when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
239behavior.
240
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241* VAX floating point support
242
243GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
244
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245* User-defined command support
246
247In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
248to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
249section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
250
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251*** Changes in GDB 6.3:
252
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253* New command line option
254
255GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
256debugging.
257
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258* GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
259
260GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
261information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
262by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
263proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
264to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
860660cb 265
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266* Internationalization
267
268When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
269internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
270continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
271
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272* Ada
273
274Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
275implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
276into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
277
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278* New native configurations
279
280GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
281
282* Remote 'p' packet
283
284GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
285packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
286
287* END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
288
289GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
290The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
291features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
292i386 application).
293
294GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
295compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
296continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
297configurations:
298
299hppa-*-hpux
300ia64-*-aix
301mips-*-irix*
302*-*-lynx
303mips-*-linux-gnu
304sds protocol
305xdr protocol
306powerpc bdm protocol
307
308Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
309made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
310
311* OBSOLETE configurations and files
312
313Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
314been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
315configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
316permanently REMOVED.
317
318h8300-*-*
319mcore-*-*
320mn10300-*-*
321ns32k-*-*
322sh64-*-*
323v850-*-*
324
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325*** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
326
327* MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
328
329When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
330heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
331been fixed.
332
333* MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
334
335When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
336fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
337IRIX long double values).
338
339* VAX and "next"
340
341A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
342command. This problem has been fixed.
343
860660cb 344*** Changes in GDB 6.2:
faae5abe 345
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346* Fix for ``many threads''
347
348On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
349rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
350error message:
351
352 ptrace: No such process.
353 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
354
355This problem has been fixed.
356
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357* "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
358
359Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
360GDB to dump core).
361
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362* New ``start'' command.
363
364This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
365
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366* New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
367
368Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
369live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
370platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
371
372FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
373FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
374NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
375NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
376NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
377OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
378OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
379OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
380OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
381
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382* Signal trampoline code overhauled
383
384Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
385These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
386of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
387call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
388signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
389
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390Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
391features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
392include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
3c0b7db2 393
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394* Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
395
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396* New native configurations
397
97dc871c 398GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
0e56aeaf 399OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
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400OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
401OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
d195bc9f 402OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 403NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
9f076e7a 404OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 405
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406* END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
407
408GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
409The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
410including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
411migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
412compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
413work, was also included.
414
415GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
416module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
417
418h8300-*-*
419mcore-*-*
420mn10300-*-*
421ns32k-*-*
422sh64-*-*
423v850-*-*
424xstormy16-*-*
425
426Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
427made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
428
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429* REMOVED configurations and files
430
431Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
432Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
433Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
434Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
435Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
436AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
437Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
438decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
439riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
440sonymips mips-sony-*
441sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
442
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443*** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
444
445* TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
446
447The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
448GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
449command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
450program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
451with GDB".
452
453* Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
454
455Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
456libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
457cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
458GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
459shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
460the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
461are created.
462
463Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
464
465* Fixed ISO-C build problems
466
467The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
468non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
469compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
470
471* Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
472
473Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
474wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
475
476* Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
477
478The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
479permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
480systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
481
482* Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
483
484Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
485has been updated to use constant array sizes.
486
487* Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
488
489GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
490its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
491panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
492
493* Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
494
495When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
496by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
497not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
498
faae5abe 499*** Changes in GDB 6.1:
f2c06f52 500
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501* Removed --with-mmalloc
502
503Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
504conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
505
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506* Changes in AMD64 configurations
507
508The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
509the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
510and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
511you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
512
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513* Revised SPARC target
514
515The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
516FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
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517support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
518from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
519(Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
f0424ef6 520
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521* New C++ demangler
522
523GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
524names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
525with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
526programs.
527
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528* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
529
530GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
531arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
532encountered these.
533
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534* C++ nested types and namespaces
535
536GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
537improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
538is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
539Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
540namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
541"Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
542frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
543if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
544GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
545
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546* New native configurations
547
548NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
27d1e716 549OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
2031c21a 550OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
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551OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
552OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
cced5e27 553
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554* New debugging protocols
555
556M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
557
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558* "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
559
560The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
561and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
562tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
563
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564* OBSOLETE configurations and files
565
566Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
567been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
568configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
569permanently REMOVED.
570
571Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
572Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
573Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
574Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
575Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
576AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
577Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
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578decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
579riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
580sonymips mips-sony-*
581sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
5994185b 582
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583* REMOVED configurations and files
584
585SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
586SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
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587Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
588Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
589H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
590HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
591HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
592HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
593PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
cf7c5c23 594386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
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595Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
596 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
597 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
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598SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
599SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
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600Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
601Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
0ddabb4c 602
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603*** Changes in GDB 6.0:
604
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605* Objective-C
606
607Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
608integrated into GDB.
609
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610* New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
611
612DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
613information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
614By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
615backtraces.
616
617The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
618have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
619DWARF 2 CFI support.
620
621* Hosted file I/O.
622
623GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
624file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
625remote protocol documentation for details.
626
627* All targets using the new architecture framework.
628
629All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
630architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
631to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
632ppc32 on ppc64).
633
634* GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
635
636GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
637per-thread variables.
638
639* GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
640
641GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
642GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
643
644* Separate debug info.
645
646GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
647automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
648of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
649system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
650and optional debug files.
651
652* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
653
654DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
655describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
656debugger.
657
658GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
659for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
660
661* Java
662
663A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
664Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
665considered "useable".
666
85f8f974
DJ
667* GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
668
669The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
670commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
671kernel.
672
0fac0b41
DJ
673* GDB supports logging output to a file
674
675There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
676used to capture GDB's output to a file.
f2c06f52 677
6ad8ae5c
DJ
678* The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
679
680The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
681disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
682command.
683
e286caf2 684* d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
5f601589
AC
685
686The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
687registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
688
d28f9cdf
DJ
689* Profiling support
690
691A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
692be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
693session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
694"--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
695data, for more informative profiling results.
696
da0f9dcd
AC
697* Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
698
699The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
700option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
b68767c1 701"mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
da0f9dcd
AC
702
703Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
704removed.
705
fb9b6b35
JJ
706Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
707Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
708Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
709 in a subsequent -var-update.
710
954a4db8
MK
711* New native configurations.
712
713FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
714
6760f9e6
JB
715* Multi-arched targets.
716
b4263afa 717HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
85a453d5 718Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
6760f9e6 719
1b831c93
AC
720* OBSOLETE configurations and files
721
722Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
723been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
724configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
725permanently REMOVED.
726
8b0e5691 727Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
67f16606 728Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
fd2299bd 729H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
56056df7
AC
730HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
731HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
732HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
78c43945 733PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
2fbce691
AC
734Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
735 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
736 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
f81824a9
AC
737Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
738Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
fd2299bd 739
5835abe7
NC
740* REMOVED configurations and files
741
742V850EA ISA
1b831c93
AC
743Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
744IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
745i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
746i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
747i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
748HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
749 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
750 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
751Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
752Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
753Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
754OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
755I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
5835abe7 756
a094c6fb
AC
757* MIPS $fp behavior changed
758
759The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
760the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
761context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
762address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
763The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
764
299ffc64 765*** Changes in GDB 5.3:
37057839 766
46248966
AC
767* GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
768
769When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
770`/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
771in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
772library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
773shared libs like mad''.
774
b9d14705 775* ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
6da02953 776
b9d14705
DJ
777Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
778the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
779arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
780powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
6da02953 781
e0e9281e
JB
782* GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
783
784GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
785and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
786they expand.
787
dd73b9bb
AC
788The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
789invocations in expression, and shows the result.
790
791The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
792macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
793
e0e9281e
JB
794Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
795information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
796your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
797information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
798
2250ee0c
CV
799* Multi-arched targets.
800
6e3ba3b8
JT
801DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
802DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
2250ee0c 803NEC V850 v850-*-*
6e3ba3b8 804National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
a1789893
GS
805Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
806Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
2250ee0c 807
cd9bfe15 808* New targets.
e33ce519 809
456f8b9d
DB
810Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
811
e33ce519 812
da8ca43d
JT
813* New native configurations
814
815Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
029923d4 816SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
45888261 817MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
9ce5c36a 818UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
da8ca43d 819
cd9bfe15
AC
820* OBSOLETE configurations and files
821
822Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
823been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
824configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
825permanently REMOVED.
826
92eb23c5 827Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
a99a9e1b 828OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1c7cc583 829IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
7a3085c1 830Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
7fb623f7 831Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
eb4c54a2 832Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
d8ee244c
MK
833i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
834i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
835i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
822e978b
AC
836HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
837 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
838 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
4d210288 839I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
92eb23c5 840
db034ac5
AC
841* OBSOLETE languages
842
843CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
844
cd9bfe15
AC
845* REMOVED configurations and files
846
847AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
848A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
849AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
850AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
851AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
852
853testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
854
20f01a46
DH
855* New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
856
857This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
858commands. The default is 1024.
859
a5941fbf
MK
860* Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
861
862Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
863
89743e04
MS
864* New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
865
866These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
867to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
868from a file into memory (restore).
37057839 869
9fb14e79
JB
870* Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
871
872The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
873including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
874of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
875
2037aebb
AC
876*** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
877
878* New targets.
879
880Atmel AVR avr*-*-*
881
882* Bug fixes
883
884gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
885mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
886Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
887
888gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
889dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
890Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
891
892Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
893Surprisingly enough, it works now.
894By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
895
896i386 hardware watchpoint support:
897avoid misses on second run for some targets.
898By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
899
37057839 900*** Changes in GDB 5.2:
eb7cedd9 901
1a703748
MS
902* New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
903
904This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
905really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
906In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
907target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
908This can be a significant performance improvement on some
909(notably embedded) targets.
910
cefd4ef5
MS
911* New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
912
55241689
AC
913This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
914process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
915GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
916hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
cefd4ef5 917
352ed7b4
MS
918* New command line option
919
920GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
921
922* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
923
924There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
925command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
926a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
927be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
928open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
929issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
930a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
931it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
932GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
933is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
934
fe419ffc
RE
935* Changes in ARM configurations.
936
937Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
938configuration is fully multi-arch.
939
eb7cedd9
MK
940* New native configurations
941
fe419ffc 942ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
eb7cedd9 943x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
55241689 944AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
768f0842 945Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
eb7cedd9 946
c9f63e6b
CV
947* New targets
948
949Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
950
9b4ff276
AC
951* OBSOLETE configurations and files
952
953Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
954been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
955configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
956permanently REMOVED.
957
958AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
959A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
960AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
961AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
962AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
963
b4ceaee6 964testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
9b4ff276 965
e2caac18
AC
966* REMOVED configurations and files
967
968TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
7bc65f05 969WDC 65816 w65-*-*
7768dd6c
AC
970PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
971PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
972PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
5e734e1f 973Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1406caf7
AC
974Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
975 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
7e24f0b1 976SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
9b567150 977Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
3680c638
AC
978Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
979ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
a752853e 980Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
e2caac18 981
c2a727fa
TT
982* Changes to command line processing
983
984The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
985for the inferior from gdb's command line.
986
467d8519
TT
987* Changes to key bindings
988
989There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
990
7072a954
AC
991*** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
992
993Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
994
995Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
996corrupted.
997
998Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
999
1000Numerous documentation fixes.
1001
1002Numerous testsuite fixes.
1003
34f47bc4 1004*** Changes in GDB 5.1:
139760b7
MK
1005
1006* New native configurations
1007
1008Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
1009x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
55241689 1010MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
e23194cb
EZ
1011MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
1012ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
55241689 1013s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
139760b7 1014
bf64bfd6
AC
1015* New targets
1016
def90278 1017Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
24be5c34 1018CRIS cris-axis
55241689 1019UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
def90278 1020
17e78a56 1021* OBSOLETE configurations and files
bf64bfd6
AC
1022
1023x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
9b9c068d 1024Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
bb19ff3b
AC
1025Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
1026 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
76f4ea53
AC
1027TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1028WDC 65816 w65-*-*
4a1968f4 1029Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1b2b2c16
AC
1030PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1031PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1032PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
24f89b68 1033SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
514e603d
AC
1034Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
1035ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
d036b4d9 1036Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
bf64bfd6 1037
17e78a56
AC
1038stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
1039kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
1040
7fcca85b
AC
1041Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1042been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1043configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1044permanently REMOVED.
1045
a196c81c 1046* REMOVED configurations and files
7fcca85b
AC
1047
1048Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
1049Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
1050Pyramid pyramid-*-*
1051ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
1052Tahoe tahoe-*-*
a196c81c 1053ser-ocd.c *-*-*
bf64bfd6 1054
6d6b80e5 1055* GDB has been converted to ISO C.
e23194cb 1056
6d6b80e5 1057GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
e23194cb
EZ
1058sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
1059present.
1060
bf64bfd6
AC
1061* Other news:
1062
e23194cb
EZ
1063* "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
1064
1065* The MI enabled by default.
1066
1067The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
1068revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
1069engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
1070using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
1071which is now deprecated.
1072
1073* Support for debugging Pascal programs.
1074
1075GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
1076main features are supported:
1077
1078 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
1079
1080 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
1081 extension;
1082
1083 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
1084
1085 - a Pascal expression parser.
1086
1087However, some important features are not yet supported.
1088
1089 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
1090
1091 - there are some problems with boolean types;
1092
1093 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
1094 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
1095
1096 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
1097
1098 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
1099
1100* Changes in completion.
1101
1102Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
1103to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
1104users expect at the shell prompt.
1105
1106Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
1107`breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
1108program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
1109files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
1110be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
1111considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
1112name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
1113
1114`set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
1115
1116* New platform-independent commands:
1117
1118It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
1119hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
1120documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
1121
1122* Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
1123
d7275149
MK
1124Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
1125revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
1126many threads as your system allows you to have.
1127
e23194cb
EZ
1128Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
1129
d7275149
MK
1130Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
1131multi-threaded programs though.
e23194cb
EZ
1132
1133* Changes in MIPS configurations.
bf64bfd6
AC
1134
1135Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
1136
e23194cb
EZ
1137GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
1138debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
1139supported.)
1140
1141* Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
1142
1143Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
1144breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
1145implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
1146put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
1147and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
1148registers.
1149
1150The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
1151debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
1152watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
1153
1154* Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
1155
1156New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
1157the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
1158
1159New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
1160display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
1161IDT.
1162
1163New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
1164from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
1165New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
1166a given linear address.
1167
1168GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
1169program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
1170which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
1171
1172DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
1173
6c56c069
EZ
1174It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
1175
e23194cb
EZ
1176* Changes in documentation.
1177
1178All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
1179Documentation License.
1180
1181Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1182manual.
1183
1184TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
1185
1186Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1187manual.
1188
1189The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
1190documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
1191hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
1192
5d6640b1
AC
1193* GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
1194
1195The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
1196``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
1197contents of this file.
1198
1a1d8446
AC
1199* gdba.el deleted
1200
1201GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
139760b7 1202
9debab2f 1203*** Changes in GDB 5.0:
7a292a7a 1204
c63ce875
EZ
1205* Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
1206
1207Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
1208programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
1209displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
1210greater level of detail.
1211
1212* Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
1213
1214It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
1215bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
1216on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
1217written.
1218
1219* Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
1220
1221The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
1222necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
1223machines ``out of the box''.
1224
1225The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
1226possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
1227signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
1228would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
1229interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
1230
1231It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
1232standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
1233even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
1234and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
1235terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
1236
1237The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
1238enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
1239also works.
1240
1241DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
1242GDB.
1243
1244It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
1245directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
1246times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
1247breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
1248
ed9a39eb
JM
1249* New native configurations
1250
1251ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
afc05dd4 1252PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
ed9a39eb 1253
7a292a7a
SS
1254* New targets
1255
96baa820 1256Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
adf40b2e
JM
1257x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
1258PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
7a292a7a
SS
1259TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1260
085dd6e6
JM
1261* OBSOLETE configurations
1262
1263Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
1264Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
9846de1b 1265Pyramid pyramid-*-*
ed9a39eb 1266ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
104c1213 1267Tahoe tahoe-*-*
7a292a7a 1268
9debab2f
AC
1269Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1270but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1271these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1272be permanently REMOVED.
1273
5330533d
SS
1274* Gould support removed
1275
1276Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
1277
bc9e5bbf
AC
1278* New features for SVR4
1279
1280On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
1281without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
1282load symbols from the running process's executable file.
1283
1284* Many C++ enhancements
1285
1286C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
1287in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
1288
adf40b2e
JM
1289* Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
1290
1291A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
1292sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
1293with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
1294``|<program> <args>'' vis:
1295
1296 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
1297 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
1298
43e526b9
JM
1299* MIPS 64 remote protocol
1300
1301A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
1302expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
1303instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
1304
1305The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
1306added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
1307
96baa820
JM
1308* ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
1309
1310The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
1311``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
1312include ``set remote P-packet''.
1313
11cf8741
JM
1314* Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
1315
1316The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
1317accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
1318``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
1319
7876dd43
DB
1320* ``apropos'' command added.
1321
1322The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
1323documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
1324try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
1325
bc9e5bbf
AC
1326* New MI interface
1327
1328A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
1329interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
7162c0ca
EZ
1330process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
1331"GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
1332enabled by configuring with:
bc9e5bbf
AC
1333
1334 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
1335
c906108c
SS
1336*** Changes in GDB-4.18:
1337
1338* New native configurations
1339
1340HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
1341HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
55241689 1342M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
c906108c
SS
1343
1344* New targets
1345
1346Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1347Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
1348Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1349
1350* OBSOLETE configurations
1351
1352Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
1353
1354Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1355but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1356these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1357be permanently REMOVED.
1358
1359* ANSI/ISO C
1360
1361As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
1362buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
1363containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
1364use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
1365available. If this is not true, please report the affected
1366configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
1367information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
1368already.
1369
1370* Readline 2.2
1371
1372GDB now uses readline 2.2.
1373
1374* set extension-language
1375
1376You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
1377languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
1378you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
1379 set extension-language .c c++
1380The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
1381and their associated languages.
1382
1383* Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
1384
1385When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
1386you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
1387PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
1388
1389 set processor NAME
1390
1391sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
1392following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
1393
1394 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
1395 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
1396 403 IBM PowerPC 403
1397 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
1398 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
1399 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
1400 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
1401 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
1402 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
1403 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
1404 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
1405
1406At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
1407special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
1408registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
1409only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
1410
1411* HP-UX support
1412
1413Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
1414more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
1415library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
1416support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
1417for xdb and dbx commands.
1418
1419* Catchpoints
1420
1421HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
1422generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
1423to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
1424
1425This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
1426argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
1427output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
1428
1429* Debugging across forks
1430
1431On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
1432in the inferior.
1433
1434* TUI
1435
1436HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
1437it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
1438configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
1439
1440* GDB remote protocol additions
1441
1442A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
1443Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
1444fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
1445allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
1446
1447For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
1448full 64-bit address. The command
1449
1450 set remoteaddresssize 32
1451
1452can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
1453the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
1454will be discarded.
1455
1456In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
1457command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
1458
1459 maint packet heythere
1460
1461sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
1462disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
1463time.
1464
1465The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
1466target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
1467downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
1468
1469* Tracing can collect general expressions
1470
1471You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
1472further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
1473doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
1474
1475* mask-address variable for Mips
1476
1477For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
1478a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
1479of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
1480
1481* Higher serial baud rates
1482
1483GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
1484230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
1485to achieve all of these rates.)
1486
1487* i960 simulator
1488
1489The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
1490builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
1491
1492
1493*** Changes in GDB-4.17:
1494
1495* New native configurations
1496
1497Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
1498Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
1499Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
1500PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
1501PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1502Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
1503Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
1504
1505* New targets
1506
1507Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1508Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
1509Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1510Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
1511MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
1512MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
1513MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
1514Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
1515Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
1516Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1517NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
1518
1519* New debugging protocols
1520
1521ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
1522M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
1523DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
1524PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1525PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1526Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1527
1528* DWARF 2
1529
1530All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
1531format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
1532information.
1533
1534* Java frontend
1535
1536GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
1537only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
1538
1539* solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
1540
1541For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
1542loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
1543locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
1544
1545* Live range splitting
1546
1547GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
1548range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
1549more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
1550
1551* Hurd support
1552
1553GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
1554updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
1555
1556* ARM Thumb support
1557
1558GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
1559instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
1560instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
1561accordingly.
1562
1563* MIPS16 support
1564
1565GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
1566instruction set.
1567
1568* Overlay support
1569
1570GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
1571linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
1572will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
1573control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
1574additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
1575in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
1576
1577* info symbol
1578
1579The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
1580the symbol at the specified address.
1581
1582* Trace support
1583
1584The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
1585asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
1586extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
1587includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
1588file tracepoint.c for more details.
1589
1590* MIPS simulator
1591
1592Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
1593by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
1594of most MIPS variants.
1595
1596* Sparc simulator
1597
1598Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
1599by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
1600Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
1601
1602* set architecture
1603
1604For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
1605basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
1606architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
1607the possible architectures.
1608
1609*** Changes in GDB-4.16:
1610
1611* New native configurations
1612
1613Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
1614M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
1615PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
1616PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
1617PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1618RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
1619
1620* New targets
1621
1622ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
1623I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1624MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
1625MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
1626PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
1627Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
1628Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1629
1630* PowerPC simulator
1631
1632The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
1633contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
1634PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
1635basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
1636performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
1637
1638* Solaris 2.5
1639
1640GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
1641
1642* Windows 95/NT native
1643
1644GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
1645To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
1646which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
1647Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
1648ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
1649
1650* dont-repeat command
1651
1652If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
1653command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
1654useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
1655extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
1656
1657* Send break instead of ^C
1658
1659The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
1660rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
1661GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
1662
1663* Remote protocol timeout
1664
1665The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
1666that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
1667to read from the target. The default value is 2.
1668
1669* Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
1670
1671By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
1672loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
1673stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
1674when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
1675in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
1676
1677Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
1678/usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
1679automatically on hpux10.
1680
1681* Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
1682
1683Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
1684
1685* Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
1686
1687When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
1688may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
1689the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
1690every character. The default value is 1050.
1691
1692* Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
1693
1694If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
1695a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
1696replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
1697details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
1698remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
1699to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
1700
1701* Speedups for remote debugging
1702
1703GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
1704the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
1705and more efficient S-record downloading.
1706
1707* Memory use reductions and statistics collection
1708
1709GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
1710Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
1711
1712*** Changes in GDB-4.15:
1713
1714* Psymtabs for XCOFF
1715
1716The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
1717can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
1718
1719* Remote targets use caching
1720
1721Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
1722remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
1723it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
1724debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
1725off' turns the the data cache off.
1726
1727* Remote targets may have threads
1728
1729The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
1730in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
1731gdb/remote.c for details.
1732
1733* NetROM support
1734
1735If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
1736support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
1737acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
1738write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
1739support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
1740another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
1741sequence is something like
1742
1743 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
1744 load <prog>
1745 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
1746
1747* Macintosh host
1748
1749GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
1750may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
1751it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
1752available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
1753device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
1754directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
1755scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
1756mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
1757
1758* Autoconf
1759
1760GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
1761but does simplify configuration and building.
1762
1763* hpux10
1764
1765GDB now supports hpux10.
1766
1767*** Changes in GDB-4.14:
1768
1769* New native configurations
1770
1771x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
1772x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
1773NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
1774Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
1775
1776* New targets
1777
1778A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1779HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
1780CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
1781PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
1782WDC 65816 w65-*-*
1783
1784* Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
1785
1786GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
1787possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
1788filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
1789the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
1790if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
1791
1792* Arguments to user-defined commands
1793
1794User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
1795Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
1796trivial example:
1797define adder
1798 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
1799
1800To execute the command use:
1801adder 1 2 3
1802
1803Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
1804Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
1805use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
1806
1807* New `if' and `while' commands
1808
1809This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
1810commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
1811expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
1812execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
1813terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
1814`else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
1815if the expression is zero.
1816
1817* Fortran source language mode
1818
1819GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
1820Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
1821variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
1822with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
1823Fortran compilers.
1824
1825* Better HPUX support
1826
1827Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
1828running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
1829processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
1830for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
1831that behavior do the following before running the program:
1832
1833 adb -w a.out
1834 __dld_flags?W 0x5
1835 control-d
1836
1837This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
1838To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
1839
1840 adb -w a.out
1841 __dld_flags?W 0x4
1842 control-d
1843
1844You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
1845the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
1846external linkage.
1847
1848GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
1849HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
1850
1851* Target byte order now dynamically selectable
1852
1853You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
1854commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
1855current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
1856"set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
1857associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
1858configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
1859
1860* New DOS host serial code
1861
1862This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
1863no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
1864a PC's serial port.
1865
1866*** Changes in GDB-4.13:
1867
1868* New "complete" command
1869
1870This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
1871were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
1872
1873* Trailing space optional in prompt
1874
1875"set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
1876allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
1877
1878* Breakpoint hit counts
1879
1880"info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
1881has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
1882can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
1883to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
1884less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
1885that breakpoint.
1886
1887* Ability to stop printing at NULL character
1888
1889"set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
1890an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
1891arrays actually contain only short strings.
1892
1893* Shared library breakpoints
1894
1895In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
1896breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
1897
1898* Hardware watchpoints
1899
1900There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
1901targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
1902
55241689 1903Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
c906108c
SS
1904
1905* Annotations
1906
1907Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
1908and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
1909
1910* Improved Irix 5 support
1911
1912GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
1913
1914* Improved HPPA support
1915
1916GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
1917
1918* New native configurations
1919
1920Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
1921HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1922Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
1923RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
1924
1925* New targets
1926
1927OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1928MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
1929Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
1930
1931* Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
1932
1933There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
1934This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
1935
1936* Fixes
1937
1938As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
1939and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
1940
1941*** Changes in GDB-4.12:
1942
1943* Irix 5 is now supported
1944
1945* HPPA support
1946
1947GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
1948to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
1949GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
1950of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
1951can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
1952
1953
1954*** Changes in GDB-4.11:
1955
1956* User visible changes:
1957
1958* Remote Debugging
1959
1960The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
1961target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
1962debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
1963integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
1964debugging info for the mips target).
1965
1966* DEC Alpha native support
1967
1968GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
1969debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
1970work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
1971Alpha-specific notes.
1972
1973* Preliminary thread implementation
1974
1975GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
1976
1977* LynxOS native and target support for 386
1978
1979This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
1980to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
1981for details).
1982
1983* Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
1984
1985This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
1986mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
1987call methods, ...etc.
1988
1989*** Changes in GDB-4.10:
1990
1991 * User visible changes:
1992
1993Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
1994supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
1995other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
1996somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
1997
1998Filename completion now works.
1999
2000When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
2001arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
2002addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
2003
2004All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
2005vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
2006should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
2007your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
2008to be on the far side of a thin network line.
2009
2010 * DEC alpha support
2011
2012This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
2013cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
2014
2015
2016*** Changes in GDB-4.9:
2017
2018 * Testsuite
2019
2020This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
2021The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
2022via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
2023
2024 * C++ demangling
2025
2026'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
2027emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
2028Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
2029disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
2030use gdb with AT&T cfront.
2031
2032 * Simulators
2033
2034GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
2035So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
2036Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
2037
2038 * New targets supported
2039
2040H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
2041H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
2042SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
2043Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
2044IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
2045
2046Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
2047version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
2048GO32 memory extender.
2049
2050 * New remote protocols
2051
2052MIPS remote debugging protocol.
2053
2054 * New source languages supported
2055
2056This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
2057used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
2058into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
2059
2060
2061*** Changes in GDB-4.8:
2062
2063 * HP Precision Architecture supported
2064
2065GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
2066version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
2067University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
2068compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
2069format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
2070(as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
2071
2072Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
2073
2074 * Faster and better demangling
2075
2076We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
2077demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
2078character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
2079only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
2080This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
2081increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
2082symbol lookups.
2083
2084`Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
2085from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
2086compiler does not actually implement.
2087
2088 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
2089
2090In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
2091inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
2092recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
2093very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
2094The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
2095circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
2096fix.
2097
2098The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
2099release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
2100
2101 * Improved configure script
2102
2103The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
2104you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
2105host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
2106done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
2107
2108We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
2109version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
2110`--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
2111The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
2112only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
2113We hope to make this the default in a future release.
2114
2115 * Documentation improvements
2116
2117There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
2118produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
2119before submitting changes.
2120
2121The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
2122M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
2123`info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
2124you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
2125a future texinfo-X.Y release.
2126
2127*NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
2128We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
2129been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
2130or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
2131`texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
2132around this problem.
2133
2134 * New features
2135
2136GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
2137the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
2138`print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
2139the target program.
2140
2141The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
2142how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
2143
2144 * New native hosts supported
2145
2146HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
2147386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
2148
2149 * New targets supported
2150
2151AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
2152
2153 * New file formats supported
2154
2155BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
2156HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
2157
2158 * Major bug fixes
2159
2160Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
2161
2162We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
2163printf_filtered("%s") problems.
2164
2165We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
2166for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
2167release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
2168
2169You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
2170will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
2171
2172We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
2173for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
2174especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
2175libraries.
2176
2177The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
2178information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
2179command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
2180any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
2181when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
2182
2183 * Internal improvements
2184
2185GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
2186debugging of multiple languages in the future.
2187
2188GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
2189Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
2190symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
2191contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
2192shared code that handles any of them.
2193
2194 * New command line options
2195
2196We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
2197
2198 * Mmalloc licensing
2199
2200The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
2201General Public License.
2202
2203*** Changes in GDB-4.7:
2204
2205 * Host/native/target split
2206
2207GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
2208hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
2209target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
2210local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
2211ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
2212
2213The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
2214GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
2215is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
2216code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
2217any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
2218built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
2219handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
2220
2221GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
2222It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
2223plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
2224
2225 * New hosts supported
2226
2227HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
2228386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
2229386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
2230
2231 * New targets supported
2232
2233Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
223468030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
2235
2236 * New native hosts supported
2237
2238386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
2239 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
2240386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
2241
2242 * New file formats supported
2243
2244BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
2245supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
2246format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
2247
2248 * New commands
2249
2250`show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
2251`show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
2252These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
2253
2254`info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
2255
2256You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
2257scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
2258prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
2259executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
2260
2261 * C++ improvements
2262
2263We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
2264info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
2265symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
2266
2267Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
2268
2269 * Major bug fixes
2270
2271The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
2272fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
2273by the compiler.
2274
2275We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
2276support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
2277
2278John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
2279slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
2280that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
2281purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
2282the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
2283mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
2284
2285Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
2286about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
2287completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
2288we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
2289
2290 * AMD 29k support
2291
2292A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
2293specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
2294calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
2295usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
2296in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
2297
2298We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
2299Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
2300of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
2301resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
2302
2303 * Remote interfaces
2304
2305We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
2306with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
2307message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
2308This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
2309needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
2310breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
2311each instruction being stepped through.
2312
2313The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
2314registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
2315
2316There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
2317find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
2318Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
2319processor with a serial port.
2320
2321 * Configuration
2322
2323Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
2324`table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
2325supported, and what files each one uses.
2326
2327 * Library changes
2328
2329There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
2330disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
2331Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
2332disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
2333
2334The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
2335Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
2336can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
2337grants all the rights from the General Public License.
2338
2339 * Documentation
2340
2341The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
2342reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
2343as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
2344encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
2345system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
2346bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
2347
2348And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
2349
2350
2351*** Changes in GDB-4.6:
2352
2353 * Better support for C++ function names
2354
2355GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
2356names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
2357(using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
2358single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
2359Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
2360
2361GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
2362the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
2363You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
2364lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
2365for the list of formats.
2366
2367 * G++ symbol mangling problem
2368
2369Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
2370C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
2371directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
2372can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
2373usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
2374about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
2375this problem.)
2376
2377 * New 'maintenance' command
2378
2379All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
2380the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
2381can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
2382
2383 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
2384 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
2385 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
2386 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
2387 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
2388 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
2389
2390The following commands are new:
2391
2392 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
2393 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
2394 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
2395
2396 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
2397
2398We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
2399(e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
2400be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
2401read after argv processing.
2402
2403 * New hosts supported
2404
2405Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
2406
55241689 2407GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
c906108c
SS
2408
2409We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
2410is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
2411for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
2412masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
2413fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
2414It costs extra.
2415
2416 * New targets supported
2417
2418Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
2419
2420 * More smarts about finding #include files
2421
2422GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
2423all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
2424greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
2425especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
2426the one that contains your sources.
2427
2428We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
2429breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
2430try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
2431
2432 * Interesting infernals change
2433
2434GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
2435section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
2436target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
2437stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
2438
2439 * Bug fixes (of course!)
2440
2441There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
2442 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
2443 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
2444
2445See the ChangeLog for details.
2446
2447*** Changes in GDB-4.5:
2448
2449 * New machines supported (host and target)
2450
2451IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
2452
2453SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
2454
2455 * New malloc package
2456
2457GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
2458Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
2459capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
2460This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
2461pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
2462more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
2463
2464 * info proc
2465
2466The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
2467'help info proc' for details.
2468
2469 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
2470
2471The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
2472Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
2473possible.
2474
2475 * File name changes for MS-DOS
2476
2477Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
2478support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
2479conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
2480environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
2481that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
2482in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
2483
2484 * Cross byte order fixes
2485
2486Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
2487targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
2488
2489 * New -mapped and -readnow options
2490
2491If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
2492system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
2493`symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
2494program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
2495called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
2496Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
2497and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
2498the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
2499option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
2500starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
2501
2502You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
2503the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
2504information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
2505slower, but makes future operations faster.
2506
2507The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
2508build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
2509A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
2510use is:
2511
2512 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
2513
2514The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
2515It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
2516shared across multiple host platforms.
2517
2518 * longjmp() handling
2519
2520GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
2521siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
2522all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
2523platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
2524
2525 * Solaris 2.0
2526
2527Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
2528this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
2529reading symbols.
2530
2531 * Bug fixes
2532
2533As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
2534People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
2535crashes and trashed symbol tables.
2536
2537*** Changes in GDB-4.4:
2538
2539 * New machines supported (host and target)
2540
2541SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2542 (except core files)
2543BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
2544Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
2545
2546 * New machines supported (target)
2547
2548AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2549
2550 * C++ support
2551
2552GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
2553The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
2554per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
2555
2556GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
2557`ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
2558extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
2559good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
2560will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
2561released.
2562
2563 * New features for SVR4
2564
2565GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
2566shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
2567only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
2568
2569The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
2570on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
2571it prints the address mappings of the process.
2572
2573If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
2574bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
2575
2576 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
2577
2578Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
2579now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
2580skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
2581make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
2582same code linked statically.
2583
2584 * New Getopt
2585
2586GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
2587version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
2588continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
2589Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
2590added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
2591future by other options that begin with the same letter.
2592
2593 * Bugs fixed
2594
2595The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2596Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2597See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2598
2599
2600*** Changes in GDB-4.3:
2601
2602 * New machines supported (host and target)
2603
2604Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
2605NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
2606Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
2607
2608 * Almost SCO Unix support
2609
2610We had hoped to support:
2611SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2612(except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
2613that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
2614about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
2615
2616 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
2617
2618GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
2619debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
2620is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
2621send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
2622reqired (if any).
2623
2624 * New Readline
2625
2626GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
2627is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
2628required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
2629
2630 * Bugs fixed
2631
2632The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2633Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2634See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2635
2636 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
2637
2638GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
2639supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
2640symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
2641
2642Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
2643mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
2644debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
2645mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
2646version 2.
2647
2648Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
2649really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
2650line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
2651variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
2652situation somewhat.
2653
2654When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
2655However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
2656methods.
2657
2658We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
2659DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
2660encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
2661
2662
2663*** Changes in GDB-4.2:
2664
2665 * Improved configuration
2666
2667Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
2668Porting BFD is simpler.
2669
2670 * Stepping improved
2671
2672The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
2673of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
2674in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
2675function that has debugging information is called within the line.
2676
2677 * Bug fixing
2678
2679Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
2680
2681 * New host supported (not target)
2682
2683Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
2684
2685
2686*** Changes in GDB-4.1:
2687
2688 * Multiple source language support
2689
2690GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
2691It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
2692and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
2693language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
2694You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
2695`set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
2696
2697 * GDB and Modula-2
2698
2699GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
2700currently under development at the State University of New York at
2701Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
2702continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
2703
2704Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
2705debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
2706symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
2707
2708There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
2709in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
2710
2711 * set write on/off
2712
2713GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
2714a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
2715the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
2716by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
2717effect immediately.
2718
2719 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
2720
2721When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
2722shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
2723The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
2724examining core files.
2725
2726 * set listsize
2727
2728You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
2729The default is 10.
2730
2731 * New machines supported (host and target)
2732
2733SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
2734Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
2735Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
2736
2737 * New hosts supported (not targets)
2738
2739IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
2740
2741 * New targets supported (not hosts)
2742
2743AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2744AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2745Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
2746
2747 * New remote interfaces
2748
2749AMD 29000 Adapt
2750AMD 29000 Minimon
2751
2752
2753*** Changes in GDB-4.0:
2754
2755 * New Facilities
2756
2757Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
2758
2759Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
2760target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
2761is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
2762remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
2763remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
2764also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
2765using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
2766stub on the target system.
2767
2768New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
2769
2770GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
2771library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
2772object file types such as a.out and coff.
2773
2774There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
2775refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
2776
2777
2778 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
2779
2780All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
2781by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
2782
2783For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
2784``Show prompt'' produces the response:
2785Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
2786
2787What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
2788print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
2789will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
2790all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
2791
2792confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
2793 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
2794 it is already running. Default is ON.
2795
2796editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
2797 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
2798 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
2799 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
2800 Default is ON.
2801
2802history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
2803 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
2804 or the value of the environment variable
2805 GDBHISTFILE.
2806
2807history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
2808 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
2809 HISTSIZE.
2810
2811history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
2812 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
2813 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
2814
2815history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
2816 history expansion will be performed on
2817 command line input. The default is OFF.
2818
2819radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
2820 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
2821 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
2822
2823height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
2824 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
2825 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2826 variable TERM.
2827
2828width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
2829 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
2830 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2831 variable TERM.
2832
2833Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
2834``set width'' instead.
2835
2836print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
2837 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
2838 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
2839 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
2840
2841print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
2842 is OFF.
2843
2844print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
2845 "raw" form if off.
2846
2847print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
2848 like instructions.
2849
2850print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
2851
2852
2853 * Support for Epoch Environment.
2854
2855The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
2856new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
2857are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
2858window.
2859
2860
2861 * Support for Shared Libraries
2862
2863GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
2864Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
2865before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
2866happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
2867At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
2868from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
2869shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
2870It can be abbreviated ``share''.
2871
2872sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
2873 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
2874 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
2875
2876info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
2877
2878
2879 * Watchpoints
2880
2881A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
2882expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
2883tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
2884quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
2885problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
2886more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
2887
2888watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
2889
2890info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
2891
2892delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2893disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2894enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2895
2896
2897 * C++ multiple inheritance
2898
2899When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
2900for C++ programs.
2901
2902 * C++ exception handling
2903
2904Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
2905ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
2906the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
2907handler's context).
2908
2909catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
2910 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
2911 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
2912
2913info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
2914 current stack frame.
2915
2916
2917 * Minor command changes
2918
2919The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
2920command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
2921is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
2922
2923The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
2924at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
2925frames without printing.
2926
2927 * New directory command
2928
2929'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
2930The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
2931about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
2932with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
2933find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
2934
2935 * Configuring GDB for compilation
2936
2937For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
2938for more details.
2939
2940GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
2941two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
2942Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
2943where the program that you are debugging will run.
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